SCARS

9

Beck took me to the hospital before school even started that day. The doctors were very different from the ones I met the first time I was there. Though, Dr. Kepner came to visit me. 

"I have to say, Willa, I'm relieved to see you here. You're going to get help." 

I nodded. I hadn't said a word to anyone since that day in the commons, not even Beck. She bore through me with her gaze, and I looked around the room. I was in the psych ward, so they took all of the sharp objects out. There was one straight backed chair that Beck's jacket layed on because he'd left when Dr. Kepner showed up, and a table that rolled over the bed so I could eat, but that was it. 

"I was told you haven't been speaking. It's normal when someone is overwhelmed, to stop talking or communicating." My psych, Dr. Canne, seemed too young to be a good doctor, but he came once a day and just talked. He wasn't like a regular doctor, he didn't examine my body, he examined my mind. Every once in a while, a nurse or an intern doctor came and examined me physically. Most of my time I spent sleeping, or watching Beck watch Netflix. "Have your stitches started itching yet?" She asked, peeling the bandage off my wrist. It was the first cut I'd needed stitches for. I shook my head. "Just wait until they do." She put a fresh bandage over the stitches, raisin her eyebrows. "I got stitches on two of my cuts, and they itched awful." I looked at her, raising my eyebrows and she just nodded. "My doctor kept getting mad because I'd rip the bandage off so I could scratch them." I smiled, and so did she. 

"How old were you?" I asked, my voice weak from lack of use. She didn't seem surprised that I'd spoken, she just kept her eyes down and wrote something on her clipboard. 

"Fourteen." She said, and I could feel my stomach knot, but I just frowned. 

She left soon after that, and Beck had gone out to get some schoolwork so I was alone. I reached into the pocket of his jacket and got my phone. He had taken it from me and wouldn;t tell me why. But I was sure people were talking about me. 

Someone had posted a picture of me on the floor of the commons that day. I sat, crumpled on the floor with Beck next to me, the picture wasn't awful. It was blurry, and crowded, you could hardly tell it was me. But the comments were worse. 

-It's a good thing she's in the psych ward where she belongs

-A padded room would be more like it

-That pussy couldn't even kill herself right

-What could she even have to be depressed about?

They didn't understand what I had gone through, They didn't understand that depression wasn't my fault. That it just happens to me. They didn't even understand why I was doing what I was, or what good it did for me. No one did, not even Beck. He stayed by me but he didn't know what to do, he just loved me too much to leave. They didn't understand that it was all my fault. They didn't undersand how truly awful I was. They didn't understand that nothing I did could ever make up for what I wanted to do. They didn't understand that there was only one option for relief, that there was only one way to get through what I needed to get through. They didn't understand why I did what I did, and they never would.