An1: confwuzzled, this wasn't coincidental, your review inspired me to post this next part. hopelesslydevoted12: yeah, very emo. Not quite as much as it could be though, because summer has made my life pretty drama/angst-less. Chinsky: I love social studies so... I'm not exactly relating to you on that whole pain thing. I love how you're always praising me. That's the best...
An2s: Things are going to move very, very quickly from here-on-out. A lot of things might not make sense. Sorry. I need to wrap things up relatively soon. I've got ANOTHER fic in the works. One with intentional humor, a clichéd plot, and some happiness. It's going to be totally surreal.
----
Two eyes stare skyward. I could have been mistaken for dead. Like a psychopathic serial killer halfway into the movie, right before the fifth-to-last grand finale. But that's just not how I roll.
I choke and my mind regurgitates childhood memories. Playing in the sprinkler, the red bows on all my Christmas presents, skinning my knee on the way to school. Pathetic childhood rhymes dip into the present and morph into disgusting parodies. Sticks and stones broke my bones... first comes blood, then comes marriage, then comes... death.
I'm hyperventilating in the thick August heat. An off-duty security guard in tight cotton shorts says something to me. I can't hear him, though, and squint at his Gaussian-blurred shape. There's this buzzing in my brain, like a hundred-thousand bees had climbed into my head when I was knocked out and were settling in for a long winter.
I bet he's saying something like, "What's your name, son? I'm gonna need a photo ID." Or, "What'd you take? Do I need to call poison control?" Something scripted straight out of a training video about dealing with over-stimulated, half-mauled Jewish boys. The faux man-of-law speaks into his shoulder-mounted radio. I think he's calling for an ambulance.
I am swallowed by the swarm of bees in my brain.
My eyelids are manually pried open by crusty fingers. Swiftly closed. Then forced open again. What ever happened to fucking leaving me alone? I am awake now and the number one thing I can think about is the light, shinning into my eyes.
A flashlight. A voice. I can hear again.
"What's your name?" he says with a Slavonic accent.
Oh god, here we go.
"Kid, c'mon, what's your name?"
I give him bullshit on a golden platter. And he eats it all up.
"Freddy? Listen to me Freddy."
He tries to give me one of those talks. Motel Six is open only to paying customers, and even if I am staying here, I can't sleep on the roof, it's off limits.
My eyes are more than half-shut, and I'm nodding off to his raspy, Ukrainian voice. A police siren wails, but it's far away from us.
"Are you hungry Freddy?"
"Mmmm..." I mumble. There is that giant, gapping hole where my stomach should be. I gave away all my fries at lunch so the emo-kids would leave me alone.
He picks me up in his arms, and I hang limply. I am close to someone again. Two people in one week. A record, for me.
I keep my distance in his Geo. Rent-A-Cop, who I'm calling Vladimir in my mind, seems to have completely forgotten about me. He pays more attention to handling the stick shift and staying on the right side of the dotted yellow lines. I watch the other cars' brights dim as they approach us.
"How old are you?" he asks.
"Eighteen?" I lie, chewing on chapped lips.
Vladimir nods, like I've given him the correct answer on some hip game show and I've won a million heresy kisses. Eventually, he stops the car and I follow him into this shitty little diner.
The waitress stares at me like I'm demon spawn. Vlad sits and nods, and runs a thin finger around the rim of his tumbler. I order almost a third of the menu before I retreat to the men's room. The lights flicker overhead while I empty the paper towel dispenser in a vain attempt to clean myself up without breaking out into sheer hysterics.
I fucking hurt.
Suck it up, Gordon, I tell my dismal reflection.
Vlad hands me a drink from his tray. Dr. Pepper, I think. I've never been so thirsty before, so I gulp it down. And he smiles, with crooked teeth.
Right, that's it, I think.
1111
Billy Billy Billy. I see his face in my mind, but he's not the one in front of me right now.
"Can I kiss you?" he asks pleadingly.
You know... "Um... no," I say.
"Please, just once?" He's undressing me like a Barbie doll.
"No." I try to keep him from my boxers.
"You're so handsome... please can I kiss you?"
He picks up my clothes and breathes in the scent of my blood-stained shirt. Who cares if he kisses me? Just once, I'll let him. Not like I haven't been a slut lately.
"Okay," I say, and my mind screams at me that I'm making a mistake, worse than a mistake; I'm going to regret this so fuc-
1111
Everything rushes at me; the walls, the ceiling. I'm pulled down down down to where I can't get back up again. So I lie there. My brain no longer works; my body will not allow itself to move. I wonder if this will ever stop, breathe deeply, and take mental bets against myself. I can't even stop the drool from coming out of my mouth.
I'm forced to take in my surroundings with glazed-over eyes. A fan turns overhead, slowly spinning down towards me, the black sky turning to purple and blue shadows, receding into orange hazy clouds. In the window, the sun flashes and lights up one of the most beautifully ironic sunsets I've ever seen. Nothing comes and nothing goes. And then...
"What'sss your name, kid? Are you ssstaying at thisss motel?"
Floating between unconsciousness I think, a paramedic with a lisssp. Great.
He says his name is Jeremy, like it will make up for the throbbing pain in the back of my skull. A real police officer watches on, fingering his taser. Fucking shoot me already.
Jeremy shows me a needle, and taps it, like in the movies. I lift my arm to stop him but pain shoots through my ribcage. No more drugs, no more drugs, no more drugs.
"Moooaaaannnn…" I go, and writhe around a little bit too much, and hurt even worse. I am too drained and too spineless to try it again. He pumps me so full of drugs I see three new colors in the rainbow. I wait for the pain to stop, but everything moves so slowly when you're incapacitated. Finally: eyelids meet together, slowly. For a while, I sleep, I sleep, I forget.
I dream of tubes-in-my-throat and more needles and puffy eyes. Who knows how much time passes? My dream hands reach towards my dream face and touch harsh cotton bandages and stitches, oh god, the stitches. I can't realize what's happening though. That this isn't me dreaming, but me, awake, and crying so hard until I can't talk, can't swallow.
The worst part of it was that I couldn't remember a thing.
What did I do to hurt so much? To be dealt so much damn misery in one fucking day?