Me Too *Mcpriceley*

Chapter 1 - Kevin, Please...

Kevin woke with a start. He yawned, stretched and looked around, not that there was much to see anyways. It was very bright, he knew that. The room he had woken up in was undecorated and had a color scheme of whites and greys and the seventeen-year-old boy hated it. He looked out the window that was closer to the ceiling than it was to him so that all he could see was the light streaming in from the outside. He thought that he might have been able to hear birds, but it could have been another patient's heart-monitor in a nearby room.

He set his bare feet on the slightly cushioned floor and ran his hands along the padded walls of his hospital room almost nostalgically because he knew that today he would be discharged and could finally go home with his family. He checked the small clock that rested above the door and saw that it was 6:30 am on the dot. This meant that the nurse would come to his room with his breakfast and medications in 15 minutes. Kevin hoped that she would stick around long enough to ask her what time he would get to leave. Instead of sitting around and waiting, he picked up a small book with a red binding with gold lettering on it. The Book of Mormon. He had plenty of things in the room with him to keep him entertained, but he never was an artsy type of boy. Instead, he just read from the Book.

Not even two minutes later, he closed the Book again and sighed, watching the clock. Kevin lay back on his mattress, which was surprisingly comfortable for a hospital bed, and let his thoughts wander. Though he had only spent a few days in this cursed room, he still hated it. He shouldn't even be in there. It wasn't like he was suicidal or anything of the sort. He let his gaze slowly move down before he heard a knock on the door. 

"Kevin, breakfast." A soothing voice called. Kevin forced a smile on his face, straightened his back, and called back to the nurse to signal to her that she could come in. A woman in a nurse's uniform with blonde hair walked into the plain room and set a blue tray down on Kevin's bedside table. 

"How are you feeling this morning, Kev?" The nurse asked in a soft voice. Kevin hated that - the way people talked to him. It was as if he were made of porcelain and a single word could crack him. He also hated nicknames that anyone gave him, even his family. They always made him uncomfortable. He cleared his head, making sure to keep up the persona that he's "cured" and turned to answer the nurse's question.

"I'm actually feeling a lot better, thanks. Hey, actually, before you go, what time will I be picked up by my family today?" He asked with real hope gleaming in his eyes.

~~~~~~~~~~ S i x  H o u r s  L a t e r~~~~~~~~~

Kevin sat in the back seat of his mom's old minivan as he, his brother Jack, and his parents drove back to their home. The drive was only 30 minutes from the hospital to home, but the ride felt much longer. Nobody spoke a word or even let out a breath since they had gotten in the car. Once, his mom opened her mouth to say something, but she made eye contact with Kevin and closed it again. 

"Kevin, your mother and I have something to tell you," His dad finally spoke up. Jack shuffled in his seat next to Kevin uncomfortably and it was clear that he knew what they were talking about. Kevin sighed and gave half his attention to his father but kept the rest on the passing trees outside the window. "We aren't going to be staying home for very long. Or, well, you won't be at least." He explained, which certainly gained Kevin's full attention.

"What do you mean?" He asked in a tone that made Jack lean away from him a bit. His father glanced in the rear-view mirror and met Kevin's burning gaze and fell silent. A sigh came from the driver's seat and Kevin's mother finally spoke up.

"We only want what's best for you sweet-heart. So we talked to a man who runs a home for troubled youth and -"

Kevin's whole body was shaking and he clenched his fist. "You WhAt?" He demanded. Kevin's mother pulled over to the side of the road and turned around in her seat.

"Do not raise your voice at me, Kevin," She said cooly yet passionately. Kevin immediately shrank back in his seat.

"I'm sorry ma'am, I just-"

"This is very hard on us and we only want you to get better. We don't want you to keep doing this." Her voice raised.

"But I'm not doing anything that bad and I'm trying to get rid of it, I really am. That's no reason to send me away to some loony-bin!" Kevin felt tears threatening to cross over the border of his tear ducts. He tried to turn his gaze away from his mother and ended up meeting that of his brother, who was shrunk into the corner between the seat and the door. Jack mouthed the words "I'm sorry," to Kevin, and Kevin just shut down even more. He tried to calm down and slow his mind as his mother continued to yell about his problem and how he needs to be fixed and cured.

"We will arrive home, you will pack your belongings, and we will leave again and you will stay at this house. Do I make myself clear?" She concluded with the look sharp enough to cut flesh.
Kevin, by now, had wiped clear any possible evidence that he was upset and instead returned her sharp stare with that of a dull, expressionless one. "Yes ma'am," He gave up in almost a whisper. She seemed satisfied enough with that answer as she turned back around, put the car into drive, and pulled onto the road again.
~
The car pulled into the driveway and only two passengers got out, the two brothers. Kevin and Jack practically dove out of their seats as soon as the car was put in park. The plan was that Jack would go in and help Kevin pack and then he would stay home with their parents took Kevin to the place he would be staying at for the next however long. However, as soon as the two boys closed the front door behind them, they both collapsed in each other's arms. "Kev, I am so sorry." Jack consoled his brother, the one person in the world he knew he could trust. Their parents were super religious and had set high expectations for them both since middle school to join the church and change the world and when Kevin started... it threw his parents off course when they found out and now all the energy was put into fixing Kevin's issue.

Jack had always known about it, but it still broke his heart. The two had always been very close and told each other virtually everything growing up. When Kevin started to keep secrets, Jack knew and insisted that he tell him. 

Though Jack was only a year younger than his brother, much less pressure was put on him and it was still suffocating. "I can't even imagine how hard it must be to deal with all of this on top of mother and father." Kevin didn't even think about the nickname his brother had called him, nor did he care that he was hugging another human being, something he very rarely did. He soaked in his brother's sorrowful words and he remembered that no matter what, he always had his brother. 

"But Kevin," Jack looked up through sad eyes that tore Kevin's heart in two. "Promise me, please, that you'll be okay. Kevin, please! I can't lose you because of mother and father's ignorance! Please..."

He sniffed back any more tears and hugged his brother a bit tighter, whispering "Thank you, Jack," before releasing and trying to compose himself. "Don't worry, I'll be fine. Though I won't be home... at all probably, I'm sure you'll be able to visit. Besides, you really think mom and dad are going to keep me locked up there forever?" He was the one doing the soothing now as he stood himself and his brother up and they climbed the stairs to go pack up Kevin's things. "They'll eventually take me and whatever meds they force on me home and it'll all be a bad dream..."

A/N:

Hey guys, Ares here! Thanks for reading chapter one of Me Too! This was mainly just for backstory and context and I'm so excited to start writing chapter two, where the plot really begins...

 Toodles!