Wow! This was voted as one of the top fav fic dive stories for Feb over at ADF! Thank you thank you thank you xx
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chapter eleven: hypnos
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I hate the waiting room in Dr. Sheppard's office. Right near the hospital, it's in an old brick building that's overgrown with trees. Now, though, it's covered in snow. It hasn't slowed down much over the last few days and Carlisle keeps mentioning how unusual it is to get more than a couple of inches at a time.
My seat by the window is cold but it's the only place to sit. My foot taps on the creaky hardwood floor, in time with the second hand on the clock on the wall across the room. I'm fifteen minutes early because my mom claimed she had to work. Carlisle is supposed to come get me during his lunch break.
I really fucking need my own car.
Or to stop seeing this quack.
I check the clock again. 10:20 am.
I should be in study hall by now, listening to the new Tancred album with Alice.
I didn't go to school at all so I didn't see Bella during first period like I usually do and it's making me agitated. I didn't tell her I was going to miss, so I wonder if she noticed that I wasn't there. I fantasize about the bell ringing and she glances over her shoulder to catch my eye, disappointment evident on her face when she realizes I'm not coming.
The reality is most likely that she registered my absence and felt nothing, if she even noticed at all.
The thought depresses me.
"You can come back now, Edward." Dr. Sheppard's voice startles me as she appears at the end of the hallway in a severe, black pantsuit. I blink slowly before following her down the dimly lit hall to her office.
We each take our positions: me, hunched over on the sofa in the corner, defensive and angry while she sits ramrod straight in her leather desk chair, glasses on and eyebrows raised. I stare the way her hair is pulled back so tightly that I can see the way her skin clings to her skull.
Ugh.
"How are you doing, Edward?" she asks, her tone clinical. It's nothing like the soft, low register of Bella's voice when she wonders how I am. How her cheeks are full and red and her eyes are always kind, even when she's trying to be cold and detached, to keep up the façade she displays in the halls at school. The façade she drops only for me.
"Fine," I say with a shake of my head. She scribbles a note.
"How is the depression?"
"I'm not depressed."
"How is the anxiety?"
"Endless. I need more Xanax," I say dryly. She gives me a pointed look.
"How is school? Are you making friends?"
Friends.
Alice's music and Jasper's easy laugh come to mind but fade at the thought of spending my evenings with Bella Swan's cautious smile and quick wit.
I'm imagining myself back in her room, two nights ago, where she's burning incense and she's got a record spinning somewhere and she's singing along to it like she's Loretta Lynn herself. And though over the course of the last week I've gotten maybe like, twelve hours of sleep total, I am so incandescently happy. Contentment warms me as she lets her eyes close and she's smiling while she's singing, "and then I saw you." And I can't help but think that maybe I could just—
"Edward?"
Back in the drafty office. Back under Dr. Sheppard's scrutiny. She purses her lips.
"Where did you go?" she asks, her tone vaguely accusing. I roll my eyes.
"Nowhere, I just zoned out. I'm tired." I fake a yawn that turns into a real yawn that's so intense my eyes water. Her pen scratches against the yellow legal pad in her lap.
"Have you been sleeping?"
"Yes." Not a lie.
"At least six to seven hours a night?"
"Nobody needs that much sleep," I scoff and she makes another note.
"That's a healthy amount of sleep. Your mother says you're still only sleeping an hour or two at night."
"My mom doesn't know shit," I nearly scream, my face growing red. Has Mom been spying on me?
"If you started sleeping, some of the anxiety and depression could lessen." She doesn't pause long enough for me to deny it. "I'm going to prescribe you some meds to help you fall asleep and stay asleep. It's up to you to take it, to want to get better. You can deny it all you want but we both know that your overdose wasn't completely an accident."
My heart pounds and my eyes burn as the walls feel like they're closing in on me.
"Did nothing strike a chord with you those days you were in the hospital out east?" She's pushing me on purpose. She's switching her tactic.
It's working.
I grab the prescription for the Ambien from her on my way out the door. I don't stop until I hit the cold air in the parking lot, snow coming down fast. Panic bubbles in my chest.
For the first time in a very long time, I start to cry.
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The overdose was an accident. It really was. I didn't know what I was taking, I didn't know how strong it was. But I guess that recklessness, that lack of giving a shit is the same thing as choosing to die.
I don't really remember much about those four days afterwards, everything is fuzzy. I know that someone dropped me off at the emergency room but didn't stay with me. They were probably afraid of getting into trouble. My mom was the first thing I saw when I woke up later that night, tear stained and pissed. I was still coughing up charcoal or something from when they pumped my stomach and I felt so fucking shitty. That was when I really wanted to die. I couldn't eat right for weeks. Even though I kept telling them it wasn't necessary, they put me on suicide watch and I was checked into the psych ward. Mom visited every day but I never saw anyone from school. It was a lot of journaling, sleeping, therapy and coloring.
It sounds stupid but the coloring was really fucking relaxing.
I really just wish I could go back to that hospital, the clean white room with an endless supply of colored pencils and mandalas to fill in.
I can't help but wonder if I could ever feel that calm again, if I could actually get better.
Is it possible that life could be different from how it is now? How it's always been for me? Would I feel well rested and excited for the day and for the future? Would I want to go to college and travel and make friends?
Right now, that all sounds exhausting. I close my eyes, feeling heavy.
A hand covers mine.
"Edward? Are you okay?"
For the first time ever, I'd beaten Bella to the bench. She's taken a seat next to me and when I open my eyes again, she's biting her lip, concern etched across her face.
I let out a shaky breath. I've been on edge all day, ever since Carlisle found me in the lobby of the hospital on his way out to get me. I'd walked over when the cold had gotten too much to take. I stayed in bed the rest of the day, unable to get warm and trying to avoid fighting with Mom about whether or not she's been keeping tabs on me.
"You weren't at school today," Bella whispers, her fingers warming mine.
"I had a doctor's appointment," I tell her quietly.
God, I want to hug her. I want her to hold me tightly and tug her fingers through my hair and tell me that everything is going to be fine.
"Is everything okay?"
No. Nothing is okay. I feel like my life is falling apart and you're the only fucking thing that makes me happy.
"Yeah, just a routine thing," I say because it's not exactly a lie. My voice cracks. I wince.
"You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to," she says, eyes wide and focused only on me. "But I'm here…if you want to tell me about it."
Trust her trust her trust her. Be honest and open for once in your goddamn life.
She's the only one that's ever mattered enough.
"My doctor wants me to take stuff to help me sleep. She says that it'll...fix a lot of issues in my life if I start to sleep more. She says it's up to me to take it but…I don't know if I want to." I don't like how thick my voice sounds, how it wavers.
Bella closes her eyes, swallowing.
"Why wouldn't you take it?" Her voice is barely there.
Trust her.
"Because if I take it, I won't see you at night."
The honesty of what I've just said hangs heavily over us, ready to crush us.
All of the breath leaves her body as she turns to me, eyes terrified and the wind starts whipping her hair around her face. It's so strong I'm afraid she's going to blow away.
"Edward, you—you should take it. You should take your meds."
"But—" She cuts me off, shaking her head.
"You need to put yourself first. You shouldn't—we shouldn't be hanging out anyways."
Pain, endless pain.
"You're the best person I know. I want to keep seeing you, I need to keep seeing you."
The desperation in my voice is humiliating but she's starting to stand. Starting to leave.
"I'm not what you think I am, Edward," she says with so much conviction it cuts me to the bone. "Please, stop coming here. Take your medicine, please. It's best we stop seeing each other."
Her hand cups my cheek, much like that night so many weeks ago in front of my house, except this time it feels like a goodbye. An ending.
"Goodnight, Edward," she whispers, her lips ghosting my other cheek before she starts to step back.
And then I'm alone.
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See you next week xx