A/N: You know the drill.

Trip

Chapter 5: The Suicide Room

He woke up in complete white. It was like waking up from a bad dream: gradually, the blackness slowly gave way to light and he felt stiff and paralyzed. He looked around and realized that the room he was in was not actually as stark and white as he thought it was. The walls were a pale yellow, made paler by the sunlight streaming in through the large window on his right. There was a vase of flowers on the table on his left. There was no one in his room. No parent to be consoled, no one crying, overjoyed to see him awake at last.

The door to his room opened, and in stepped a slightly-built, petite, brunette nurse. She smiled--a wide, toothy smile--and Trip briefly wondered exactly how private these hospital rooms were.

Proves your thought processes haven't been shot to shit, he thought.

"Oh, so you're finally awake, Mr. Fontaine," the nurse said brightly.

"How long have I been out?"

"Two days or so. At some points you would sit straight up in bed and start jabbering on about something, but that might have just been the half- coma version of sleeptalking." Off of Trip's blank look, she added, "You don't remember anything, do you?"

"You said 'half-coma.'"

"Well, yes. With all those drugs and all that alcohol in your system, you should be grateful that you weren't all the way under. Or dead. What made you take all that stuff, anyway?"

Trip shifted in the bed. "I don't know. Well, usually I just...smoke...some pot...but usually never combined with...that much...other stuff. I mean...I've done pot and booze at the same time before, but never so much to land me in the hospital."

"They didn't just find pot and booze in you, you know."

"Yeah, but I can't remember everything else I took."

"Were you depressed or something?"

"Why would I be depressed?"

"Well, lots of things make people depressed. Bad things happen to them. Someone close to them dies--"

"Who ever said anything about someone dying?"

The nurse studied him for a while. "Someone you cared about died."

"How would you know?"

"I can tell just by the way you reacted to my statement. Who was it? When was it?"

Trip sighed. "A couple months ago...this girl...her sisters...they killed themselves. I...was with the girl...once...but I had been in love with her for a while."

"Are you talking about the Lisbon girls?"

"Yeah. How'd you know?"

"Well, besides the fact that it made the local news, the youngest one was brought here last summer when she tried to kill herself." The nurse's expression registered a sudden realization. "If I remember correctly, this was the room she stayed in. I was her nurse as well."

The nurse turned and headed for the door. "If you need anything, my name is Jennifer," she said.

The door to Trip's room closed. He blew out his breath.

How goddamn creepy is this? I end up in the same room Cecilia did when she tried to kill herself. Except I didn't try to kill myself, I just almost died. Or did I?

The door opened again. Trip looked over, expecting to see Jennifer, but it was just his father, looking disheveled and worn-out. He brightened considerably when he saw that his son was awake.

"Trip!"

"Dad?"

"Who else? Wow, I'm...glad you're...awake."

The conversation was quickly becoming awkward.

"Dad, I...I'm sorry..."

"Sorry for what?" Mr. Fontaine asked with false cheeriness.

"About...this."

"Well, bad things happen to the best of us, Trip."

There was a long silence.

"Did you do it because of that girl, Trip?" his father asked.

"Honestly? I don't remember."

"Because I know about the drugs, and I know that I'm not exactly the strictest person about alcohol..."

"Dad...I said I don't remember a fucking thing about why I did it. I don't even remember taking the goddamn drugs or drinking the gin or smoking the joints. All I know is that I did it and I landed my ass in the hospital."

"There's no need to be angry, Trip--"

"I'm not angry. I just don't want you treating me like I'm a head case or something. I'm not mental, Dad. It was an accident. It was an accident."

Trip's father licked his lips, began to say something, but thought better of it and kept his mouth closed.

"Well, uh...I just...just wanted to see how you were doing, Trip. Visiting hours are nearly over, I guess, so I should be going."

His father's statement sounded rehearsed, but Trip let it go without comment.

"Okay. See you around, Dad."

Mr. Fontaine left quietly. Trip lay back in the bed, stared at the ceiling, decided that the ceiling was boring, and closed his eyes. He wondered what crap they were going to serve him for dinner tonight. He wondered if the nurse Jennifer would be back to give him whatever he needed. But most of all, he wondered if it had really been an accident. He honestly tried to work it out in his mind as an accident, but he had ended up in "The Suicide Room," the moniker his mind had devised for Cecilia's old room. People did not end up in "Suicide Rooms" because of accidental overdoses.

And then it came back to him as clear as day. He could remember the long days after Lux's suicide: sitting in his room, coming up with ways to join her, until his creativity ran out. He had actually had no real desire to die, just...a longing to be with Lux, wherever that was. And then one day, his desire to be with her mutated into a real desire to die. None of his old pleasures held any excitement for him anymore. So, on that fateful day, he had smoked a joint. And another. And another. And then he had gotten into the liquor cabinet and gulped down the half bottle of gin that remained. He then went up into his room and found the assorted baggies of drugs. He mixed some of them together and downed those with some more alcohol. Then he had gone out into the backyard to lie down on a raft in the pool and float around for a while. At some point, when he had nearly passed out, he fell off the raft and landed facedown in the pool. He passed out completely as the ambulance arrived.

Trip swallowed hard.

I...I tried to kill myself.

It had been the first, but it would not be the last, time.