My skull is buzzing, and I’ve lost all sense of time as I stand in Ms.Barnett’s office.She and I are waiting for Mrs.Sinclair so that I can explain to the two of them what Colin was doing in my bedroom and why he was blind drunk.
I decide on the truth.The truth about our shared birthday party, which went about as wrong as it could possibly go.And the other truth that I know now.Which Mrs.Sinclair knows too.
I see it in the way she jumps when I mention the fire at Colin’s school in New York.And then she has a lot to say.She says she’s sorry, that she was trying to avoid a fuss but felt that she had to give Colin a chance.
I don’t have the energy to yell and scream, so I ask my questions quietly.Why nobody told me.Whether she knew anything more about the accident, about whether it was actually Colin’s fault.But she doesn’t, of course.In the end, she sends me back to bed.
I don’t get a wink of sleep all night.And that’s got nothing to do with Tori creeping in to join me, to make us cups of tea and listen in silence as I tell her everything.Absolutely everything.Idon’t know if I’ve ever cried so much in my life as I do the night I turn eighteen.
I check my phone a million times, but dawn is breaking by the time Dad finally messages to tell me that Colin’s awake.
Colin
I come around, my head aching, and the sounds tell me that I’m in an intensive care ward.Beeping and low voices.
Shit.Been a while since that happened.I blink and try to remember how I ended up here, but there’s nothing.Just darkness.
There’s a nurse by my bed, and he immediately bombards me with questions.I get it—they need to find out if I’m all there, and if I know what happened.It doesn’t take long before I start to remember.The midnight party, Olive’s birthday, fight number one, booze, fight number two, more booze, and then my memories get kind of hazy.They tell me I had such a bad hypo that I lost consciousness.This is the third time in my life I’ve woken up in the hospital from one of those, but that doesn’t make it any less scary.More so, in fact, because the last time was almost two years ago.I was sick that time, spent half the night throwing up, couldn’t keep anything down.The first time was soon after my diagnosis, before I’d gotten a handle on insulin units.
And now I’ve been dumb enough to drink myself into a state where I couldn’t keep track of my blood-sugar levels.
I know I have to watch out with alcohol.I never had problems partying with my buddies in New York, but there’s a fast-foodjoint on every corner there, so I could always get a greasy burger or two to counteract the booze-induced hypo.It always worked—until it didn’t.
The doctor who looks in a bit later tells me it was a close shave.She bugs me to make appointments with the diabetes team to optimize my insulin regime, and about shit like impaired awareness of hypoglycemia, as if I couldn’t already write a book on that.And then she tells me I’m lucky my girlfriend was with me and called an ambulance.
I was already feeling shit, but now I think I might die.Because I vaguely remember.Olive knows everything.I got drunk and went to her.She let me sleep in her bed, and she must have known what to do later when I was ill.The emotions are stressing me out because I can’t remember exactly what happened, and I don’t want her fucking help.But I can’t deny that it’s also kind of good to know she was there.I’d really have been in deep shit if I’d been alone.But it’s not good.It doesn’t matter.Nothing matters a damn, because now Olive knows what I did.
Thinking about what happened last night makes my head ache.Suddenly those headlines were there on her phone.Where the hell did they come from?I didn’t think of that in the heat of the argument, but that’s not important either.She knows.She looked at me, and I could see in her eyes that something inside her had shattered.
A pathetic part of me is focused solely on the fact that she isn’t here.Real life obviously isn’t some corny episode ofGrey’s Anatomy, where you wake up in the hospital and the love of your life is sitting at the bedside, holding your hand, but...God knows.I’m in a foreign hospital, I’ve seriously fucked up, and I’m scared.Yeah.I’m scared of what will happen next.Will I be allowed back to Dunbridge Academy?Will I be sent home?Or will I be kicked straight off to some other boarding school, like Mom threatened?
Mom’s not here either.All I have from her are several missed calls and a text.
Mom:Call me as soon as you’re feeling better, I couldn’t get through to you.
Yeah, that’s funny.Sorry I didn’t answer while I was in intensive care being pumped full of God knows what electrolytes.My throat hurts, because they intubated me last night and put me on a ventilator.Someone must have told my parents—the school, I guess.
Call me.NotHow are you?NotWant us to fly over?Of course not.I didn’t seriously think they’d get on a plane to Europe just for this.Even if I’d been in a hospital in Manhattan, I can’t be certain they’d have come to see me.
Maybe I’m being unfair to her, but there’s not much trace of motherly kindness right now.And that doesn’t change when I do as she asked and call her.I speak to my mother, who asks questions, her voice hard, and says she’ll make sure Dr.Calder knows about “this incident.”
Whatever.I’m tired, Mom doesn’t ask what happened.She doesn’t want to know how I’m doing, just lectures me on the irresponsibility of drinking that much.
She’s on another continent, but she still sounds irritated that she’s had to be concerned about me and my state of health.Whenshe closes by reminding me that I have to get on a plane to New York next week and to make sure I’m fit enough by then, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
I’m about to choose the second option when the young doctor comes back.She takes a seat beside me, which tells me things are about to get awkward.Sure enough, she says she’s seen the scars on my body.Obviously, I downplay it, but when she asks if I want her to arrange help for me, I burst into tears.
I’m tired, it’s been a stressful few days, and everything is exhausting.I hate to admit it, but I think I’m all out of the strength to act like everything’s fine.And while I’m still not sure there are meaningful solutions to my issues, I’ve been more and more scared lately of what could come next.
I remember Olive and her serious expression as she sat beside me and said she was worried.And that was before she knew the fucking truth.Although maybe nothing would have turned out so shit if I’d been more sensible from the start.If I’d gotten help back in New York.If I hadn’t needed to hide in that gym bathroom to burn off the goddamn pressure.If I’d taken responsibility for myself—after all, life’s shown me I can’t expect anyone else to take care of me.Neither my parents nor the people I called my friends.
Not that it was their job.It’s mine.Entirely mine.And it took a girl, one I badly hurt, to teach me that I can start anytime.That it just takes a bit of fucking courage, trust, and confidence.So I nod.
This is kicking off a chain reaction, I know that, but I also know I can’t go on like this.That it won’t do any good to keep denying I have a problem I can’t solve on my own.I tried that and failed.But I feel a spark of hope now that, with support, I can tackle it.
The doctor stands up and hands me a tissue.She doesn’t say that everything will be fine—and I really appreciate that somehow—but she does promise to take care of things.I don’t know how drastic she thinks my situation is, but before the end of the day, I spend forty-five minutes being asked uncomfortable questions by a shrink.
I hate it at first, but after a while, I realize nothing shocks him, however brutally honest my replies.He just nods, looks at me, takes notes, and asks his next question.In the end, he gives me the names and numbers of therapists in Edinburgh.I mention that there’s a psychologist at our school I can go to, and he thinks that’s a good starting point.I don’t know that I entirely agree, but I don’t get a chance to keep wondering because Olive’s dad comes in to ask how I am.It’s depressing that he seems to take more interest than my own father does, but he’s probably just doing his job, sent by Mrs.Sinclair.I don’t have the guts to ask him about Olive, but the intense way he looks at me makes me think he has some idea of how tricky everything is.
