5 Ways to Screw Up Your Life

The first thing I saw when I woke up that morning was him.

He was sitting in one of those plastic chairs. He looked out of place in the white room, with his suit and dress shoes. His head resting against the wall his jacket draped over the end of the table. His brown hair was tousled, and his button-up was wrinkled.

I watched him for a second before turning away. I needed to think.

In all honesty, I didn’t know where I was. Well, I knew where I was—a hospital, that’s what a gathered from the heart monitor and IVs—I just didn’t know where exactly I was. And that freaked me out a bit. I had no recognition of what had happened, how I had gotten there, and who that guy was. I’d like to say that interesting stuff like this happened to me all the time, that I was some wild party goer who woke up in some random room on multiple occasions, but in all honesty, my life isn’t that interesting.

I couldn’t remember details about the night before—things like why my ribs hurt so bad whenever I took in a breath or why this guy was in this hospital room with me—but I could remember some basic stuff. My name was Kendall Larson and I was going to be a German teacher. I was gay and came out in my freshman year of high school. My parents, Don and Wilma, weren’t happy in the least. Being good Christians, they believed that their only son was going to Hell.

Needless to say, my parents and I didn’t really get along well.

“You’re up.” I looked over at the guy in the chair, who was now awake and smiling. “Feeling better?” he asked. I nodded dumbly. This man was attractive. I was already confused by my situation, I didn’t need to be even more confused about my feelings towards some random stranger.

“Where am I?” I asked.

“Saint E’s. Do you remember how you got here?” I shook my head. “They figured that would happen.”

“They?”

“The doctors. You went through some pretty rough stuff...” he said, his sentence trailing off. I figured he wanted my name, so I offer it up. “It’s Kendall.”

“I’m Cecil,” he said.

“Do you know why I’m here?”

Cecil chewed on his lip and said, “I’m not allowed to say. The doctors figured you wouldn’t be able to remember, so they want to see if it will come back in time.”

An awkward silence fell over the room. I was pretty upset. I was hoping to get some answers.

“Shouldn’t you tell a doctor I’m up or something?” I said, my words sounding a little more harsh than I wanted them to. Cecil jumped up out of his seat, and before leaving the room, he said, “I’m sure you’ll be out of here in no time.”

And I was. Within six hours of waking up, I was cleared for release, which, to my pleasant surprise, was with Cecil. He said he told them that I was his boyfriend, which I found a little odd. How did he know I was gay? And there was still that ever present question of who was he exactly still etched into my mind. I decided that it was my mission to find out, whether Cecil was willing to give me the information or not.