Help Me

My fingers were twitching, tapping erratically against my thigh. There was no waiting when I felt like this. Every inch of my skin was tingling, beads of sweat pooling at points on my spine and dampening my hair, I needed it now. The bus journey was hell, overly loud to my already ringing ears, the usual ten minutes seeming to drag on and on.
Eventually, my stop was reached and I sprinted off the bus, leaving the dull screaming behind. I arrived home moments later to an empty house, as usual. My dad wouldn't be home from work for another couple of hours, the same routine every day.
I slammed the door to my room, dumping my bag and dropping to my knees to slide my hand under the mattress, searching frantically for the soft plastic to crinkle under my fingertips. I managed to locate the little polythene bag and pulled it out, tipping out a randomly coloured pill onto my palm, they were all different with separate names I could never memorise. It didn't matter though, they usually provided the same affect.
I replaced the bag in its hiding place and dropped the little capsule, pink, onto my tongue, chasing it with a mouthful of water from the glass always on my bedside table for such emergencies as this.
The second it was swallowed, I felt a dull relief soothe my tensed body. It would only get better from there, I knew from experiences. I sighed, kicking off my shoes and clambering up onto my bed to sprawl out comfortably on my back. It was only twenty minutes when the patterns on my ceiling began to warp and change in front of my eyes. This felt familiar, this felt good, the closest to happiness I could manage these days. Relief at best.

I could only vaguely remember what it felt like to be happy. I thought that, maybe, happy felt like Ryan's lips on my skin or the feeling of his hair under my fingertips; a far off memory that I refused to surrender to any pills, I needed both to exist.

I didn't expect my dad to be home for another few hours, I was still marvelling in the morphing shapes of everything in my room when he pounded on my door. He could hear me laughing, too loudly, enjoying the sound of it echoing inside my head.
"Nyx, what the fuck are you doing in there? You better not have a...boy in there." He spat the word 'boy' angrily, still resentful about my sexuality after so many years of being aware of it. When I didn't answer, he kicked the door open, finding me gazing at my hand in wonder as it duplicated itself over and over.
I felt his fingers dig into my shoulder, wrenching me upright, aware that it should be painful but unable to feel it. The other hand moved to tug at my cheek as he scrutinized my eyes.
"Nyx. What. Have. You. Taken?" His voice, only a few decibels short of a scream, was lost in my mind and replaced with different sounds and pictures. I simply shrugged and laughed at him, his fingertips gripped my shoulders harder, sure to cause bruises.
"Nyx, if you've taken something, I will fucking kill-" I sighed loudly.
"God, shut the fuck up." I groaned. I watched his eyes flare with rage, narrowing.
"I'll shut you up, fucking queer." I watched his fist pull back, not registering in my mind that it was to hit me. I felt the blow to the side of my head and the repercussions to the rest of my body, not registering any pain and unable to stop myself collapsing back onto my bed, my vision staining black.

I nibbled on one of my lip rings, a nervous habit, sitting in the back seat of the car. He was actually sending me to boarding school, catholic boarding school. He was convinced they'd 'break this disgusting phase and knock the gay out of me', which wasn't going to happen, ever. He had searched my room frantically after the incident, I’d left a bag of vitamins in an obvious place so he'd think he'd found my 'stash'. He did find it and hit me when he did so before making me watch him flush them. However, a slap to the face was nothing compared to the large, healing bruise formed around my left eye from the first time.
I had plenty other hiding places though and had enough on me to keep me going for a while till I’d figured something out.
"We're here." Dad snapped harshly, breaking my chain of thought. I looked out the window at the building, it seemed nice enough if not a bit old. He folded his fingers over my shoulder when we got out of the car like he thought I was going to try and make a break for it. We were greeted inside by an actual nun who began to explain the daily routine in an annoyingly sweet voice.
"Mass is every morning besides Saturday, six-thirty to seven-thirty during the week. Eight to nine-thirty on Sundays." she smiled at me and I groaned quietly and dropped my head, earning a harsh squeeze from my dad. She either didn't seem to notice my wince and audible gasp or chose to ignore it.
"We have a required uniform to be worn at all times during the week." She eyed my attire disapprovingly before going on to explain other rules and regulations that I couldn't care less about.
Twenty minutes later, my dad was gone with little more than a nod and a hissed, 'behave.' before he turned his back to me and left.
"I'll show you to your room." The woman smiled and beckoned me to follow her on an unmemorable route of corridors and staircases. "I'm afraid you'll have to share with a younger student."
"Oh."
"His name is Alexander, he’s...a little shy but I’m sure you’ll get along just fine.” I just nodded and continued to follow her mindlessly. “Here we are.” She smiled, finally stopping at a door, exactly identical to the thousands of others we had passed besides the number. She opened the door and I traipsed in, dumping my huge bag at the foot of a bed.
“Alexander is still in class.” She hovered by the door, obviously keen to get away from me. “You’ll start tomorrow, I hope you settle in okay.” And she was gone, her resounding footsteps ringing in my ears. I kicked back on the small, hard bed and closed my eyes. I could tell I wasn’t going to like it here. I was busy wallowing in my own self pity, considering fishing the little bag of pills out of my underwear when my thoughts were interrupted by a small, soft voice, ringing out in the silent room.
“You’re on my bed.”