We All Have a Story to Tell || v.f. ~COMPLETED~

1.3

/ SCARLETT /

lyric-

and when it hurts

i know the feelings

are real

--

I couldn't stop thinking about this one guy. His name was Sam. I'd met him at a church camp. I think I'm into him. But I'm not sure. Maybe I'm just confused.

I mean, we'd been texting almost every day. On the way here, I texted him that I was going to a mental hospital. He didn't reply. So now, I was eaten up with anxiety waiting for visiting hours tonight to see if he replied.

"Pick-up lines, go." Chris was smirking as we all sat around one table.

"I wanna live in your socks," Vic said, "so I can be with you every step of the way."

I bit my lip. "Aw. That's cute. Uh... Without you, my life is like a broken pencil - pointless." I couldn't help but laugh at my pun. I loved puns.

"Pun-derful," Alli said between laughs.

"Oh, my God, yes!" I laughed even harder, high-fiving her.

Vic chuckled, crossing his arms. "You have good genetics. Wanna see how well they combine with mine?"

Everyone loved that one. That would be something to get somebody into bed. I would so use that. It reminded me of a time in ninth grade that my friend told a worker at a restaurant that he had good genetics. It was great.

-

I guess that the schedule wasn't exactly set in stone. Perhaps it depended on who was working, because that was the only group session we had until lunch. And it hardly lasted twenty minutes.

For lunch, we actually got to go to the cafeteria. We all walked silently in a line through several doors. We ended up having to go through the long term unit, and Austin - our supervisor - told us that we couldn't even look at the long term patients. Willow had been here so often that she knew some of them, and one dude was totally checking her out. It was hilarious, actually.

I sat across from Vic with my fried chicken and strawberries. I wasn't even hungry. "At the least the food is good."

He chuckled softly. "Yeah, I'm not that hungry."

"Same," I said.

Austin sat beside me. "Too bad, you have to eat. They ask how much you eat for each meal at the end of the day. That, your behaviour, and your progress is what determines when you get out. You wanna get out, don't you?"

I shrugged and ate a strawberry. "I like being in a stabilised environment. I don't want to go back home. I hate home. I hate a lot of places, and there's no reason for it. I just hate it."

I really didn't want to leave. Sure, I would feel okay here, but I couldn't say the same for when I returned to the outside world. What if I relapsed? Most of these kids had been here before. That means that they got better, but they didn't stay better. They relapsed. And I was almost positive that I would be just the same.

Maybe I was being negative, but it was pretty difficult to be positive in a place like this. You can never understand until you're in one. It's not like you'd expect. You come in there, scared and nervous out of your mind, but eventually you feel welcomed and relaxed, and it's not that bad at all. It's actually fun most of the time, because you can basically let everything out. Nobody here judged because we were all the same. You can talk about your craziest thoughts and desires without being called weird or a freak. It was great.

It was really boring in my room. Two beds, one girl. My boobs felt awkward because this sports bra was a little too big. I'd accidentally grabbed my mom's instead of mine - ew - and now I was feeling the consequences.

I got a little confused when a man brought another bed in, but it had wheels on the bottom. "Are they moving people in here?"

"I guess," he said. "I don't know. I was just told to bring it in."

I frowned. "Okay..."

"Sorry, kid." And with that, he left.

Okay, a new bed. I climbed on top of it, smiling at the softness of the mattress. This mattress was different than the ones on the normal beds. I liked it. I lay on my stomach and rested my head on my arms, wondering when we would get to do something.

At some point, I dozed off, but it wasn't for long because Austin came and woke me up. Apparently, he was the day worker, all week, including the weekends, and everybody loved him. I could see why. He was really chill and cool and understood us better than the other workers.

"The other girls are in the Day Room if you wanna join them," he said. "They're watching something, I don't know."

I sighed and sat up. "K, I'll go."

He gasped, acting offended. "Did you just k me? I hated being k'd."

I chuckled and walked out into the hall. "Doesn't everyone?"

It was storming outside. I didn't know until I looked out the window in the Day Room to be greeted by lightning. I rolled my eyes and plopped down into one of those swirly office chairs.

"They don't let you sit in that," Tahlia said.

I chuckled. "I'll move when they tell me to, don't worry."

"You're really different," Alli said, "aren't you? You seem like you're not afraid to speak your mind and like you're rebellious, but you're also one of those people that try to be friends with everyone, like you don't like having conflict. It's like you're a compassionate b----."

I burst into laughter. "The accuracy of that is amazing."

"Good," she said, laughing.

Vic and Chris walked in.

"I'm going home today," Chris said. "Jack already went home."

The atmosphere turned twisted. It was depressing that he was leaving, but it was good for him because that meant that he was better. I hardly even knew him, and I could already tell that I was going to miss him. Weird, right? Yeah.

Vic came over and pulled a chair up beside me. "I'm really nosy and quite sneaky," he whispered.

"What's your point?" I whispered back.

"Your file was lying on the counter, open. I'm curios about your case of amnesia."

Okay, that was a little creepy. But I'm not going to lie; I would've looked at an open file as well. But he had no shame about it. Strange. And I didn't feel threatened, but shouldn't I?

I sighed and looked at him, narrowing my eyes. "Tell me why you haven't killed yourself, and I'll tell you about that night."

"Fair enough," he said. "Well, I'm a really hopeless romantic. I've got this insane idea that true love will get me through this. I just wanna get better with someone."

Time seemed to freeze. That's not okay. We can't have the same reason, no, no! That's not possible! That's freaky, and I don't like it! It's not okay! No!

"Hey, hey," Vic waved his hand in front of my face, "you okay there?"

I shook my head, trying to catch my breath. "I...I need to go. I'll tell you about the amnesia later, promise. I just...gotta go."

And with that, I hurried back to my room, ignoring the strange looks I received.

I mean, it wasn't all that weird, but it just freaked me out. How could someone have the exact same dream as me? How was that possible? I didn't like how unreal things felt. I needed to sleep.

When Austin came to see what was wrong, I asked if I could skip dinner. "I had a really bad anxiety attack, and it's taking a while to get over."

He sighed. "Yeah, okay. Uh, Alli and Tahlia are being moved in here. They'll be here soon. I'll tell them not to bother you."

I nodded. "Th-thanks."