ALL I WANT #1

Prologue

TRIGGER WARNING: This chapter deals with sensitive topics like suicide attempt and mental illness. If you are sensitive to these topics, please take care of yourself and I'll see you another time. TPWK ❤️️

Song recommendation: Suicide - REN.

This story is dedicated to everyone who has ever been scarred. Inside or out. You are truly beautiful.

Prologue.

"Insanity - a perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world."

- R. D. Laing

***

When we enter the world, the first gift we receive is our name. It's supposed to encapsulate who we are as a person, to fit our core personality.

Then why the hell did they name me Quynn? Because I felt in no way, shape, or form like royalty right now.

"Quynn, did you hear what I just said?"

I looked up from the white sheets covering the lower half of my body to meet Doctor Karl's brown eyes. His steady gaze seemed to pierce through my wandering thoughts, anchoring me back to the sterile, fluorescent-lit room.

The middle-aged man had been talking nonstop for half an hour, and I was supposed to just listen?

I bit my lip and shook my head, admitting that his talk went right over my head.

"Right. So, what I've been trying to explain to you is that after observing you for the last month—"

Asian men don't look their age, do they? He was in his forties, and I'm sure he could pass for a man in his late twenties. His skin glowed under the bright neon lights of the room, making him look almost ethereal against the drab backdrop of the psych ward.

His name tag read Sang-Hoon Min.

Hold up, wasn't it supposed to be Doctor Karl?

"Why is your name different?" I asked, pointing at his tag and interrupting his rant.

He frowned, his patience wearing thin after being interrupted for the hundredth time today. Gliding a hand through his luscious black hair, he forced a smile.

"That would be my Korean name. I take it you spaced out again?"

"Quynn, please try, okay?" My mother's voice broke through the fog in my mind.

Right. Mom was there too.

If my name wasn't a good representation of who I was, hers fit her like a glove. The name Caroline meant free woman. And that was my mother for you. She was so free that my stay in this psych ward felt like the longest stay we had in any town ever.

Hold up. Did I space out while he was talking again?

Squinting my eyes, I dug my neon pink nails into the palm of my hand to ground myself. This was a trick I had to learn because Mom hated it when I would 'slip away,' as she liked to call it.

I stayed focused long enough to get the gist of his diagnosis: attention deficit disorder and manic episodes, triggered by CPTSD.

I nodded, pretending I knew what any of that meant, waiting for him to finish talking so I could eat the chocolate pudding I stole from the cafeteria earlier.

"I believe the only thing we can do now is give you treatment and put you in therapy," he finished, pushing his thick red glasses up his nose.

Mom stepped forward from the back of the room where she had been standing. I took in her appearance: dark grey hoodie, black yoga pants, and her usual silky sandy blonde hair tied into a bun. Dark circles surrounded her brown eyes, and she looked like she had aged five years during this month.