I'm Not Making Any Sense

Chapter 2

After morning meds and breakfast (and another sleepless night), I started drawing on my wall by my bed. The people here were dumb enough to give me a permanent marker. Guys! I have tattoos already! But the walls were good enough to doodle on.
Patrick had gone back to sleep after taking whatever medication he took. Brendon was still asleep, but it was one hell of a restless sleep. And poor Alex was curled up against his back wall, holding his blanket tight around him. It was still an ice box in here.
"Heat wave of the century, huh?" I called out.
I received a snort of laughter in reply.
Shortly after finishing yet another bartskull on the wall, I went to my desk and continued with lyrics.
/I used to obsess over living
Now I only obsess over you
Tell me you like boys like me better
In the dark lying on top of you/
That last part made me chuckle a little. But after that, my brain kind of flat lined and I lost inspiration.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something shoot up into a stiff sitting position. I turned slowly and saw Patrick breathing heavily and drenched in a cold sweat.
I jumped up and ran to my bars, trying to look at him better. In truth, that probably made me look even more psycho.
"Patrick?"
The boy looked up at me and I saw tears rolling from his eyes. Nail marks were imprinted in his left arm where he must have been unconsciously hurting himself. I wanted to go over there and hug him to get him to calm down. The kid looked so petrified.
"Patrick, it's alright. You're going to be alright."
The sadness in his eyes grew even deeper. He knew I was lying to make him better; his parents and maybe everyone had before. All our parents lied to us like that when they sent us here.
"Please, Trick. Stop crying. Please." I was being as nice as I possibly could. I didn't know what to do to get him to stop.
Finally, I got an idea. I hurried to my desk and pulled out one of my poems, or lyrics, take your pick. They were shit to me. Hastily, I folded it into a paper airplane then shot it over to him. It landed a few inches in front of the bars.
Patrick looked down at the paper like it was a foreign object. Hesitantly, he got up and went to the bars. He crouched down then his hand reached out between the bars and snatched up the paper.
It was something that I wrote when I first got here; what it spoke of was why I was here.
/I keep telling myself
I keep telling myself
I'm not the desperate type
Sitting out dances on the wall
Trying to forget anything that isn't you
I'm not going home alone
Cos I don't do to well on my own/
I thought that maybe if I shared that with him, he would think of me as someone he could trust. Maybe he would say something about them and critique me or something like that.
To my relief, the tears stopped when he started reading. He looked up at me every so often, his eyes full of questions.
He had read it several times before he finally looked up at me and stared. It was like he wanted me to say something first.
"Well?"
Patrick nodded approvingly. And this was the moment I had been waiting for, even though it had nothing to do with my lyrics.
"Did you call me Trick?"
A full question out of the kid! I smiled so wide, my jaw started hurting. I had finally heard the kid's voice.
"Uh... Yeah. Patrick is a little too much to say. Trick is one syllable. Good for me. Is that alright by you?" I really didn't want to offend him.
"Sure." He waited a couple seconds, looking like the voice he had heard didn't belong to him. It was high but deep at the same time. There was an awkward teenage tone to it but it also sounded so mature. "Did you write this?" He asked holding the paper up.
I nodded.
"'I just need a stronger dose.' Don't we all," he mused. "What's it about?"
This part I didn't like to share with anyone. It was, of course, the reason I was here. Well, one of the reasons.
"Well, it's not a happy story, to say the least. But what exactly do most people want to do when they get super, extremely, over the top depressed?"
Patrick's mouth opened a little like it was hard for him to believe. "You-?"
I cut him off. "But I failed. And a good thing too. I'm never going to try that again. Obviously."
Patrick smiled. "I'm happy you failed." With that, he folded the paper back up into its airplane shape, took it to his desk, scribbled something on it then threw it to me.
It landed just inches from my cell door. I squatted and retrieved it.
On the right wing it read: 7 Minutes in Heaven.