Shades of Gray

"GHB positive," I hear Hayley say. "Patient fully responsive after sixteen hours, four hour intervals. Vitals normal, heart rate slow, nothing life threatening." A hand comes in contact with my eyelid, and there is a blue light shining in my field of vision.

"Alex, can you hear me? Move your right index finger for yes."

I shy my head away from her hand, rubbing my temples weakly. "Get your light out of my face."

She laughs, turning to the other nurse. "All signs are normal. Expected patient release in fourteen hours. Call Jordan to prepare a room down in Level 5."

"You don't want to move him to outpatient recovery?"

Nurse Hayley looks down at me. "Something could go wrong," she says. "Just keep him in Zayed."

The other nurse, whose nametag reads Jenna, starts locking the rails to my bed.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," I intervene, staring up at Hayley, "what's happening?"

She ignores me, instead switching my IV bag, reading off more trivial medical facts about my body to Nurse Jenna.

After all the equipment is packed up, Hayley wheels me out of the room, making snide comments about bitchy nurses during the elevator ride down. Once I'm situated in a normal room with two room friends whom I am subject to meet after lunch, Hayley leaves me alone.

I sleep for a little while, and am awoken by shuffling next to my bed.

"Hey champ," Josh is saying, plopping down in the metal chair next to me. He throws a plastic package at me. I grab it, hands shakily turning it to see the front. It's a pack of cheap boxers.

"Uh," I raise an eyebrow at him.

Josh nods towards my crotch. "You're been freeloading down there. Thought it was time lil Alex went back in his home.

I lift up my blanket, and sure enough, my dick is just roaming underneath the hospital gown. "What the fuck," I grumble. "Why aren't I wearing underwear?"

Josh laughs, legs crossing up and leaning on the railing. "Ladies wanted to take a look. I'm sure they had a lot of fun cutting your foreskin off."

This causes me to abruptly tear off my blankets, sitting up rapidly, lifting up the gown and staring at my dick. "They circumcised me?" I ask in bewilderment.

Josh laughs harder. "You've been circumcised since the day you were born, dumbass."

"Fuck off," I say, head rush reactioning late. I lay back down.

"I brought you something else," Josh says, and hands me a silver watch. I stare at it, then clasp it down on my wrist. The panicky feeling I didn't realize I had settles down inside of me, and I can feel my heart rate syncing up with the ticks of the clock.

"They said you can get out of here tonight. Got you on some new experimental meds. They seem to be working."

"Where's my mother?" I question, watching the thin hand on my watch tick by.

"She hasn't visited in a few days," Josh explains. "No need to. You're not dying."

"Sounds like the wonderful loving maternal figure I have," I say. "Wasn't she here last night or something? Or the last time I was awake, I guess. The time before that."

Josh stares at me. "You've been either seizing or high on meds for about a week now, bud. Your mom hasn't been around."

"Oh," is all I say, turning to my side. "Finals week must be close, then."

"Get some sleep, Alex," Franceschi says, leaning forward and ruffling my hair. "You look like a fucking zombie."

I rolls my eyes to the best of my ability.

"Of course, mother."

***

Patient Release: Gaskarth, Alexander
.75 tsp liquid Sodium Oxybate AVOID ALL OTHER DRUGS AT ALL COSTS; see pharmaceutical personnel for concerns

"Isn't this shit for narcolepsy? Bad narcolepsy? Are you sure this is for Alex Gaskarth?"

I am leaning against the entrance doors, tiredly watching Jack argue with the pharmacist trying to get him to sign off on my prescription.

For another seventeen minutes they argue, and the bag on my arm is sure to leave bruisies. Jack returns to me with a white paper bag.

"You're going to take this under my supervision. This stuff is dangerous and will fuck you up."

"You're not my fucking caretaker," I tell him, but hold on to his arm on the walk to the car anyway. "I'm an adult. I know what I'm doing."

"I don't have to be your caretaker to care for you," Jack retorts, holding the door open for me. I sit in the passenger seat best I can.

"Dorms?" I ask, noting how the car smells like cherries and the seat cover has been replaced, likely because of my vomit that spilled over them.

Jack grins at me. "Park. I want to ask you something."

"Because asking a recently hospitalized mentally unstable college student is wise," I say sarcastically.

He doesn't respond to me after that, backing into the main street. I'm curious as to why the fuck he'd want me at a park, that's fucking gay, but whatever.

When we reach a secluded area, Jack finds a shaded parking spot and shifts the gear into P. For a second this reminds me of my fifteenth birthday, when my dad took me to get ice cream and gave me "the talk," like I'd not already jacked off and thought about the unseen body parts before.

This was, of course, before the idea of sex slowly dwindled away in my mind.

I am pulled out of my thoughts by the opening of my door. Warm, fresh air regards me like the kiss of a fucking goddess, a wind goddess, probably that really hot one, Ninny or Nunlilly or something, and for a second, my headache actually goes away.

Jack pulls me out of the car, too hard, and my eyes almost roll back into my head as the head rush avalanche comes over me. I want to fucking die. Jack steadies me, though, one arm around my waist what the fuck is he doing, the other clasped firmly around my arm. He guides us to a wooden bench hidden behind thick brush, sitting me down.

No one can see us. I think back to his dead cat story. He's going to kill me; he's going to fucking murder me right here and blame it on drugs and shut down the hospital.

"Jesus, Alex, you're so damn pale," he says in a quiet voice, staring at me like I'm a dead corpse on a table.

I might be.

"What'd you wanna tell me," I say, but less of a question and more of a tired demand.

"I know you're like dying and shit, but I really wanna get laid, and this boy's really cute, except he's not, because that's, in your words, fucking gay, and he doesn't like doing it, so I figured, you don't like doing it, maybe you-"

I cut him off with an abrupt cough, blinking twice. The alarm bell on my watch rings four times to tell me it's 5pm, and that I should be somewhere getting drunk and wallowing in my worst fears than be listening to this shit.

"First of all," I say with a short sigh, "if he doesn't like doing it, it's a little fucked up that you just want to do it with him. Second of all, didn't you say you've got like seven fuck buddies or something?"

Jack gets swoony for a second, staring at one of the branches of a surrounding tree. I think I might actually be hallucinating.

"I think I could make myself fall in love," he tells me, looking straight into my eyes. Something stirs inside of me, and I start to feel queasy.

"Love is overrated," I state. "For people, at least. You can love things and ideas, but not people."

"I take it you've gotten your heart broken before and swore off men forever," Jack says dramatically, moreso talking to the sky now, than me.

"Jesus," I scoff. "I'm not gay. And I've never fallen in love."

He smiles at me, picking a flower from one of the trees. I must be hallucinating.

"Are you sure about that?"