"Mister Newbelm, it says here that you're to be moved to Garden Suites Health Facilities and Rehabilitation Centers in Cordin." I watched the middle aged man's lips move in all directions as he spoke, each chapped crack opening and closing, threatening to burst out with blood. I couldn't focus on the meaning of his words. They had already fallen apart in my mind, I paid closer attention to his lips. There were six small creases in the center. One was off balance with the others. I just want to kiss them, stick my tongue in them, lick them. They’re mine. The thought burst through my mind, and I regretted it instantly, physically recoiling to my own mind's misuse of my dilapidated intellect. Before I realised it, though, I was being hauled in an awkwardly silent starch white van three hours away to a mental health facility.
I spent twelve weeks there. Before you came, I couldn't tell whether or not I was getting any better, considering the treatment was all experimental. All I could do was sit in a circle of chairs and talk about my feelings, and paint, and count, and do school, and count, and not act crazy. God, how I wanted out of that Hellhole.
And then you got there.
"Group, this is Carter, he arrived two weeks ago and is out to join us from Intensive Care." Miss Carrie said, in her unbelievably cheery tone. It was almost as if she was happy to have another lunatic in our midst. I pulled myself from the ceiling. I had finally finished counting all one hundred and twelve ceiling tiles and the fourteen intersections of the flimsy metal rods holding them together, and decided to take an interest in this unbenounced, announced youth among us.
You were beautiful. You had dark black hair, and blue eyes that turned green when you were upset, and you had thin limbs, but muscled. You were toned, pale, gorgeous beyond belief. I want to kiss you, I want to hold you, I want you inside of me. The thought was brief, but it was so definite I almost knocked myself out of my chair with the shudder I had given.
Miss Carrie glanced at me. Then she slowly turned her head, like a trained bird of prey, watching its next meal.

"Jason, do you have anything you'd like to say to Carter? Any welcomes?" she asked, in her teacher esc voice. I shrugged my shoulders and compulsively began fidgeting my left leg, then my left arm, my fingers. Tap tap tap tap. Stay on beat with my feet. I don't have anything to say. I'm supposed to act sane, and maybe I can leave. What if I can't ? What if I'm never going to get out of here? What am I going to do? What if I kill everyone here? In this room, I could kill them all and then plead insanity for my stupid thoughts. Stop, stop thinking! God dammit, Jason-
"Stop!" My mouth hung ajar, and I felt the skin around my eyes tighten. I realized I had yelled the word. Everyone in group stared at me with wide eyes. Some of them dropped eye contact instantly as I scanned the circle of faces and chairs.
You didn't do that, though. You just sat there in your chair, clutching the seat and hanging your head as if you were shameful for my mistake.
"I--I'm sorry. I didn't mean to yell, I--I mean, it's good, well, it's better...it's nice you're here." My voice became softer with some slight terror for the next horrid thing that might blurt out of my mouth. Miss Carrie straightened up now, and turned her head towards you, and asked, again, in her stiflingly strange teacher voice, what you were doing here.
"I tried to hurt myself...worse than my father could" was all you said. It rang in my ears worse than my uncontrollable thoughts. It made me sick. It made me happy and upset at the same time. I couldn't possibly have understood what you were going to do for me then.
I don't know what made me so weird around you. You were everything I wanted to have as a friend, but I felt strange nonetheless, and I for some reason hated it. I hated being unable to control my thoughts, how they would fling like machine gun fire through my head and try and make me kiss you, or hug you, or hold your hand. It made me almost crazier than I was before. Then, I finally tried to get to know you.
"So, uh, what actually got you here?" I knew it was a touchy subject, but it was all I had at the time. You turned to me, with a strange smile on your face and glint in your eyes that made it seem impossible that you would ever hurt yourself.

"I tried to put a gun in my mouth and a bullet in my head" was all you said. The words were so decrepit that everything around us seemed to wilt and die. I just stared at you, bewildered by your ability to say something so emotionally upsetting without shedding a tear, much less make a frown. I was almost envious. I wanted to know more.
I would skip all the busy work my school would send me to talk to you across the hall. I'd stay up passed sleep hours to hear you pray at night.
“Dear You,” you said, “ I know you're already going to send me to Hell, but I don't really mind, since I'm already far away from Dad and Mom. I think Hell is just fine, fitting actually."  I wanted to know so much about you. I wanted to hold you, make you happier. If I only knew you weren't happy at all.

"Mister Newbelm, these are your new medications. As you've tested positive for high anxiety levels and obsessive compulsive behavior, we recommend you see your counselor this next Thursday for your new sessions." The med nurse handed me a small steel tray filled with three different sized pills, one oddly cylindrical one, another oval, and the last a tiny little circle. Serotonin and Dopamine, those damned chemicals in my brain, hard wired me broken, and I knew those damned doctors would have caught on to my habits sooner or later. I wasn't necessarily getting any better, so they decided to take action on what they could preserve, instead of being out a paycheck when I leave before my insurance runs out.
Though the medicine made me calm, it never applied to you, and all my weird kissy thoughts would return the second I saw you. I didn't know how to feel. So, for once, I went to the doctor for it.
"Jason, is there something you'd like to tell me? It's not Thursday yet." Catherine, my therapist, said. She straightened her papers and shifted her legs to what seemed as a more comfortable position. I hung my head in shame for my unbenounced entry.
"I'm having these...these thoughts." I muttered, lowering my head further to prevent my beat red face from burning the therapist's eyes out.
"Thoughts about what, Jason? Do you think they are related to your compulsions?" Catherine asked, I shake my head still not raising my eyes any further than her hands. I felt sick all the sudden, don't tell her, she's going to laugh at you, you're nasty, gross, you're a freak don't tell her, do something, anything, count the creases of skin in her fingers, don't stop, don't stop unless you've counted twenty seven, only twenty seven, don't lose count, start over, if you don't count you won't get fixed, you're broken, stop liking boys it's not natural, but I want to kiss him, and hold him, I think I love him, no, I can't it's just my thoughts, not me, wait, I lost count, dammit, one two, three, four…
"five, six, seven, eight, nine-"
"Jason." I jerk my head up to catherine's soft yet stern voice, I had been muttering my counting under my breath, Catherine stared at me with concern and a hint of fear. I hesitated, my mouth hung open slightly, quivering, I clamped it shut after a moment and lowered my head again.
"Jason," Catherine leaned towards me, concern lacing her voice with honey.
"I can see that whatever you want to tell me is stressing you out greatly, and it won't be resolved until you open yourself up to resolve it." She said, I looked up now, feeling tears in my eyes. I felt weak, pathetic, inhuman, like I wasn't a man, I was just a tiny girl dealing with stupid tiny problems.
"I'm having thoughts about this boy..." I pause, attempting to clear the lump of fear in my throat. Catherine looked at me intently, waiting for me to continue.
"I'm having these thoughts about this boy, and I don't know why....I think- I think I'm attracted to him." The words hang in the air in front of the two of us, I felt no better than I had when I came in, infact, I felt worse, a weight landed on my chest and pushed me into my chair, I felt the flowering ball of growing anxiety in my stomach as it pushed against my organs, filling up my throat with a similar taste to bile.
"Jason, these are normal, having uncontrolled thoughts is a symptom of your disorder-"
"No, it's not like random thoughts, it's just always there, and it gets worse when I'm around the boy, I don't know how to deal with it, I think I- I think I love him!" I blurted, almost instantly, I covered my mouth, hoping that Catherine would forget the words that just flew from my mouth. My stomach flip-flopped, and all the blood rushed down to my feet.
Catherine straightened herself, and a smile began to draw across her face, it was a weird, soft and understanding smile.

"Do you feel this way about other boys?" She asked, there was some hint of glee in her voice that made me oddly uncomfortable. I paused, hesitated for three seconds exactly, and nodded jerkily without making eye contact.
"There's nothing wrong with you, Jason, you're just finding yourself. It's perfectly normal in this day and age to be attracted to young men your age, and I think it's wonderful that you've found someone that you have feelings for." Her words her so angelic in my mind. The ball of anxiety inside me began to shrink, and the bile in my throat lowered. Relaxation washed over me now that I knew it was okay to love you, and I wanted to tell you.
But I couldn't, because I didn't know if you loved me back. I wanted to know, and now I never will. That day, I just wanted to run to you, hold you in my arms and kiss you until my lips bled, but I couldn't even touch you.
You were beautiful, honestly, I felt at the time, that I was annoying, that I didn't give you enough space. I just wanted to know about you.
"Hey, Carter, can you tell me why you're here? Like, the whole story?" I looked at you, pulling a smile, trying to be like you, cheery without two s***s to give. You turned to me, a big grin on your face, and said,
"My dad caught me with a guy, making out and beat me to a pulp, I thought I'd have died, and if I didn't, I decided that I wanted to, then I ended up here because my socially inept mom thought I needed help because I believe that being beaten everyday isn't a very thrilling and fun way to live. Hell, it's a rollercoaster, but not the kind you want." I dissected the words in my head, they hit me in the chest like a minigun's bullets, tearing through me and leaving me flopped on the ground like a roadkill cat. I couldn't comprehend how he could possibly say something so horrible with a tone sounding as if he enjoyed it thoroughly, that it didn't hurt him at all.
Kiss him.
I opened my eyes, not realizing that you held my face to yours, tears began rushing down your cheeks and I could understand how much you really hurt, how you hid all of it behind a big smile and how you always tried to make other people happy. I wanted you to be happy.
Your lips parted from mine, and you held my face, which was soaked with tears and empathy, I stared at your beautiful green eyes, similar to mine, but only when you were upset. I swam in them, in pools of ember that rippled with pain and understanding, with love.
We held that gaze for what seemed forever, until an attendant shrieked at us for touching each other. Even then I didn't want you to pull away, and I never would have guessed what happened next.

"Jason, our insurance has expired, it's time for you to come home." My mother's voice was filled to the brim with heavy hearted remorse of my general departure in the first place. I though, was numb, taken shock from the realization that I would have never seen you again, even though we said we'd stay in touch. I would try to write you a letter, but I couldn't find anything to say. It took three years before any of you wrote me.
'Our family's condolences as your beloved friend died february second, 2004, the funeral will be held february seventh of this month in Arborton Funeral home, we wish you to accompany us in the last viewing of our beloved son, Carter Dorson and pray his departure to God's grace.
 
                                                                                      Our sincerest condolences,
                                                                                                             Marry Dorian Dorson
                                                                                                           and Joshua Kyle Dorson'

I read the letter over and over again, memorizing it, burning it into my mind, it branded me. I felt the horrors of reality slowly creep into my sheltered odd life, I was eighteen now, you were gone, I couldn't even muster strength to fathom that you were dead.
You're dead.
I realized, no, I realize, I'm never going to see you again. I will never touch you but that one instance, I will never hold you, love you, keep you safe. You were gone.
I knew exactly how you had died, the news covered it, but took it off after your father was put in prison, the bastard.
He murdered you, and he's not dead. I wanted him dead. I wanted to hunt him down and kill him.
But I couldn't, I couldn't even find the strength to get out of bed. I stopped going to school, I picked up smoking, and drinking, I was never sober.
I'm still not sober, even as I write this.
I know it's not something you want, I know you wanted me to get over you, or I think you did. I tried to stop, I tried to stop drinking when I turned twenty-one, but I couldn't, I couldn't control myself. My sister, Hana, would cry, every time she saw me sober, I was dead without you. I was dead alone. "Jason," She's asked me, "Why won't you tell me why you drink?" I just pick up another bottle of Gin and tell her,
"I'll tell you when you're older." She's a sweet girl, she would have loved you, had you have met her. You two would have hit it off I imagine.
I don't know, I don't want to end this letter so quickly anymore,  at first...I didn't want to write it, but now, I just want you to be here with me, sitting by my side, laughing about how stupid and melodramatic we were at Garden Suites. I just think about your face, and I'm happier.
and then I'm sadder, I miss you, Carter.
I just want you to come back.
  

                                                                                                         Thank you for everything,
                                                                                                                Jason Gage Newbelm

P.S.
I never told you, I love you