I remember staring blankly at the wall, my baggy blue hospital scrubs already catching the cold air of the hospitals mental health unit with the slightest breeze. The emt's unstrapped me from my gurney and sat me up, the stitches in my right wrist beginning to throb softly, A sure sign that the numbness was beginning to wear off. I didn't budge when A kid with brown shaggy hair timidly approached me at the table I chose to sit at and from the look on his face something told me he had severe anxiety. 'Be gentle with this one' I thought rigidly to myself as he sat down. He fidgeted with his hands for a moment before speaking.
"Hi...I'm dotty"
"My names boo" I replied softy, and he gave me a warm smile in attempts to show me he was friendly and not closed off like I was most of the time.
"Is today your first day hear?"
I nodded and Dotty pressed his lips,
"Me to...you're my room mate to so...I figured I'd introduce myself" he said shyly, this kid really seemed like the type to shrink away from arguments, have small panic attacks over someone yelling in anger...but hey at least he's cute. Dotty seemed...fidgety, almost shaky as he kept his eyes glued to the round table where we sat, I cocked my head to the side a little, getting a better view of him.
"So do you mind if I ask what you're in hear for, Dotty?" I said casually trying to get him to speak again,
He only looked at me shyly for a few seconds before looking down again timidly, his eyebrows pulling together in mixed emotions.
"I...um I have anorexia...I've been hear in and off a lot the past year and most of the kids hear don't talk to me because they see my situation as...unimportant or attention seeking."
I frowned, dotty was such a nice person, why would anyone wanna single him out like that?. I sighed and sat up, gently touching his hand that was rather cold to my surprise,
"Your situation is just as important if not twice as more deadly, ill stick by your side the entire time I'm here...you need a friend" I said with a warm smile.
I was shocked when he gave me a genuine smile in return, in that moment I was determined to make him do it more often. My eyes were pulled from his lovely face when a nurse walked up next to him with a needle and alcohol wipes.
"Dotty" she said gently
"We have to take your blood again"
...the expression on her face practically screamed that she wanted nothing to do with this. Dotty looked cadaverous as his bright blue eyes landed on the needle that was to go in his arm, he swallowed hard and let out a shaken breath that passed though his lips as if it were the dreaded breaths of a dead man. Now that I put the clues together, i realized that he had a dreaded fear of needles.
Dotty took a deep breath, squeezed his eyes shut and shakily stuck out his arm as a small whimper sounds from his now pale lips. He took the shot with no complaint and sighed when she was done, running his fingertips lightly across his new bandaid he looked at me with a blush beginning to creep across his face.
"G-go ahead, call me a baby" dotty said defensively
I bit my lip, I was never one for insulting people, even if they did it to me first.
"There's nothing wrong with having a fear of needles, I'll tell you one of my biggest fears to even it out if you want" I said cooly, He timidly nodded and leaned in close to listen as I whispered to him.
"I'm deathly afraid of water...lakes, the ocean, a deep pond, you name it."
I wasn't very comfortable with sharing that now that I thought about it but it seemed to put dotty at ease to know something big about me...something he could grasp at and know that he's not alone in being scared of things.
I turned my head towards the clock and to my surprise two hours had gone by since I had gotten hear and I didn't even notice.
"Hey dotty"
"Yeah?"
"Do you know if anyone's ever...died hear?"
Dottys expression went grim and he averted his eyes from mine, he had seemed so friendly when I got hear but....that question seemed to make him go rigid and cold.
"We don't like to talk about that..." He said softly
"But yeah...someone died hear"
My heart sped up. Something about the tone of his voice put me in edge....but I managed to shake it off before it really started eating at me.
"Can you please tell me what happened?" I asked softly
Dotty frowned and shook his head
"Please...?"
"F-fine...jeez you're persistent!...about two weeks ago, when I got hear. I had a room mate....his name was jake and he suffered from crippling schizophrenia...every night around midnight he would wake up sobbing my name and telling me to 'make the voices stop'. I never knew what else to do so I would just get up and hold him until he fell asleep again,...he was perfectly normal like me or you aside from that. But one day the nurses came into our room to wake us up for breakfast and she screamed when she flipped the light on, scaring the hell out of me when she did. I looked around the room panicking, wandering what was wrong...and then my eyes landed on something that brought tears to my eyes..."
"What did you see?" I asked completely enveloped in what he was saying.
Dotty looked at me as tears began to run down his cheeks,
"Boo...jake had slammed his head against the wall so hard and for so long that he had literally beat his own brains out...the white walls were...they were covered in his blood and bits of brain matter....it looked as if someone had thrown rotten tomatoes and raw meat at the wall and just left it there....a-and what made it worse was jakes body was leaning face first against the wall with his eyes....still wide and pointed in my direction...."
He sobbed softly to himself, and I immediately felt like a huge prick for making him tell me. The nurses, noticing how late it was and seeing that dotty was getting increasingly upset, they announced that it was time for bed and that we needed to head to our rooms.
