"Are you on medication?"

The voice through the phone is harsh and uncaring and I wonder for a moment if she's bored with my story before I've even started it. Why become a suicide hotline operator if you don't want to listen?

I answer her anyway. "I was..Celexa. But I stopped taking it."

"Why?"

"I was feeling better.." It seems like a lame excuse now but it's the only one I've got.

"And now you're not?" It’s not really a question the way she says it, more of an accusation. I know I’m not supposed to stop taking the medicine on my own but for a while there I really did think I had it under control.

"Well, I was kind of talking about that..with my dream...?"

"Right, the recurring one?"

"Yeah. It's, well...I wake up in a hospital bed and before I even open my eyes all the way, I can feel anger growing inside me....I look to my left and I see my mother, she’s got this look of pity on her face; like I didn't turn out how she wanted and she can't decide if she’s more unhappy for herself or for me. I can tell that she doesn't know I'm awake yet so I look down and I notice gauze around my wrists....I--I had tried to kill myself.

"And the thing is, that I'm not surprised. I knew it, even in my dream, I knew why I was in the hospital and it’s not even shocking to see that I failed. It's just another failure in a long line of failures....I'm about to speak for the first time, I even open my mouth but nothing comes out before my dad comes running in and starts yelling at me about how he's missing work for this and how I'll never get into a good school with this on my record and how do I think scars will look in job interviews...it goes on like this for a while and then he just stops and stares directly at me and says 'You're so useless, you can't even kill yourself properly' and then he walks out. My mother follows after him, shaking her head at me, and looking more full of pity than I've ever seen her before....I stare at the door for a few minutes before I start screaming, loud and nonstop. I scream until my throat is sore and my lungs ache...and no matter how hard I scream, no one ever comes in to make me stop..."

I pause for a moment after I finish my retelling. My hands and forehead are dripping with sweat, my bangs now sticking noticeably to my face, my legs are shaking and weak, my knees feel almost like they want to give out underneath me and my heart is pounding--pounding like I just ran a marathon. I've never told anyone my dream before and it feels almost wrong to divulge it now, even to a stranger who doesn't know my name.

"Is that all?" For all that I’ve said and the way my body has responded, I expected more than a slightly annoyed sounding response.

I sputter, embarrassingly, and wipe a hand down my face, taking a deep breath before responding. "Well I usually wake up screaming, or shaking or sometimes I barely make it to the toilet in time before I vomit, but yeah, that's all."

"And how do you feel now?" She says it in the same professional voice, faking interest and reading the leading questions off of a cue card. For some reason, I fall for it.

"Well, I--" Some days are okay, once I’ve taken a shower I’m able to shake the dream away enough to go to class and to function, I can always feel it nagging away in the back of my mind but it doesn’t have an outward effect on how I seem...but that’s only on some days.

"I feel scared.” I answer truthfully, admitting it to myself for the first time as well as the operator. “Like one of these days I'm going to wake up and it won't be a dream, I'll actually be in the hospital. Or maybe....maybe I won't wake up at all."

"Craig?"

I'm silent for a moment, assuming the lady is talking to someone else before I realize that Craig is the fake name I gave her. "Oh, um, yes?"

"Craig, I think you should go to the hospital."

I pause, partly from the sound of the voice, now interested, maybe even worried and I look at the clock. "It's two in the morning."

"The emergency room is always open."

For some reason the thought of visiting a hospital still seems a bit extreme, maybe even an inconvenience to everyone there. I’m silent again, trying in vain to come up with a reason why she would want me to admit myself, and finding none. "Am I having an emergency?"

"Wanting to take your own life is always an emergency." She says it slowly, delicately and I can tell that she’s trying not to freak me out, to set me off. In reality, it sort of does.

I’d never really considered myself suicidal before and it’s odd to have someone else point it out to you. I suppose, deep down, I knew it was the truth but it's not like I actually tried anything. Then again, I wouldn’t have called a suicide hotline at two in the morning if I hadn't thought it was a possibility. I just never considered myself to be an at risk case.

In all honesty, I don't have much reason to be; I have parents that love me, in their own way, I have friends, I go to an amazing high school, that costs more than most of the community colleges over here, and yet I feel so...empty. There have been expectations for my life since before I was born, things I never had a say in--where I would go to school, the people I would hang out with, what my eventual career would be. All of it builds up until my entire existence seems to be for someone else instead of myself. There’s no point to living when your sole purpose in life is to please others, only to find they can never be pleased. The demands never met, the responsibilities never achieved, its honestly a wonder that I don’t spend every day buried under my covers.

"Craig. Craig are you still with me?"

I jump slightly, my hand tightening around a phone I forgot I was holding and clear my throat. "Er--yeah."

"Good." I notice that she doesn't sound quite so bored anymore, but actually nervous. It's frightening to know I'm making her nervous. "Do you need me to call you an ambulance?"

"No!” I answer too quickly, my heart pounding again as I move my eyes over my parents door. I can only imagine what they would say if sirens woke them up at this hour. I try to laugh it off but it sounds odd even in my own ears. “No..that's alright."

My heart doesn’t really calm down until I hear her word that she won’t call an ambulance. Images flash in my head of the paramedics, fire department and ambulances all coming to my aid while some poor old man is dying of a heart attack or a child is lost and hurt in the street. It’s definitely not worth it to take the help away from them. “There’s a hospital down the street, I can walk there.”

"Good, Craig, I want you to do that. There is no shame in asking for help."

"Okay. Thanks."

"You're welcome, Craig. Thank you for calling. You're very brave." It’s almost like I’m talking to a different woman entirely. Gone is the bored, uninterested person I had before and in her place is one of comfort and caring. There’s an almost tentative quality to her tone, like she really does hope I do as I say I will.

I thank her one more time before I hang up the phone, my mind still racing. I look towards the clock again and think about where I would normally be right now. Lights out in the dorm would have been hours again but more than likely I’d still be awake, listening to Jeff snoring next to me as I studied by flashlight for my midterms. Classes that seemed so easy for everyone else were always a problem for me. Though, that could have been because I spent more time depressed in bed, or puking in the bathroom, than I did listening to lectures.

At first everyone ignored it, said I was having trouble with the semester, hit the junior year slump, it happened to everyone. After a while though they stopped inviting me out and Jeff would cast worried looks in my direction whenever he left our dorm room. The Dean eventually got involved because I missed too much class and I’m almost certain Jeff had a talk with him because instead of suspension I was just sent home. Marked down with “homesickness” and given a long weekend vacation.

My dad had been furious, spent my first day back yelling at me. He told me I needed to get my act together if I wanted to get into a good college, if I wanted to live up to the plan. Ivy Leagues aren’t looking for kids who had holes in their attendance record, they want dedication and perseverance. It took a whole day of lecturing, before he went back to work, deeming me a lost cause or just trying to forget about it all together. He stayed out much later than normal and before the front door even shut behind him, he’d be in his office or in his bedroom, not so much as a glance in my direction.

It wasn’t really surprising, or all that upsetting. The amount of time my father spent with me was directly congruent with how well I was living up to his expectations. When I got bad marks on my report card in fourth grade, he stopped talking to me for a week, the same happened again when I failed math in middle school and when I had to transfer schools in the middle of freshman year, I thought he was going to disown me all together. The only thing that saved me was that I got into a private high school, it was prestigious and only for special cases or the brightest students out there. Regardless of the unfortunate circumstance of my transfer, my dad was proud, at least for a little while.

Most of the time it was harder to be around my mother. She would sit with me while I watched tv and tried to cook me my favorite meals, at least, until I ended up regurgitating half of a grilled cheese sandwich onto the dinner table. It’s not her fault I turned out the way I did and I can see it in her eyes that she feels bad for me. There’s a sadness there that I can’t quite place, it’s been there for as long as I’ve known her but it’s only just gotten worse. She’s always been a good mother though, a nurturing one and even if I don’t talk to her much, I can feel that she loves me. I just hate to see that look in her eyes, to know I put that disappointment there. It’s gotten to the point that when she glances my way, I turn in the other direction.

I grab a light jacket and put a short note up on the refrigerator before leaving. It’s probably not completely necessary, by the time they realize I’m gone I’ll probably be home. I’d just hate for them to wake up and think I went back to school, only to have their hopes crushed when they call after me and discover I’m not there.

The walk to the hospital is short but I still feel out of breath when I arrive. I've only been to the emergency room once before but it looks exactly the same as I step inside. I shield my eyes for a moment against the blinding artificial lighting. It’s like time doesn’t exist in this place, for all they know it could be three in the afternoon instead of three in the morning. The sickly sweet smell of stale cleanliness burns in my nostrils and my stomach flips ominously, just to be safe I look around to find the nearest bathroom, then slowly make my way up to the front desk.

"Um, I--I think I want to kill myself."

The receptionist turns and takes her time looking me over. I'm not sure what I was expecting. A siren to go off, a squad of doctors to come out and grab me, maybe even a sympathetic glance or two but instead I get a short nod and a clipboard shoved into my hands.

I suppose even the suicidal need to fill out paperwork.

Its the standard admittance papers I’ve dealt with a million times before but for some reason this seems much bigger. Each line I fill in is another line towards taking a step off the path of my life. I try to imagine what my father would say if he was here right now but I come up short, he wouldn’t be here right now because if he were involved, I wouldn’t be here right now. Even after I finish filling it out, I hesitate with turning it in. It’s the right decision, I know that much to be true, I’m just not sure if it’s the right decision for me. In the end, it’s only after I read over my reason for visiting that I decide to hand it over. Accepting within myself that I need help won’t do any good if I don’t end up asking for it.

After she takes the clipboard back I'm told to wait in one of the chairs for a doctor to come get me. I nod and make my way over, stopping for just a moment before sitting in a chair that seems all too familiar. A wave of nausea hits me again, this time not from anxiety but from remembering things I've tried so hard to forget; the taste of blood on my tongue, the sound of fists hitting flesh, the harsh tone of the insults and slurs reaching my ears. The best medicine in the world wouldn't be able to erase that from my memory.

A nurse calls my name and I jump slightly before getting up to follow her down a hall. She asks me what's wrong and I tell her the same thing I told the hotline, I'm suicidal, I was on medicine but stopped taking it, I can't sleep, can't eat and keep having the same horrible dream. I'm scared I may do something drastic if it doesn't stop. It’s easier to say the second time but I still stumble over the words.

The nurse is nothing but professional as she listens to my story. Nodding when appropriate and asking questions when she feels necessary, it doesn’t feel too much like an interrogation but it’s not exactly a casual chat either. She doesn’t offer any comfort or give any signs that she is overly invested in my story, just takes my blood pressure, my temperature and then informs me a doctor will be in shortly.

She lied.

Three more people come in to talk to me before I even see a doctor. They place a guard outside my door to watch over me and I have to tell my story so many times that it starts to sound like it's about someone else. I’m no longer stumbling over the words but rushing through them, getting them out quickly in the hopes that I’ll get a solution that much faster. By the time the Dr Figgins comes in, I'm tired and frankly, feeling a little annoyed.

"I think you should start taking your medicine again, if not the Celexa then we can start you on something else. It's not safe to come off these things on your own." He says after I tell him about my dream and my reason for being there.

I want to laugh, but more than that I want to cry. If that’s the best they can do for me I may as well have stayed home. "That's it? That's all you're doing?"

"What else would you like me to do?" He doesn’t even look up from the prescription pad he is writing on as he speaks to me. There is something lazy in his tone that makes me instantly think of the hotline operator.

I know it's stupid but I can feel tears burning my eyes. For a moment I had been really hopeful. I thought I would actually be helped here. I thought people would care, would want to see me happy. I thought it'd be different. I’m sick of being looked over, of having my problems pushed aside and reacted to like they don’t matter. Even when I ask for help no one seems to listen.

"I don't know." I answer weakly, because I don't. Maybe I'm a helpless case. "I'm scared, all the time...scared that I can't trust myself not to do something terrible....I see all these people around me, at school, at home, at the store. They all deal with so much...work, family, friends, their own personal problems and somehow they keep from screaming or breaking down and I just...I can't do it. I wear a smile on my face every day at school and it's all so fake. I feel like I'm tearing apart at the seams and NO ONE notices....I don’t know what to do...just--please...please help me."

A tear or two have escaped in the time it took me to say all that and I wipe at my face, staring at my feet and shifting restlessly in front of him. I feel small and weak. If I were closer with my mother I feel like this would be one of those times I would turn to her, wrap myself up in her arms to try to feel safe again. As it were, I have only myself for comfort so I wrap my arms around my own chest, sniffling weakly and waiting for the decision to be made.

Doctor Figgins takes one more look at me, and doesn’t even hesitate before he writes down a note on his clipboard. Just like that I'm admitted to the hospital's Behavior Health Unit.

After that, they move a lot faster. The guard escorts me and a nurse over to another wing where they take me into a room and have me strip down, asking if I have any razors or sharp objects on me. Then they let me redress, take my phone, my shoelaces and my wallet and tell me that they will give the items to my parents when they come to bring me more clothes.

For some reason it's not until they mention my parents that I start freaking out. I pace back and forth, my hands shaky and tense at my sides. I didn't think about the fact that my parents would have to be told. The nurse assures me that they'll understand, that it will be okay, but she clearly doesn't know them they way I do.

I think about my stupid note and about how I thought I’d be home before breakfast. My mom will be upset, I hope she doesn’t cry. I’ve never seen her cry before and the thought that I’d be the cause of it makes my chest feel heavy. More than anything I feel bad that she’ll have to take whatever it is my dad dishes out. Without me there to yell at, he’ll have to yell at her, complain about how their son is a failure, how he’s ruining his life and all of theirs in the process. My mind is moving quickly, jumping from one idea to the next, trying to come up with anything to get me out of here.

Doctor Figgins comes back, his expression a little surprised, clearly not understanding what happened from the time I left his exam room to right now. I explain to him that there's been a mistake. That I changed my mind and want to go home. The moment of depression has passed, and every thing's fine now.

I can tell he doesn’t believe me and before he even reacts my heart drops down into my stomach. He gives me a small smile and puts a hand on my shoulder, for as hard as I had to fight to get him to help me, he sure seems adamant on me staying. "Listen, I think this will be good for you. Just stay for three days, after that, if you are feeling better, you can go home. Give us three days to help you. Only three."

"W-what about school?" I look up at him with wide eyes, trying to get him to understand that I can’t miss. I can’t mess up any more than I already have. He needs to let me out of here.

"They'll be informed and I'm sure they'll have no problem with you making up the work."

I swallow hard, I was afraid of that. "Please don't tell them I'm here. I don't want them to know I'm--"

Dr. Figgins looks sympathetic but nods, "There is nothing wrong with asking for help, it's nothing to be ashamed of. But if you don't want us to tell them, then we won't. You have a right to your privacy and the school will respect that."

I take a deep breath and nod. I can feel some of the tension in my body going away. I know it's petty but I'd hate to have everyone at school thinking I'm crazy, and I can't even imagine how this would look on a college application.

I wait for a minute longer, still staring at Dr Figgins and waiting for him to let me out, but he holds firm and I drop my gaze. I nod one more time at the floor and he gives my shoulder one last squeeze before leaving.

Not even a second later a taller, curly haired man with a disgusting brown vest and a smile way too wide to be natural takes his place and holds out a hand. "I'm Will Schuster, but everyone here calls me Shue. I'm here to show you around."

His voice is bright and cheery and for a moment I’m too shocked to remember my former defeat. He keeps his hand up, not at all deterred by the fact it takes me a while to respond. I eventually shake his hand, and then it’s back to business. He motions for me to grab my jacket and leads me out and down the hall towards two double doors that read Ward 402. These are the doors that will take me to my salvation. The doors that will lead me towards either the best, or worst decision of my life. I've never anticipated anything as much as I do right now. Clearly picking up on my hesitation, Shue stops and waits before continuing on.

Thankful for the moment of pause, I step away slightly and take a deep breath. This is what I asked for. These people will help me. The school won’t be aware of why I’m gone and maybe by the time I get back my parents will have gotten used to the idea. There is nothing to be afraid of. These people are professionals and they deal with this every day.

My stomach is still flopping but my hands no longer shake as I give a small nod. Shue steps forward and swipes his work card, waits for a soft beep and the sound of the doors unlocking before pushing on the handle quickly and giving me my first look at Ward 402.

"Blaine Anderson, let me be the first to welcome you to William McKinley Hospital. I think you'll learn to be very happy here."