DetoxJustToRetox - 3

The kid perched on the far side of the bed. He was all hunched over, panting slightly. I had no clue what to do and just stood there dumbly. I should just leave, I thought. Go home, maybe. Maybe get run over on the way.
Before I could take a step, Patrick broke into fits of coughing, heavy and low.
But the scary part is it didn't stop.
He would pause for a second to inhale (or try) and would just keep coughing.
"Patrick?" I asked, scared and concerned. Which was pretty stupid to ask, to be honest. How could I expect him to answer if he could barely breathe.
Barely breathe.

I blinked and ran back into the bathroom, fanatically riffling through his medicine cabinet.
There it was. The inhaler I blatantly passed off. I grabbed it and raced back into the bedroom, nearly hurling the inhaler at Patrick, who grabbed it and raised it too his lips.e inhaled the medicine and as I watched it fall from his hand. He dropped back against the pillows and I stood, stiff and scared, watching.
Patrick breathed heavily, his eyes were closed. But he wasn't coughing, and he was breathing.
"P-Patrick?"

He blinked his eyes open and sat up slowly. He leaned over, holding his head in his hands. "Are you okay?" I asked, approaching him.
He looked up at me and gave me a half smile. He then picked up his inhaler, giving it that same smile.
"I used to have to carry this thing around wherever I went till I was seventeen," he said. "My friends used to call me Mr. Benzedrine. I didn't know I still had these problems..." He blinked again and looked up at me.
"Another moment and... I would've stopped breathing. Thanks."
I blinked. "I guess that means we're even."
He shrugged. "Yeah, I guess it does." He grinned.

I went over and sat beside him on the bed. We were quiet, but not one of those icky awkward ones. One to recollect, I guess. I just saved a man's life.
I gazed at the acoustic guitar I had almost knocked over while running to the medicine cabinet. It was old, worn, and loved.

"I was a really awkward kid..." Patrick began. "Quiet. Shy. I had minor OCD. I never talked to anyone. Like, never. I didn't really know what a friend was, and I guess it was too late to find out. It was always like that. I liked being by myself. I didn't mind. My parents did, though. They tried signing me up for sports. I never went," Patrick paused, blinked, and continued.
"I was a target for bullies. Teasing, taunting. The occasional fist. 'Be a man,' they hissed. 'Fight back.'  Needlessly to say, school was my own personal hell.

"My dad got me a guitar, and he got me lessons. My teacher was a nice guy, and I learned a lot. I had fun. My lesson was thursdays after school. And every thursday for half an hour, I could escape all the misery, just be my own person. I stopped taking lessons after a while, but the madness continued. I skipped classes, sometimes entire days. My parents were pissed. And you know, my life just spiraled down from there. You can fill in the rest. Guess I'm just fucked up."

And all the time Patrick was talking, he was looking at the inhaler.

"You said your friends called you Mr. Benzedrine?"

Patrick snorted. "Yeah, they did. Friends. Well, I guess I did have a few of those over the years. I sounded really pathetic, ha. My friends were losers like me. But they hung out with the cool losers. My school was like that. You got the Loners, and the real loners. The ones that didn't even have a clique."

"Didja have a girlfriend?" I asked. I was pretty positive of the answer, but maybe he'd surprise me.

Patrick grinned. "Amethyst Michaels. She let me call her Amy. Crazy, right?" he looked to me. "That such a loser like me had a girlfriend? I'm amazed to this day."
He laughed. "She said she overheard me singing in an empty class room. She brought me to the book store and kissed me in the gardening section. Which was between the self help area and love and sex books." He laughed again.

"She had pretty green eyes and straight black hair. She moved away in tenth grade after a rumor was passed around that she hooked up with Ian Rogers, a senior. The rumor had nothing to do with her moving away, but it was a weird coincidence. Amy was my first broken heart. After that, to add to my fucked-upness, I didn't realize who were cuter, boys or girls."

I blinked in surprise. Patrick has sexuality issues too? And he was able to admit them so bluntly, too. All this time I thought about my own life, thinking how we are so different, and so similar.

Patrick blinked. "I talk a lot, don't I?"

That made me grin. "Nah. Not at all."

Patrick put down his inhaler and turned to me. "What about you, Pete, what's your story?"

I thought for a moment.
My life was fucked, too, but I had always known that. Where had it begun, exactly? Where had I realized it?

"When I was eight, I began to have these nightmares...."