The bright lights felt as if they were drilling into my pupils, blinding me, I couldn't tell if it was blood or tears dripping from my heavy bloodshot eyes.
I was moving, I wasn't but whatever I was lying on was racing down clean white halls, people were shouting.
"Hey buddy, don't do it, come back to us," the doctor said as he lifted me into a hospital bed. The next bit, I blacked out tooquickly to see, but when I woke up, I knew they had pumped my stomach, I'd lost enough friends like this to know how it goes, the doctors just didn't reach Ray in time, my best friend lost his whole family in a car crash and was put in the system, he was taken away, he was beaten black and blue, I couldn't see him every day like I used to, but when I did, I saw him change into a different person, like as if each time I saw him, he had slipped further and further. Back then, I had Frank, I couldn't possibly conceive what was going through Ray's mind when he took a whole bottle of Xanax, I wish I could say I still felt that way.
But Frank, my lord, Frank was back, he cares, he actually gave a shit about me, he felt the pain I was feeling, he missed me, everyone around me took pleasure in telling me he was happy I was out of his life, that I should be dead, that I did him and everyone else a favour when I slit my wrists.
The feeling of cold sheets and smooth material brushed down my arms, a breeze brought cool refreshing air to my lungs.
I opened my eyes, expecting to see people around me, but no-one was there, not my father, not my mother, not my brother, not even Frank. I don't even know why I expected them, of course, they didn't come, why would they, I'm just another burden, another bill to pay, another disposable.
A doctor quickly noticed me sat up in a confused haze and ushered two large men in white uniform to follow him.
"Hi honey," she said. Her doctors uniform was an uncomfortable blue.
"We need to have a quick talk," I immediately tensed and flinched, usually I was thrown down the stairs by my father, furious that I had gotten in a fight with other kids... and lost. "um when we brought you in, we had to pump your stomach, but it turns out, when we ran a few tests as a precaution, we found that these drugs are a regular thing for you," I immediately froze, why were they running tests on me, why couldn't they just let me die." Now the thing is, your parents have both signed you off to be put in a rehab program." Nonono they couldn't, surely they can't do that, I just got Frank back after he was taken from me, and now I was gonna be taken away from him, how can they say they want me alive and then take away any reason to live.
"No, no they... I... I don't wanna go," I pleaded as the two men came to either side of me, "please, PLEASE, DON'T, I DON'T WANNA GO, NOOO." I struggled from their grip and began crying.
"Stop, please, I don't wanna go, I, I, can't leave him again. No, please, pleeeeeeeease, I don't want to go, please don't take me away"
Against all my efforts they took me away, they took me to an empty room, with a table and clothes... oh, they wanted me to change clothes, they couldn't take me away half naked.
The pale beige clothes, similar to the ones my mother bought me, itched and scratched at my skin, I wanted to tear them off my body and let my skin breath, I had been suffocating for too long.
They then brought me on a bus along with about ten other kids, they all looked pretty fine, compared to me, with my long red hair, pale skin, and jet black eyes, they just looked like your classic short, brown-haired, clean-cut rich kid with daddy's credit card and a drug dealer.
I sat right at the back if anyone had to walk past me, I thought I might just throw up right there.