A/N: How long has it been? LOL. Nine months, almost to the day. Wow, I'm sorry. Haha. I've suddenly been inspired to keep writing this until the end? Slowly, of course. xD
But here is good 'ol (ol'?) chapter thirteen. I hope this short little chapter brings something to the table, lots of drama in true Campbell Saunders fashion. (Also, wtf was that finale episode? I'm sorry, but come on.)
It's something wicked, and that much is obvious. It's something wicked that gives a fifteen year old the authority to make decisions so serious, so grave, so dark. It's something wicked that takes root deep in the belly, constantly pressing further and further into the abdomen. It's only goal—to consume its victim. And in his case, it was succeeding. It's something wicked that brings on The Thoughts; it's something wicked that feeds them.
It's something wicked that drives one to lie against judgment, wits, health. It's something wicked that drives one to wish he weren't who he tried so hard to be. It's something wicked that drives one to press a skate blade to his palm, a dismantled razor to his upper arm, a row of fingernails to his inner forearm. It's something wicked that drives a fifteen year old over a second floor balcony, a fifteen year old deluded with the prospect of happiness hanging just beyond his actions.
It's something wicked, wicked indeed.
"Okay Campbell, I need you to follow this little light with your eyes, okay? Just your eyes." A small army of nurses whirred around him, flipping switches on machines, checking boxes on clipboards, squeezing veins in his wrists, spinning, swimming around him. The doctor stood before him, flashing a penlight into his hazed eyes impatiently, very quickly growing tired of the lack of concentration on Campbell's part.
He kept fidgeting, the fingers attached to his mobile arm tugging on everything they could get a grasp on—his shirt sleeve, the swollen, purple skin of his right wrist, the tear over his jeans' pocket. His eyes refused to cooperate, and the only thing he could focus on was the steady throb of his arm as it full-on resisted the splintered bone that once held it together. He had just come from Radiology where he gotten a front row seat to the damage he had done, all illuminated in a pair of pretty gruesome x-rays. He wasn't sure whether to be proud or ashamed.
"You took quite a fall, huh?" The doctor removed the white light from his line of vision, snapping Cam's focus back into place. "Can you tell me how this happened again?"
"I—I fell." He stammered, his gaze now fixated on a familiar, close-cut head of dark hair hunched over the nurses' station—the familiar red sweatshirt, identical to his, hanging limp on a pair of raised shoulders. His eyes narrowed, focusing through the thick fog that had settled over them. Dallas? What was Dallas doing here?
His heart recognized what his teammate's presence could very well have insinuated before his brain—full-speed ahead, it nearly leapt from his chest. A wild, repetitive mechanical scream sounded from somewhere to his left; the pounding of his heart kept in time with it. Dallas would tell, he would know. The sick feeling sinking his stomach deepened; his lungs deflated.
"Campbell, buddy, I need you to calm down, all right? Breathe for me." Dallas was replaced by the balding doctor—accentuated breaths played on his lined face as he seduced Cam into following along. "Good, good," He cooed, and Cam's cheeks smoldered. Twice in the same week he'd lost it now—first in front of his friends and now in front of some doctor who was probably sending a nurse to clear a room in the psych ward for the rest of his life. Just twice—in front of his friends and in front of the doctor. When he made the decision to jump, he was perfectly calm.
Easy, like he was choosing his favorite shirt or deciding what to have for lunch—like it was a normal thing, a sane thing. The final bell had rung, Seth thought he had gone to practice, as far as he could tell, there was no one around to stop him, no one around to watch him. In one fluid movement, he pulled himself onto the banister, took a few deep breaths, and let go. Easy, like something he should have done ages ago.
"We're going to get this arm casted and then we'll talk, okay?" Yet again, the doctor—Dr. Jordan, his lab coat read—dragged him back into his current setting. A nurse was already tugging at the hem of his shirt, his massive hands working the fabric up his abdomen. His skin recoiled as the sterile air met his stomach—the scars, Jesus Christ—his belly lurched, a windstorm of air fled from his body. Much too late. Much, much too late. The t-shirt left his shoulders quicker than he could resist.
And suddenly he was drowning again.
His free arm tore away from the nurse, grappling to hide the ugly, raised purple scar stretched over the base of his ribcage. Staggered rows of nicks and fading lines marked his upperarms—he'd been able to hide them well enough, avoiding taking off his shirt after hockey practice until he was safely in a bathroom stall, or even better—alone. He'd been able to cover them with shirt sleeves and sweatshirts; he'd been able to pretend they didn't exist. All except the one on his forearm, now a swollen, stretched, and aching mess. And now they were all exposed.
Shame pooled in his chest—he was different now!—he lunged to make excuses, defend himself. He was better! The opened and re-opened and re-opened clean-cut on his palm screamed otherwise. He swallowed it, tucking himself into his lap.
"Campbell, I know you're scared and in a lot of pain right now, but you need to cooperate, okay? We need to get this arm in a cast so you don't do any more damage to it." The doctor's voice pried him back to a sitting position, a pair of nurses held his shoulders. Pain. He felt it, or at least he thought he did, but he didn't reject it. No, he welcomed it. It was something. He'd taking something over nothing, something over numb.
Ten minutes later, his battered arm, and the gruesomely exemplified scar, disappeared beneath a hard, blue plaster cast. His shirt was replaced, a sling thrown over his neck and looped around his arm. And then he was alone. Over. Done. But so very unfinished.
As quickly as he was dumped in the emergency bay, he was led to the nurses' station and instructed to sign out, promised his billet parents would meet him as soon as they were done with the doctor. The blond nurse at the counter offered sympathetic smiles from where she sat; his hand shook as the pen left a spidery trail of incoherent letters across the page, his signature an illegible mess. He muttered a sheepish apology before turning towards the waiting room.
"Birdman! Did you get kicked out of the nest too soon?" Dallas's booming voice met him like a brick wall. All the evidence of a joke danced across his hard features, but his eyes screamed otherwise. Dallas had bared witness to his downward spiral before The Bad Day. What he didn't see himself, he surely heard from his brother or their old high school's gossip line or had simply just inferred himself.
"Funny." He grumbled, struggling go pull his jacket over his immobile shoulder, his face flushed. "What are you doing here?"
Dallas's rough hands gingerly looped the empty sleeve over his shoulder for him, the screaming concern slowly overtaking the shadow of a joke. "Your billet dad called me. Besides, I wanted to make sure you were still alive, you idiot." All too reminiscent of Justin, he grabbed the hem of his jacket, yanking the zipper up to his ribs, his arm like an unidentified growth. "Did you not hear me when I told the twins to quit messing around on the cat walk? You're lucky it's only your arm and not your neck! Christ, Cam, you could have killed yourself."
"You sound like Justin." He spat, a sort of mirthless laugh rolling over his tongue, his head shook on his shoulders as he turned toward the exit.
"Yeah, well, since he's not here to keep an eye on you someone has to." And just like that, he was falling again, the fragile thread of sanity tearing once again. Amazing how fine the line he tread had become, amazing how close he came to the edge, constantly tipping and tripping over it, only to come seconds from slipping into oblivion.
"I don't need anyone to do anything for me. I can handle myself!" He snapped, "I don't need anyone to check up on me or watch me or make sure I'm okay like some kind of crazy person!" The trembling plunged the length of his body; people were staring, nurses were watching. He was suddenly very aware of his surroundings, and very aware of the speed at which is legs we're working to get him out the automatic doors, and very aware that was probably not helping his case very much.
The cool air collapsed over his head, a wall of winter on its way out dropping in front of him. Horrible thoughts crept over his line of thought. Maya hadn't met him at the hospital. Or maybe he hadn't ask asked anyone to call her. Either way, bitter rejection swirled in his stomach. His family hadn't bothered to call to see if he was all right, either. Or maybe he hadn't told anyone to call them. Either way, it hurt, and he cursed himself for being so conceited. Why should their worlds bend for his? Why should they be inconvenienced because he decided a clean bill of health was a thorn in his side? He's not Campbell Saunders if he's not in the middle of a mental crisis, apparently.
"Cam, wait," Dallas called after him, his heavy footsteps falling in line close behind. "Mr. and Mrs. Clarkson are on their way out.. Just stay here." his presence loomed over him like a storm cloud, ominous and foreboding, like a shrieking reminder of how psychotic he was acting. Even more so, the quaking edge to his Captain's voice, the condescending commands—he was in a worse place than he was on the ledge, and failure burned in his stomach.
"I'm not going anywhere." He murmured into his chest, pulling his shoulders up to his ears. He was tired, so very, very tired. He collapsed onto the curb, his eyes locked on the rows of cars parked in front of him. Each one an emergency—an illness, an injury, some terminal, some due to stupidity. The volume hit him harder than the fall; there were hundreds of cars parked, and for each one, there was something wrong.
Behind him, muted whispers, fractured and disjointed, tumbled toward the pavement. A cellphone call of shoddy quality, he concluded, straining to ignore it. Dallas's doings were none of his business, or so he had decided after he overheard his captain had a thing for Maya's sister. That was the last straw—he had no desire to dabble in the life and times of Michael Dallas, especially those that included chasing Killer Katie, Kung Fu Katie.
"No, Jus, I have him now. The Clarksons are going to get him home." Each poignant syllable struck his eardrums like a battery ram—Jus? Dallas was on the phone with Justin? He twisted his torso around so fast he was sure the his spine was to puncture and tear through his skin, each vertebrae escaping its yard.
"You called my brother?" He hissed, baffled, though he wasn't sure why. "I didn't even call my parents yet and you already called Justin?"
"Cam, the hospital is on the phone with your mom right now, did you think you'd get to tell them on your own terms?" Dallas's eyebrows met his hairline, his voice belittling. Vague, punchy murmurs fled from Dallas's cellphone; Cam strained himself to make sense of them.
"No, Justin, just call him later—he's fine right now," Dallas snapped, his weary eyes attached to Cam, his body poised to catch him if he decided to toss himself over another railing.
"What does he want?" Cam staggered to his feet. "I can talk now, it's fine—I want to talk to him. I want him to tell me how stupid I am and how sickening I am and how I big a disappointment I am and how crazy I am and how worthless and... and..." By the end, he was doubled over, great, swollen and huffed breaths spilling onto the concrete in front of him. His mobile hand perched on his hip, his immobile hand clenched around the scratchy plaster, his arm shrieking. Against his will, his half-eaten lunch crawled out of his stomach, joining the breaths on the concrete. Great heave after great heave, a catalog of everything he'd swallowed apparated as he aspirated, choking, sputtering.
"What is going on?" Seth's choppy voice entered the scene, and another wave of vomit expelled itself onto the concrete.
Three times he'd lost it today, but part of him wished it had been four. Because only under those circumstances could his broken arm be excused.