What Do You See?

These dumb doctors with their stupid tests. Ever since I sliced my veins open with a razor blade, they’ve been so intent on cracking the code of my psyche.

“What do you see when you look at this image, Abigail?”

The doctor, awkwardly positioned at the end of my bed, flashes me a white card featuring an obscure black splotch.

I clench my jaw. My teeth squeak as they grind against each other.

It’s Abby, I want to say. But instead, I glare at him in silence.

He peers back at me behind small, round spectacles perched on the tip of his pencil-sharpened nose and repeats the question.

I wonder how such a sour-faced, snooty old man could ever understand the workings of a tortured adolescent mind.

While he clicks his pen impatiently, I stare at the ambiguous ink spatter and decide it resembles a dead bug splattered on a windscreen. The thought gives me a hot sensation in the pit of my stomach, but I say nothing. Faking an exaggerated yawn, I lie back on the bed, feigning sleep.

There’s a rustling of papers and excessive throat clearing before he speaks.

“I’ll, uh, come back later then.” He’s gone with a soft thud of the door.

“Okay, you can stop pretending.”

I open one eye. A slow smile blossoms at the sight of my brother’s gap-toothed grin and dimpled cheeks.

“Hey, Big Sis,” he says, perched on the edge of my bed. He calls me that even though I entered this world a mere two minutes before him.

“Hi, Brat.” I prop myself up on my elbows. “Please tell me you’ve come to break me out of here?”

“Why?” He presses a hand on the firm mattress. “Bed seems comfy.” He points at the TV. “What more do you need?”

I roll my eyes and groan. “You have to get me out. It’s like prison—they’ve got security outside my room, and I can’t even pee without someone watching!”

“Hey, at least you get to skip out on school.”

I grimace and stick out my tongue. He pulls a funny face before crawling into bed beside me, lying so close I can feel his warm breath on my nose.

“So why’d you do it, sis?” It’s unusual to see him so solemn.

“Don’t! You sound just like those doctors.” I bury myself under the paper-thin bed sheet.

“Abby?”

The voice startles me. I peek out from under the covers.

The nurse hesitates in the doorway, brows raised. “Can I come in?”

I tell her it’s okay, and my brother slides off the bed, ready to leave.

She pushes the door open with her hip, and he gives me a small wave before disappearing down the hall.

“Time for your meds,” she sounds annoyingly cheerful. “Did you take your supplements this morning?”

I nod. The bitter, coppery aftertaste still coats my tongue.

“Good. Need to get those iron levels up.” Her eyes brush over my bandaged wrists. “You lost a lot of blood.”

No shit, Shirley.

She passes me the pink pills, and I swallow them gladly. The only good thing about this miserable place—they hand out sedatives like candy.

“I hear you haven’t been talking to the doctors.” She’s scribbling notes on my chart.

“Mmm…” I can already feel my body tingling as the pills take effect.

“They can’t help if you don’t speak to them, you know?”

I don’t respond, already dozing off.

A gentle nudge on my shoulder brings me back. “Need the toilet, hun?”

Shaking my head, I turn over to face the other way. There’s no faking it this time; I surrender myself to sweet oblivion.

The next morning, the sour-faced doctor is back with his cryptic cards, sitting stiffly on the edge of a chair—as if a high-jumper’s pole were shoved up his behind.

“Tell me what you see, Abigail.”

Squinting at the symmetrically shaped spot, I wonder what he needs me to say so I can get the hell out of here.

He pulls out another card, a different shape that appears to be two figures, lying face to face, clinging to each other.

When I examine it more closely, tilting my head to the side, I notice the bright crimson smears.

Blood.

I have the sudden sense that I can’t breathe. Like invisible hands are squeezing my neck. My body feels shaky and weird, and the same hot sensation grows in my belly.

The room spins, and I realise I’m going to be sick.

Before I can move, I start to hurl—a black, sticky liquid gushes from my mouth. It flows out of me like lava, spraying and spurting until every surface of the drab white hospital room is speckled with it.

The stunned doctor blinks furiously, covered in my spew. His once crisp white shirt stained with variously shaped dots. As the dark sticky stuff slides down his spectacles and dribbles down his chin, a childlike giggle escapes my lips.

The giggles turn into big belly laughs, burning my abs. I’d forgotten how good it feels to laugh out loud. I can’t stop, and I don’t try to, don’t want to. My whole body convulses in fits of laughter until—

My eyes flicker open. The room is dark, other than the light spilling through the gap under the door.

“Hey, Big Sis,” my brother whispers. I can just about make out his silhouette, sitting cross-legged by my feet.

“Hey, Brat.”

“Did I wake you?”

“No,” I stifle a yawn and sit up slowly. “What are you doing here in the middle of the night? Thought you had left.”

He shrugs. “I was bored.”

I snort. “I can think of better places to be.”

“Nah. Can’t leave you here all alone.”

His words hang in the air, silence filling the room like cold water rising.

“So…” he hesitates. “Are you going to tell me why you did it?”

I press my lips together and breathe out noisily through my nose.

“Why’d you think?”

There’s not enough light for me to read his expression.

“You can’t keep punishing yourself, sis, it wasn’t your fault.”

My bottom lip quivers as he fumbles to find my hand, squeezing gently. His fingers are achingly cold.

“And mom and dad—”

“What about them?” Anger bubbles inside me. “It’s not like they care anyway; they’re too busy thinking about you.”

He shakes his head. “You know that’s not true. They need you, Abby.”

I think about my parents—picture their gaunt, weary faces. They’ve been through hell since the accident, and I dragged them right back. Guilt gnaws at me like a hungry rodent.

“Yeah? Well…” my voice catches in my throat. Before I can finish, a flash of light blinds me. I hadn’t noticed the night nurse on her rounds. She’s shining the torch around the room, illuminating the spot where my brother should be.

The empty room plunges into darkness when she leaves.

“Well…I need you,” I whisper into the void.