I should be over it,

.\.|./.

Ryan Falls

|in which he refuses drugs|

Pain sucks. Big time.

My entire body hurts. People who say that physical pain is better than emotional one, have probably never experienced a broken leg and a cracked skull. Six stitches across my eyebrow, that's enough to tell me what pain really is.

Drugs help. Temporarily. But the thing about drugs is, their effects wear off. From aspirin to heroin, it wears off. Drugs aren't a cure. They're a temporary distraction. And for a while it seems worth it, because as long as you take it, you're free.

As long as I took them, I was free.

Getting drunk so I wouldn't have to go home, was something that didn't help in the long-run. Sure, I didn't have to listen to my mom yell curses at me and call me shit for one night, but the next morning's hangover and deteriorating grades were a definite disadvantage. Still ... drugs help. Temporarily.

Maybe that's why people keep taking them.

That's definitely why I kept taking them.

Not anymore though.

Back in LA, I tried all sorts of shit. It started with snorting coke to drinking everything from piña coladas to vodka whiskey. It helped for a bit, fighting off the nightmares and easing the anxiety. Sex also helped, causing natural endorphins to run through the bloodstream and numb me for a while. The high filtered out the pain.

But like I said ... the effects never last.

Moving to Alaska was supposed to be my big break. A break from all the sex and the drugs and everything else that was nothing but trouble. I left all of that behind when I left LA, and I don't plan on going back. To any of it. Even if it's morphine.

The minute the doctor hands me the prescription and I catch sight of the familiar drugs listed on the square page, I crumple it up and stuff it into my pocket.

"Give it to me," Olivia insists, unable to reach out because both her hands are busy pushing my wheelchair out of the hospital.

"I'll get them," I lie.

"How?"

"Online, Olivia. I can handle stuff, you know," I say.

I'm lying; I can't handle shit. But letting myself jump back to drugs for pain-relief isn't something I'm willing to try. This pain is bearable. Or at least close.

Five days in the hospital nearly killed me and getting out was what I wanted most. I hated being trapped in bed, unable to move from one place to another. The last time I was this helpless, still haunts my dreams.

Olivia suggests we go to her place.

"I'll be able to watch over you easier," is her logic.

Her logic is pretty logical.

I refuse nonetheless. The refusal is motivated by two equally important thoughts.

One, she has work and her own life to watch out for before me. She's already doing too much for me by being here, to put up with me the five and a half days I've been stuck in the hospital.

Two, she has a boyfriend. Ted is nice enough and has never gotten all 'who the fuck are you' with me. I'd like to keep things like this and not piss him off.

"I can take care of myself, Olive," I tell her as she helps me into the passenger side of her car. "I always have."

"Well, this is different." She straps me in before getting into the driving seat. "You're my responsibility here."

I can't help but laugh.

"I've never even been the responsibility of people responsible for me," I say. "I'll be fine. Besides, I got those beauties back there."

I point over my shoulder to the wheelchair and crutches she's already stuffed into the back seat of her truck. The doctors had wanted me to stay at the hospital a little longer.

No way in hell was I doing that.

So the ugly grey wheelchair and silver crutches are accompanying me home. If this is what it takes for me to be pulling my weight again, I'll take it.

"Ry, I'm serious. You're not well enough to be on your own."

I avert my gaze and fix it out the window, barely seeing the snow-covered sidewalks and the people walking on them.

Swallowing back the words itching to get out of my mouth is the smart thing to do. I don't want to upset Olivia by telling her that not being well enough and being on my own are two things I have been doing longer than she would ever know. I don't recall anyone ever doing anything for me.

Anyone except Olivia.

Darkness circles her eyes and, she looks like she's been punched in both eyes. Her usually sleek hair is a mess and appears to not have been brushed for the past week. She's wearing slacks — which she never wears — and has been on leave from everything, her work, her relationship, her life.

No way in hell am I okay with it.

So despite her attempts to convince me to go to her place with her, we end up in front of my small cottage. I call it a cottage because it's a house smaller than most, with a single bedroom and an attached bathroom and kitchen. I've never been an apartment kind of guy and this was the cheapest place I could buy. Besides, it being small and cozy was what I liked most about it. Pretty sure the retailer thought I was out of my mind for picking up on his offer, but not everything we do always has to make sense.

Olivia helps me up the front stairs and unlocks the wooden door using the keys that the officers handed over to her along with my other minimal possessions.

Sitting me on the bed — while I try not to huff and puff in pain — she brings out my wheelchair and crutches from the car. She leans them against the wall next to my bed and close within the reach of my good arm.

"Look, I don't approve of this one bit," she says, turning around to look at me and folding her arms across her chest.

"I didn't approve of you spending the last five nights being my babysitter but you did it anyway," I counter, giving her a crooked smile and hoping she won't see how much pain I'm in.

My entire body is sore, and every fiber of my being feels like it's on fire. I don't even want to look at myself and see how badly damaged I am, and physically this time. The left side of my face is hurting like hell, making me want to grimace. Even blinking hurts, probably because of the stitches along the curve of my eyebrow. The bruise across my cheekbone has darkened now to look like a black burn.

All in all, my face looks like it belongs to a panda — black, blue, and bloated.

The lower half of my body isn't any better, seeing as my right leg seems to have been fractured where the car hit. The cast is kinda annoying, especially when the pain courses through my entire leg and I can't even reach the place to ease away the pain.

I've also become uni-dexterous since I broke my right wrist pretty bad. My arm might be out of a cast but my hand isn't.

'No permanent damage, huh?' I had said to the doctor when he listed all my injuries.

'You're lucky to have managed that,' he'd answered.

Once in a lifetime.

I'm not ungrateful. I'd pick death over incapacitating any day. I'd just like to pick death over living too.

But I didn't say that.

The last thing I needed was to be in a hospital room again. Especially in a psych-ward this time.

"I'm just a call away, okay?" Olivia says, walking over to my window to pull the curtains closed.

"Leave them," I intervene as soon as I realize what she's about to do.

She doesn't listen, closing the curtains and blocking out the light flooding into my safe haven. My heart picks up, for I know it'll be dark soon.

It's safer.

"I'll be coming over whenever I can to check up on you," she says, turning back to look at me.

I nod, my eyes fixed on the window which is blocking out all light now. I don't want it to.

"Call me if you need anything, okay?"

I need you to open those curtains please.

"Yeah," I force myself to say.

Olivia steps close to me, putting a hand on my shoulder and slowly shifting me into a laying position. She picks up my hard-cast leg and places it slowly on the bed.

"I'll be back soon," she says, pecking me on the cheek before making her way to the door. Flashing a guilty smile that tells me she doesn't want to leave me but has to, she leaves, closing the door softly behind her.

My gaze moves back to the window.

Before I know it, I'm pushing myself into a sitting position, wanting nothing more than to reach the window and open it before nightfall. The lights inside my room are switched off, and Olivia probably thought I would like the darkness. I don't like darkness. I don't want darkness. Especially not now. The last thing I need is to have a panic attack when my body isn't ready for that kind of shock yet.

So, I push myself to my maximum strength, causing my entire body to scream out in pain.

I don't care. I really fucking don't.

"Shit, I forgot to --"

Her return is unexpected and I slump back quickly, panting heavily. Her eyes widen when she catches sight of me and I force a small smile.

"You forgot something?" I ask.

She looks dumbfounded like she doesn't know what to say. "Yeah," she says at last. "The lights."

Still breathing heavily, I grin, pretending to be completely normal -- or as normal as I can be.

"Thanks," I say.

Silently, she nods, appearing confused and unsure. She doesn't ask me any questions, though, and I couldn't be more grateful.

She's better off not knowing.

.\.|./.

A/N: Views about Ryan so far? Is he realistic, relatable, annoying?