“So, Ana, how was your weekend?” Dr. Lombardi asks me on Monday.

I shrug. “It was fine, I guess, given the circumstances with Johnny leaving and all. Yesterday, all I did was sit around with Renée and Mia and be sad so I guess it was really actually kind of crappy.”

“How do you feel about Johnny’s departure?” She wonders, scribbling something down on her notepad before looking back up at me to listen to my response.

“I think he was a really nice guy and I’m going to miss him. I’m not as messed up about it as Renée is though,” I tell her. “I didn’t really know him for that long, but it’s really good for him that he got out. I’m happier for him than I am upset that he’s gone, I guess.”

“That’s good,” She comments with a small nod. “Now, how are you doing with finding reasons to live? Remember how we talked about that?”

I nod, remembering that conversation that we had when I first got here two weeks ago. “Yeah, I’m not doing so well on that end. I mean, really, why is it so awful that I want to die? Just because it isn’t particularly normal doesn’t mean that it’s wrong. I’m not actually going to die, I just want to die. There’s a difference.”

“Don’t you think that you’ll be much happier of you feel that you’re not only living just for your family? If you can find something more to hold on to, you’ll feel better about living. You’ll be able to focus on more than just wanting to die,” She explains. “Have you thought of anything at all?”

I shake my head. “No. There’s nothing.”

“Well, I just want you to keep thinking about it, okay?” She suggests. “I really do think that it will help you.”

“There is nothing,” I repeat, this time with more force than previously.

“And why do you think that is?” She wonders with furrowed brows as she listens intently to my every word.

“Because whenever I close my eyes at night, I go back to that night. I try to bury it- I try with everything inside of me to bury this memory deep down so that I can never remember it again but I can’t and as much as I try to ignore it during the day, it comes back at night when I’m alone in the dark. There is nothing in the world that is worth that kind of thing. I would rather die than live with this memory burned inside of my skull and there is nothing in the world that would change my mind about that.”

“Do you want to talk about it yet? This memory that keeps haunting you?” Dr. Lombardi suggests.

I shake my head. “No, I’m not going to talk about it. Like, ever,” I tell her stubbornly.

“If you start to talk about it instead of trying to bury it, you will be able to overcome it a lot quicker. Just close eyes, breathe steady, and then tell me what happened,” She says. “Maybe not today but we’ll work up to it. I just want you to keep it in mind and keep thinking about reasons for yourself that you’d want to be alive, alright?”

“Sure,” I nod even though I highly doubt that I’ll be able to think of anything while I’m here in these ugly scrubs and everything around me is plain- boring colors and boring routines. The people aren’t very boring but they aren’t any reason to stay alive for.

“Is there anything else that you’d like to talk about?” Dr. Lombardi asks me.

I shake my head with my arms crossed across my chest. “Nope, nothing’s really coming to mind.”

“Alright, well I’ll see you tomorrow then. I don’t have anything else for today,” She says with a warm smile. “Have a good afternoon.”

“You too, Dr. Lombardi,” I tell her as I stand up and turn around to leave the warm office. I already talked to Penn and my dad earlier this morning so I don’t go for the phone bank, I just go for the courtyard. I see Renée and Mia sitting in the common area playing Uno with a few other people but they’re busy and I want some time alone so I just go out to the courtyard instead of stopping by the Uno table.

It’s kind of cloudy outside and the forecast said that it could rain tonight so there’s nobody outside, which is good for me because the only privacy I get is in my dorm room and I haven’t gotten some peace and quiet outside, just to hear the birds chirping and the wind blowing. I sit down on the cool sidewalk with my back leaning against the building so that I can just look at the empty courtyard and try to clear my head. However, it’s almost impossible to clear my head because everything is muddling together like a murky lake of thoughts and memories and I just want it all to go away. Unfortunately, there is no water purifier for my mind.

Getting a headache, I start rubbing my forehead with my palm while resting my elbows on my knees and I wish that things could be different. Which isn’t something new considering I am always wishing that things could be different- that I could be healthy and happy and with my family right now instead of here and always feeling out of my mind.

“It’s supposed to rain, you know,” Somebody says, making me jump a little bit as I turn to see that person standing by the door of the building, obviously he had just walked out from the rehab building.

“But it’s not raining right now,” I say, resting my head behind me on the building as I turn to look at the guy now walking toward me. He seems really tall but that might just be because I’m sitting on the floor and he’s standing up. I notice his brown hair and crooked smile and the fact that he’s not wearing the blue scrubs before I look away again, watching the scenery instead of this boy.

“True,” He nods. “What are you doing out here?”

“I like being by myself,” I say with a small shrug, hoping that he might get the hint and go back inside. However, the guy doesn’t move, he just stands there beside me. I’m starting to get freaked out but I just tell myself that there are windows all over the place, he can’t do anything to me or hurt me or anything because somebody would see.

“Yeah, I get that,” He says. “How long have you been here? I don’t think that I’ve seen you around.”

“Just a few weeks,” I tell him, rubbing my head again to try and soothe my current headache.

“You okay?” The stranger asks me.

I nod. “Yeah, just a headache.”

“Do you want me to go get a nurse?” He wonders, seemingly alarmed by my headache as if I just told him that I’m having a heart attack or something.

With a small laugh, I roll my eyes at him. “I said I have a headache, I’m not having an aneurism. I’m fine.”

“Okay then…” He mumbles awkwardly, leaning against the wall beside me. “Well, I’m Niles.”

“Like the river?” I wonder with raised eyebrows, looking up at him since he’s still standing up, towering over me.

“Plural,” He corrects me. “Like, more than one river.”

“Okay well are you new? Or are you just visiting or something? Because if you’re just visiting, you should probably go be with that person that you’re visiting instead of out here in the cloudiness talking to me.”

“Neither, actually,” Niles says. “My sister is a nurse here and I’m waiting for her to get off of her shift. Which means that I don’t have anybody to visit so I decided to wait out here.”

“Are you telling me that you don’t like hanging out with a bunch of whack-a-doodles? But we’re so much fun,” I tell him sarcastically, fiddling with my fingers on my lap.

He chuckles and then shrugs. “I guess I just like to be alone,” He mimics what I had said just a few minutes ago.

“But you’re not alone,” I remind him. “You’d be a lot more alone if you were like, over there or something,” I motion towards the other side of the courtyard where there’s nobody at all.

“Trying to get rid of me already?” He jokes, raising his eyebrows at me as he looks down toward me but I just look away, back at the gloomy clouds above us that are threatening to burst with droplets of rain. “But we’re having such a nice conversation.”

“I’m not trying to get rid of you,” I deny, which is really only kind of half false. “I’m just simply pointing out that you’re not really alone out here because I am also out here.”

Niles laughs again. “What’s your name?”

“Ana,” I sigh. “Diagnosed with depression, general anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, and- personal favorite- post traumatic stress disorder.”

“I wasn’t going to ask,” He assures me, his voice quieter this time than it has been during our conversation.

“But you wanted to know,” I refute, keeping my eyes on the clouds. I see a strike of lightning in the distance but there’s still no rain and I don’t hear any thunder so I think that I’m safe for now. “I know how people like you think about people like me. But I don’t care. I’m an open book.”

“Do you-“ Niles is cut off when somebody walks outside through the door from the building and we both look over in that direction.

“Ana, hey, it’s time to come inside. We’re closing the doors before the rain hits us. Oh, Niles, what are you doing out here?” The nurse wonders, curiously looking between me and the boy standing beside me.

“We were just talking,” Niles shrugs at the nurse, who I assume is his sister based off of what he had told me. “Are you ready to go?”

“Yeah, I just have to clock out and then we can go get some dinner,” She says as she ushers both of us into the building.

“I feel like you’re rubbing it in my face,” I tell her sarcastically. “I hope you two have a lovely dinner. Me? Oh, I’m going to be eating turkey and corn.”

“Have a good night, Ana,” The nurse, whose name I think is Sophie, says to me with a small laugh as she locks the doors to the courtyard behind us and then starts walking toward the nurse’s station where patients aren’t allowed to go. That’s where I assume that she has to go to clock out so that they can leave.

“It was nice meeting you,” Niles tells me as I’m walking away. I offer him a lazy wave without turning back around or responding verbally, I just silently make my arrival at the Uno table without even another thought about the stranger behind me.

------------------------------------------

Song: Astronaut by Simple Plan
Picture: Jeremy Irvine, who plays Niles

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT

[LAST CHANCE FOR DOUBLE UPDATES--- if the prologue of this story gets 20 votes before the next update, I'll start posting twice a week. The link to the prologue is in the external link]

Title: Take Me Home
Author: antoniaflowrrs
Genre: Teen Fiction
Summary: Bronte "Emery" Majors life was constantly filled with the literature world and everything that comes with it. The love child of a famous Manhattan author and a world pronounced musician, Emery lived and breathed the written word and the musical tendencies hidden in between the lines. She was taught that everyone had a happily ever after, that you just had to reach your peak of the mountain at the right time.

Her parents had conflicted feelings over chance and fate, each claiming one brought them together. After years of enticing the same argument, both her parents received their answer. It was fate (and genetics) that killed her mother, but it was chance that ripped Emery's father away from her too.

In an upstream battle against herself, Emery withdrawals from her world, her parents literacy world, and more importantly, the one person who actually understands her unspoken words amidst her endearing silence.

Betrayed by her mother's happily ever after, Emery tries to dig herself out of the town where her parents footprints and autographs stain every surface.

She enrolls in college, somewhere new and untainted by her parents memories.

But when she literally falls for an unexpected and past due shadow of her past, can Emery face reality and find her peak or will she run, taking her fragile baggage with her?