So this is about 500 words shorter than I'd normally make a chapter, but what I want to put in next will require about 1.5k words and that would bring the total of this chapter to just over 4k which is more than I'd usually put in a chapter so...
Anyway, I hope y'all enjoy this! Please leave a review xo
3 weeks had passed since Bree's suicide attempt. She had survived it, barely. She was given blood transfusions at the hospital and her wounds were sewn up. The residents of Wisteria Lane had all 'recovered' from the event that rocked their community, well, all apart from 3 women who all felt varying degrees of guilt.
Gaby felt terribly guilty following the cruel words which had escaped her lips during their last conversation before Bree's suicide attempt. She felt as though somehow her words and actions were to blame for Bree's sudden desire to end everything.
Susan felt guilty because of the words she had expressed to Renee just minutes before the ambulance appeared on the lane.
And Lynette felt guilty because she felt she should have done more. She felt that she shouldn't have left Bree even when she flat out denied their efforts of help and support.
Bree had been discharged from the hospital after the mandatory 72 hour psychiatric hold. She had also attended the mandatory counselling, and after 4 sessions was declared emotionally stable enough to leave the counselling programme and return to daily life. Of course, discussing emotions was not Bree's forté, so she wasn't anywhere near as 'emotionally okay' as she made herself appear to be fine, but she decided that she'd just try and forget the feelings she was feeling by distracting herself with housework as she would usually do.
"Bree? I know you're home your lights are on!" Renee yelled from outside Bree's door. Bree came to the door and opened it with a warm smile.
"I was just cooking Renee, sorry I didn't hear you the first time." Bree said, smiling.
"It's fine." Renee said. The two of them stood there in silence for a few moments.
"So? Anything you want?" Bree asked.
"Yes, I… I was just wanting to know how you're doing." Renee said. Bree laughed slightly.
"I'm doing fine, but I get the feeling you won't leave until we've had a slightly longer conversation." Bree replied, laughing.
"Well you're right." Renee said, laughing also.
"Well, come on in then." Bree said, taking a step to the side to open the door wider and allow her guest into her home. "I hope you don't mind if we talk in the kitchen? I have soup I'm just about to put on the stove." She asked.
"No, that's fine." Renee said as she followed Bree into the kitchen.
"I don't suppose you'd like some? Unless you have other lunch plans, of course." Bree offered.
"I'd love some, if that's okay." Renee said.
"Great!" Bree said as she set about cutting some more tomatoes and sweet potatoes and chopping some more onions.
"So, Bree. How are you doing?" Renee asked. Bree kept her back to Renee as she was chopping up the vegetables.
"I am doing better, of course you know from last time I won't recover overnight but I'm doing better than I've been doing in a long time." Bree replied. Keeping her face away from Renee just in case she could see through her façade. It's not like she wasn't doing better, because she was, compared to that night, but she was - minus the mini breakdown - just in the same place she was the few days prior to it. She was still self-harming, all though she'd moved up to her upper arms so she could wear ¾ length sleeves so her friends wouldn't get suspicious, not that she seen much of them.
"That's good." Renee said. Bree slid she onions into the pan after putting in a spoonful of oil. And began to move them around. "And the cutting?" Bree waited a moment, debating her answer.
"Nope." Bree said.
"Bree…" Renee said, getting suspicious after the pause.
"Honestly Renee!" Bree said. She stopped stirring for a brief moment and turned around holding out both of her arms. She had her sleeves rolled up so she could cook. "See?" Renee looked down at Bree's wrists and just saw the slowly healing scars from her suicide attempt and a couple of fading white and pink scars on the other side of her arms.
"Okay." Renee said. Bree returned to her cooking. "I'm sorry… It's just…"
"It's fine, Renee. Honestly. I know all you want to do is save me from doing something like that, again." Bree said, laughing slightly at the last word. Renee laughed gently. After showing Renee her arms and seeing the scars, both the self harm ones and the suicide ones, it made her feel like cutting. But she knew Renee would be staying for lunch so she couldn't. Or could she? She shook her head briefly and added in the puree, the stock cube, the water, the herbs and spices, the sweet potato and the tomatoes and began stirring. But the urge was getting too strong, she could feel the emotion building up inside of her and the lump in her throat beginning to form. It was the weirdest thing she always thought, whenever she felt the urges to cut, she'd get all teary and anxious. Her breath was beginning to get shaky as she tried to control her feelings. But it was a lost cause because she knew she wasn't going to get rid of this urge.
"Um, Renee? Would you mind stirring for a few minutes, I really must use the bathroom." Bree asked, hoping Renee would believe her.
"Yeah sure!" Renee said, jumping up to join Bree at the stove. She took the wooden spoon from Bree's hands. She thought she saw Bree's hands shaking slightly but then thought that it must be just her imagination and decided to leave the matter. "I just keep stirring?"
"Uh, yes." Bree said. "I'll be back in a minute." Her voice got shaky towards the end of her last sentence and hoped that Renee hadn't picked up on it.
Upstairs, Bree ran into her bathroom and went straight to the sink. She gripped both hands onto the sides and bowed her head taking a few deep breaths. It was at times like this when she'd usually pray. But as self harm and suicide are sins, she hadn't really prayed or gone to church for quite a while. She realised she had just a minute or two until Renee would begin to get suspicious. So she reached hastily into the bottom of her drawer and retrieved her razor blade, unbuttoned her shirt so she could get to her upper arms and grabbed a few pieces of toilet paper and made 3 small cuts on her left upper arm. She wiped them gently with the toilet roll and immediately felt the release she had been longing for. She made 5 more small-ish cuts and held the paper to them for about 30 seconds. She knew that if she was any longer that Renee would begin to get suspicious so she checked that they'd all stopped bleeding - which they had - and flushed the paper, put the blade back, buttoned her shirt back up and washed her hands.
Bree returned to the kitchen and took over from Renee.
"There you are! I was just about to send a search party." Renee said, laughing. Bree laughed too, feeling a little more relaxed now.
"I'm sorry." Bree said. "Okay, it's just about ready. Could you get the blender from the cupboard? It's the one to the left of me."
"Sure." Renee said as she got up. She retrieved the blender and set it down on the worktop.
"Great, thanks." Bree said. She took the saucepan off the stove and began pouring its contents into the blender.
The next few days went by okay. Bree had every day given into her 'urges' but apart from that she'd managed to keep up a decent appearance. She'd completed her daily chores, ran her errands and attended to her garden. She'd made up with all three girls, they'd hugged it out also, so she knew that all was good.
Today was poker day, and it was at Susan's. Bree wanted to go, but at the same time all she wanted to do was stay in and sit around and do nothing as she wasn't having the best day. But, she knew she needed to get out, so she decided she would go. So at 2:30 PM that afternoon she left her house and walked across the road to Susan's.
When she arrived, the others were all there. She opened the door and was greeted by smiles from her friends.
"Ah Bree! Great timing! We were just about to start." Susan said cheerfully.
"Great!" Bree replied. She walked forward and took the last remaining empty seat which was in between Gaby and Renee and they all began playing.
About half an hour into the game, Bree suddenly found herself becoming rather anxious. She knew that this was because she felt the sudden and overwhelming urge to cut. Before she could think of what she could do to get rid of these thoughts she became teary-eyed as she always did in this particular predicament. She kept her head down as she tried to blink back her tears so none of her friends would see her practically crying.
"Bree? It's your turn." Lynette said.
"Oh, right… Um…" Bree said, her voice was getting shaky from her growing anxiety over her sudden urge. "I fold." She said, placing her cards face down on the table whilst keeping her head slightly bowed. "If you'll all excuse me for a minute, I have something at home that I need to check on." Her voice cracked towards the end of the sentence and the last word was barely a whisper but she needed to get out of there. After finishing her sentence, she got up and left Susan's house. Once outside, she drew in a deep breath and a strangled sob made its way out of Bree's lips. She immediately walked quickly over to her house to prevent anyone from following her. She opened her door, walked inside and then closed it quickly, she then lent against it as a couple of sobs made their way out of her mouth. She knew that if she waited much longer she would have a complete breakdown so she hurried upstairs and into her bathroom where she kept her blade and released some of her pain. She then got a few pieces of toilet roll and began holding it above her fresh cuts. And as usual, she felt the immediate release of built up emotion. She laughed quietly to herself as she thought, how can something so wrong bring me such relief and make me feel okay again? But then her laughter was replaced by a single tear which had made its way down her cheek. She made a few more cuts on her right arm, she didn't even care that she had just cut her forearm and that if Renee or anyone else asked to check her wrists she wouldn't be able to deny her acts anymore, but she was beyond caring. All she wanted in that moment was to feel the bittersweet release and to see she could still feel something. After taking a few deep breaths, she realised that the others would still be waiting for her to return to poker so she quickly put away her blade, threw the paper in the bin next to her, smartened herself up and left her home. She walked quickly across the street as she'd already been gone a good 10 minutes. She opened Susan's front door and hoped that no one would be suspicious as to where she'd been and what she'd been doing for the past 10 minutes. She was greeted by Renee who was just about to open the door from the inside.
"Bree!" Renee exclaimed.
"Renee…" Bree said, her voice slightly week from the shock of someone being right in front of her.
"There you are! I was just coming over to see if you were actually coming back or whether you'd been pulled into why ever it was you had to leave." Renee explained.
"Yeah, I'm sorry, I just had some important papers I remembered needed signing so Andrew could pick them up." Bree lied. Susan, Gaby and Lynette believed her, but Renee was a different matter.
"Are you alright?" She asked under her breath as she closed Susan's front door. Bree nodded. Renee looked up at her. "You've been crying." She whispered.
"I haven-" Bree began whispering back, but realised it was pointless as Renee could obviously tell she was lying.
"I just thought…" Renee said loudly all of a sudden. Everyone turned to look at her. "I have some crabcakes and some mini quiches at home left over from my lunch with a friend today, they'll all go to waste so shall I bring them over and we can eat what we can?"
"Sounds great!" Susan said. Renee then looked over at Gaby and Lynette to see if they agreed with Susan.
"What are you waiting for? You've already made me hungry!" Gaby said, laughing. Everyone laughed apart from Bree who had to force a laugh.
"Great!" Renee said. "Bree, would you mind helping me?" Bree suddenly realised that this was Renee's way of getting her alone to ask what was wrong.
"Certainly." Bree agreed reluctantly. She didn't want to appear rude so she agreed.
"Great, we'll be back in a few." Renee said.
After the two of them walked out of Susan's house, Renee wasted no time in wanting to know what was up.
"So…?" She asked.
"So?" Bree replied flatly. It wasn't in a rude tone, but Bree had no energy to talk, or even argue with Renee that she was fine. She crossed her arms across her chest and grabbed onto the sides of her pale green cardigan and looked down at the road in front of her as they walked up to Renee's house.
"So? What's wrong?" Renee asked. Bree shrugged her shoulders ever so slightly.
"I don't know." She said quietly, still not looking up.
"You don't know?" Renee asked. "Are you… feeling sad? Or anxious? Or like you want to cut or…?"
"All of that, I guess." Bree replied still in a quiet voice.
"Have you cut at all?" Renee asked. "I know, just a few days ago when I asked you, you said you hadn't, but have you?" Bree didn't have the energy to argue or lie.
"Mmhmm…" She mumbled sadly.
"How often have you…" Renee asked.
"Every day… Since they released me from the hospital." Bree whispered. She still hadn't looked up and was still holding on to her sides. Renee felt sorry for Bree, she still couldn't open up to anyone and that fact was soon going to destroy her if she continued to suppress her emotions and hide them from everyone that cares for her.
"Oh Bree…" Renee said. "I'm sorry."
"Yeah. Well, I'm not helping myself much so I can't expect anything from you." Bree mumbled softly.
"Bree…" Renee began. "You're not going to get any better if you can't share what you're feeling with anyone. If you continuously lie to people about how you're doing." Bree knew Renee was right, she knew that she was putting her emotional health in jeopardy by keeping emotional thoughts to herself.