Lana feels

Heather, as always, was right. Three of these four weeks have flashed by and the fourth is promising to do the same. I was right, too. Four weeks has been long. Too intense in the lab and then too empty out of it - no responsibilities except go to class and check-in at 10:30. Which, really, only leaves me with the time between waking up at 7 and going to class at 9:30, and getting out of class at any time between 4 and 7 and check-in at 10:30. There's a lot of time between 4 and 10:30, though. I try to write but I really - I can't get Amanda out of my head. Honestly. I think that is the problem here. I can't think anymore, can't stop working or moving without her invading my brain and poking at me. Her phone number sits on my desk sending out insidious thought-waves at me. I want to call but I have no idea what I would say. "Hey Mandy, I heard you tried to kill yourself and I thought I would call and see how you were doing even though we haven't spoken in months." "Hey Manda, Jessica called and told me your issues had finally come to a head and that you'd realized it wasn't my fault you're the way you are and she gave me your number and told me to call." "Hey Amanda, it's Alana. I just thought I'd call and make sure your latest suicide attempt didn't take." "Hey Panda, I still care." I mean, what the hell is there to say to her? We haven't spoken since before Spring Trip! I still care about her, the news that she'd tried to kill herself came as a hugely painful shock, but I don't really have anything to say! If I could see her it would be one thing, if we could do our little body-language thing and I could read her reactions in her eyes and her lips and the way she moved her hands, if I could just hold her and let her cry or explain or whatever it is she needs to do... But I don't have anything, really, to say. And I fear what I would say given the chance. I fear saying something bitter, I fear hurting her even more, I fear upsetting whatever fragile balance she may have found in the last two weeks. And the part of me with a healthy interest in self-preservation doesn't much like the thought of handing her my heart, yet again, and giving her the opportunity to hurt me. Again. Because she did. She did and though perhaps it was not her intention to do so, she did. I fear calling her and hearing her voice and having her tell me to leave her alone, having her hang up on me, or her saying something that will stab into the slowly closing wound that she left on my heart. I forgive her everything, I gave up being angry with her by mid May, but I'm still afraid of her, of being hurt by her, of hurting her. And there's also the quiet, frightened voice that fears to call because what if her mother didn't get home in time that day? What if I call and I ask to talk to a daughter who no longer lives? I fear inflicting that sort of pain on her family, and I fear the knowledge. It's unlikely, sure, because most people don't die from swallowing a bottle of Tylenol. I didn't, and what I took was more than Tylenol, and more than a bottle. I'm just afraid. Afraid of what I would find out, afraid of what she would say, afraid of what I would say. I have an immense masochistic streak when it comes to my emotional health - my life is one big pattern of holding my heart out to people who will stomp on it - but I'm slowly developing common sense and that common sense is screaming at me to just leave her alone. Leave alone a situation that will, in almost all forseeable futures, only lead to further hurt, and that is almost free of forseeable good. But that number calls to me, and her name and her face are on my mind. I honestly don't know what to do. Usually I can discern fairly clearly what is the "right" thing and the "wrong" thing to do, what will lead to the most good or the least evil, but this is far too close to home. I just don't know.