Hundred watt bulb

 Hey guys, a more normal sized update for you this time, I'm sorry I've been out of it for so long, I had laptop trouble and then I moved! I know I don't have to put labels here but I just wanted to say be safe- because this could be triggering for SI. Anyway, hope you're all well. RJxox

As I force my breathing to slow I gaze up at the small window high over the bed. Its frame is dark, no comforting rim of light leeching from around the square blind, white like everything else in this place. I glance at the clock with its hands resting at 1:17 and I realise, with a sense of finality tinged with the faint desperate taste of expectation that nothing has changed for the better. This night, just like so many others before, I won't sleep. Knowing that all I can do is sit in the confined space and think, makes the five hours until day break stretch out for eternity. But what use, is an eternity filled with nothing? A grunt of noise from the left startles me; don't tell me that psychologist is still here?! I open my mouth, ready to rant and rage until he turns and leaves, tail tucked between his legs. I turn to the side, and I can see his face bathed in the slight glow emanating from the emergency call buttons along the bedside panel...and it's not the psychologist, it's my father. A rush of feeling sweeps through me, most surprising of all is my sudden joy at my dad's presence. This must be the first time I've seen him in months...months and months! I go to cry out but stop myself as I notice his phone resting next to me, screen up reading (1) New message: Julia. What? My brain is still a little hazy from the pain killers, but I know that's not why I'm confused, why would my mum be messaging? I'm sure they haven't been in contact since the shouting match last Christmas...but then, how else would he know I was here. Without considering the implications I hit 'view' and my mother's message fills the screen, 'Don't let J in, he shouldn't see her'. That bitch, James is probably the only person in the world that I'm really sure I love...how could she do this? But then, maybe she's right, what kind of example is this for James? Although it's not like there's anything to see, a bandaged wrist and a father who by all accounts should be absent, surely they can't have told him I'm sick or anything. I can feel my body begin to shake, quaking at the injustice of the somewhat imagined slight, I hate myself for leaving my brother. I don't care about secrecy at this point, I just want my mother to hurt as much as I am so I scribble on the hospital issue paper on the bedside don't worry if your hate seems inadequate, I've got enough Rose-hatred for two.

I spot the private bathroom off this room, and almost intuitively I know that the blades I'd hidden in the lining of my wash bag must be there. Besides that, its pure logic...surely someone has picked up my things. It's like I'm drawn to there, to them. Like...you know when you play a video game, important items show up with a glowing outline of blue or orange or green. And even if you don't understand the game, it's instinctive that the glowing items are important. Reach them, and things will change, be better. The blade hidden in my wash bag- god knows how they weren't found- shine like a hundred watt bulb. Luring me as surely as a moth to a flame. Helpless. I ease myself off the bed, succumbing to the inevitable; I tiptoe on socked feet towards the bathroom where my escape lies waiting. The blades unearthed, malevolence glinting off the shiny silver, I grasp one in my now encumbered left hand and send a quick prayer for forgiveness winging it's way to Ally.

That's when I dream in colour

The last conscious thought to drift through my mind before I succumb to the stupor is how it's so easy to let go of myself mentally when I could never- even when she was irrevocably and irrefutably gone- release my grip on Ally.

It seems as if I swim through my subconscious, but perhaps I merely dream. Colours swim, and strange patterns emerge, like the ones I used to imagine existed in my head when I closed my eyes and rubbed the tightly closed lids. Fantastic lights and colours performing a silent show for my benefit. Memories float by me- evident in the glimpse of a face, or a fuzzy scene as if viewed through water. For a brief moment, I wonder if this is what my psyche looks like- but then I condemn it as some madness brought about by all the pain killers smothering my system. Strangely, I feel almost at peace, even as the usually torturous images of Ally flash through my muddled brain. 

I wake scrambling, but immediately freeze when I note my surroundings. Struggling to slow my racing heart while at the same time inhaling as little of the clinical air as humanly possible.


RJxo 
Sorry for the teeny update! I'm highly apologetic, yesterday was a bad day, and today was a busy day. I'll post more soon I promise. xxx

Echo

"I just, I just don't want to pretend okay!?" I have been propelled upright by my words- stronger than I feel- but now I slump back down onto the pillows, as the last of the strength that momentarily flashed through me out of anger drains away.
"Rose...I'm sorry, I truly did not mean to upset you" And for some reason, against my better judgement and potentially influenced by the morphine coursing through my veins, I believe him.
"I'm Dr. Hale...Chris Hale, you were referred to me by the intern who admitted you to the A&E last night."
My breath comes in shallow gasps, fighting to deny the unwavering truth I hear behind his words, this isn't how it's meant to be at all.
"Well? Rose? Is there anything you want to talk about particularly? How are you feeling?"
I hold myself still with the utmost care, breathing lightly and taking up the smallest square of room on the bed, intent on absorbing as little of this hospital as possible.
"I was wondering-"
"I hate this place." I hear myself admit, "when can I leave?" I ask, when all I really want to ask is when can I go home.
"But Rose..." his placating doctor tones roll over me, "you've barely been awake for five minutes".
"Doctor..."
"Hale"
"Yes, Dr. Hale, would it take you longer than five minutes in hell to realise you harboured no desire to be there?" I inject every ounce of scathing I can muster into the sentence, and yet  he chuckles softly in reply. A brief moment of mirth surfacing, he looks as surprised by his amusement as I am irritated. I wasn't aiming to be witty or funny.
"I'm afraid Rose, you have no choice."
You have no choice. Those four inconsequential words are all it takes to send me careering into a memory tailspin. I can almost hear her cracked whisper, see her hand resting lightly next to mine. It's near enough to this day a year ago that I sat in a room almost identical to this one with Ally, there was never any question that I would overcome my fear of hospitals to be with her- but since then my profound loathing for them has only grown. I had of course sat on the opposite side of the low rails on the narrow bed than where I'm curled up now, holding onto her limp and unresponsive hand- light brown against the glaring sanitary white of the hospital sheets. I had been immovable during those visiting hours, precious snatches of time I was allowed to spend with her as I watched her hand lie listlessly in my own I had begun to understand that it was only a matter of time before Ally left me for somewhere she belonged. If only I could release her. I would have stayed forever, but the reminder always came, dropping through the heavy air to rest around me.
"Rose, you have no choice." The psychologist's voice fades out of my awareness, a false echo of what once was.