Scene XVII: 3am Saturday Morning. The Foyer
Jen quietly enters the Parker-Nichols house with a pale and tear-stained face. What started out as a productive Friday turned into one of the worst days of her life. She started out looking at "the perfect apartment" and ended up at the beach with a loaded handgun. She can't remember when her day turned from good to bad, but she knows that her problem as taken a turn for the worse. And this house with these kids who are depending on her to be a watchful adult is the last place she wants to be. The last place she needs to be. She looks at her watch, only 40 more hours till Walter and Audrey come home.
She hangs up her jacket, and panics. Where is she going to hide the gun? She can't possibly allow them to find it. She puts it in her purse and holds it close to her as she creeps up the stairs. She puts it in the guest room. She couldn't feel comfortable sleeping in the master bedroom with how she was feeling. She sat on the edge of the bed to try to collect her thoughts. But she couldn't. The jumbled thoughts of sitting in the car with the loaded pistol in her mouth kept circulating in her head faster and faster. She found herself beginning to hyperventilate. She needed help. But she didn't know where to go.
Before she could realize what she was doing, she was knocking on Drake and Josh's bedroom door. They had managed to fall asleep after their ride to Chez Taco. Josh heard the knocking and opened the door. He found Jen with tears streaming down her face. She couldn't speak. He knew what was happening and wrapped his arms around her and brought her to the couch. Drake heard the sobs and turned on the light above his bed.
Drake: What's going on?
Josh: Drake, don't worry about it. Go back to sleep.
But Drake didn't listen to his brother. He quickly climbed down from his bed and stood at the end of the couch with a confused look. Jen just looked at him with fearful eyes. Her secret was about to come out.
Josh: Jen, you don't have to say anything. Just let it out. I'm here.
Jen: It's ok Josh. Really. I need to talk. Drake, there's something you need to know about me.
Drake sits down next to Josh and looks genuinely concerned. All of the animosity he felt towards Josh's dorky cousin has melted away. She was hurting, and he didn't like to see it.
Jen: Drake… God this is hard.
Josh: Would you like me to tell him?
Jen: No. I can do it. I have this…. This….. Problem. It's complicated. But Josh and Walter know about it. And since you and your sister are going to be seeing me a lot more of me now, I can't really hide this anymore.
Drake: Are you ok? I don't understand.
Jen: I'm sick. But before you jump to conclusions, I'm not "sick" in the terms that you think. I have this illness that no one can see. Hhhhuuuuhhhhhhh
Josh: Drake, she's ok. But she has a "condition".
Jen: I have Bipolar Disorder. Do you know what that is?
Drake: I think so. Ummm…
Jen: It's a mental disorder that makes my moods go into extremes. You have mood swings. You're happy, your sad. I get euphoric, I get suicidal. It's nothing I can control on my own. I take medications to help me. I see a psychiatrist. And I see a therapist. Well, I did, before I decided to move here. I know that my first priority was to get myself a support team before anything else, but I thought that maybe this change of scenery would help me. But I'm still feeling the same. And, with the events of this week, and the tension in the house, and the fact that your parents aren't home… well, I'm just feeling very overwhelmed right now.
Josh smooths out Jen's hair and gazes at her with very sympathetic but helpless eyes. Drake goes into his parents room to get a box of tissues for her. She has let the tears continue to flow. She should have felt a little bit better about talking about this, but this was just the beginning. She had to tell them about what happened. Drake returns with the box and hands it to her, and decides to sit down next to Jen this time. He puts a gentle hand on her knee.
Drake: Jen, I'm so sorry that this has happened to you. I don't know what to say.
Jen: Not too many people do. But it's ok. I'm used to it.
Josh: Dad and I found out about a year and a half ago. We got this call from Charlie. Jen was in the hospital, but he didn't know any details. We didn't know what was wrong with her. We figured it was a physical illness. So we waited by the phone for more information, but we never got it. Three weeks went by. Do you remember this?
Drake nods his head. He remembers those days. Walter and Josh were on pins and needles waiting for news. There were a couple of times that they were ready to board the next plane to New York and find out for themselves, but Audrey always stopped them. She always believed that no news was good news. But she was wrong.
Jen: I took three months worth of anti-depressants and sleeping pills and chased them with a bottle of wine. I don't remember much from that night, because I lost consciousness before Charlie found me. I ended up in a coma for 12 days.
Drake: Jen? Are you saying that you tried to kill yourself? Oh my God. Wow.
Jen: Yeah, I tried. There really wasn't anything in particular that was making me upset. I couldn't figure it out. Charlie either couldn't figure it out or didn't want to. But it all just came to a head that afternoon. I had filled my prescriptions, and I went home and sat on my bathroom floor for hours. Then, I just did it. I don't remember it happening. I just all of a sudden realized that the bottles and the wine were gone.
Josh: Charlie didn't tell us because he didn't know how to handle it.
Jen: It's the reason why we're getting divorced. Ever since that night, he's been very uncomfortable around me. And, to be quite honest, I don't blame him. I wasn't comfortable around me either. So, after I came out of the coma, and I was deemed physically ok, I was transferred to South Oaks, a psychiatric facility. I spent 25 days there, getting the acute care I needed. But when I was discharged and got home, I had a lot of work to do. Charlie just wasn't the same. I felt scared and alone. So I called your dad and Josh and talked to them about it.
Josh: We were ready to go to New York and help her, but she wouldn't let us.
Jen: I had to work on myself before I could talk to people.
Drake just looked at her. He was speechless. He wanted to take back all of the snide comments he's made to her in the past week. He wanted to take away the pain, and make it all better. If there was one thing about Drake Parker that no one knew, it's that he's a very compassionate person. But he never showed it because it would be uncool. He was ready to let that uncoolness go away.
Jen had more to tell. The boys thought that that was it.
Jen: There's more. Josh something you need to know. Something you both need to know.
She began letting the tears fall again. She reached for another tissue to wipe her running nose.
Josh: What is it? You're scaring me.
Jen: I don't really know what happened. But I just felt so overwhelmed with everything this week. I decided to take a ride to the beach. I sat there to watch the sunset. God how I missed those sunsets. Can't get those on the east coast.
Josh: Jen… what happened.
Jen looks like she wants to tell, but words would do it no justice. She gets up to go to the guest room. She was going to bring it in and show them. She didn't want to, but she had to. Josh and Drake look at each other very confused.
Jen returns to the room with her purse. She sits down where she sat before and takes several deep breaths. She can't bring herself to say the words, so she reaches into the purse and puts it on the coffee table.
The boys have never been so surprised, so shocked, so scared in their entire lives. They couldn't believe that they were staring at a hand gun. Never did they think that they would ever see one of these in their home. They immediately became concerned for Megan. If she heard the talking, she would want to come in and find out what was going on. Josh jumps up and rushes over to Megan's room. He cracks open the door just a little bit to check on her. She is sleeping soundly in her bed. She was not going to wake up anytime soon. He rushes back to his bedroom, where Jen and Drake just sit, in shock.
