Page 2 of Loverboy

On the plus side, I wasn’t throwing up anymore.

“Do you have a plan?” The psychiatrist tapped his notepad rhythmically with a pen, and my head throbbed with the beat.

“A plan for what?” I fought the urge to roll my eyes into the back of my goddamn skull. I knew what plan he was talking about. I’d been asked this question a hundred times by every professional at least once—school counsellors, therapists, and nurses included.

“For hurting yourself if you get discharged today,” he clarified, straightening to stare at me critically, undoubtedly looking to make me crack.

“Nope. My brother’s gonna come pick me up, and we’ll probably joke all night about this whole thing.” I winced. Idiot.

“So you don’t have a plan of action, and you do have support. That’s good.” He plucked the positives out with obnoxious ease.

I was envious of his ability to do that. My brain didn’t operate that way. No, instead, I was stuck with picking everything apart in search of something negative. Who the fuck planned this sort of thing, anyway? Were there people out there meticulously plotting their suicides? If I wanted to die, I was going to die. No preamble. Fuck the foreplay, put me out of my goddamn misery.

“Nope, no plans to do this again. The vomiting was a pretty good deterrent,” I joked darkly, finally meeting his gaze. I’d avoided looking at him directly the entire conversation, but I needed to be convincing now.

“I bet.” He smiled at me, but it felt rehearsed. “Well, let’s complete this assessment now that you’re feeling a little better, and then we’ll see about getting you discharged. I’m happy that someone is going to take you home.”

My stomach twisted with apprehension as he handed me a clipboard like he was extending an olive branch. I took it reluctantly, and it was as bad as I’d imagined. Pointless, stupid questions. Who would answer these honestly if it meant being stuck in here?

After filling out the sheet with the answers to avoid a grippy-sock vacation, I handed it back to him and waited with bated breath for his determination. I needed to leave. I needed to get back to… nothing.

No one was waiting for me.

“Alright. I think we’ll be able to get you out of here sooner rather than later,” he said, tapping the paper with that stupid pen again. “The only catch is that you’ll have to agree to an in-home visit with a therapist.”

Fuck.

After I agreed to the terms, he handed me a stack of printed resources from his little briefcase and promptly left the room. Hurrying onto the next mentally unstable patient, if I had to guess. We were a dime a dozen, and my case wasn’t anything special. The interaction exhausted me, and the only thing I wanted to do was sleep.

It was one of the ways I always coped. When I was a teenager, sleeping pills solved all of my problems. When I got the call that my sister had overdosed and died in her sleep after a rave? I took a pill. When my first girlfriend left me? I took a pill. Forget the violent full-body shakes and nausea; it was easier to avoid it all entirely.

At least when I wasn’t awake, I couldn’t feel anything.

Once the psychiatrist’s footsteps faded down the hall, I slid the stack of papers underneath the pillow so I could conveniently forget to take them home with me later, and then pulled the thin sheet over my head, melting into the bed. Everything smelled like puke. I wished somebody would end it for me right then and there so I wouldn’t have to go home to my empty apartment. I’d never been alone. I moved straight out of Mom’s house and into a new place with my girlfriend, so I had never truly lived by myself.

Grow up, Milo.

Sofia’s parting words were burning a hole inside of me. Actually, it might have been the bile eating away at my stomach lining and threatening future ulcers.

How was I going to sleep in my bed? Who was going to pet my hair? How was I supposed to remember to eat? Who was going to make sure I folded my laundry? A fresh wave of panic crept past my lips and expanded in my throat, suffocating me with dread.

I thought I’d grown, become more independent. But I hadn’t. I was barely even a person, let alone a man.

“I told you to talk to me.” The sheet was suddenly ripped off me, the bright lights scorching my tear-swollen eyes. The panic that had been strangling me abruptly fell flat, and all that was left was a silent prayer.

Don’t fucking look at me, please, please don’t fucking look at me.

My brother loomed over me, the weight of his hand pressing down into the bed next to me like an accusation. As my eyes adjusted to the fluorescent lighting again, I realized quickly that looking at him was a mistake. Gone was the playful, sarcastic, and teasing brother I knew. In his place was the same frightened teenager who didn’t know what to do when I’d spent a few months on a self-destructive bender over a girl who took everything I had on her way out of my life.

I was only fifteen then, the first time I noticed how faulty the wiring in my brain was, and would always be. I was twenty-four now, and the pieces should have come together. Where was my defining moment of coming into adulthood? Why was I always ten steps behind everyone else?

I was dead weight.

“I know.” I swallowed past the lump in my throat.

“I told you I was right here,” Jasper rasped. His knuckles turned white from the way he fisted the sheet. “For anything. Anything at all. You just had to call.”

“I didn’t want to bother—”