It's Okay to be Different

3

The man that saved me leaves the room. I can't help but notice feminine he is. He's extraordinarily beautiful.

Another wave of pain hits me, coursing through my blood. "It hurts!" I force out through clenched teeth.

"I know, I know. This is gonna hurt too. Your pain levels are about to quadruple for at least 4 mintes. But it's gonna be better in the long run. Brace yourself." As he's speaking he takes my shirt off. As soon as my shirt leaves my head, a syringe is plunged into my stomach. He squirts whatever is in the syringe into my system and it burns. It burns so bad.

I scream and writhe in agony. The pain is so excrutiating. The man that injected this substance into me just looks over me with a sad face. "I'm so sorry." He mumbles. "I can't wait until Mitch finds the person who did this. He'll kill him on sight."

I thrash around and the sheets are thrown everywhere as I do so. After a few minutes the pain dies down. My entire body is kind of numb. Tingly.

"I'm gonna go get Mitch. Be right back." Before he leaves the room, gives me another sad look. I take the few sweet moments to catch my breath and run a hand through my hair.

The stunning man enters the room and looks at me sadly. Why is everyone looking at me like I'm dying?

"That's because you are dying, Charles." His voice is so monotoned. Like he wants to die. Or like he already is dead.

"What...? First of all, who's Charles? Second of all, how did you know what I was thinking?"

He looks taken back for a moment. "Your name isn't Charles?" He aks.

"No. My name is Scott. Scott Hoying." I scoff. "Why would you think my name is Charles?"

He holds up my fake ID. "So your name isn't Charles. Does that mean you're also not 22?" I nod my head in agreement. "Then how old are you?"

"17." I reply.

"This is a fake ID." He says and I nod my head. "Why?" His voice is still bland but it has a tiny bit of an edge to it.

"I went clubbing with my friends. Gotta be 18 to get in and 21 to go to the bar."

He looks really angry. Like steam could come out of his ear at any moment now.

"Mitch..." Kevin says cautiously. "Don't lash."

"You... You're 17... You just FUCKED UP YOUR ENTIRE LIFE BECAUSE YOU WANTED TO GO CLUBBING! ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?" His voice cracks. He's crying but he's still screaming at me. Wow, okay. So he has emotions thank God. "YOU HAD YOUR ENTIRE LIFE AHEAD OF YOU! YOU FUCKED YOURSELF OVER! ..... And now you're stuck. You're stuck forever and there's nothing you can do about it." He laughs but his laugh is sad.

"It wasn't his fault Mitch. He couldn't have known this would happen." Kevin tries to calm him down but fails miserbaly. "He couldn't control this."

"No! Because SOME OF US REALLY COULDN'T CONTROL THIS! I COULDN'T CONTROL THIS! I LOST MY LIFE ON MY WAY HOME FROM COLLEGE! YOU LOST YOUR LIFE BECAUSE YOU WANTED TO GET DRUNK INSTEAD OF BEING A NORMAL TEENAGER! WHY COULDN'T YOU HAVE JUST STAYED HOME? WHY DID YOU JUST HAVE TO GO CLUBBING? Why?" He breaks out into a fit of sobs. "You deserve to live. You deserve to fall in love and get married and have babies and grow old with the person you love. You deserve... to have a life. You don't deserve to die at 17."

I'm confused as fuck. "Wait, dying? I'm dying. Why have I had nothing explained to me yet? What the FUCK HAPPENED TO ME?"

"DON'T SCREAM AT ME!" I flinch at his voice. His voice almost drops an entire octave.