Thank you all for the likes and kind reviews! It's encouraging to see such positivity in response to my writing. Since the intro was so short, I tried to compensate by making this chapter particularly long. Let me know what you think!
And kudos to EmpireX for correctly predicting the motive behind Kit's suicide attempt–psychic, are we?
Keep on reviewing. I love to hear what you guys have to say about it. xx

And if I turn it on me, if I even it out, can I still get in or will they send me to hell?
Can I still get into heaven if I kill myself?

Suicide has its statistics. Numbers. Digits. Figures. Here's some examples:

405,999: number of suicide attempts made per year in the US.

36,909: number of suicides completed per year in the US.

3,706: number of suicides completed annually due to alcohol and/or drug overdose.

Nine: number of days I spent in a coma after consuming

600 milligrams of Oxycodone and

700 milligrams of Quetiapine (brand name: Seroquel) and

400 milligrams of Ziprasidone (brand name: Geodon) and

550 milligrams of Lorazepam (brand name: Ativan).

Six: times per day, on average, that I am asked how I'm feeling.

Four: number of times times I have refused visitation from my ex-wife, Alma.

Three: number oftimes my ex-wife, Alma, called back 911 to make sure an ambulance was coming.

Five: number of minutes she said she waited before coming in through the unlocked back door of (what used to be) our home.

Eight: number of items she'd intended to collect from (what used to be) our dining room.

Thirteen: amount of steps she had to climb from the downstairs to the upstairs.

2.25: number of seconds it took her to see me lying unconscious in (what used to be) our bed.

Twelve: Number of times she said my name while trying to wake me up.

Twenty-three: Number of times she said my name for no particular reason after she realized she couldn't wake me up.

Seventy-eight: Number of weeks we remained married.

Seventy: Number of weeks she remained faithful.

Thirty-nine: Age of her new boyfriend.

6,000: dollar value of her wedding and engagement rings, combined.

15,000: dollar value of my divorce lawyer fees.

Six: number of years I've been in love with Alma.

Zero: number of years she's loved me the same way.

Zero: percent chance that we can resurrect our marriage.

Zero: percent chance that I will find someone like her.

Zero: percent chance that I will be able to pick myself up from this.

Zero: number of times I want to keep trying to do so.

One: number of suicide attempts I have made.

I could see the light getting closer. All my life I'd scoffed when told about seeing a light when you die, but there it was. Like lying on the beach in the summer, warm and bright and right in my eyes, radiating over every inch of my body. I opened my eyes to see a wide, white orb right above my head, lighter than the sun and not as hot.

This was heaven.

I was lying on something soft, warm, dry. I strained my neck to try and see what was around me, but my muscles didn't comply. They could barely move an inch before cramping in protest. There were cobwebs in my throat that kept me from making any noise that sounded clearer than a croak, and my eyes refused to focus on the orb in front of me.

A shadow materialized in my line of sight. It was the silhouette of a tall, lean man, wearing a robe of some kind.

"No shit," I wheezed. "No shit. You're real."

"Of course I'm real."

The voice of god sounded particularly human. I had expected him to wave his hand over my face, cast some kind of spell or bless me in some kind of way, but he just stood there without moving.

"Why wouldn't I be real?"

I squinted, trying to piece together the images around me, trying to get a closer look at his face. But all I saw was a shadow. I shrugged slowly.

"Because it didn't seem possible for somebody like you to exist."

"Somebody like me?"

"Yeah, somebody with so much power."

"Well, there are plenty of doctors in Massachusetts, Kit. And our power is fairly limited these days."

I tried to blink away the shadows to see who was hunched in front of me, but the light was nearly blinding, keeping me from completely opening my eyes. With great effort, I raised my right arm and shielded my face with it, blocking my eyes from the glare without totally obscuring my view of the room around me.

"Oh, sorry. That must be bright."

My eyes adjusted to the more mild lighting as the figure, now hunched over, somehow made the glare reduce into a dim glow. I focused in on the figure even more, realizing that what I had thought was a robe was only been a polyester coat. As the figure stood up to look at me, I saw that the man I had thought to be god was only a doctor.

Just like that, I shifted back into being a non-believer. For if there had really been a god watching over me, if there truly was a savior, he wouldn't have sent anyone to save me.

This man was too young and too handsome to be a doctor. Tall, brown hair, rough shadowy stubble on his impossibly good looking face. Half smile with crinkled eyes that tried to relax me, tried to reassure me that he and I were friends, but only agitated me even more.

"Do you remember my name?" He asked me.

"Doogie Howser?"

He laughed. A light, airy laugh, like he hadn't ever considered such a witty joke. Like he thought it was funny, but not enough so to throw back his head and really, fully laugh. Like he was too tired to laugh like that.

"Funny. You're funny, Kit."

I didn't acknowledge the compliment.

"I'm Ben, and I've been taking care of you. Do you know where you are?"

I looked around me. I was on a bed with beige plastic barriers on either that would have been at elbow-height, had I been sitting up. White gauze blankets. That was the softness I'd mistaken for sand earlier, when I thought I'd landed on a beach somewhere.

"Aren't you a doctor? Shouldn't I be addressing you as doctor something?"

"Would you be more comfortable if you could call me doctor?"

"Not really."

Something that resembled a clothespin was attached to my forefinger. A green bruise was sprouting out from the area where the needle had gone into the crook of my arm, snaking thin tubes into my bloodstream.

Green. Green and yellow. Signs of an old bruise.

"Do you know where you are, Kit?"

I looked back up at the doctor, strangely insulted by how calm his tone was. Though it was obviously meant to be soothing, his delivery sat slightly to the left of being right. Like petting a cat from back to front. His intentions were pure, but he was irritating the animal.

"Kit?"

The fluorescent light cast shadows on the doctor's face, enhancing the dark wrinkles that lined it. I wondered if the lights in his home made him appear as exhausted as he appeared to me in that moment, if his children ever noticed the grooves in his skin and ran their fingers over them, if his wife ever looked at them and remembered when they weren't there. I wondered if his colleagues all had the lines, like they were rings on a tree that indicated how long you'd been around. How many patients must he have lost to have so many lines in his face? How much sleep must he have lost over people, like me, that he couldn't really save no matter how he tried? I wondered if once I got out of here, a new crease would fold in his skin in my memory and his children would trace it and his wife would resent it.

"Do you know where you are?"

My eyes trailed back down to my hands. Big and lean, veins clearly visible behind too-pale skin. I clenched them and relaxed them again, opening and closing, clenching and relaxing. A piece of tape covered another tube leading to the biggest vein below the surface of my left hand. Maybe, if I pulled out the cords and ran, I could still find a way to die before they caught up with me. Maybe if I somehow breached hospital security, I could be free to free myself from hell. Maybe. But I wasn't going to try.

"I am not in heaven."

I didn't have to look at the doctor's face to know that I'd made him sad. I could hear it in his voice.

"No. You're not."

Eight: number of days I was required to stay in the Massachusetts General Hospital psychiatric inpatient unit to "stabilize my mood".

Four: average number of times per day I asked to be released from the MGH psych unit.

One: number of times that wish was actually granted.

Two: number of hospitals in Massachusetts that were fit to treat me "in my present condition".

"There's one quite close to here, actually. And it's the sister hospital of Mass General. Affiliated with Harvard. Very well-known, very high-end service. Most people say it's the best mental hospital in the country."

The too-handsome doctor is sitting across from me in his office, legs crossed, fingers teepeed together in front of his face. He'd handed me two information packets describing two different hospitals that I could choose from. For fifteen minutes, the doctor described the pros of each of the hospitals like he's a realtor trying to get me to choose between two comparably wonderful houses. I was not particularly interested in either.

The brochures were printed on glossy paper and boasted equally stunning pictures of old buildings surrounded by sprawling green. Sometimes companies would pay to keep their brochures inside the convenience store of the gas station, and a few of those companies were travel agencies. The photos on those information packets, the ones in my gas station, were almost identical to the ones on the papers I was holding. The only difference between a brochure advertising Irish castle tours and one advertising Massachusetts mental hospitals were the amount of people in the photos; in tourist ads, there were always loads of smiling people in the scene. In hospital ads, there were no people at all.

I held up the brochure of the hospital that the doctor had spoken more highly of, the one with the Harvard Medical crest on the front cover.

"Where is this one?"

"It's in Belmont," he said. "It's just on the other side of town. You know Harvard Square, don't you?"

I nodded.

"It's only a few miles from Harvard Square. Beautiful, beautiful campus. Many of the patients there liken it to a college campus. As a matter of fact, I treat many patients at that–"

"And this one?" I asked, holding up the other brochure. "Where is this one?"

The doctor's mouth hung open a bit, still processing the abrupt ending of his last sentence. He blinked a few times, then cleared his throat.

"Oh, Briarcliff. That's much farther away."

There was turning of cogs in my mind, followed by a swell in my chest. Far away. Far away from my home, from this mess, from Alma. Far, far away.

"How much farther away?"

"It's way out west. Belmont is only about 25 minutes from Mass General, whereas Briarcliff's in a town over two hours from here. It's practically halfway to New York."

"Great," I said, handing back the brochure for the hospital nearby. "I'll go to Briarcliff."

Six: number of seconds the doctor spent looking at me skeptically after handing him back the brochure.

"Do you simply want to go to Briarcliff because it's farther away?"

"Yeah."

Eleven: number of times he blinked before speaking again.

"Why is that?"

I wouldn't raise my head to look at him. I flipped through the pages of the Briarcliff brochure, scanning the pages that described each different unit. I brought the booklet closer to my face, smelling the new laminated pages.

"Because I want to be far away from my ex-wife," I said. "Ideally, I'd like to leave the state. But you won't let me."

"The best care possible is right here in Massachusetts, Kit."

"Yeah, I know. You keep saying that."

The doctor shifted in his seat. "Aren't you concerned with the level of care you'll be getting at Briarcliff? Don't you worry that they won't treat you in the way you need to be treated?"

I look up at him. I wonder how many classes must be offered in medical school that teach you how to keep a straight face.

"No, doctor. I'm not. Are you?"

"I think the hospital closer by might have the care you're looking for, Kit."

I shut the second brochure and tossed it on his desk, leaning back in my chair and shaking my head.

"I'm not looking for care, doctor. I don't think there's anything wrong with me."

He smiled at me, the way you smile at a child telling an elaborate story.

"You don't?" He asked.

"No," I said. "I don't think I'm depressed."

"You attempted suicide not three weeks ago, Kit."

"I think I'm sad because my wife cheated on me and left me for another man. I think I tried to kill myself because I couldn't envision my life without her. I think it's going to be impossible to get over her." I clenched my jaw. "I think you think I'm depressed. And that's enough for you to order me to stay in treatment. And I think that if I try to leave, if I try to file a petition for discharge, you'll take me to court. And who is the court going to believe? You, the Harvard-educated, Harvard-employed, Harvard-obsessed doctor who might as well be on Grey's Anatomy, or me, the college dropout gas station attendant who just tried to off himself by taking enough pills to tranquilize a horse?"

He didn't move. He didn't react. He just sat there, fingers pressed together, smiling at me. I lowered my tone, which had grown louder without my noticing, and cleared my throat.

"I know where I stand, doctor. I know that I gotta do what you say. But at least let me do it where I want."

He smirked at me, trying to seem sympathetic. But it only looked like he was mocking me.

"I think the other hospital would suit you better, Kit."

"I know you think that. But if you're actually interested in me getting better, you'll send me far away from here. Far away from the life I used to have, far away from things that will make me remember why I'm so sad all the time. You'll send me someplace that Alma can't get to by taking a bus."

Saying her name made me remember what it sounded like when she laughed when her head was on my shoulder. I smelled her shampoo and heard her sighing in my ear and tickling the back of my neck and telling me that she loved me and my stomach turned over and then dropped, and out of nowhere, the images in my mind turned from my beautiful, perfect Alma to all the ways I could kill myself with the items in the room. And then I figured something may actually be wrong with me.

"Send me someplace she won't visit. Someplace I can really try hard to forget her. If you really want me to get something from this, doctor, you'll put me where she can't get at me."

And I can't get at her.

I am not an educated man, but I know when people are pretending like they're sad for me and when they really are. And when I saw the muscles relax in the doctor's face, when I saw him try hard not to look like he felt bad for me, I knew I'd said something to convince him. I knew he was on my side.

He reached over and picked up a fountain pen and uncapped it. Sighing, he scribbled something in my file, then recapped the pen and placed it on his desk.

"Alright, Kit," he said, closing my file. "Briarcliff it is."