3 AM (Pt. 1)

"Running away will never make you free!"

Cybil

" There's a new patient coming in next week," G whispered as she pretended to give me my medicine. She knew that I wouldn't take it and I knew that I didn't need it. I didn't need this cure for wellness shoved down my throat every day.

"How's that my way out?" I mouthed. It was just a little after dinner, and the patients had to line up at different nurse stations to get their medication. I, of course, always lined up at G's.

"I'll explain, later," She whispered. "Okay, that's it for today," She said louder as she ticked my name of her roll call list. "Next!" She raised her voice as she winked at me.

I made my way, to my room passing the general rooms and making my way for the private wing. The general rooms were rooms that accommodate about 30-40 patients. They were a mess. Crowded bunk beds and low hygiene on top of numerous mental patients being forced to live together. It was basically a horror film.

The private wing had private rooms. Not luxurious at all but at least my mother had the decency to book me a private room and not a bunk bed in one of the general rooms. '44536'... my room number and practically my identity. Everything that belonged to me was stamped '44536', my body included. I swiped the stamp on my arm over the lock and the door opened. Believe me when I say the only cool thing about this place is the doors. My empty room welcomed me.

I fell asleep that night thinking about freedom. Where would I go? What would I do? What do people even do at my age? How old am I to begin with?... That was it! I needed to get a hold of my file. I needed to find out who I really was before I threw myself out into the world.

I thought I had it all figured until "How do you plan on fitting in in the outside world?" I asked myself. "FUCK!" I groaned. This was hopeless, you know what I'm not gonna leave. And with that, I fell into a sleep that was pretty much the same as staying wide awake. How could I sleep? It had just dawned on me that no matter how much I hated this place... It was literally where I belonged. Fuck my life!

The next morning, I didn't bother trying to fully wake up. I wanted to lay there paralyzed and let my life pass me by. Maybe in another 50 years, life would leave my body in the same position. I would be free and my spirit could embody a bird or a whale, anything but a wrongly diagnosed mental patient. I would not be here!

I stared at the ceiling searching for tears. I need to release my emotions but my mind continuously hit a dead end in the maze of emotional expression. It was driving me insane. "What are you doing?" I heard when I finally acknowledged G's presence in my room.

"Realising that this is my destiny..." I said flatly as I stretched my left arm admiring the code on it. The only identity that I would ever need for the rest of my life.

"Yeah, you deserve to finally get out of here!" G beamed as she took a seat on the edge of my bed.

"That's not what I'm talking about!" I stared at her blankly.

"What do you mean?" G looked at me confused.

"G, I've been here since I was five, this is my life, this is my home, this is me!" Saying it out loud made me realize how true it was. I could NOT leave.

"Who did you meet or talk to since you left my station last night?" She was concerned. The expression decorated her face from the gentle way her eyebrows pulled together to the way her chin tilted down slightly and discreetly.

"Me..." I whispered and turned back to study the 'natural' patterns on the ceiling.

"You're just uncertain and afraid, you haven't seen the world in years and I can't even pretend to understand how that feels. Cy, you turn 21 next month, you're going to be a proper adult, your life is just about to begin. This is NOT your life. This is where you grew up and I think it's time you spread your wings and left this 'hometime' of yours behind. This is your cocoon, now go and become a butterfly!" G advised and it touched my heart, but wait...

"How do you know my age?" I fake gasped. I always knew G was a sly bitch, but keeping my age from me?

" I stole your file last night, figured that if we were gonna get you out of here we should as well get you out of here... For good!" She explained. " So do you wanna turn into that butterfly or rot in your cocoon?" She raised an eyebrow at me and walked out before I could give her my answer.

"I wanna be a butterfly," I whispered to myself.

Piere

"They're sending you where?!" My best friend Bonnie asked. Apparently too surprised to arrange her words properly. She had come over to hang out so I had to break the news to her. I was about to serve a life sentence at a mental institution because of supposedly being possessed.

"Poseka Mental Institute!" I heaved in frustration. " I can't believe they would do this to me it's a death sentence."

"Yeah! Plus Dyll is pretty chilled ..." Bonnie stated as she typed wildly on her phone. what do your parents have against- Wait, this place is not even on google maps and has no search results on google?!"

"No way!" I grabbed her phone from her enthusiastic fingers. She was right. Google gave different suggestions for us to check out and nothing about this Poseka place. Now I'm truly screwed.

" You can just drop me a pin when you arrive and I'll be coming to visit you once in a while," Bonnie said enthusiastically.

"What if they don't allow cell phones?" I considered.

" I bet they allow cell phones. Your dad did say that it was like boarding school."

"To lighten up the situation, Bonnie!" I rolled my eyes.

"Pi, relax... your parents are loaded and on top of that they love you," Bonnie soothed, " You might just even find Princess Diana there and crush all the conspiracy theories on the truth behind her death!"

" You just might be right but I highly doubt!" I laughed. Bonnie was a low key geek, from her obsession with conspiracy theories to her inability to flunk algebra.

"I'll miss you so much, fool" she fell back onto my bed.

"Oh my Gaaaaawwwddd! Is that Bonnie Trescott expressing an emotion?" I did my best impression of a crazed fangirl.

"Idiot!" She laughed at as threw a pillow at me, I tried to duck it but the piece of shit hit me in the face. Swear down, if she threw it any harder it would have broken my nose.

"You little-" I got up from my desk and walked over to her. Pulled her by her ankle and tickled the shit out of her abdomen only cause she hated it.

"PIERE!" I heard my mum call from the... doorway. Shit!

"Uh! Mrs. Nash, this is not what it looks like..." Bonnie beat me at the defense. This looked really bad.

"You..." She pointed at Bonnie, "OUT!" I watched Bonnie shudder a little before she got up to leave. I wanted to say something to defend her. She literally did NOTHING!

"But mum she did nothing wrong!" Yes, I know I could have done better but I didn't have much time to think it through.

"I know, that's why you're the one I'm going to be left behind with," She said harshly. Damn, who hurt her?

"Bye, B!" I waved.

"Bye, Pi!" She waved back.

My mum waited for Bonnie to leave before she started spitting venom like the snake she was turning into. " I hope that that farewell was adequate," she started.

"What do you mean?" I asked hoping that she didn't mean what I thought she meant.

"I mean, Piere, that you're not going to be seeing Bonnie anymore," she scoffed. What the bloody hell?! "Did you think that you could just get to leave school and stay home and do however you please?" She let her feet get comfortable walking around my room as she basically kicked me when I was down. "Piere, this is conditioning, recommended by your doctor, so this week no leisurely communication, no socializing and most importantly, nobody in this house is going to be soft on you."

"Why are you doing this?" I asked. I was confused. My mother used to be so kind and sweet until she found out about Dyll and started treating me like I was the antiChrist.

"For your own good... " she breathed. "We can't let you live the rest of your life with Dell inside you!" She purposefully got Dyll's name wrong.

"But Dyll is not bad, he's good!" I defended knowing that it was hopeless but I had to try.

"If he's so good, why can't he leave you alone then?" She softened and I saw it in her eyes, she cared.

"It's complicated..."

"That's why we have to send you away, you get that right?" she was trying to justify what they were about to do to me, " Maybe the doctor can uncomplicate it..." She stated before she walked away, leaving me alone to well, Dyll.

Dyll started to hum The Death of a Bachelor by Panic! At the Disco. "Not funny buddy!" I thought. We needed to have this conversation privately cause having conversations in public is what got us in this mess in the first place. "I'm sorry... I did this to us," Dyll said in my head.

"Don't blame yourself... You saved me!". Personally, I loved Dyll, I would turn gay for Dyll, but only if he was going to turn gay for me first.

"Don't count on it, boy!" Dyll laughed.

"What?"

"Me turning gay for you first!" He said in his drag queen voice. "Like boy NO!" His imitation was perfect... I had to... I laughed out loud... For real. "Now keep it down or you're gonna get us busted!" He continued in the same voice. "Onto serious business... you need to go and see Bonnie."

"Yeah, I need to tell her a proper goodbye!"

"Right after you tell her how you really feel,"

"What do you mean?" I pretended to have no idea about what he was implying.

"Pi, I'm in your mind, your VERY FILTHY mind... I see everything,"

"Just because you see it doesn't necessarily mean that you understand it..."

"Boy, I understand that you want to crawl up in that ass... Deep enough to get to her heart... " Dyll kept up the same voice and it was starting to play with me.

"That's not true,"

"I wish it wasn't true, cause the order of your thoughts is as messed up as a bad porno!"

"That's it! Get the fuck outta my head!" I thought as loud as I could, then silence... Silence all through dinner ... Silence through my families snide comments... Dyll literally shut the fuck up.

I walked into my room to get ready for bed. I literally blinked and I was staring into Bonnie's hazel eyes. At her house, in her room. "Now make your move, I already did everything else," Dyll said.

She was breathing my air and staring directly into my eyes. She had the look that she had every time she talked about a guy that she had a crush on. I looked down and I was shirtless. "What the fuck did you do!!" I thought of Dyll. I wish I could say that this was the first time Dyll took over my boy, but NOPE!

"I fixed your life for a sec, now stop stalling!" with that he pushed me to lean in and Bonnie leaned in... BOOM! Our lips met. Slowly, I took her upper lip between mine... This wasn't real... It wasn't right. My mind was racing not in a good way. I needed to get out of here. I wanted it to feel right... I really did but... NO! I shut my eyes tight, tried to flow with it. Nothing worked. I pulled away and did the first thing that came to mind... I ran!