Jean's Song

Hospital Applesause Is Shittier Than An Owen Wilson Movie

This is pathetic. I had one job and I even managed to fuck that up, as personal as it was.

I woke up two hours ago in Trost General Hospital, a few hours post suicide attempt. I'm feeling groggy as hell, and it all hurts.

I remember almost everything. My mom calling up the stairs. My name being called repeatedly until she eventually climbed them herself and nearly beat down my door. I can still hear the earsplitting scream as the tears formed in her eyes. I can only imagine what I looked like, and even if I knew, I don't think I'd want to.

Mom sat in the seat to the left of me, her eyes red and her face pale. For a while she didn't say anything, and I thanked whatever deity for the silence.

"Jean..." she spoke up, eyes not moving from their fixation on the wall in front of us. I didn't respond. I didn't know how. Yes mother, sorry I'm so worthless I can't even kill myself correctly.

I closed my eyes and welcomed sleep.

___

When I awoke the second time, it was to a nurse changing out my IV drip. Her eyes met mine momentarily, and she looked as if she pitied me almost. Idiots, I thought. I don't need your pity.

As she excused herself I realized my dad had rejoined us, making the air more tense as he slept in the seat next to mom's. Neither of them looked right, dad a bit more disheveled after a long day at work, but mom... Mom looked far worse.

I felt a pang of guilt ring in my chest, reverberating through my body in short bursts of pain, slow at first and then all at once. I felt the warmth pool in my eyes as I stared at them longer, clouding my vision. I finally looked away from them as the wetness rolled down my cheeks, unable to hold the tears back any longer.

They didn't have the right to sit there and look like that. They can't just start to care.

I can only barely grasp how I've made them feel. Enraged. Embarrassed. They probably pity me too, like that nurse. They probably think I'm ungrateful.

They're probably right.

___

Morning comes quicker than it should have, and I find I'm staring out at the sky as its shifting from black to light blue with tinges of pink and red. I can't exactly pin how long I'd been staring, but it felt like forever.

See there's something surreal that comes with a failed suicide attempt. It's the realization that you could possibly be in the morgue, not breathing another breath or staring at any skies. Not having the time to think about how you've made your parents feel. It's the realization that you are still fucking alive, you can still see the skies and breath the air that everyone takes for granted. It's probably the best and worst feeling in the world.

I don't regret it, though.

Dad left an hour ago, no doubt to go home and get ready for work. We exchanged a brief look, and it felt as if nothing had changed.

I wanted to scream.

___

Mom didn't wake until well into midmorning, and I wondered if that had been because she'd stay up all night worrying about me. I highly doubted it.

Almost as if to save the awkward influx of staring and failed conversation, Nurse Pity comes in with a soft smile lighting her features. I scowled.