Cuckoo (Sequel to Outlaws Of Love)

Chapter Twenty- Two

*Adam's POV*

After Tommy left I didn't have any classes to go to so I decided to head over to the library. It was the only place where I could find an escape from my head in a quiet, safe place. I wasn't ready to go back to my room, anyway.

 When I wanted to go to bed is when I needed to let the sweet memories of I and Tommy be fresh in my mind as soon as I would see those disorganized sheets to relish in the reminiscence of his soft touch. That's when I would need it more. But right then I needed to clear my head of the heartache of goodbye.

There were thousands of books to get lost in, and many of which were encouraging and full of self-help tips. I've already gotten a chance to see some of the genres and look through the shelves. Even if I don't read anything, just looking at titles and some cover art takes me away from the reality of this place.

 That night I was flipping through random things in the romance section. A lot were cliché, a lot were ones that were too girly, even for me, but I still found it interesting to see what kind of situations the authors would put their characters in. Sometimes I feel like my life could be some great novel or movie. It just seems too surreal to be completely true.

And, it kind of gives me a little bit more hope on the future because I don't know about anyone else, but personally I've never seen or read anything that had a sad ending, or one that had no bright side (well... there was one, Requiem for a Dream, but that's nothing like my life). So if I just pretended my life was a book, could I pretend that I was the author too?

Someone walked in through the door and absentminded curiosity lifted my head. It turned out to be David, so I put the book back in its place and decided to walk over to him. The closer I looked at him the more I noticed something wasn't right. His demeanor was off of the usual, and his face was stricken with a look of pain that I could easily recognize.

"Hey, David," I called to him softly, walking over to him. He whipped his head up to me and the agony in his eyes was paralyzing me.

"Adam, I was looking for you," he said weakly. His hands were shaking as he played with his fingers.

"Let's go somewhere else, okay?" I offered, starting to get really worried about my friend.

He barely managed to agree with me with the nod of his head, though he was out the door ahead of me, rubbing his forearms uncontrollably. He looked around frantically for a place to go, beginning to look desperate. I was going to tell him we could go to my room but then he pulled me into a private bathroom down the hall and locked the door. It was fairly large and clean and very plain and very white, save for the black camera bolted to the ceiling. I knew there was at least two of these rooms for the people with various types of anxiety and phobias and other things like that, but luckily for us there wasn't anyone in here or waiting to get in.

David backed up into the wall opposite the sink and toilet and kept himself snug in the corner.

"I can't take it anymore," he stated. I noticed he was raking and digging his nails into his arms, leaving lines of dark red on top of the fading scars that were finally healing. I wanted to just take his arms and hold them so he couldn't do anymore damage, but I was almost scared to. I didn't want to stress him out any more that he already was.

"Just tell me what happened," I said, forcing myself to look into his eyes instead of him arms.

"Ruby is going back home..." he trailed off, looking to the ground with tears in his eyes. "A-and now I have no one left"—he sank his nails into his skin and move or let up, creating deeper and deeper indents—"and I'm never going to get out of here because everyone thinks I'm fucking psycho and doesn't need someone to just talk to and be loved by."