Absent

Chapter 10: Not-so-treatable wounds

Author's Note. Not much, guys. I just want to thank whoever's reading Absent this far. I had never imagined it'd be so popular. It was History class, and I was writing random stuff on my notebook, and suddenly I had an idea. That random idea is this idea. So, thank you. Suscribe, vote, and comment. :)

But a more seriously, this chapter deals with ways of self-harm.  The story will be altered by this.
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It's somewhere around midday, or so tells me the light crashing through my window. I have no intentions of leaving my bed. The tears are still dry on my cheeks, and on my pillow. I slept a few hours, and on my dreams, I heard Ashton's distant voice. 
"Don't you dare touch her! Don't you dare! Come on, kill me! Kill me! Stay away from her!"
His last words were: "Please wake up; I love you Heather."
Then it was all darkness, something so dense and overwhelming there are no figures to be recognized, only my eternal loneliness.
Someone opens the door.
"Are you still alive?" Javier asks. I shrug. "Well, do I need to take you to the hospital?"
"Not exactly."

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Javier's driving is progressing, but not entirely. He skips a few red lights and Stop signs, but we arrive to the graveyard in one piece. He guides me through graves that I have no interest in inspecting, until he stops next to a grave without flowers. I try to be strong, but the second I read Ashton Peacock written on the stone, my knees bend and I let my body fall.
I shake slightly as I cry, but manage to place my bouquet of red tulips and lotus flowers.
I cover my face with my hands and sob into them. At some point, Javier walked next to me, and he picked me up. Now I can feel his arms around me, and his embrace sooths my fear. I recover myself and ask Javier to grant me time alone with Ashton. He agrees.
"Ashton... Remember those days when I used to cut myself in the bathroom? No one noticed, and I thought no one gave a damn about me. Until my classmate Jimmy saw my arms, and came to talk to you. You faced me and told me you loved me. You told me I was beautiful, I was extraordinary, and I didn't deserve what I did to myself..."
I stop and gasp for air before I choke in my grief.
"What did I do, brother? It's my entire fault. Lindsey was never loved by me, or by you. Is she cutting herself too? Look at what I've done... When someone finally loves her like we never did, she doesn't believe in him! I need to help her... Like you saved me."
I wave goodbye and walk to the car, where Javier's waiting. He says nothing as we enter. He drives uncertainly, wondering if the social convention requires of him to cheer me up. He stares at me for a while, and when I'm about to tell him to stop, a car hits us.
I feel disconnected to the Earth for a moment, like if life slipped away of me, and now I'm hanging loose on nothingness. I command myself to wake up, to return, to breathe. I have an urge to be conscious again.
And I do.
I open my eyes. I'm on a hospital bed, wearing the same hospital gown as the day I woke up from comma. But that day, I was at home, and I had my clothes underneath.
Today, Javier is sitting next to my bed.
"I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to... It was my fault, and for a moment I thought... that you were dead..." He says, terrified, and with an edgy voice.
"Javier, it's ok."
"The doctor came to inform that the crash, though it made some treatable wounds, was not the cause for your state of weakness. It was caused by stress. From now on, you'll have to take some pills for tension, or you could fall into comma again. Heather, you're not completely healed yet. And I just made it worse."
I offer him a forgiving smile. Stress... yes, I have put myself under a lot of stress.
"Mom came a while ago. When she heard you'd be able to return home as soon as you woke up, she left and hasn't called since." He explains, ashamed of our mother. I wouldn't expect any different. "Jimmy and some girl called Vicky stopped by. Actually, I think Jimmy's still here."
"Javier, can you get me some clothes?" I ask. He winks and leaves, returning minutes after with the old jeans and loose t-shirt I was wearing. He exits while I change, and then we walk around for a moment.
"There's Jimmy." Javier says, pointing to Jimmy, talking on the phone with Vicky. Javier goes towards him, but something catches my attention. I hear a familiar voice behind me, and I turn around to see a disturbance. A patient is screaming and trying to free himself from a doctor's grip.
I see the pacient's face and my world crumbles.
"Alex..."