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Green Meadows Psychiatric Hospital was a secret in the community that surrounded it. People saw the towering, moss- covered stonewalls running for miles and the birds flying back and forth over the wall as they pleased, but what existed beyond the walls was a mystery to most. People who lived in the town guessed that it was a school, a hospital for people with chronic illnesses, an elderly care home, an orphanage, or even an old abandoned mansion- their guesses held some truth- but none were exactly right. Lawyers, health professions, and a few citizens knew the truth, but never said a thing about the facility. For the patients inside, the mystery was good. It gave them privacy. They deserved privacy, at least from the town, as they no longer had it from their doctors, families, or friends.

Behind the walls, rested a sprawling brick building. Inside the East Wing sat a sixteen-year-old boy with a china- doll complexion and chestnut brown hair. He had frown lines on his face, dark circles under his eyes, and he emitted an aura that only a person who considered death an old friend could have. The boy sat on a twin bed that had clean, crisp white sheets put Mondays and Thursdays, or when a patient got them dirty. The sheets were covered with a standard thick, tan blanket and navy blue comforter. There were no buttons and no frills, all for the safety of the patient.

The boy stared at the carpet and pushed his toes further into the carpet with thick, firm foam beneath it. The foam was another safety precaution for patients so they would be less likely to harm themselves if they slammed against the floor.

The boy looked down past the white bandages that were wrapped around his wrists with some burgundy blood coloring noticeable a gauze layer or two deep, likely from a stitch or two that had snapped.

"It's time for your morning pills," a woman in blue nurses scrubs and white Velcro nurse shoes said as she pushed a cart full of medicine and tiny paper cups into the room.

The boy looked up, but he didn't comment on her outfit, as he did four months ago. He didn't resist the pills, as he did three months ago. He even considered the woman pushing the cart into his room a familiar sight.

"I know." He responded.

The nurse handed the boy a paper cup filled with three pills.

"Same as yesterday, Nurse Marie?" He asked.

She nodded. "The same as the past two weeks."

"I know. But after I had an allergic reaction to Paxil, I'm terrified of any medicine they give me. I’m terrified and I wonder why they don’t give me an anxiety pill to take my other pills."

"I imagine that is hard for you and I know that it’s not my place to talk, but I think that you have improved greatly since the doctors took you off Celexa."

"When I did nothing but cry all day?"

"Yes."

"I don't want to leave Green Meadows." The boy bowed his head and stared at the blue carpet with great intensity.

"You can't hide out here forever, Kurt."

"I can.” the boy persisted. “Burt and I can agree on one thing: we're happier with me here."

"I thought Mediation Therapy was working."

"It is… I mean, I know now that he meant for the best when he sent me here. But Carol and Finn still think that I'm crazy. Their opinions are difficult for him to deal with and sometimes they come out of his mouth. I know that I did things to provoke their opinions, but they did things, too…" the boy called Kurt trailed off. "But don't tell the doctors I put the blame on someone else."

"Tricking me into finding a reason to keep you here longer will do you no good, Mr. Hummel." Nurse Marie glared at the boy, but only playfully. "I cannot keep you here longer because you're not accepting what you did. Not anymore."

"I wish I wasn't anywhere." The boy's voice was low and he spoke with seriousness that the nurse found terrifying.

"Don't joke about that." the woman glared, her eyes stern and her voice stoic from thirty years of working as a psychiatric nurse.

The boy didn't respond. He wanted to. But in all seriousness, he didn't want to be pushed back to a Level Two or a Level Three. He liked his Level One privileges. He enjoyed reading Vogue; he enjoyed listening to Gypsy and Katy Perry CD's for an allotted hour and a half a day.

He didn’t want to be at Green Meadows, but he really didn’t want to be at school or his father's house. He was not accepted there, nor was he was not welcome there. It was not his house. It had not been since his mother died.

"I have to continue my rounds, but I’ll see you tomorrow morning. Nurse Jamie will give you your evening meds at 8."

Kurt nodded and opened his mouth and dumped the three pills from the cup into his mouth. The nurse handed him another paper cup, this one filled with water, and threw his head back in an almost-practiced gesture that Nurse Marie could tell was still uncomfortable for the boy.

Kurt handed the paper cup back to Nurse, who tossed it in the garbage bag on the front of the cart.

"Open your mouth." The nurse ordered.

The boy glared at the brown-turning-silver haired women.

"You know just as well as I that you have been known to push your pills to the sides of our mouth or under your tongue and spit them out later. So, please, open your mouth."

Kurt sighed and opened his mouth.

"Tongue up." The nurse ordered and Kurt complied. "Thank you."

"I don't get it. I am a Level One. I'm well enough for them to release me, as they have deemed me no longer a threat to myself or others; I'm well enough to joke about the situation; we have my med doses worked out; and I am no longer literally dying of side- effects, which would have been fine by me for that to happen; yet, I’m not to take my pills."

"You know I’m not allowed to comment." Nurse Marie changed the subject. "Independent study starts in fifteen minutes."

The boy responded with a glare and a wrinkled nose. Before he arrived at the hospital, he never scrunched up his face, in fear of wrinkles, but he changed, he lost some of his previous self.

The nurse walked out with the cart and the boy sat on his bed thinking about what he looked like- something that he had not done in a long time.

He knew that his hair was darker then it was sixth months ago; he did not go outside even though he had been allowed to since he was a Level Three and his hair had not seen a salon or highlights in at least four months. He thought that it was a gross, flat color, but he had become almost- accustomed to it. He could feel face was rounder, because of the weight gain side effect from the medicines that he had been on. He wore no beauty product, as they were strictly forbidden, but he wished that he could. Then, he might have felt remotely beautiful

The boy looked down- this time at his wrists. He wondered why he couldn't have just died. He wondered why he freaked out after he cut deeper than he had done ever before. He blamed the alcohol and the pills. He blamed his step- brother Finn for coming home early from Glee practice.

In a matter of hours, he'd gone from marked- for- death to survivor. It was pathetic. He was pathetic.

He might have had more concise thoughts, but the drugs were still clouding his thoughts. The drugs were stupid and not worth the side effects, but sometimes he thought they helped.

Sometimes he remembered how much he liked Vogue and how much he liked music when someone made him listen to his old favorites. Sometimes he wished that he could see non-industrial standard clothes again. Not enough to leave Green Meadows, but still some. There were too many fashion regulations - too many potential hazards, weapons, tools, whatever word one chose to describe scarves, chains, belts, buttons, or anything he once considered high- fashion.

Sighing, Kurt made his way out of the sleeping quarters. He walked down a hall past 10 doors just like his, with older Level One boys sleeping in them at night and sometimes passing time in them during the day. He only walked passed two nurses on 24- hour watch as he made his way down the hall.

At the end of the hall, he turned left and stopped at a door on his right. He entered the room to hear a blur of voices. He knew that something notable was happening, because he knew that excited people in reacted the same way.

"What's going on?" The boy asked a tall, blonde girl, whose enormous blue eyes were wandering the room, distracted by anything and everything.

"A Glee club is coming to perform for us. I guess that they sing for charity cases like us." Lily explained as she rolled her eyes.

Instantly, her tone changed. "I hope they're not old." She wrinkled her nose. "And I hope they're boys!”

“That’s just because you seen anyone not on your 'Allowed To See' list in months.” the boy remarked dryly.

“True.” The girl responded in time for the boy to become momentarily excited then melancholy again when memories flooded his mind.

He bit his lip.

He squished his eyes closed as hard as he could so that he wouldn't even try to cry.

He didn't think that he could cry anymore.

Still, he glimmered. Just a little. His face was still worn, but there was no denying that something was there.

"Students!" A forty- something with frizzy red hair and green eyes clapped her hands together. "Line up single file and I'll give you your file for the day."

The woman said, as the boy went to retrieve his file with assignments emailed from his teachers back in Lima, Ohio, where he went to high school, for him to complete. With thoughts of schoolwork, any and all thoughts of the visiting Glee club were forgotten. Not entirely, but the boy had convinced himself that measurable assignments were better than music.

After all, music required passion and passion was something that required heart, which he could not allow himself to have. He couldn't love, because the world only knew how to break his heart. There was not enough love in the world for him. After all, the boy was one of those people. The kind that had to lose, so everyone else could win.

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