Perfect.
That was the one word echoing throughout Natalie's brain right now. The one word she had lived by for her entire life. Perfect. Something she always aspired to be. Something that always seemed to be just out of her reach.
Perfect.
As Natalie stood right inside the doorway, watching her mother and father come home from the last of her mother's ECT treatments, Natalie allowed a little bit of hope to trickle into her mind. Since a very young age, Natalie had pushed away any hope, knowing that it would only let her down in the end. However, these treatments changed her mother. Why couldn't they change Natalie's life, too?
~
Right outside the door, Diana Goodman stared up at her house. It wasn't a familiar house. Actually it was, according to the sad-faced man who claimed to be her husband, but as far as she knew, she'd never seen it before. It wasn't a welcoming house, but it was home. Taking a deep breath, Diana stepped over the threshold and almost ran smack into a teenage girl whose entire body was tense. The girl sucked in a deep breath. She had crazy brown curls that stuck out into every direction and beautiful eyes—eyes that conveyed so much emotion and held so much suffering. Diana had no clue who this girl is. She stared at her blankly.
"Hi, mom." The girl smiled weakly. She was clenching her fingers one a time into a fist, and then loosening them one by one. Her fingers were long and elegant, but the nails were bitten down as far as possible.
Diana smiled faintly, and turned to the Dan, the man who claimed to be her husband. "And who is this?" she asked. The hopeful glint in Dan's eyes faded slightly, and he took Diana by the elbow, whispering "this is Natalie. Your daughter."
Natalie's head whipped back and forth from her father to her mother. "Dad?" Dan switched his focus to Natalie, his face panicked. "Natalie, I—"
But it was too late. Natalie kicked the wall, leaving a slight smudge of dirt, and screamed "THIS IS FUCKED." Before anyone could stop her, she ran off.
Diana turned to her husband with a questioning look on her face, but he just stared up at the steps that his daughter had sprinted up moments ago, thoughts racing through his brain at a mile a minute.
Natalie was fuming. Her curls whipped around her face as she slammed the door to her room and threw herself on her bed. She wasn't angry at her mother. She wasn't angry at her father. She didn't know what she was angry at. Reaching under her bed, she grabbed the box that had been hidden under there for so long and grabbed a Red Bull and the pills she'd stolen from her mom's medicine cabinet.
Her mom. Fresh tears sprung up behind Natalie's eyes but she quickly blinked them away. Her mom, who for so many years had pushed Natalie away, now didn't even know who Natalie was. She didn't know anything. She was like a little kid.
Natalie stared at the label on the small orange pill container. Xanax. She poured some into her hand, angrily staring at the small blue pills. So harmless on the outside. She shrugged, poured the rest of the nearly full bottle into her hand, and washed them all down with one swig of Red Bull. Her entire body was numb. Her brain was buzzing, and while all the colors were clear, she couldn't put anything into distinct shapes. The colors washed over her.
Perfect.
Henry cautiously stepped over the threshold of the Goodman house. He looked from left to right. Everything was completely silent, but the door had been open when he walked up. A floorboard creaked as he crossed from the entryway and into the living room. "Hello?" he called out. "Is anyone home?"
He picked his way up the stairs and tiptoed quietly down the hall until he got to Natalie's room. The room was stark: it had a bed, a desk, a dresser, and her beloved keyboard that she used when she wasn't in the practice rooms at school. The door to the walk in closet was open, and the windows allowed the spring sunset to peek in.
Then, he looked at the floor.
"Oh my god." He rushed to the side of his barely-alive girlfriend, passed out on the white shag carpet. A can of Red Bull was in her hand, with some of the liquid still spilling over the lip of the can and onto the carpet. An empty container of Xanax lay by her side, and a razor blade lay beside that. She had a few fresh cuts on her forearms, and she was barely breathing.
"Natalie." Henry's breath grew short. He picked up his cell phone, dialed the three numbers he'd known since he was a little kid. The operator's voice seemed so far away. The ambulance lights soon flashed in the window, appearing through the now-dark windows. He was by her side the whole time; after he hung up the phone, as he waited in the long silence for the ambulance to come, as they loaded her onto the stretcher, and all the way to the hospital. Henry was there.