(Don't) Leave Me Alone •twenty one pilots-Tyler Joseph•

thirty nine//you keep chipping off a piece

"Charlotte!" Mrs. Moore gripes. "Now!"

"Robin, honey, I know that you're not feeling well, but I'm going to need you to come outside for me, okay?" Sara tells me in a soothing voice. I don't have the energy to sit up and do what she wants me to do, so I focus on catching my breath. "Robin?"

"I can't do it." I tell her. "I can't."

"Yes, you can, sweetheart. Just turn off the shower, get dressed, and we can go to my office, okay?" She bargains with me, and the offer seems decent enough, so I decide that I'll try to get up and listen to her. I push myself up to my feet and quickly shut the water off, pulling the shower glass aside and stepping out of the shower. I'm engulfed in a wave of hot, steamy air, so I lower myself to the ground and focus on pulling on a new pair of underwear, a clean bra, a pair of leggings, and Josh's ReelBearMedia hoodie with my money stuffed into the waistband of my pants. When I'm finally dressed up and my hair is as dry as a towel can get it, I finally open the bathroom door and stumble out. Hands latch around my wrist gently, and Dr. Tancredi ushers me over to my bed and sits me down, rolling up my sleeves and inspecting my arms and wrists for any proof that I was self harming inside of the shower. I wasn't. I notice that Mr. Truman left, the only two people here being Dr. Tancredi and Mrs. Moore.

"Robin, were you crying?" Sara whispers gently, her voice soothing and calming as she strokes the inside of my palm with her thumb. I close my eyes and refrain from answering her because the answer is obvious enough; it's apparent that I was crying in there.

"I want to go home," I mumble to her, "I'm 19, I want to go home."

"I know, Robin, I know." Dr. Tancredi nods slowly, glancing behind her to Mrs. Moore. She stands there with a frown on her face, watching how kindly I'm taking to Sara. "Let's go to my office, okay?" I nod in agreement, letting her pull me up to my feet. I grab a pair of Toms from my closet and slip them onto my feet because I lack the ability to tug on a pair of sneakers. Sara leads me out of my bedroom and down the hall, and soon enough, we're in the infirmary. Instead of taking me to her office, she takes me to the room that I slept in when I hit my head badly, plugging in a hair dryer to the wall thT she retrieved from her office and passing it to me. I hold the blow dryer to my head and switch it on, letting the hot air slowly dry the water soaking my dark hair. Eventually, my hair isn't a wet mound dripping down my sweater, but I don't feel any less mentally drained than I did sitting in that shower minutes before.

"Please let me call my mother," I tell Dr. Tancredi, and her eyes widen because this might as well be the first time that I've ever requested to call anybody else but Josh and Tyler.

"Your mother?" She repeats after me, as of searching for some kind of clarification that mother means exactly what she thinks it means. I nod my head slowly, curling up on the bed in the infirmary. Dr. Tancredi heads over to the phone binder that they kept with all of our contact information, flipping through the pages of emergency contacts until she finds the name Dun. She picks up the landline phone and begins to punch in the number, dialing all the way back home to Columbus, Ohio. She waits as the phone rings, listening until somebody picks up. "Hi, this is Dr. Sara Tancredi of Newport Academy calling, I'd like to speak to a Mrs. Dun?" She says to whichever family member of mine that picked up the home phone. Dr. Tancredi spares a glance my way and waits for a short moment before she's speaking again. "Yes, hi, Mrs. Dun, Robin is requesting to speak to you." Sara waits for a few quick seconds before she's motioning me over to her. I drag myself up to my feet and to the counter, propping myself up on the island before picking up the phone.

"Charlotte," my mom says in a surprised voice, like she expected me to not call her at all. "Baby, how are you holding up?"

"Mom, I need to get out of here." I tell her. "I can't stay here, I can't."