They Had Nothing To Say To Each Other

    “Keep going.”
    “Throw it down the drain.”
    “Down the drain.”
    “Keep walking.”
    “Don’t go.”
    “Don’t leave.”
    “Stay here.”
    “Please stay.”
    “Why don’t you listen to me?!”
    “Don’t you do that!”
    “You fucking idiot!”
    “You stupid slut!”
    “You never do anything right.”
    “You’re terrible”
    “Why aren’t you dead yet?”
    “Stop!!”
    “No go!”
Voices pounded in Kayla’s head. And none of them were her own thoughts. She didn’t know whose they were. She had forgotten to take her meds today because she was running late for the bus, but she knew that was a terrible excuse, and she knew her mom couldn’t bring her meds in because she was at work already and couldn’t leave. Kayla and her mother have both been working full and part time jobs so they can pay for rent and food and meds. It’s an important thing to take her meds every day, but she hasn’t taken them for two days; yesterday and this morning, and her head has been spinning with voices that didn't belong to her. She didn't know what these voices were or why they were always so mean to her. She sat silently in class, fidgeting in her seat, fighting to sit still and ignore the constant clamor in her own head. Her doctor didn't give her a label yet, or at least that's what the voices call it, a label. But she knew it was called a diagnosis. It was fifth period and the beginning of history class when someone walked up next to her to sit beside her. Kayla looked at him, and it was a young man around her age, he had tapped her shoulder to ask her something, and Kayla had looked at him in time to see his lips move, but her brain couldn't hear him over the yelling in her head. She asked him what he had said and he repeated,

“Do you mind if I sit next to you?” He asked, his quiet voice didn't help her hearing problem much. It's like trying to listen to someone whispering at a rock concert, you just can’t. Not hearing what he said for the second time, she just nodded and watched as he sat in the empty seat next to her. Kayla rested her head on the desk, and grabbed her head to try and keep the angry voices at bay, but it took no effect. She saw the teacher start teaching them, but didn't care to take notes. Soon Kayla started thinking about the boy that was next to her. She didn't know his name, or even recognize his face.
“Don't trust him.”
“Fuck him! He's going to hurt you!”
“Don't do it.”
“Throw it down the drain.”
“Down the drain”
“We don’t need him.”
“Down the drain”
“You're never alone.”
“Down the drain.”
“I'm scared mommy.”
“Down the drain.”

Again, and louder, voices bounced in her complex mind, agitating her enough to force her to flip her desk in anger and frustration, and run out of the classroom. She just couldn’t take it. So many voices yelling over one another, echoing, and yelling. Calling her mean things, scary things. She just couldn’t take it anymore. She didn’t know what to do. She leaned her head against the lockers and slid down until she was sitting on the floor, with her knees held up to her chest, and her head resting on her knees, crying in pain and anger. She hated having these voices, and just wanted them to stop and go away. She screamed, wanting to force them to sound quieter in her head, but it didn’t work.
    “GO AWAY!!” She screamed. Little did she know, the boy who had asked to sit next to her, was kneeling in front of her, trying to talk to her. But she couldn’t hear him over these voices in her head. She looked up at him and saw he was trying to talk to her, and suddenly his soothing voice pierced her brain. It was a painful experience, but his words quieted the voices. And they stopped talking to her almost instantly.
    “Hey, it’s ok. You’ve got a second chance, you could go home. Escape it all, it's all irrelevant. You can still be what you want to, what you said you were when I met you. You could always start again. You have a warm heart, you have a beautiful brain.”
    She looked at him, and her sobbing slowed. Kayla listened to each and every word individually, and saw that his voice was compacting the negative voices in her head and kept them at bay. But she was still very afraid that they would come back to eat her soul alive again. He repeated the phrase he said, and the voices got ever so quieter with every word, and her crying and sobbing continued to slow and quiet down. She sat in silence, looking at the boy who was soothing her aching mind. Silence, between both her mind and her lips. And soon, they had nothing to say to each other.