I Don’t Want To Hear “I Love You”
Is there anything crazier than falling in love in a psychiatric hospital? I’m not sure if it was true love, but it was the first time I said “I love you” and meant it. Where else could I possibly find someone as broken as I am? I’ll never forget my stay at Canyon Ridge Hospital in Southern California my senior year of high school. How can I forget when I’m reminded every time I look at the scars on my wrists?
When I used to tell the story of my first real relationship, the setting is “summer camp” and I conveniently avoid pronouns. Now I’m a senior in college in New York City and in a much better place in every way. I don’t feel like I have to lie anymore. Instead of arriving in a “school bus,” I arrived strapped down in an ambulance.
Maybe it was Cupid’s arrow or whatever drugs were dripping in my IV, but I fell in love with the first person who talked to me who wasn’t taking my vitals. I was sitting silently in a room with about five other boys who were laughing at whatever teenage boys draw on whiteboards to amuse themselves.
Then one boy smiled at me and came over. He asked me if this was my first time in a “place like this.” I nodded. The next thing he asked was if I was gay or straight?
