Good Enough

Mia - The End - Part 7

I came to the hospital a day after Julian was put on suicide watch. I can't believe I didn't know...

In this modern time, everyone's always teaching you the signs. Signs of human traffic. Eating disorders. Sexual assault. Abuse. Self harm. Suicidal thoughts.

And yet, I didn't know what was happening with Julian.

I dated him. He somehow found out about me...yet I noticed nothing. How could I be such a bad girlfriend?

I round the corner of the hallway. I'm in the teen section of the psychiatric floor. I wish I didn't have to be here, but I'm desperate to talk to Julian. I want him to be okay. He needs to be okay.

My eyes settle on a guy standing outside a room. Coming closer, he looks strikingly similar to Julian.

I never met Mateo. Julian would only invite me over when he was sure Mateo wasn't there. I don't really know why. Maybe he's a part of all of this.

Julian only mentioned him in passing, never wanting to go into detail about anything about him. I didn't even know how old he was for a while.

I walk up to Mateo and wait until I'm right in front of him to start talking.

"Mateo?"

He looks up before he nods slowly. "That's me."

"Julian's brother?"

He nods again. "Who are you?"

"I'm his girlfriend. I'm the one who-."

"Called," Mateo finishes. "I figured."

"Well yeah. I'm Mia. How's- how's Julian doing?"

Mateo sighs and looks to the ground, rubbing the back of his neck tiredly. I remember Julian saying he was only two or three years older than him, and yet he looks like he might as well have been aged ten years. Everything about him radiates stress.

"He's...he's not good Mia. I'm really worried. I just-I don't know what to do. My little brother is going crazy and I don't know how to help him!" Mateo's voice rises until he's practically yelling by the last word and he has to take a shaky breath to calm down. "Its all my fault."

"It's not your fault." I say, but what do I know? I didn't know any of this was happening.

"But it is! I spent all this time worrying about him, yet I couldn't see what was right in front of me. And worse, even now that he's going to get help, I don't know why he is the way he is. I don't know what happened."

"I don't know either," I say quietly. Julian has always been there for me. Why couldn't he trust me to let me be there for him. "Can I go talk to him?" I say louder.

Mateo glances up at me. "No..."

"Why not?"

"He's, um..."

"Is he okay?" I ask quickly, my fear rising with every half answer he gives me.

"Not really." Mateo finally admits. "Something happened right before you got here. I don't know what. He just started...freaking out. Pulling at his hair, yelling at it something to stop, but I don't know what." He sighs before continuing. "Sorry. I shouldn't be telling you this."

"No, Mateo I want to know. Please. I want to know everything about Julian, yet there are so many things he keeps locked up and won't tell me."

"Yeah...can we walk?" He gestures to the door that leads to outside the hospital and I nod.

I follow Mateo out the door and wait for him to start up again. It takes a while, but he finally speaks up again.

"I guess I started noticing things weren't good around two years ago. Julian started to hide up in his room more. He never wanted to do anything with me. I would keep trying to do something together and he wouldn't. Nothing. Some nights he wouldn't even come downstairs to eat with me and Dad. I couldn't figure out why. It scared me. I remember when Julian used to look happy always. The only time I wouldn't see him with a smile was when he was watching something like a sad movie.

"Another year passed. I though maybe it was just because it was his first year of high school. I figured it would get better the next year. It didn't. It got so much worse. I never saw Julian anymore. We wouldn't talk. The whole atmosphere at the house was tense and I hated it. I felt like Julian was hiding something from me."

Mateo stops to take a breath and I fell him glance at me. I keep my eyes to the ground, not wanting to see the sad brown eyes that him and Julian share.

"Then this one day, I walked into the house. I could feel it was different. But I brushed it off. My dad had called to tell us to make dinner. I went looking for Julian, and when I saw the bathroom door closed I didn't think much. I waited outside because I was going to use the bathroom next. And then I heard Julian gasping out for breath. He was yelling things, to himself I think. After that it was a blur. Everything was moving so fast. I opened the door with something, and when it opened I saw...I saw Julian with a razor blade sticking out of his arm. He had cut so deep...blood was running quickly down his arm. I tried to help him clean up, but he was scaring me Mia. I was just a kid. I didn't know how to help my little brother. The minute I saw that blade and how he was trying to cut I knew. I knew what he was doing. But I wanted to believe he was fine. I wanted to believe that bandage and Neosporin would take it all away, that what ever was going on with Julian's mind would be cured as if it had never happened," Mateo laughs humorlessly. "I was so, so wrong."

I open my mouth to tell him that it wasn't his fault, but before I can, Mateo continues.

"I tried, you know? I tried to make myself believe I was helping. Hell, I checked his wrists everyday because I wanted to be sure he wasn't cutting. I didn't even realize he might cut his..." Mateo trails off to glance at me again, and when he looks at me I stare back. It all clicks. Julian never taking his shirt off even when the other guys do at practice. Last week when he didn't want to take his shirt off at my house. Those days I hug him and he winces or grits his teeth. I thought they were just sports injuries...

"It was his stomach, wasn't it?" I say sadly.

"How did you know-"

"The little things that Julian did. They all add up now. I didn't realize..."

"Me neither. I wish I had... I wish I could've helped. Done something. I don't even know what he did it with! There aren't even sharp things at our house that he could get, I made sure of that."

Mateo stops walking and runs his hands through his hair. I put a hand on his shoulder in an attempt to comfort him, even though I'm feeling pretty guilty myself.

"Mateo, you did what you could. Julian didn't want help...he would've told someone if he did. You can't help someone who doesn't want help."

"I don't care if you don't want my help. I love you. I'm going to do this for you because I care about you and I want you to be healthy and happy and I want you to see what I see when I look at you."

Julian's own words to me when he found out. I didn't - don't - want help. But Julian was determined to give it me. We should've done that for him. But how could I if I didn't even know?

Mateo sighs loudly and the sound pulls me out of my thoughts. "You're right I guess. I just wish I could've done more." He glances back down the hallway. "He should wake up soon. They had to sedate him I think...they were scared he was gonna do something and hurt himself more. He'd already uh, pulled out his IVs...so..."

"Oh." Is all I can manage to say.

After a minute of silence, I think about what I thought about earlier, and the small things Julian let slip.

"I know it's not my place to ask but...does your dad ever...hurt Julian?"

Mateo narrows his eyes at me. "Why would you ask that?"

"I-I don't know. Small things make it seem like maybe..."

Mateo sighs and rubs his eyes tiredly. "I don't know. I don't know anything anymore."