Jessica
Jessi Hanson sat in her bathroom with the window opened wide and the fan on, her tear-streaked face drying slowly in the breeze. Numb, she took the cigarette she was smoking and studied it. How perfectly round the lit end was, that beautiful orange-red colour, with the gray flecks of ash forming around the edges. Without blinking, she held it against the inside of her forearm, her eyes watering as the smooth, milky flesh began to pucker under the pressure of the cigarette being put out. She was oddly fascinated by the smell of her burning flesh, and the fact that the pain was nothing compared to what she had inside.
She was a screw-up. Just existing, she knew she was hurting those who cared about her. She couldn't do anything right. Not her school-work, not her chores, and she certainly wasn't a good sister. How many times this week had Avie had a nightmare? But Jessi was too scared to even try to dreamwalk again. ANd forget about sleeping. And now Taylor was gone. The one person other than her sister that she could go to with her problems, he was gone. Dead, or so she was told.
And Zac, who had always been her rock, he was too busy now. Had too many things to deal with on his own, with Julie and the baby, and helping her figure things out. And the other night when she had gone into his room to see if he would talk? He was gone. Everybody was gone, everybody was sad, and it was her fault. Jessi just knew it, deep inside, that if she was gone, then they wouldn't even care. Oh, they'd be sad for a little while, but they'd be better off.
Jessi flicked the cigarette butt into the toilet and lit up another. Inhaling deeply, she tried to let the nicotine calm her, but it was no use. Nothing helped anymore. Even the cutting and burning, that used to help. . . before Owen, barely scratched the surface of her pain.
"I'm nothing," she said out sould to herself. "NOTHING!" she screamed, but nobody heard her over the blasting stereo in her room. She stared at herself in the mirror.
"Stupid, ugly girl," she muttered. "You asked for it. You knew you were too ugly to get a boyfriend, so you ASKED for him to hurt you. You deserved it," she told her reflection. Before she even realized what she had done, she'd punched through the mirror.
The oldest Hanson girl stared amazed at her hand, as the blood pooled around her knuckles.
"So pretty," she whispered to herself. "So beautiful, I can go quietly, with such beauty," she said. She reached into the sick and picked up the sharpest shard of glass that she could find. Looking around, she decided to climb into the bathrub, to make it easier for her mother to clean up. She knew they'd find her eventually. Looking at the glass in her hand, she changed her mind, it was too dull. She grabbed Ike's razor, and carefully pried it apart, putting the plastic and metal ieces back on the shelf, and holding the blade tightly in her hand. Sitting in the tub, she took a deep breath. Through her tears, she slid the blad up her left wrist. Forcing herself to work through the pain, she took the blade in her left hand, and pulled it across her right wrist, watched with awe as the blood spilled out. Closing her eyes, she laid back.
*Goodbye,* she projected to anybody who was listening telepathically.
Isaac
Isaac knocked on the bathroom.
"Hello?" he said. "Anyone in there? I really need to go."
No one answered so Isaac opened up the door only to see the shower curtain closed with a trickle of blood running down the outside of the tub. Divided between nature shouting at him and his own curiousity, he opened the curatin and saw Jess lying in the tub in a pool of blood.
"Oh my gosh! Jessi!"
Suffice to say nature wasn't shouting at Isaac any more. More likely nature was rolling around on the floor laughing as a yellow waterfall drip down his leg.
Isaac, ignoring this, rushed to his sister's site and saw the slashed wrists and tried her neck for a pulse. Of course, he was never very good at that so he couldn't really tell. He needed to get a Healer and fast!
He ran out of the bathroom and headed for the phone. He pulled out their list of emergancy numbers and taped in that of their local Healer.
"Please be at home, please be at home," he begged as the phone rang. "Yes! Hello? Is this Randy Greenwood? This is Isaac Hanson... you have Healing, right? Can you come over, like, right now? My sister's slashed her wrists."
Isaac went on to give him the address. When he hung up,he noticed Diana staring at him.
"Ike? What's wrong?"
"Jessi. She's slashed her wrists."
"What?" she gasped.
Diana had been aware that Jessica had been suffering, but... darn her kids were too good at hiding their emotions from her these days! She had no idea it had been that bad...
"I've called Mr Greenwood," Isaac said. "He should be here soon."
"You wait for him then. Where's Jessi?"
"In the bathroom."
Diana nodded and made her way there.
Isaac heard a car pulled up outside and peered out the window. Well, whoever it was, they were outside their yard and opening the front gate. Isaac hurried over to the door and opened it before the man could touch the font step.
"Randy Greenwood?" he asked anxiously.
"That's me," Randy nodded.
"Oh good. I couldn't tell if she was alive or not, but Mom - she's an empath - said she could still sense her faintly."
Randy nodded again and followed Isaac up the stairs to the bathroom. Jessi was still lying in the bathtub. Diana was sitting next to her, talking quietly, with tears rolling down her cheeks. She looked up as they came in.
"Oh, Randy is here," Diana said. "He'll help you now, Jessi, and take away those nasty cuts."
Randy knelt beside Jessica and put his hands over her wrists. Isaac and Diana waited. Diana thought the silence would kill her.
Fianlly, Randy pulled away, her wrists whole again, without even a scar to show for it.
"She lost a lot of blood," Randy said. "I replenished as much as I could, but she should still get a transfusion from someone. I'm just a healer, not a doctor, but I can arrange for one to take it from here."
Diana nodded.
"You can use our phone if you need it."
"Thank you ma'am," he paused. "She may or may not wake, it's hard to say, but if she does, she'll probably be weak."
He gave a couple more brief instructions and Isaac departed with his to show him where a phone was.
Avery
Avery was sitting in her room, drawing little cartoons in her sketch book. As she looked at the window, she felt a great pang of sadness. Taylor wasn't here... and from what had been said, it didn't look like he was going to be back. She felt tears trickle down her cheeks for her lost brother. She should've known it was Christian. But she didn't... and now they were all paying for it.
As she got out of her chair and moved to the window, she heard a frantic "goodbye" in her head. Seconds later, Avery heard Isaac screaming and she bolted from her place in her room to the bathroom where she saw Jess.
"Oh god, no..."
Jessica
Jess slowly opened her eyes, and realized, in a sudden panic, that her attempted had failed. Not even any scars to show for it. She was too weak to really move, but she rolled over and curled up in a little ball, weeping bitterly.
Isaac
"Jessi? Jessi, sweetie?" Diana said, crying herself. "Oh honey! I'm so sorry. I should have been more aware of how you were feeling. I'm so sorry sweetie."
Isaac reappeared then, and saw his sister awake.
"Hey..." he said softly. "You comfy in there, or would you like me to move you to your bed, huh?"
Jessica
Jess looked up at him with swollen eyes. "Why couldn't you have just let me die?" Jessi pulled her knees up into her chest, willing herself to just disappear, but it didn't work. "I just want to go to sleep," she whispered to Ike.
Isaac
"Because we love you, sweetheart," said Diana. "And we don't want to lose you."
"That's right," Isaac said as he telekinetically lifted his sister out of the bath. "Uh, I think you may need a change of clothes..."
Diana burst into tears again at the sight of Jessica's blood soaked clothes.
Jessica
"Bullshit." Jessi said. "You don't love me. Your lives would be easier if I wasn't around."
Avery
Avery who was hovering behind her mother started to cry.
"How can you say that, Jess? How can you say we don't love you? If we didn't love you..." She trailed off and gave in to her crying, unable to speak.
Isaac
Isaac telekinetically took Jessica to her room.
"If we didn't love you," Isaac said, "then why would we bother calling Randy to heal you? We would have just left you there to die. I don't know where you've gotten this idea that we don't love you, Jessi. I don't know where you got the idea that our lives would have been better without you. Because I wouldn't trade your part in our lives for anything. We all love you Jessi, and we mean it."
Jessi
"Go away," Jessi hissed. "Just LEAVE ME BE!" she said as she rolled over into a tight little ball.
Isaac
Randy reappeared then with a young woman.
"Everyone, this is Sue. She's come to check Jessica, and do the transfusion," Randy said.
Sue approached Jessica.
"Hey girl," she said softly. "Okay, I've checked my records, you have a couple of kids who have the same type as Jess, Mrs Hanson, and your husband is also the same. Umm... if he's not here... Clarke can."
"That's Isaac," Isaac said. "And I'd be happy to donate."