Popping Cherries

The nurses tended to leave me alone since I was a lot calmer, and more reserved, then the majority of the patients that show up here at Pale Sand. Daft of a name isn’t it? Anyway, I’m not saying that I don’t have fits of screaming and throwing objects, I take full credit for that, but I definitely don’t cause as much of a problem as I could.

On my down time, I lay in a surprisingly soft mattress for being a rehabilitation center. Staring at the ceiling or staring out the window. Usually the curtains are closed though, the sun only depresses me nowadays. The only time they are open is when the care-giver Hannah decides to heave them open.

She chimes me awake with her perky voice, offering me a glass of water or tea and saying, “Up and at’em Mr. Sykes!”

I accept a cup of tea.

Nine o’clock in the morning I walk to the counseling room with about twenty other people, it‘s a huge brightly lit room. I prefer the back, where I can’t be called on to express my “feelings” of being in rehabilitation and people won’t be able to get to know me personally. So I choose a particularly secluded spot where I am hidden by a large dark skinned bloke and a skinny, pale as fuck guy.

The skinny guy is extremely twitchy and keeps rubbing his nose incessantly. I can’t help but get the urge to rub my own. He’s hunched down and perspiration is clinging to his pallid cheeks from what I can see. The bloke in front of me is breathing heavily and keeps wiping at his neck with a kerchief. Are all these people insane?

I start beginning to wonder why I’m even here. These chaps seem to have much bigger issues then I do. Leaning back in my chair, I take a deep breath through my nose and let it all gush back out. Twitchy glances at me with a feverish, annoyed look.

“So today, I’d like to have someone say something that hasn’t yet spoken up,” A counselor named Jane says gently as if she’s soothing a room full of wild animals. I don’t think she knows how much of a wild animal I can be. I catch myself chuckling, “Hey, how about you in the waaaay back?”

Shit fuck.

I sit up a little straighter, peering over Big Bloke’s shoulder, giving her a bored look.

“Yes, you,” She smiles, “Just say your name and something you like.”

This shouldn’t be too difficult thinking of something I like, but it is. Since I’ve been in a haze from drugs and then recently getting off of detox, my brain has been in shambles of sentences and words. That’s when it hits me.

“I’m Oli, Oliver the fuck ever and I like someone,” I say, shrugging my shoulders. I know I’m being vague and begging for more questions, but I really don’t want to say much. So I’ll be as short with my answers as possible.

“Ooouh, really? Is she in this room?”

Some of the crazy, wild eyed looking girls stare at me with earnest hope. I’m pretty sure they all want to rip my clothes off and eat me alive. If you get what I’m saying. And sure, some of them are pretty attractive, if they just cleaned themselves up a little more.

“No.” I say bluntly.

I can literally feel their hope deflate, shrivel up and die.

“Hm, so Oliver seems to have a secret crush,” Jane looks around at the crowd of disheveled people with a questionable smirk, “Maybe we’ll get it out of him in the next couple of months?”