On the Edge of Seventeen
Notes: This story is told from the POV's of Mark and Roger, it talks about how they make friends and stuff. I know it's been done about a gazillion times before, but I just thought it would be fun to give it a shot.....
Disclaimer: Most of these character's aren't mine, but I guess that goes without saying, doesn't it?
One: Mark
August 1, 1985
The night before they let me out, Laura, Kyle and I sit on the roof over the children's wing and smoke a joint. You'd think they'd notice, wouldn't they—the Doctors—that we had drugs? For that matter, you'd think they'd notice that three of the psych patients were gone. You'd think they'd be worried that three potential suicides were perched on the roof.
Basically, the suicide floor is a ward for all us failures. Everyone here failed at life, so we tried to die, but we went and fucked that up too.
"Y'know," says Laura, "I'll really miss you when you're gone, Mark. Seriously. You're so nice."
"You really are, though!" says Kyle, like I've been denying it for hours. Like he has to persuade me. He does, in fact. I know I'm not a nice person. If I were a nice person, I wouldn't have tried to kill myself, would I?
"I'm going to miss you!" cries Laura again. She snakes her arms around my neck and hugs me hard. "Come back, okay?" suddenly she looks up, alarm written over her pretty face, "I mean don't! Don't ever come back! Write me or something, I dunno....."
"What's your address?" I ask, even though I'm sure that if I do write her, I'll be sending any letters here. Laura has tried to kill herself five times, but she just can't seem to do it. She is a veteran of the locked ward by now. The cooks know her by name.
"666 Loony Bin," smirks Kyle, taking a drag on the joint and passing it to me. "Send me some laxatives or something, Mark."
Kyle has picked the slow way out. I didn't even know boys could be anorexic until I met Kyle.
"Sure thing," I say, and stare up at the sky. When I was little, my mother said that the stars were all the wishes that no one ever bothered to make. She said that they sat there, glowing and ready for some person to speak them and pluck them out of the sky. My mother has a wish fixation. According to her, you can wish on just about anything. Yellow cars, buses, tooth paste billboards, the last car in a train, spilled barley, a whole in your sock, anything normal, but still odd enough to be sacred could have the power to grant your wish.
I'm sure that if I made every wish I ever had, the sky would be much darker.
I wish Laura couldn't walk these halls with her eyes shut. I wish on her scars, on the pills they give us to sleep, on her crooked front tooth.
I wish Kyle could eat with out shuddering. Place my wishes on every rotten back tooth, every layer of scar tissue on his esophagus, every rib rubbing against the skin.
I wish I could take them with me to Scarsdale, New York, where my family is moving. No more Pittsburgh, we're leaving it behind because my mother says she can't take any more sympathetic eyes at the Giant Eagle. My dad's sick of people at work asking how Mark's doing. My sister can't look at her friends.
I wish on the last embers of the joint, on the stain on my special Western Psyche pajama pants, on the dent in my left thumb nail, that I could wrap up their pain in a ball and shove it through the cracks in the city streets. I want to take care of them, see that they make it okay in the world.
"We should go back in," murmurs Laura.
Kyle nodds, "about time for the nurses to change shifts. Let's go."
So we creep back through the unlocked window in the game room on the pediatrics floor (when I was little I thought that pediatrician meant foot doctor. Thought pedophile was a person who loved feet). We glide so easy through the doors, up the back steps, into our ward (we're on pass, Laura and I, so we can go in and out if we're good).
"Be careful, in the Big Wide World, Mark Levi Cohen." Whispers Laura, hugging me tight one last time before slipping into the common room.
And I'm wishing on that sweet, smoky smell of incense clings to her straight, brown hair that one day she'll also have to be careful in the Big Wide World. And I'm wishing she'll see more than the view through the window, more than this cold linoleum and flickery tube lights. And I'm wishing to see her again in ten years, smiling and whole and fending for herself in the big scary world.
Yes, okay that's the first chapter. It's been a while since I've written a story, so I'm a little rusty. Please please PLEASE review. Tell me what you think. Say if you think I should continue this or just take it down.
Notes: This story is told from the POV's of Mark and Roger, it talks about how they make friends and stuff. I know it's been done about a gazillion times before, but I just thought it would be fun to give it a shot.....
Disclaimer: Most of these character's aren't mine, but I guess that goes without saying, doesn't it?
One: Mark
August 1, 1985
The night before they let me out, Laura, Kyle and I sit on the roof over the children's wing and smoke a joint. You'd think they'd notice, wouldn't they—the Doctors—that we had drugs? For that matter, you'd think they'd notice that three of the psych patients were gone. You'd think they'd be worried that three potential suicides were perched on the roof.
Basically, the suicide floor is a ward for all us failures. Everyone here failed at life, so we tried to die, but we went and fucked that up too.
"Y'know," says Laura, "I'll really miss you when you're gone, Mark. Seriously. You're so nice."
"You really are, though!" says Kyle, like I've been denying it for hours. Like he has to persuade me. He does, in fact. I know I'm not a nice person. If I were a nice person, I wouldn't have tried to kill myself, would I?
"I'm going to miss you!" cries Laura again. She snakes her arms around my neck and hugs me hard. "Come back, okay?" suddenly she looks up, alarm written over her pretty face, "I mean don't! Don't ever come back! Write me or something, I dunno....."
"What's your address?" I ask, even though I'm sure that if I do write her, I'll be sending any letters here. Laura has tried to kill herself five times, but she just can't seem to do it. She is a veteran of the locked ward by now. The cooks know her by name.
"666 Loony Bin," smirks Kyle, taking a drag on the joint and passing it to me. "Send me some laxatives or something, Mark."
Kyle has picked the slow way out. I didn't even know boys could be anorexic until I met Kyle.
"Sure thing," I say, and stare up at the sky. When I was little, my mother said that the stars were all the wishes that no one ever bothered to make. She said that they sat there, glowing and ready for some person to speak them and pluck them out of the sky. My mother has a wish fixation. According to her, you can wish on just about anything. Yellow cars, buses, tooth paste billboards, the last car in a train, spilled barley, a whole in your sock, anything normal, but still odd enough to be sacred could have the power to grant your wish.
I'm sure that if I made every wish I ever had, the sky would be much darker.
I wish Laura couldn't walk these halls with her eyes shut. I wish on her scars, on the pills they give us to sleep, on her crooked front tooth.
I wish Kyle could eat with out shuddering. Place my wishes on every rotten back tooth, every layer of scar tissue on his esophagus, every rib rubbing against the skin.
I wish I could take them with me to Scarsdale, New York, where my family is moving. No more Pittsburgh, we're leaving it behind because my mother says she can't take any more sympathetic eyes at the Giant Eagle. My dad's sick of people at work asking how Mark's doing. My sister can't look at her friends.
I wish on the last embers of the joint, on the stain on my special Western Psyche pajama pants, on the dent in my left thumb nail, that I could wrap up their pain in a ball and shove it through the cracks in the city streets. I want to take care of them, see that they make it okay in the world.
"We should go back in," murmurs Laura.
Kyle nodds, "about time for the nurses to change shifts. Let's go."
So we creep back through the unlocked window in the game room on the pediatrics floor (when I was little I thought that pediatrician meant foot doctor. Thought pedophile was a person who loved feet). We glide so easy through the doors, up the back steps, into our ward (we're on pass, Laura and I, so we can go in and out if we're good).
"Be careful, in the Big Wide World, Mark Levi Cohen." Whispers Laura, hugging me tight one last time before slipping into the common room.
And I'm wishing on that sweet, smoky smell of incense clings to her straight, brown hair that one day she'll also have to be careful in the Big Wide World. And I'm wishing she'll see more than the view through the window, more than this cold linoleum and flickery tube lights. And I'm wishing to see her again in ten years, smiling and whole and fending for herself in the big scary world.
Yes, okay that's the first chapter. It's been a while since I've written a story, so I'm a little rusty. Please please PLEASE review. Tell me what you think. Say if you think I should continue this or just take it down.