Damaged Goods (Book 1)

1.

Something is hitting me in the face, something wet and slow. Maybe it was the rain that I feel now gracing my arm and face. No, rain would have dampened all of me, not just parts. I hear muffled voices around me, but I just cannot make out what they are saying. Slowly it's getting clearer, I hear that it's not just one voice and the muffled sound followed by droplets of water must have been from the sobbing. Tears, these are the droplets of water that pulled me from whatever deep sleep I had just succumbed to. I could not move but I was beginning to make out the sound of voices around me much clearer and I grew aware of the environment around me. Thin sheets, cool air, and antiseptic smell gave away my location then instantly all my senses returned to me. Well, all my senses but one. These tears began to hit my arm again and I hear a door open and shut followed by heavy footsteps.

"Mr. and Mrs. Cruz, I wish we could have met under less grave circumstances; I am Dr. Kaul and I have some things to discuss with you. Your son was found with multiple bruises on his face, back, and chest. Along with cuts covering his wrists and arms. All cuts were small and precise, often found in those who use razors. The cuts were self-inflicted ma'am. The previous ones, as you can see are faded and, the ones currently bandaged were new, deep, and irregular causing scarring. Did you know Jayvien was harming himself? Suicidal thoughts or any implication that you think he would do anything like this?"

My eyes would not open, and my hands were tied down. I was so pissed I am sure the heart monitor gave away that I had heard that fucker of a doctor tell my parents about my old cuts and bruises. Now my mother was bawling somewhere in the room and my father was close answering questions as best he could. Of course, he didn't know the answers, all he could do was stumble through with weak assumptions. I had gotten beaten up before all this, but I would never tell them who. I had finally had enough and decided to float off into an abyss that death would provide.

My father is the one who is now squeezing my hand and talking in my ear. "It's OK son. We are going to get you some help. It's all going to be OK."

No, it's not. For all my life, I've been bullied and taunted because of my grades, money, appearance, and worst of all, sexuality, when I didn't even understand it myself. Alongside that my parents blame me for my brother's death. They never outright said it, but I saw their faces. Their eyes look haunted and sunken when they look at me and it's just one more thing I can't take anymore.

Three years ago, my brother and I got into a car crash. I killed him, it was my fault he was even driving in the first place and then he died, and I didn't. They blame me, I blame myself. I bet my brother blames me for taking his life from him. If it weren't for me, he would have never been out on those roads that day, he would've been home with dad.

Dad.

The person currently signing my life over to some mental institution where I will probably be held for the rest of my life.

"The best rehabilitation center is in England. Oliver Mist Rehabilitation Center. It is the best of the best, the closest thing to a boy's camp treatment will allow for this situation."

The room was quiet for a moment and only the beeps from the machines around me and the faint noise from the air conditioner could be heard.

"I-I, well we-we"

Before my dad could utter whatever, it was that he was about to say, my mother spoke in a broken voice from wherever she was sobbing before. Her voice was broken but unwavering as she sealed my fate.

"As soon as he is well enough, we are sending him there on the first flight."

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I stopped fighting to open my eyes some time ago. It's not like I really wanted to be awake to see them ship me off or be forced to answer questions I probably don't know the answer to. How I wished these drugs had a deeper effect on me. I want to be as numb as possible. I want to be a ghost that disappears from this world and is enveloped in nothingness. I feel hopeless and at this very moment helpless. I wished I could stay in that lucid state for as long as possible, but just like my life, nothing lasts forever.

The transition from sedation to reality was almost worse than the sight of the almost empty plane that I arrived at. There was something almost comical about my situation. I was being wheeled to the plane by a nurse assigned to travel with me to the mental institution that is to be my new home. Boarding with a few other people who took this flight on this early morning to England, businessmen and women all consumed by their own lives and typing away on their phones. I was sitting in first class next to the nurse and couldn't help but die a little inside at the closing gates. I don't know why I thought they would be here to hold my hand or at least send me off, but I expected more than this. Sitting with a single nurse ushering me to buckle my seat belt with three bags waiting inside for me. Three bags were enough to send me off, but for some reason, I had again expected more.

My parents were rich people, who came from rich people, who came from rich people. Money was never an object, but it was a bargaining chip. Whenever they couldn't be there for moments, they sent money. When they managed to be present, they were never truly involved and really didn't make me feel any better. My rock was always my brother and now I have no rock, no solace, no support.

My parents, as caring as they were in moments that suited them, were never a hundred percent warm with anything, but for some reason, this blow felt like ice flowing through my veins. It spread as the plane rose into the early morning sky until it reached my heart and forced its way to my throat in the form of a lump. And just like that, I felt the piece of me that begged for death smile at me through tears. No, I had not died, but a piece of me did, and that must have been enough to satisfy him for now. The part of me that hates himself smiled as if he knew something I didn't and instead of scaring me, it pulled the lump in my throat out and replaced it with a giggle of pure spitefulness.