You'd like to believe that you are numb. In the antiseptic impersonal surroundings you almost could believe the lie, at the very least it was easily attainable. And you are good at lying, to yourself and the world around you. Repression, denial and dinner parties.
You are able to ignore the sickly yellow tint of the white wash walls, how the shades vary with past stains that have never quite been cleaned away. You can just about ignore the way the flowery curtains do not quite meet in the middle of the window. Not that much of a gap so that the corridor of tiles, doors and chairs behind it is reviled but enough to irritate and to obliterate any sense of privacy. You can overlook the way the vent on the bottom of the door is slightly crooked or how there are wilting flowers on a near by table left by another patient (you wonder if they were left in death or general forgetfulness and which explanation you'd be able to forgive).
This is a challenge for someone so house-proud as you are, but for every bit compulsive you are also stubborn and frightened. So you pull your long fingers into fists and grit your teeth and ignore all the imperfections around you. You do not feel the pain as perfectly manicured nails draw blood.
It is the white noise that helps you sustain your illusion. You have always hated silence. Even as a little girl your mother used to sing to you (back when it did not matter that she couldn't hold a tune) to drive away the nightmare educing silence at bedtime. Silence is empty and you are sure that you will crumble within it. The clicks and beeps of seemingly random and intimidating machines you are attached to, the squeaking of distant footsteps and the gentle growl of the air conditioning. It all builds upon itself creating structure and safety in its substance. If it did not sound like silly New Age nonsense you would have said the white noise sung to you.
You'd like to believe you are numb. Then trying to create perfection in the unfamiliar chaos that surrounds you would not matter. You are glad about the lack of mirrors. Sustaining your façade would be impossible if you saw the mess you knew you were.
You are self aware enough to know you must look unhealthily pale with sunken eyes and matted hair. You are uncomfortable because there is a tube down your nose and since your not at your best you can't remember what it is called (Rex had explained similar procedures to you hundred of times) You insides burn with shame knowing people will see you like this and they will pity you. You know they will notice how you have lost weight that you didn't need to lose. Because when you drink you forget to eat and even if you remember you can't keep food down. You feel unclean and you're sure you can smell vomit and something that is oddly chalky.
The hospital gown is itchy and unbecoming but at least it is covered by an in descript sheet. What threatens to send you tittering into disarray is that they have taken your pearls. Somewhere along the line they had become the crowning glory to your armour, something that represents who you are so entirely.
When you first woke up you had automatically reached for the jewellery with a heavy limb. At first it made you feel confused and a little lost but as your memories came back bit by bit through sleep induced fog you felt the fear and panic set in. And that is why you are trying to fool yourself into believing you are numb, because you will not fall apart, you don't know how.
You are tired, the type of tired that weighs you down and makes it hard to think coherently. You're not in pain but you ache, your stomach and throat especially. You think that there should be more pain; you are almost disappointed by the lack of it because your world has fallen apart. Eventually you decide to put it down to whatever medication they have you on.
A nurse enters your room and you think she looks slightly surprised but you are so tired your eyes refuse to focus properly. You allow your eyes to blur as the woman makes herself busy all the while talking to you in a calming voice.
She says that they did not expect you to be awake so soon and the doctor is busy right now but he will be in to talk to you later. You must have looked confused because she carries on talking after a short pause. She talks about your treatment, a stomach pump and ingestion of charcoal to neutralize the acetylsalicylic acid in the gastrointestinal tract. You hear the words but have little patience to try to understand them.
You are shocked when you feel the nurse touch your forearm, her hand is warm and callous and makes you think about how there is no one to touch you anymore. She whispers to you that things will get better now. That you will have to see a psychiatrist when you're feeling a little better and you wont be alone.
The thought of a psychiatrist hits you hard even as you start to drift back to unconsciousness. A psychiatrist was needed because they thought this was attempted suicide.
You will have to put them right when you remember how to form words. Your husband was dead and your children that hated you had disappeared to a party for the night. Your friends had been caught up in their own lives and George was starting to scare you. You had been drinking and you had drunk a lot (you grudgingly admit that you have been doing that a lot lately).
You remember finding yourself staring at your favourite portrait of Rex and your façade splintering. You had dropped your glass and rushed to clean the mess because it was what you do. Then there were uncontrollable tears and blood; there was blood because you had cut your hand on a shard of glass.
In your next memory you are in the bathroom clumsily trying to clean yourself up and you are distinctively aware of the pain. It's in your hand and in the tightening of your chest. Like watercolours it runs into your emotional pain and you are no longer sure where one starts and the other ends. So you took some aspirin, you guess that you must have taken a lot to be here now but the memory is not clear.
But you did not try and kill yourself you had only meant to get rid of the pain. If you wanted to kill yourself you would have been successful. You are a perfectionist and know that one of your guns would have done the job justice (dear Mary Alice had proven this fact). Besides you could never cope with the fact that you would be leaving your children behind and that people would talk.
So it was not a suicide attempt and you will explain this politely once you wake up again. You wonder if you will be able to convince the others this like you have convinced yourself. You'd like to believe that you are numb so that your lies did not hurt.