Ellie woke up with absolutely no sense of where she was. Her whole body ached, and bit by bit the events of... the night before? the week before? earlier that day? came flooding back. She immediately wished she'd been content in her ignorance.
"Welcome back." The voice was quiet, and all too familiar. Ellie groaned. "The school sent me. I didn't have any appointments set up for a few hours, and the doctors thought it would be good if I came."
"Great," Ellie said. "I land in the hospital and get to see my guidance counsellor all in the same day. Woohoo."
"Wish you could have called me first," Sauve said. "Or told me that your mom was back home, for that matter." She sighed. "You're back close to Degrassi. They transported you here after you were stable. The hospital in Wasaga isn't exactly well-equipped in the psychiatry department."
"And Sean?" The question popped out before she could stop it.
"Saved your life. Called 911 and they got you out of there nice and quickly. Presumably, he's back home now." Her voice displayed no emotion, but she watched Ellie carefully for her response.
"You should get back to the school," Ellie said. "And I should get home. It's been fun, but I have things I should be doing." Sauve raised an eyebrow. "Damnit," Ellie continued. "Don't do that. Try as I might, I suck at the eyebrow thing. Way to rub it in my face." She laughed self-consciously.
"I find it hard to believe that you haven't guessed that the doctors want to keep you in here for a bit. But you're right--I should be getting back to the school. They'll send someone else in to talk to you soon." She stood and left before Ellie could protest.
Ellie took the opportunity to look around. The room was cramped and bland, and aside from the bed, an over-stuffed chair, and a small dresser, it was empty. The walls were an off-white, the sheets beige, and the dresser and ugly green. It was less than cheerful.
A few minutes later, as Sauve had promised, a doctor entered the room. He was short, fat, and balding, and Ellie immediately disliked him--not because of his appearance, but because of the very fact of his being. She shot him a defiant look, which he pointedly ignored.
"Eleanor Nash?" he said, checking her chart. "Is that right?"
"Ellie."
"Want to tell me about it?"
"Nope." She gave him an obviously fake smile and he let out a small laugh.
"Fair enough," he said. "Bad question, I guess. So let me try again. Were you trying to kill yourself?"
"No, I just thought Sean's bathroom needed some color, and I couldn't find any paint." She rolled her eyes. "God, if that's all you need to do to become I shrink, I'm over-qualified. Of course I was trying to kill myself."
He shrugged. "I had to ask. You've cut yourself before. It could have been an accident." Too late, she saw her way out. She didn't even bother trying. It was much more entertaining to be obnoxious, anyway.
"Right," she said. "Because everytime I cut, I trace my veins in ball-point pen to make them easier to find when my arms are covered in blood. That's it. Really, I swear. I'm just too stupid to know what 'too deep' looks like. I thought that if I, oh I don't know, opened my veins up, that I would live happily ever after." She offered him another condescending smile, then rolled over in the bed, clearly done talking. He waited for a moment, then scribbled something into her file, and left the room. It was only then that she wondered what had happened to Bueller.
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Sean sat staring at the wall of his room, absently playing tug-of-war with the ferret. He had no idea if he'd done everything right or everything wrong or some combination of the two. His plan of school that day had gone to hell, and he was surprised to find himself even thinking about it.
He supposed he should have known to hide his razor, but he had genuinely believed Emma when she said Ellie was okay. And he supposed he should have seen differently, noticed the tears etched into her cheeks the night before, or her uncertainty when she passed him on the couch, or the fact that at some point, she had snuck Bueller's cage out beside the couch. He had a million regrets, yet he wondered if any one of them would have made a difference, or if she would have found a way no matter what.
To leave her in the hospital had broken his heart. He'd ridden in the ambulance with her, but when they transferred her, he'd returned home. He'd had to pull over twice, too blinded by tears to see the road. She needed him. She'd said as much when he called her, and he had let her down.
He knew he wasn't being fair to himself, that he couldn't be her hero, but it didn't stop the guilt. Blood, again. Always with the blood. It haunted every recess of his mind.
The bathroom floor was stained. He'd scrubbed and scrubbed, trying to eliminate her essence, but traces of her still remained. He didn't know how he would face it--he'd gone to the bathroom in the woods rather than staring at the tiles--although his parents hadn't even noticed the difference. They'd slept through the ambulance, vomited without noticing the stained tiles, and hadn't even bothered to wonder where Sean had gone, or why he had a funny looking critter in his room. As usual, they were completely oblivious to what their son most needed.
Staring up at the ceiling, Sean gathered Bueller into his arms. "I need you," he whispered, his voice breaking.