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MY EYES FLUTTER OPEN TO AN unfamiliar ceiling. Again. The light is too white, the air too still, and the silence too loud.
For a second, I wonder if I’m dreaming, but then the sterile smell, the beeping machines, the weight on my chest…it all feels too real.
I try to sit up, but a sharp ache shoots through my arms and ribs. My body feels heavy. Like I’ve been drowning and only now broken through the surface.
“Carmen,” someone breathes.
I blink, eyes adjusting to the room. My parents are standing. Felix too. His curls are a mess, eyes are bloodshot, red-rimmed and swollen like he’s been crying for hours.
“You’re awake,” he mutters, voice shaking.
“What happened?” My throat is dry, my voice hoarse. The words scrape on their way out.
“What happened was you swallowed a bunch of pills and overdosed, Carmen,” my dad says flatly, running a hand through his brown hair. His voice is quiet but stern. Like he’s trying not to yell. Like he’s trying to hold something back.
And then it all rushes back. The fight with Aaron. The look in his eyes when I mentioned his mum. My mum’s disappointed face. Her voice echoing in my ears. The silence of my bedroom. The bottle in my hand.
All of it hits me like a freight train and knocks the air from my lungs. My heart starts to race. So fast you can even hear it through the monitor beside me.
“We were so worried,” my mum whispers, her voice breaking on the last word.
“Why would you do this?” my dad asks, stepping closer.
I can’t answer. I don’t even know where to begin. I stare down at the blanket covering my legs, pulling it up to my chest. “I don’t know,” I whisper.
“That’s not a good enough answer,” he huffs, voice louder now, frustration seeping through.
I flinch instinctively at his tone. Felix notices and he places a hand on my shoulder. It’s light, careful. Like he’s scared I’ll break.
My mum grabs my dad’s hand, tugging him back. “We just want to understand this, okay? So we can help you, mija.”
I nod. But inside, I’m spiralling. Aaron knows. My parents know. Felix knows.
Everyone is going to find out. My biggest secret, my shame, my coping, my undoing, it’s out. There’s no hiding now. There’s nowhere left to run.
“I’m sorry,” my dad says after a long pause. “I just… seeing you rushed into the hospital, it was—” He doesn’t finish. He doesn’t have to. I see it in his eyes. The fear. The pain. The helplessness.
They mirror mine.
“I’m sorry,” is all I can whisper. It’s all I can offer.
“When did this start?” my mum asks gently.
Over a year ago. But I can’t say that. I can’t watch the disappointment on their faces deepen. “I don’t know,” I lie.
“The pills, Carmen,” my dad pauses, letting out a deep breath, “have they been a problem for a while?”
An addiction. He’s asking if I’m addicted. “I don’t know,” I mutter. Another lie.
My mum exhales, like she already knew I wouldn’t answer. “Okay. Why did you take so many, mija?”
My hand trembles as I run it through my hair, and I feel the sting behind my eyes. The tears are coming, no matter how hard I try to stop them.
“I don’t know!” I snap. “I don’t know anything, okay?!”
My dad looks at me like he’s already made a decision. “You’re going to rehab.”
I freeze. My heart skips a beat. “What?” My voice cracks, barely above a whisper.
“Dad?” Felix says, uncertain.
“If this has been going on for so long that you can’t even remember when it started, you’re going to rehab, Carmen.”
A single tear slips down my cheek. Rehab. A place full of strangers. Cold walls. Long sessions. No home. No comfort. Just me. Alone. I won’t have anyone.
“It’s for the best, mija,” my mum adds softly, but her words don’t land. Not the way she wants them to.
No. No. No.
“Please,” I beg. “I’ll get better. I promise.”
“You will, sweetheart,” my dad says quietly. “In rehab.”
“No!” My voice is louder now, desperate. “Please, just stop! Don’t send me off just because you don’t want to deal with me!”
“That’s not the reason why,” my mum says, her voice thick with tears.
But it is. Isn’t it? That’s what my brain tells me. That’s what it’s always told me. They want to focus on Felix. Their golden child. Their star. And I’m the mess in the background. The cracked picture frame they’ve tried to keep upright for too long.
“I’ll get better, Dad,” I plead, tears streaming down my face now. “I’ll go to therapy. I’ll take drug tests. Just please, don’t send me away. Please.”
“You need help, Carmen.”
All I ever needed was for them to notice me.
To love me loud enough that it drowned out the emptiness. To hold me without making me feel like a burden. To ask me if I was okay before I shattered.
“You don’t know what I need!” I cry, voice breaking completely. “You never have!”
My dad sighs like this is too much, and I already know what comes next. “We should go get the doctor,” he says, and just like that, he walks out with my mum rushing after him.
And I’m left here again.
Always left behind.
“Get out,” I mutter, eyes locked on my trembling hands.
“Carmen—”
“No. Get out.”
“You can talk to me,” Felix says gently.
“Can I?” I turn to look at him. My voice is bitter. Tired. “Even you know I can’t.”
He looks like I just slapped him. His mouth opens, then closes. “I’m sorry,” he chokes out after a moment. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
I say nothing. I can’t.
“I played a part in this. I know. And I’ll spend however long you need me to, apologising. Making it up to you. Anything.”
“You can start by leaving.” I don’t want him here, watching me slowly break. It’s embarrassing now that I’m really thinking about it. He didn’t need pills to deal with his problems, he made that clear. And here I am, lying down on a hospital bed, connected to machines because of them.
“I will,” he nods. “But…” I watch as he pulls something from his pocket and I freeze. “I know the pills you took were prescribed to Connie.” My head snaps up and my breath catches.
“I haven’t told Mum and Dad,” he says quickly, “and I won’t if you don’t want me to. But…these are his. Did he give them to you?”
“No,” I whisper, guilt tearing through me. “He has no idea I even took them.” It was a mistake.
Felix breathes out, long and slow. “Okay.” He slips the bottle back in his pocket, then steps closer, leans down, and kisses my forehead. “I’m so fucking sorry,” he whispers again. Then he’s gone. Out the door.
And that’s when I break. I try to hold it in. I try to be quiet. But the sobs rip through me before I can stop them. I can’t stop it. I can’t stop any of it. My shoulders shake uncontrollably. The tears pour faster than I can wipe them away. It’s not crying, it’s crumbling. Completely.
Everything hurts. My chest. My head. My heart.
This isn’t just about the pills. This isn’t just about rehab. This is about everything I’ve buried for so long finally clawing its way out.
I curl in on myself, knees drawn to my chest like I can fold small enough to disappear. My hospital bracelet digs into my wrist. The IV in my hand tugs uncomfortably when I move, but I don’t care. I don’t care about anything.
I just want to vanish.
I want to be nothing, because being something hurts too damn much. They all know now.
I thought all I wanted was to be seen by them but it’s worse. Somehow I am but I still feel invisible. Because even now, even with everyone looking at me like I’m broken, I still don’t think they see me.
They see the girl that overdosed.
They see the hospital bed.
They see the pills.
But they don’t see the girl who’s been screaming in silence for over a year. They don’t see the nights I spent on my bedroom floor, whispering to the ceiling that I didn’t want to feel like this anymore.
They don’t see how loud the world gets in my head, or how tired I am of pretending everything is fine. They don’t see how many times I tried to stop.
How many times I told myself just one more time and tomorrow I’ll be clean. They don’t see how badly I wanted to ask for help, but couldn’t. Because the second I admitted something was wrong, I knew they’d never look at me the same again.
And they don’t. They won’t. They can’t.
I press my fists to my eyes until I see stars. The pain grounds me for a second. Reminds me I’m still here. That I didn’t die.
But I think a part of me wanted to.
Not because I wanted to stop living. But because I wanted the pain to stop. And I didn’t know any other way. Now I have to live with that.
Live with the truth I can’t take back. Live with the look in Aaron’s eyes when he finds out what I did with his pills. Live with the cold, clinical walls of rehab. Live with the weight of hurting the people I love.
I don’t want to go. I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want to sit in a circle with strangers and talk about feelings I can’t even name.
But I don’t want to die either. Not really. So what does that make me? Broken? Hopeless? Too far gone? I don’t know.
All I know is that something in me cracked tonight. And I don’t know how to put it back together.
I lie back against the pillow, tears soaking the fabric, and stare at the ceiling like it holds answers. But it’s just empty. Blank. Like me.
I close my eyes and whisper, “Please, someone, just help me.”
But the room stays silent. And I stay shattered. Alone with the weight of everything I’ve never said. Alone with the mess I’ve made. And for the first time in my life, I’m not sure if I’ll survive it.
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