Chapter Text
There was light. Shadowy figures over him Then darkness. Nothingness. A T.V. roaring. Was he in a hospital? Had to be. Haley, there was Haley. More Darkness. Beeping sounds. His mom. More nothingness. His mom and dad hugged and cried with each other. More Nothingness, Bits and pieces. Hard to think. Paulo is here, he looks so lost. Nothingness again. The room is dark with a hallway light shining in. Darkness. Lucy, It’s Lucy. She is here. Is she holding his hand? Is this even real?
It has been four days since Mike was admitted to the hospital. He has been conscious for only two of those days. People asked questions but Mike spoke so little.He was barely able to get any answers out. He preferred to just sleep, Lay his head down, and eat when he could stomach it. He was sick of himself. He hated himself. Just wanted to fade away. But then again he didn’t. Both his desire to live and desire to be free of this pain went up against each other. An eternal contradiction.
He wishes he didn’t try to kill himself. He wishes he didn’t swallow an entire bottle of pills.
The regret set in as soon as he did it.
How thought about how he could be so stupid? How could he be such a terrible person? How could he hurt everyone he loved? He wanted to cry but he didn’t even have the energy for even that. He reflected on that until he heard his door opening. He expected his parents again but instead met eyes with a familiar brown cat. The next thing he knew Daisy was holding him, her mom standing just outside the door. No one said anything. Actions spoke louder than words. Mike on the other hand couldn’t stop speaking.
“I’m so sorry…I’m so sorry”.
“It’s okay Mikey everything is going to be okay..” He heard Daisy sob out. Just for a moment he believed her. More friends were to come see him that day.
By the fourth therapy session he had opened up. He spoke about everything from his childhood to his painful present, how his own friends left him feeling so belittled. And how much Sandy breaking up with him was a straw that broke the camel’s back.. By the fifth group therapy meeting he finally started sharing. It was hard not too. So many people shared his pain. The girl who talked about ODing after her ex-boyfriend got her addicted to opioids and the boy who nearly took his life after his dad walked out on him and his mom. He wasn’t alone in this. Despite some enlightenment, being an inpatient for the last two weeks was torture. More than anything else he wanted to go home. He wanted to sleep in his own bed. Wanted his mom to make him dinner.
“Micheal, How are you today?” His counselor asked him, pulling him back to the present. “I’m just..really tired”. He said abysmally. It felt like a good day to try sleeping his troubles away again.
She gave a nurturing smile “If it's your medication. I can look into getting your dose lowered.” He laid back in his seat. “It’s not that..It’s just I keep feeling nervous about going back home and facing everyone” His counselor wrote something down.
“Don’t get me wrong…I want to go back there but…”
”It feels like it just won’t be the same?” She said, He simply nodded in return before holding his head in his hands.
Mike fidgeted in his seat then he took a deep breath to ground himself. Algebra 2. Today was his first day back to class and his second day back home from the psych ward in general. He felt like he just got back from visiting another planet. Everything was familiar but a familiarity he had to re-adapt to. His friends have been very loving to him but still he felt a sense of unease over it. Did they feel guilty? Did they feel responsible? He nonetheless appreciated the free soda and offers to help with homework. His skin went cold when he remembered who was sitting in the back of his classroom where Lucy sat. She didn’t seem to acknowledge him but he could feel some emotional tensity when she walked by. He gulped and tried to focus on the equations on the board.After a couple minutes or so a note was passed to him from the student behind him. He could recognize the handwriting right off the bat. “Mike, meet me by the bleachers during lunch. We need to talk.- Lucy” He hid the note before the teacher could be the wiser.
His heart skipped a beat when he walked out onto the empty football field, fall leaves crunched under his feet. He didn’t know what to think about, let alone what he was going to say. Lucy was there as promised when he made it. “Mike..” “Lucy…” he said, avoiding eye contact. A pit in his stomach growing. And for a very long moment they both stood there as if time itself had been frozen. Not a sound but that of the wind. That ended when Lucy walked up and slapped him on the face. Mike felt the stinging pain on his cheek. He was about to open his mouth when Lucy fell to her knees in front of him. Sobbing heavily. “W-what were you thinking?!? You idiot you stupid fucking jerk!” She hugged on to his waist, her words becoming mere muttering when paired with her sobbing. All mike could do was pet her head affectionately. Soon he too felt his own tears stream down.
“Please to god Mike…Please don’t leave me…” He couldn’t even if he wanted to and he didn’t.
They had skipped the rest of the school day. Whatever this was, it was more important. Mike and Lucy sat together under a tree holding on to each other as if they haven’t seen each other in decades. “When I found out what happened. All I felt was fear. Fear that I would lose you for good.” Lucy said. In response he held onto her hand and said “I’m sorry Lucy, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what else to say”. She put her head onto his chest. The warmth of his body brought her a certain kind of peace. “ I should be sorry, Mike…All I ever was was a burden”.
“That isn’t true.” he spoke with a sense of urgency as if he wanted to make sure this idea never entered her head again “You complete me, Lucy. Always have even if I was too stubborn to see that.” She wiped a tear from her eye before saying “We are very messed up aren’t we?” he gave a bittersweet chuckle causing Lucy to smile before resting her head on him again.She would later fall asleep on Mike. He didn’t wake her. Laying with her ignited a spark of joy within him Yet in spite of this he felt some underlying dread. Where was this going? Can they work it out this time? At that very moment he simply did not know and chose to push those thoughts away and focus on the present.
She was falling. Falling off a great cliff into an awesome expanse of turbulent waters. A death sentence. She knew this was it. A terrible end to a lonely life. She closed her eyes before she hit the water. She expected pain then oblivion but instead she felt something different. She opened her eyes and she was on dry land, in the arms of her gray cat. His green eyes were shining at her. Saving her again, as he has done so many times in the past. This time though, this time he needed her.
She woke up in a sweat and grabbed her phone to check the time: 2:00 AM. She sighed and sat up.
This was as much as she could get. After all, she spent most of the afternoon sleeping in his arms. Lucy wondered how everything was going to play out over the next few days. Not too long ago she did everything she could to force this boy out of her mind only for fate to seemingly put each other back in their respective paths. She had both loved him and hated him at various points in her life. Now. Now she didn’t know how to feel beyond just wanting him alive and in her life for better or worse. But she couldn’t help but gulp when she thought about what her family was going to think. What everyone was going to think.