Because You Are Beautiful [Para-noir pt 1]

II

{B} -> Brain's pov

From the moment I had woken up everything went by in a blur. I lay in a bed in hospital. They had been pumping me full of blood and nutrition's. My stitches were itching.
Then some doc came in. My mom was there, too. They talked, saying something about me not being stable and having to protect me from myself. All the time I was just laying there, staring at the ceiling. At some point they must've left I guess.
I remember asking myself why I didn't even manage to kill myself, that was around nightfall. Then the sun came up aging. I slept, didn't I?
Someone wanted me to eat.

Another night.

And another day.

Everything moved in circles.

I lost count of the days.

Then my mother was back again. She took me with her, we drove somewhere. All the time she kept talking about how much she loved me and how worried she had been.
When we stopped and got out of the car, she took a small suitcase out of the trunk and handed it over. Her walking in front of me we entered a building that smelled just like the hospital. We were sent to a room where we sat down at a table with some guy whose name tag read "Dr. Kruger, psychiatrist"
Psychiatrist? Slowly I came back to my senses. I felt like I hadn't breathed for a week, I seemed to be under water but now I was floating closer and closer towards the surface.
Suddenly I broke through and everything was back – it was too bright, too loud. Too much.
"So, you're Brian Warner, correct?" The psych doc was talking to me.
I just nodded in reply, still trying to figure out the fuck I had come from pitch black to this place.
"Can you tell me what happened?", he continued asking me stuff I wasn't really sure about.
Still, I had to say something.
"I cut myself." That was pretty much everything I felt was real.
The doc wrote something down.
"Was that the first time you hurt yourself?"
I shook my head, looking down at my knees.
"When was the first time?"
I closed my eyes. What day was it? Where was I again?
"A couple of years back, when I was eleven or something."
He nodded, taking down what I said.
"How do you feel right now? Do you have the urge to harm yourself?"
Did I? I didn't want to cut, I just wanted it to end, all of it. I shook my head.
"Can you tell me why you cut? There was one deep wound that could've been lethal."
Well, if he put it this way he most likely knew what I had intended to do.
"I wanted to die."
I could hear a muffled sob next to me. My mother.
"Do you feel suicidal at this moment?"
Nah, I was just peachy. Most of my body itched or hurt, my head might just explode at any given moment.
"I'm not sure."
Kruger exchanged a knowing look with my mother who was still crying into her tissue.
"All right Brian. I think it would be best for you to stay with us for now.
Stay? Here? Psych doc + the smell of disinfectants = looney bin. Definitely not.
"No. No I'm okay."
The sobs on my right grew louder again:
"It's for your own best, darling."
"No, don't do this to me! Just leave me alone!"
I didn't really notice I was screaming.
The doc got up and gestured us to follow him. I had no choice so I did without another word. He unlocked a door and held it open.
"If you'd like to say goodbye to your mother..."
I looked at him in utter disbelief. Me, in a looney bin? In the goddamn LOCKED WARD?!
"I'm fine, okay?! There's no need to lock me up!"
My mother covered her mouth with the hand that was still clenching her tissue and hurried out of the building. Kruger locked the door behind us.
There was no chance of getting out of this. Every bit of strength and anger left my body the moment the lock clicked.
A nurse and the doctor walked me down a corridor into another room. Glancing through the black dyed hair that fell into my face I saw about eighteen teens having lunch.
"This is the dining room where we have our meals. There's a fixed seating, why don't you sit over there with Lily, Janine and John?"
I glimpsed through my hair to see the nurse gesturing towards a table with a free chair.
"Okay." I almost whispered. There was no good in refusing. I had lost this fight and this was the end.
I had sat down quickly and kept my gaze fixed on my hands when a bowl of something that was supposed to be lunch was place don the table in front of me.
I made some indistinct noise, not sure what I wanted to say.
One of the girls on the opposite side of the table turned towards me:
"Hey, I'm Lily and these are Janine and John. What's your name?"
I really didn't want to talk, I was busy trying not to attract any attention. It was not as if I had a choice if I didn't want to be "that weirdo", so I answered:
"I'm Brian."
I really hoped she'd leave me alone now, but of cause she kept going:
"Nice to meet you. Do you know what room you'll be staying in?"
I shook my head. Why couldn't they stop interrogating me?
I felt people looking at me though most of the kids had gone back to their own conversations.
I tried to inconspicuously study my table companions. John, who sat on my left, seemed to be about two years older than me, around seventeen. His dark brown hair matched his chocolate eyes perfectly. He was slightly tanned and – oh fuck, he was looking at me. Shit. He definitely noticed me staring at him. Before I could think of what to do or say he smiled at me:
"It's okay, most likely not poisoned."
It took me a sec to realise he was talking about the food, then his silly joke almost made me smile. It would be good to get along with someone – and John seemed more than all right.

Just when lunch was over and Lily and Janine who apparently were on kitchen duty had started to clean up the tables some nurse around 40 wanted to talk to John and me.
"Brian's gonna stay in yours and Fred's room, John. Would you mind showing him around a little and explaining him the basic rules?"
"Sure." Johnny nodded.
"Thanks. But remember to be in your room at 1pm for doctor's visit, okay?"
He nodded again and took me out of the dining room into a corridor.
"On the left: The art therapy room, the classroom slash visiting room and bedroom No. 7. On the right are the bathrooms."
The corridor ended at a glass door through which I saw the entrance room.
"Okay, so this is the common room." John had turned around and walked back.
"We're here most of the day. Sport therapy's twice a week in the garden unless Alex, the therapist, is sick. Which he's basically all the time."
We didn't stay in the common room but walked down another hall parallel to the one we had just left. I recognised it since this was were Kruger and the nurse had brought me in earlier.
John continued:
"So, there's breakfast at 8am, lunch at twelve, tea at 3.30pm and dinner at 6pm. Uhm... They wake us up at 7.30 on weekdays, you're allowed to sleep till lunch on Saturday and Sunday. How old are you?"
I was surprised by his sudden question.
"I'm 15.", I said quietly.
"Okay, then you're allowed to stay up till 10pm from Sunday to Thursday. Depending on who's on duty on Friday and Saturday we're allowed to stay up late."
He stopped in front of a board:
"Here you can find the schedules for school and art therapy. Over there is the phone, your family and friends can call you between 7.30 and 8.30pm every day. Visiting hours are on the paper over there. Now, did I forget anything?"
I'm sure I looked like a complete idiot – of course I had no clue, I had arrived less than an hour ago. But then I spotted a second board a little way down the hall:
"What's that?", I asked.
"Oh yeah, right. Here you can see who's working which shift today. And which room has to put clean sheets on their beds, who is to be examined. That's pretty much it, I think."
We fell into an uncomfortable silence.
"So... today's doctor's visit?" For some reason talking to John was easier than talking to most people. Maybe the reason was that he was in the looney bin, too. He wouldn't make fun of me, would he?
"Right. And-"
"Okay guys, lunch break!" The nurse who had asked John to show me around – Jack – called.
The few teens who still hung around in the common room scurried into their bedrooms. I guess I looked pretty lost, having no idea where I was supposed to go. John just took my hand and walked me into a room with a painted "No. 2" on the door.
A boy sat on a bed next to the windows.
"Hi, I'm Fred. OCD and anxiety disorder. The bed closest to the door's free."
Unsure what to do I didn't move when John sat down on his the bed in the middle. He gave me a smile that I returned shyly.
A little reassured by this I sat down on the third bed in our room.
"Uhm... If you don't mind me asking, what happens during visit?"
For some reason John looked kind of glad. He probably didn't enjoy awkward silence either.
"That's pretty simple. The doc, Kruger, one or two psychologists and nurses come into each room. Two of us wait outside while the third is interviewed. They usually ask you how you feel and some stuff about your therapy. Then we swap and that's pretty much it."
Fred looked at us:
"Would you guys mind me going first?"
We shrugged simultaneously.
"Thanks." And he went back to absently scratching his hands.
I noticed that my absolute weakness had been getting less overwhelming. Apparently not all people drained me completely. Some might actually be pretty interesting. John for example. I didn't know him, yet he fascinated me. There was something odd about this kid. You wouldn't notice at first sight, he seemed like a normal, attractive teen in his blue jeans and Black-Sabbath-Hoodie. But this sparkle deep down in his eyes, something in the sound of his voice was strange. Something unusual, NEW.