Integration back into the real world was a strange feeling. Being in a bed for almost a month left a person feeling very, very fargone. Finally standing and walking further than the bathroom felt like walking for the first time again, except that everything was vivid and there was no graceful cheer.
Ave was absolutely not ready for anything new. But he was forced to walk out of the hospital without further argument. His mother had put up with her son being self-bedridden, and now she dragged him away from the hospital with his papers in one hand and his own in her other.
He hated this.
As soon as they made it home, he made it a first priority to go to his room.
"Hey," a voice said. He turned to face his mom who was walking towards him. "I love you." She gave him a warm hug. He didn't...feel anything. After she pulled away, Ave sped from her, away from anything that could make him feel. He wasn't yet ready to feel.
He stepped into the bathroom. The medicine cabinet was locked with a padlock. He remembered when he passed the kitchen that the knife drawer had been locked, too. Clearly, his mom was taking extreme precaution to keep him from killing himself in the house. He wasn't sure how far she would take this kind of lockdown. She would probably only take it until he agreed to see someone. Something he forced her to mark 'no' on the papers.
He didn't need a therapist, or a counselour, or a psychologist. They would all say the same thing. Ave is depressed, Ave is suicidal, Ave has self-issues. He already knew, he didn't need some doctor to tell him what he already knew, what everyone already knew. That was just stupid.
He was just stupid.
Thinking now, looking at himself in the mirror, he knew he wasn't ready to kill himself. That one day had just been an impulse, a quick decision in the heat of the moment. Of course, he wouldn't go so far as to say that this depression was an impulse, that all this hate was just an impulse.
That was a big, fat, fucking lie.
Now that he was thinking of impulse, everything in his life was usually an impulse. The day he shaved his hair was an impulse. Smoking was an impulse, too.
Was Liam an impulse?
He felt okay thinking about Liam now. If someone had even mentioned his name a week ago, tears would have burst from his eyes. He felt okay about it now. Maybe it was because he was surrounded by a different shade of white wall, that now, there were no people checking on him. He was a bit freer, and that seemed to cure his emotion on Liam. It seemed to cure a lot of things.
And it was strange to find that as someone knocked on the bathroom door, the cure was suddenly gone.
"Someone's here," was all his mom said before her footsteps faded off. She didn't bother to say who, but then again, she probably didn't need to.
Ave just stared at himself in the mirror. A few minutes passed. Then a few more. A bit longer. How long had he been staring at himself now?
Clearly, long enough for someone to knock on the door again.
"Hello?" a voice came through. Ave blinked. Blinked again. If he blinked enough times, would he blink out of existence? "Ave, are you in here?" Ave kept blinking. His eyes went out of focus. He closed his eyes as the door opened. He refused to open them and face the fate. Was it even fate?
What the fuck was his life anymore?
"Get out," Ave said, quietly but clearly. The voice didn't even respond. The footsteps simply walked away, down the stairs. "Dad, I told you I don't need anybody." Whether or not that was true, that he really had been asleep for four years and this was all a comatose dream, he didn't care. He told him, he told his dad he didn't need anyone, that he had him. All his problems went to him.
