Psychiatric Hospital High School

Flashback

About a week ago, I was with some guys that I knew from my old high school. I had snuck out that night around midnight. All four of us were walking downtown. They were drinking heavily, I was smoking a cigarette. When we walked past a boxcar that was dark red, one of the guys stopped and took off his backpack, and tossed us spraypaint cans.

You can guess what we did with those cans and that boxcar yourself.

We thought it'd be a good idea go to into a 24-hour Wal-Mart, three out of four of us wasted, and get some food, cigarettes, and drinks. But, none of us had money. I grabbed a shopping cart, and we, laughing, talking, joking, living, went around the whole store filling up the cart with food and drinks. Jasper, the oldest and the most sober, told us to be quiet. We followed him to where the cigarettes were.

"Jasper, what are you doing?" I asked.

"Here's the plan," Jasper said, half ignoring and half answering my question. I'm going to ask where some hardware supplies are, and when he leaves with me, you go grab the cig boxes and bolt out the back door. I'll catch up with you as soon as I can."

A younger man sat at the desk in front of the cigs and chew. Jasper walked up to him. "Good evening, I need help finding some hardware supplies, could you show me where that would be?" He asked. The guy nodded, and they began walking towards the hardware supplies, where ever that was.

Vinnie, the youngest, about 14, went over grabbed as much as his hands and hoodie pockets could hold. "Alright, let's go." I said. We walked to the back door, where a few registers were. Vinnie had his wallet out, to make it look like we were paying for everything. Nobody was at the registers. We nonchalantly strolled out the doors.

Bolting, we ran all the way to the old rundown used-to-be-an-office building. I climbed through the window first. Vinnie and Thomas began handing me all the items from the cart. And, let me tell you, there was a lot of it. At least seventy dollars worth of food, thirty dollars worth of booze, and who knows how much of the other stuff we stole.

Jasper showed up and told us that he'd bought a multi-purpose rope, just to look unsuspicious. Laughing, he took a can of beer and drank half of it. Vinnie was eating frosted flakes out of the box. Thomas and I were sharing a cigarette.

The last thing I remember from that night was that We'd found ourselves at the old bike bridge above what used to be a part of the Willamette river. Now, it was just a dirt road. Jasper and I began yelling at each other, I can't remember why, but it must've been pretty heated because Jasper and I got physical.

A cop car pulled up and officers tackled us to the ground. They had reason to. In the end, we were cuffed, in a holding cell, all cuffed to individual chairs. I'd been released first, but the other three stayed there to sober up. 

I was lead to a room where I was told to sit down and wait. Five minutes passed, and someone came in. "After reviewing your history of medical records and criminal background, you have two choices." The man said. He was admittedly really hot. I began to stare at his arms, which were large and strong. "Girl, quit staring at my arms." He said, smirking. At least he was friendly. "Okay, so your two choices are either serve a sentence of twelve months in juvie, for theft, minor alcohol possession, graffitiing the train-"

"Is that a word?" I asked. 

"Hush." He smiled. "So, all the stuff you and your buddies did tonight racked you up a long sentence, about 48 months to be exact." I felt like my heart stopped beating. My eyes began filling with tears. "Hey, hey," the officer said. "You haven't heard the second option yet. You could instead go to Corvallis Farm Home Mental Treatment." He looked at me. He had really nice chocolate brown eyes.  

"Uh, I dunno." Both of those options were awful." 

"Well, you have until Thursday morning. You can go home and think about it. Sometime then, you'll be taken down here, we'll re-read your records, and give you five minutes to choose."

"Okay." I looked down at my feet. "Thank you." I said. I shook his hand, which was much larger than mine. When he stood up to escort me to a ride home, he was probably a foot taller than I. I was 5'1". He was at least six feet.

I was at home around six-thirty that morning. My parents talked to the attractive officer before thanking him, closing the door, and yelling at me for the next half hour. The entire time, I just kind of took the insults and screaming. No part of me cared at that moment. The only thing I wanted to do was cry and have a smoke. 

The entire day was spent in my room. I was going back and forth from cleaning my room, going ham on my punching bag, and crying. The whole day until that evening was spent doing those three things. There was nothing else to do. I didn't feel like playing guitar, playing drums, or drawing. 

That night, I got buzzed and began cutting myself. Man, did it feel good. It felt like a relief. And the buzzed feeling subsided the pain and stinging. Laughing, I told myself I was going to fight the cops and steal their car. 

Eventually, I came to and cleaned up my arms. My eyelids felt heavy, so I fell onto my bed and passed out. But, I woke up at seven the next morning, Thursday morning, with my parents yelling from downstairs. My floor had some blood stains, and the booze was gone from under my bed.