Private Affair (The Private Series) (3 page)

It’s nearly midnight and we are still here in the hospital. When a nurse came in asking us to leave, Ben refused. Luckily the nurse understood and brought in a couple of cots for us to sleep on. We of course push them together and lay with one another.

The silence is getting to us and it’s hard to speak right now. I decide to pull out my iPod and I hand him one headphone and I keep the other. He eyes me and smiles. He knows what words fail to speak music speaks volumes. I flip on a calm playlist and we lay there listening, eventually we nod off in one another’s arms.

We are tapped on the shoulders and are awaken by Jack and Gwen standing above us in the dark. Ben takes the ear-bud out of his ear, stands and hugs his father. I look to see that it’s after four in the morning, I hug each of them.

“How did you get in here so late or early for that matter?” I ask, remembering the nurse trying to get rid of us.

“Dear, all you have to do is play the doctor card and you can get in any hospital at any hour.”

I return with a warm smile.

Ben tells his father and new mother, what the doctor had told us and that she wanted to meet him in the morning.

“I had no idea that she was harming herself,” Jack says in shock and pain.

“I know Dad, I know that if you did know something was off you would have gotten her help right away.” Ben offers comforting words to his father. Both men are sitting at the round table and Gwen went off to grab some coffee. We all figured it’s almost morning anyways…

We all waited in the room and then Dr. Parkers found out that we were all up and here, and she made an early stop in at six a.m. She gave us the rundown again and Jack asked his medical related questions and concerns. Then the topic I was dreading coming up, recovery. Will she have to go into a facility or rehab?

“We will get into all of that after she wakes up and we have the hospitals psychologist perform a few tests and talk to Caroline.” Dr. Parkers tells us.

We hear stirring coming from Caroline’s bed and we look over to see her trying to wake up. Ben is the first at her side and takes his sister’s hand. “Caroline, its Ben we are all here.” He assures her.

Her eyes slowly open and she tries to lift her other arm, the injured one. She cries out when she tries to close her hand. “Hey, hey, easy you’re pretty banged up and plugged in here sis. Just try to lay still.”

“That’s right baby girl, try to be still and rest.” Jack tells her.

She licks her dry lips and tries to speak, but her throat it’s too dry to get out anything other than a whisper. “Where am I?” She asks Ben.

“You are in the hospital Caroline. Do you remember what happened?” He asks her. Ben moves a chair over using his foot so he can sit by his little sister side.

She closes her eyes and nods.

“Why?” Ben asks.

Tears start to fill her eyes and she bites down on her lip. She obviously needs a little more time to talk about this, so I persuade Ben to give his father and Gwen a few moments with her and to go get some more coffee with me at the hospitals coffee bar.

He reluctantly agrees to come with me.

Walking through the halls of the hospital I notice the abundance of Christmas decorations. Any other day I would light up at the sight, but this is hardly the place I or anyone else would want to take joy. Sure, if you’re having a baby, but something like this? No way.

We get to the hospital café hand in hand when I see a six-foot decorated tree. I stop at the sight of it and Ben attempts to keep walking forward, when he is halted to a stop. “Tess?”

I draw my eyes from the twinkling sight, “Hmm?”

He joins me at my side and looks at the tree and he shakes his head, “hard to believe we were coming to the city to spend a happy Christmas with my sister. Here we are at her bed side and to think Christmas in just two short days … I thought she was happy, why did she do it?”

“Ben, you need to give her time to talk about it, you can’t expect her to just tell you everything that she has been keeping inside for God knows how long. If she couldn’t do it all this time, what makes you think it will be easy for her to do it right now?”

“Because, she needs help, help that I should have been able to give her or offer her, so it wouldn’t go this far! I have been there for her from the beginning. Taking care of her and her not coming to me at all kills me Tess.” He sounds pissed and devastated all at once.

“I know, but you need to be easy with her right now. She knows that we all know what she did and what she has been doing, now it’s up to her to open up … and to whom.” I tell him.

We find a small sofa and sit to enjoy or coffee before going back up. I play around with how to tell him what I need to in my head. I haven’t told anyone this ever. No one.

“Ben…” I stop and bite my lip.

“Yes babe?” He tucks a piece of hair behind my ear and I rest my hand into his palm.

I take in a calming breath, “I know what Caroline is going through.”

Studying me for a moment he asks, “What do you mean?”

“I was a cutter in high school, even more so after nearly being attacked.”

His eyes widen and he pulls away briefly and then takes my hand. I go on, “I never went as far as Caroline did, but I don’t think she meant to go so far. It’s always a risk. But I had no control over anything at that point of my life. I was being bashed by my father. I lost all of my friends. And I lost my art dream. Most teens turn to drinking or drugs, not me. I felt control when I felt pain. But once I found music I stopped. That was my wakeup call and one song in-particular, Hold On, by Good Charlotte.”

“Tess…” I see him eyeing my body, probably trying to figure out where my scars are, considering he has inspected every inch of me.

“Wondering where my scars are, huh?” I try to ask casually, but I drop my head.

He places his hand around my wrist and observes it, “Well, yeah. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, I never went too deep, but you can see a few light ones just below my hip.” His hand moves slowly to my hip as we sit and I close my eyes. I feel vulnerable for telling I’m, but at the same time a little freed.

“I am okay now, but that’s why you need to give Caroline time to figure this out. Just know that I will help talk to her about it, because I have been there.”

“I really appreciate that Tess. God, I love you and I wish we could have been together in high school.”

I laugh, “Man, we would have been one messed up pair, with me doing what I was doing and you getting into fights…”

“I was thinking more along the lines of making out, but whatever…”

I never would have imagined Tess cutting or being depressed enough to do something like that in her past. I know her Dad really fucked up when she was a kid and she was an outcast in school, but it kills me inside knowing that someone or a group of people could be so cruel to a young girl who was just trying to find herself.

If I was there when she was in school I would have kicked some major ass, I would have done anything to make sure she was protected and assured that she was beautiful and worthy of all the happiness in the world. But no, no one seems to give a fuck about who they hurt.

I can see so much of Tess in Caroline. They are both independent and unique, along with passion and drive. Maybe Tess can talk to Caroline, if she won’t talk to me, maybe Tess can help her in some way with her own story.

Doctor Parkers wanted to meet together in her office today. Yesterday we were all a wreck after all the travel and stress and tears about Caroline that she thought it’d be best to wait until this afternoon to speak about treatment.

We are all seated in front of Dr. Beth Parkers large desk and I refuse to let go of Tess’s hand. I am taking in deep settling breaths and I look to my father who just looks a little lost and sad. Gwen rubs his back slightly and I am grateful for her to comfort him. This morning Caroline was up and moving, going to the bathroom on her own and her color looked much better.

Her roommate had been the one to find her in their dorm room bathroom. She was on the floor collapsed by the sink. She had told the EMT’s that she didn’t know how long she was there for, but that there was a lot of blood and when she screamed for her to wake up, she wouldn’t budge. Hearing the story makes me a little sick and the room started to bow out.

“Ben? Are you alright?” I hear Tess asking me. I was instructed by Doctor Parkers to put my head between my knees and breathe. She comes to me with a glass of water and I slowly sit up.

I lean over and assure Tess with a kiss on the cheek, “I am okay, just a lot to take in.”

“It’s a lot on all of us son,” my dad tells me and I know it’s hard on everyone. I mean fuck my baby sister nearly killed herself.

The doctor brings our attention to herself and we start to go over Caroline’s treatment. By the end of the meeting my father had asked my opinion on the matter, which surprised me a little and we agreed that she needed to spend a short time in a rehab facility. Not a lockdown kind of place, but a place that will teach her ways to build herself up and how to better manage her depression and stress.

“Now has she told any of you about what has been happening? Or for how long?” She asks us.

I shake my head no and Dad answers her with a saddened “no.”

“I see. That is normal and that is why I suggested the agreed facility back in Seattle, they will help her talk about it and how to heal.”

“When does she go?” Tess asks.

“She is cleared to leave this evening. I suggest getting home and having her get some sleep in her own surroundings and I can suggest only one of you to go with her in the morning and I recommend that be her choice. It’s about feeling comforted and safe at this stage.”

As hard as it is to agree that Caroline needs to have professional help, I know it’s the best and only option. I never took it as far as she did, yes I cut but, it was never as deep or as frequent. I watched a nurse change her bandages and I saw all of the scars, far too many. She needs to get help now before she does it again. Next time she may not be found in time and things could be a lot worse.