Bruised | ✔️

"She's gone" (3)

Alex

I was emitted from the hospital yesterday evening. Brett came back into the room with a pale face and shaking hands.

I sit there silently with the constant beeping of the heart monitor and only my thoughts to keep me company. The door clicked and in walked Brett. His skin looked a lot paler and he was sweating and shaking all over the place.

"Brett? What's wrong?" I ask curiously.

"N-Nothing. Nothing. Uh, the doctor said you can go home today." He says with a smile.

Home. A word I have never known. Something I've never truly had. I put on a fake smile nonetheless.

"Home." Brett smiles and leaves the room so I can get dressed in the clothes he's brought for me.

I wonder what's got Brett so shaken up. He could barely make eye contact with me as he dropped me off at my house that day.

My father was waiting for me when I got home. Like literally, waiting, at the door for me. Boy, did I get beat. I'm lucky enough to not have ended up back in the hospital again.

Today at school, when I walked in the halls, everyone was dead silent. You could hear a pin drop from a mile away. I must have been in the papers. As if answering my question, someone in the crowd threw a newspaper, from the other day, at my feet.

Teen Boy Jumps Off Westmore Bridge

Alexander Davenport has recently decided to try to take his life by leaping off of the Westmore Bridge on August 7, 2015 at approximately 7:13 P.M. No one knows why Alexander, or Alex, has tried to take his life away from this world.

Great. Now everyone knows how I've tried to kill myself. The attention will be unbearable to deal with. Brett hasn't spoken to me since I was checked out of the hospital and he has been avoiding me at school so I can't count on him to help. Just when all my hopes and dreams were crashing down, Brett comes speedily towards me with a concerned expression on his face.

When he reaches me he grips my shoulders and looks back and forth between my eyes.

"Are you okay?" He asks. Thinking he's referring to the paper I nod.

"Why wouldn't I be? I mean, yeah, everyone knows I jumped but it's not a big de-"

"I'm not talking about the paper, Alex, I'm talking about your mother. She..she was in an accident."

⭕⭕

I anxiously paced through the waiting room of the same hospital I was in not to long ago. Brett, quietly sitting in a chair, shaking his leg up and down, trying to get me to take a seat.

"Alex," Brett says, standing up and grabbing my elbow, "she will be fine. Don't worry." He pulls me to his chest and I take deep breaths, breathing in his woodsy smell. I haven't cried once since I got the news. I need to be brave.

Once we got here, the lady at the front desk, told us that the doctor would be with us in a moment to explain what had happened. We've been waiting for a half an hour.