A/N: Hello wonderful readers! Here's the epilogue. I'll have more to say at the end.

Content Warning: mentions of se*ual a*sault, mental disorders, and suicide.

Enjoy.

I woke up the next morning, alone. My mother had gone home the night before to get my bedroom cleaned for me. I was still apprehensive about going back to the house after everything that had happened, but there wasn't anywhere else we could go.

Libby had spent a good portion of the afternoon and evening with me, distracting me from thoughts about Jimmy. I was grateful that she wasn't horrified of me, and that we were on our way to repairing our friendship. She told me to text her when I got my phone back and that she would give me an update on the Sheen situation.

I took a moment to look around my hospital room. I knew that my clothes had to be somewhere in here. I hadn't been approved to check out yet, but I wanted to know where my personal belongings were.

I noticed a vase of flowers on a small table that hadn't been there the night before. I scooted off of the hospital bed and walked over to see who they were from. I pulled the little envelope out and saw that Libby had given them to me. She must have stopped by before school while I was still asleep. I opened the envelope to read the card: I'm glad we're friends. -Libby P.S. Jimmy wanted me to give you the note.

Note? I looked around on the table wondering what she was referring to. Tucked underneath the vase was a piece of paper folded haphazardly. I carefully lifted the vase and grabbed the note. My name was scrawled on the outside in Jimmy's awful handwriting. I took it back to the hospital bed. I wasn't sure if I wanted to read it. What could he possibly have to say to me? I sat down and played with the note in my hands. I took a deep breath and opened the note to read it:

Cindy,

First, let me say that I'm really glad you're okay, and I'm glad that I found you before anything bad happened. You probably won't believe me because of how horrible I've been to you, but that's why I wrote this note. I wanted to explain myself.

I know you have a lot of stuff to deal with, and you don't ever have to tell me anything about any of it, but just know that I understand that the things you did and said aren't a reflection of who you are. I can't say the same for myself.

I don't really expect you to forgive me or to even try to understand why I did it, but you deserve to know the truth. The reason that I treated you so horribly was because I ended up creating that anti-love vaccine from when we were kids. It was a rush job, and I definitely didn't test it the way I should have. I used it on myself without any prior testing. In fact, as I was injecting it into my arm, all I could think about was how you would be scolding me for not taking the proper precautions.

But that's exactly why I had to use it on myself. I started to have feelings for you, and I was nervous because we had an agreement about our relationship to each other, and I was still with Betty. I was really confused, and that was why I gave Betty a key to my lab. I was hoping that by officially choosing her, my feelings would go away, but they didn't. That night in the woods wasn't supposed to go the way it did. I wanted to say goodbye to you properly, but of course I fucked it up.

That night, after you went home, I spent the rest of the night in the lab working on the vaccine. Like I said, it was rushed and I made a lot of errors, but I wanted to get rid of the feelings. I'm still trying to figure out where exactly I went wrong, but whatever mixture of chemicals I used made me not just lose my feelings for you, they made me despise you, and clouded my judgement. Which explains why I treated you the way that I did. And I am truly sorry for that. You've always had to deal with my fuck ups in the lab and this is just another time that you were unwittingly a victim in my experiments.

There is a good side to all of this. The vaccine is only temporary. I can't pinpoint exactly when the effects wore off, but I do know it was sometime between our last conversation in the janitor's closet and me finding you in my lab. And I'm so grateful that it wore off when it did, because I don't think I would have had the chance to see you again if it didn't.

You don't have to forgive me. I only wanted to explain myself. Nothing I said or did to you is justified because of the choices I made, but now you know why. I am so sorry, Cindy. You told me that you understood if I never wanted to speak to you again, but I'm feeling the same way. I did and said some truly awful things to you, so if you never want to see me or speak to me again, I completely understand.

I'll always be rooting for you, Cindy.

-Jimmy

My eyes were faucets. I couldn't stop crying. The hot tears streamed down my face faster than I could wipe them away. I was grateful for the explanation, but I was so angry. It didn't matter that he had feelings for me because he wanted to get rid of them. I would never be the one he wanted. He didn't want to be with me, so why did I still want to be with him?

I folded the note back up and set it on the table next to the bed. I stood up and went into the bathroom. I needed to get it together. If my doctors saw me crying like this, I wouldn't get to leave today. I splashed cool water on my face as I tried to calm down. I dried my face and looked in the mirror. I hadn't seen myself since before coming to the hospital. I looked awful. My face was gaunt and I had dark circles under my eyes. How long had I looked like this? Did everyone know that I was so unhappy? Was Libby just feeling guilty? Why did I ever think that Jimmy would want to be with me? What if John came back? Would people know what he did to me? I grabbed my head as my mind started to spiral and walked back into the hospital room, my heart racing and my breath becoming shallow.

A nurse walked in, bringing me my medication. "Cindy, are you okay?" She walked over to me and helped me sit down. "Just take a deep breath. You're going to be fine. I've got your medication. It will help." She gave me the small cup of pills and a bottle of water.

I took a deep breath and opened the water. I took my medication and sighed.

"Just give it some time to settle. You'll be okay. Would you like me to get Dr. Tate?" The nurse asked.

I shook my head. "No, thank you. Do you know when I'll be released?"

"I don't, I'm sorry. Dr. Caldwell wants to run a final physical with you before you can check out, and Dr. Tate wanted to do a mental health check in and get your first therapy appointment scheduled. I can go get them now if you'd like."

"No, that's okay. Can I have my personal belongings? You know, the stuff I checked in with?" Now that I had calmed down, I wanted to text Libby to check in and thank her for the flowers.

"Sure, although I think it's just your clothes. Your mother took your phone."

I scoffed. Of course she still doesn't trust me. It was going to be a lot of work for us to start rebuilding our relationship.

"It's for the best. Trust me. You don't need to see anything on your phone, it won't help you get better," the nurse explained when she noticed my sour face.

It hadn't occurred to me that people were probably talking about me, and spreading horrible rumors. Maybe my mom really was looking out for me.

"Here," the nurse said, pulling a bag out from under the bed. "Your clothes are in here. Just hit the buzzer if you need anything." She smiled as she walked out of my room.

I opened up the large plastic bag. Besides my phone, there was something else I wanted. The only thing that could bring me comfort. Buried at the bottom was Jimmy's jacket that I had taken from his closet the day I broke into his lab. I pulled it out and put it on over my hospital gown. Maybe I would never get the chance to be with him, but having his jacket was a fair consolation prize. I wrapped myself up in his hoodie, and cried myself back to sleep.

A/N: Thank you for reading this piece. It's been an interesting journey. I know Cindy was quite out of character in this one, and hopefully the reasoning behind it made sense.

This story was an interesting challenge. I had to do quite a bit of research to make sure I was being as accurate as possible, and in doing so has helped me better understand mental health disorders a lot more. This story definitely didn't end the way I thought it would (weirdly enough, I didn't start out writing this one with it being a story about mental health at all) but I'm glad it ended up this way because it made the story more cohesive than what I had originally planned.

I didn't want this one have a happy ending. Cindy has a lot of healing to do, and it wouldn't be fair to any of the characters to have a nice neat ending. I had to give Cindy Libby at least. She deserves at least one friend after they hell I put her through in this one.

I've thought around about doing a follow up piece for this one. I think it could be interesting to see what happens in the future with Cindy. What do you think?

Thank you for reading. It is truly an honor to share my writing with you.