"they told me to."

3

Ryan

Ryan rolled her eyes as she sat down on one of the chairs. She hated group therapy. She didn't want to know about other peoples' problems and they most probably didn't want to hear about hers.

At least the same people went to every session, and at least Ryan had been able to make one or two close friends out of these sessions. They understood her, and she understood them.

"Hey, Ry." Phoebe greeted, nodding her head at Ryan. She'd been there for about ten minutes already, just waiting for everyone (including the counsellor) to arrive so the session could start.

"'Sup," Ryan mumbled, smiling at the other person in the room; her only other friend at the hospital.

They, Alex, had been the first person she'd been roomed with at this hospital. Sure, at the start Ryan refrained from talking to them, because the voices only she could hear told her not to. They told her that Alex was bad news, and was out to get her. They were still roomies despite the fact that most people had been moved into single dorms for violence. Maybe the doctors had a soft spot for them.

"When's June and that new kid getting here?" Ryan questioned.

She sighed and inspected her nails as her two friends chuckled at her impatience, and then the door of the room swung open.

"Speaking of..." Alex mumbled. Their eyes flickered up to the door, where the therapist, June, stood with a boy beside him. Alex gave the boy a once over, and nodded to themself in approval. Cute.

"Hello, you three! How are you holding up?" June asked, her voice ever-overenthusiastic and loud. Ryan winced slightly, and sighed once again. How was she going to hand an hour of listening to that obnoxious voice? She didn't know how she did it every week.

"Don't speak all at once now!" June continued as a joke, a hearty laugh escaping her. No one else laughed, not even the boy that still refused to leave his side. He seemed somehow intimidated, from what Ryan could deduce.

"Okay," June mumbled, and rubbed her hands together in a sort of excited way, "this is Sebastian. He has­--"

June was cut off by the kid, supposedly Sebastian, pulling at her sweatshirt sleeve awkwardly.

"Do they have to know?" He asked in a mumble.

June nodded, and then continued.

"He has bipolar disorder."

With a nervous sigh, Sebastian bit his lip and nodded. He then walked to the free chair by Alex and took his seat. Nobody seemed to judge him, and the three in the room just nodded at the fact and ignored his nervous energy.

"Right, now you know about him, it's only fair that you all introduce yourselves." June decided.

An annoyed groan followed her words from the three who knew her already. At first, Ryan had been quite closed off with June, but she had grown to love pushing her buttons.

"Phoebe, you first?"

"Alright," Phoebe stood and cleared her throat dramatically, "My name's Phoebe. I'm here because I'm suicidal and have depression. To be honest, the only thing keeping me from jumping out of that window right now are these two."

At the end of her happily spoken introduction that was quite dark if you looked past her cheeriness, Phoebe gestured to Ryan and Alex. It was a very sad truth that they were the only ones keeping her alive, but a truth none the less.

"Uh... Right. Okay." June stumbled over her words in surprise. She hadn't been expecting that kind of introduction from Phoebe, even if she should have. It was nothing new for Phoebe to hide her sadness that came from her mental disorder with cheery tones and bright (but fake) smiles.

"Alex, next?" June quickly moved on with a slightly nervous smile. She didn't want these three patients scaring Sebastian; he'd only arrived at the hospital a week prior, and he was only here because his parents decided that they couldn't handle it. The poor seventeen year old was angry about that, and probably heartbroken too.

"Right, of course." Alex paused to gather their thoughts, but decided against standing. They were way too lazy for that.

"I'm Alex. I have anorexia nervosa. I only have that because I don't like my body, like, at all. Also if you call me by the pronouns she/her I will not hesitate to slit your throat. Call me by they/them. Thanks." Alex smiled sweetly at the end of their words, and then sighed, relaxing their posture slightly.

Next to her, Sebastian looked terrified. He definitely was going to try his best not to mess up with pronouns, even if he didn't really understand why Alex wanted those pronouns. Whatever, maybe he'd ask later (if he could work up the courage to talk to them outside of this therapy room, that was).

"Why can't you guys just be nice for once?" June asked with another sigh. She had sighed a lot during Alex's words, because threatening someone was not a good thing in general, but in that ward of the hospital especially. Because there was always a chance that you could trigger someone with your words in the psych ward, and you had to learn to be careful.

But those in June's therapy group were definitely not careful. Not even slightly. Their brains had barely any filter.

With Ryan, she could excuse that, because of her disorder, but the others had nothing to blame for their rudeness.

"And Ryan, please." June let her head fall back as Ryan nodded distractedly.

'Sebastian probably already hates you.' Blue decided for Ryan.

'Yeah, you should probably hurt him.' Another voice (that Ryan had named 03) supplied. But, in response, Ryan shook her head to herself and silently begged the voices to shut up.

She stood, suddenly shaky for some reason. She just felt like everyone in the room was watching her. Everyone meaning the people that were actually there as well as the shadowy figures in the corner that her medications just managed to fade.

"I'm Ryan. I have schizophrenia. So a lot of voices live in my head and I'm practically insane," Ryan shook off the nervous energy the voices forced into her with a laugh, "But the voices are sort of my closest friends, sorry guys."

Sebastian didn't take Ryan's feeble attempt at a joke lightly. He stood up quickly, and the action caused his chair to shriek as it was shoved back. His fists were clenched and he suddenly looked very angry.

"How can you even dare to joke about these things? My family freaking disowned me! They decided they couldn't handle me and my crappy disorder. You know how much that sucks? A lot. I can't control it, so they got rid of me for something I have no power over! Stupid! And you have the nerve to sit and joke about it?" Sebastian exclaimed angrily.

He let out a noise of frustration, and then stormed out of the room.

Everyone was left stunned, June included.

"I­– I'll go see if he's okay," June paused nervously, her eyes on the door that had been slammed shut after Sebastian's exit, "You can all go back to your rooms now! See you next week!"

Her last two sentences sounded nervous, but cheerful. She was always cheerful.

'Well, that was unexpected.' The only happy voice that spoke to Ryan and only Ryan (named 46) finally chirped up.

"Yeah." Ryan mumbled.

She ignored the glance she got from Phoebe, and continued to listen as Silver (another voice) spoke up.

'Sebastian probably hates you now. He didn't snap at the others when they joked around. Only you.'

And Ryan just sighed, because, yeah, the voices were probably right.

They were always right.