The plot of this book is not set in stone. Theo is making the choices that will lead him to depression or worse, or perhaps to a part of life he hasn't truly experienced before: happiness. It is a rollercoaster of a story with its ups and downs, but ultimately it is a self growth story about someone who is trying to find themselves again, or maybe even for the first time.

Chapter 1: Not Your Traditional Wakeup

There was a knock at the door.
I heard footsteps approaching the bed as I came to. I tried to open my eyes, but that was my first mistake. The fireball in the sky decided to blind me through the shades of the hospital window. The second mistake was my attempt to sit up. Pain erupted in my chest, and I felt like that movement had split my insides in two. I might have grunted one or two swears.
“You might not want to move so fast, Theodore.” the calming voice that I knew belonged to Doctor Patryk told me. Despite his advice, I knew I had to get the hell out of here. I struggled to sit up, hissing as the pain worsened. My insides were throbbing. I was dying. My chest was going to implode at any moment and all that would remain of Theo Grey was sprayed blood and guts across the stale white room. At least they couldn’t say I didn’t go out with a bang, right?
“You have three bruised ribs, a broken nose and a sprained wrist. Do you want to tell me how that happened?” Huh. I hadn’t even noticed the wrap around my wrist and bandage on my nose until he mentioned it.
“As much as I’d love to chit chat…” I drifted off. The urgency to get out of here was crashing on me, closing in on me. I was seconds away from passing out. Why did I feel like there was something huge i was missing? Doctors didn’t scare me. I had enough appointments with Doc to have found a second home within these disgustingly clean hospital walls.
“Theodore, am I going to have to call your parents again? Maybe you need to see Dr. Spellman again…” Doc sailed off on a lecture about how I should be taking my medicine, how this stage of recovery was crucial to becoming me again, blah blah blah. He didn’t seem to get that I lost any me there was a long time ago.
I sighed, glancing at the clock. It was almost noon.
S***! It was almost noon!
As Patryk rambled on, I scrambled for the stack of neatly folded clothes on the end table beside my nest of bleached blankets and not-so plush pillows. I reached into my jeans pocket and pulled my cell out. Damn, looks like I’d be showing up to my sister’s wedding ceremony a tad late. It would be fine, right? I would only be walking her down the aisle on the biggest day of her life.
“...They’re concerned about you, so I’ve decided to place you into a mental health group that is located on…” I watched him search his clipboard for the information that didn’t seem to be there. “Hold on, I think I left it at the nurse’s station.” I watched him go. Just like that, and I was alone. Here I thought I would have to do some sneaking around or jump out the window. It looked like I would be saving my ninja skills for another time.
It was a struggle to put on pants when the bulky bandage around my torso barely let me bend even twenty degrees. I put on my muddy Chuck Taylors and tugged the IV out of my arm. Maybe it was all of those chick flicks I watched with Gabbi, but wasn’t the machine supposed to beep and then there’d be a rush of nurses with those electro-shockers, thinking my life was slipping away? Anyway, none of that actually happened. I walked (or limped, rather) myself out of the hospital room and down the hallway. No one gave me a second glance.

I wasn’t a pretty rich boy, nor was I a sexy brute. I was merely the combination of these two. Pull out everything s***ty from each stereotype, and voila--you get me. Theo James, the rich kid on the block with the snooty family, sexy and he knows it, rumored suicidal and has always resented his own wealth. You can pick out the truths and lies yourself. This was my reputation. So when I escaped the hospital, would I have taken the taxicab? Hell no. Now, a private limo? That’s more like it. If I’m showing up late to my sister’s wedding, it just has to be in style.
I combed my raven black hair as much as I could on the drive to the chapel. If I had time to pick up a suit, perhaps I would have. I was never one to conform to all those guys wearing the same old suit and tie to every formal event. Where was the fun in that?
I reached the church about twenty minutes later. Now it was almost one, and the wedding ceremony would start. Gabbi was probably having a fit. It really was all her fault though. Who would trust their psychotic brother to walk them down the aisle? I guess it was my responsibility since I was next in line.
As soon as the doors opened, everyone inside let out a unanimous exhale. I could not deny the fact that it pleased me to feel how worried everyone was. About me! how adorable was that?
“Theodore!” My mother’s shrill voice came. Oh, yeah. Anyone could tell she was angry when she called someone by their full name instead of their nickname. She knew I hated my given name, yet there she was, screaming it across the room. “Where have you been? What is that on your arm? Your nose!” I was thinking that she probably forgot I was in my twenties and not ten.
“Hey mom,” I replied, letting my hair fall over  my forehead like I knew she hated. Her emerald eyes left mine to watch it, and they narrowed into slits. Oops.
“You’re not well enough to be here. I knew you weren’t okay, I just knew it. This is why I don’t want you leaving my house! Things like this happen! Oh, honey. Are you alright?” Anger to self guilt to worry was a normal cycle mom underwent near me. She was worried that I was a glass paperweight sitting on her shelf. She tried to polish me and make me look perfect, but little did she know she had contributed to pushing me off the shelf.
“So anyways, where’s Gabbi? I’m ready when she is.” I grinned, patting her shoulder and heading into the back of the church. As if mom would let me get off that easy. This was going to be one hell of a long day.

Chapter Notes:

I would really appreciate feedback! If this has potential, I would really love to continue it.

Chapter 2: There and Then Gone

So I guess I should explain why my father isn’t walking Gabbi down the aisle, and I have that honor.
Another time, maybe.
The reception went without any more stalling. Honestly, it was boring as hell. Sure, I was happy for my younger sister, but who really wanted to be reminded that your younger sibling was starting a new chapter in her life while you were still trying to escape your adolescent one? I tried to linger near the bar, but of course Mom wasn’t having any of that. I was lucky if she let me have a Coke, or God forbid I’d ingest Mountain Dew. While she kept her steely eye on my the whole night, I tried to pretend that I didn’t know she was creeping on me and spent a shameful amount of time hiding out in the bathrooms.
I flushed the toilet and wash my hands for probably the fifth time in the past two hours, and swung the door open as I left, humming Conor Oberst as I turned the corner to the glass doors of the reception hall. Gabbi and Rafael Sanchez were sharing their first dance as man and wife and it was so fluffy and cute that I almost threw up.
Then I caught Mom’s worried glance on me, and with it so much unwanted pressure. She took a step toward me and I took a step back, stumbling into a table.
“Well, that’s nice.” I jumped out of my pants as I spun and saw that I had not stumbled over a table but in fact a girl in an ugly green and red nature themed dress with brown tights. There were birds in flight across her calves, reaching up into the tree branches that seemed to sprawl out around her brea- “Great, not only do you not apologize, you also stare creepily.”
Was I staring creepily? No, I wasn’t. I mean, not at her. I was just trying to figure out her dress. The leaves capped her shoulders-and why the hell wasn’t I saying anything yet? “Um, hi.” Her hair was curly and big, and it looked like flames under the chandelier lighting. Her green eyes popped, and I noticed tiny little flecks of gold woven into the inner forest green around her pupils.
The girl just rolled her eyes, leaning against the wall and crossing her arms over her chest. Okay, not helping the tree branch fixation I was trying not to mind. “You know the bride and groom?” she asked. I stared at her, and when she glanced at me, she obviously saw my confusion at the question, and she laughed. “Half the time, people don’t know the actual bride and groom personally.”
“She’s my sister.”
“And the guy?” she asked, arching one fiery red eyebrow.
“Seems like a good dude.” Who was this girl? She must have been from Raffe’s side of the family if she was here. Or she was the daughter of the colleague that got him a job in advertisement, where he met The Love of His Life (aka Gabbi).
“You want some pot?” she asked suddenly, grabbing the brown leather messenger bag by her feet that I hadn’t been aware of thirty seconds ago.
When a pretty fire-head asks if you want to go smoke some pot, I learned that night that you should welcome the offer with warm arms, because odds are that girl will change your life forever.

Only you wouldn’t realize it till later. See, at that point, I was high and practically drooling over Nature-Freak and trying to ask her where the hell she found a dress like that, but all that came out was, “Hey, can I kiss you?”
I didn’t really know how it happened. Hell, I didn’t even know her name. But we were both content in that moment to share something with each other (whether the pot influenced that or not is up for question). Her lips were more desperate than mine, but I loved every second of it, and I let her eager tongue explore my mouth before my hand grasped her copper curls, letting them slide between my fingers. I cringed away from her when she tugged me against her by sliding her hands around my middle.
“I know I’m strong, but I didn’t think I was strong enough to hurt you,” she giggles into my mouth, compelling me to chase the sound with my lips before replying.
“I was in the hospital this morning.” I chuckled in response.
“What happened?” she asked, her voice thick with what I thought was emotion. I was sort of touched this chick already cared about my wellbeing. Smoking pot really does bring people closer together.
“Aw, you really care?” I grinned, sliding my lips up her jaw.
“No, you idiot. Kiss me,” she whispered, finding my lips again.
And kids, there you have it. The night I swiped my V-card.
I’m totally kidding. But we did not leave that alley as innocent as we were when we entered. But if you knew either of us at that point, we were far from innocent to begin with. I supposed that was why we seemed to fit like a key in the hole...a cord in the outlet...wow, I cannot think of anything appropriate. You know what I mean.
Anyway, we stumbled back into the reception hall. I didn’t know how much time had passed, but by the look on Mom’s face when she saw me, it had been a while. I was going to give her a heart attack any day now, I knew it. She marched her way through the crowd towards me, and if it weren’t for the wrath I knew was coming, I would’ve cheered her on for looking so badass.
“What were you doing? You’ve been outside for almost an hour! I was getting worried,” she inspected me again, like she could see what was wrong with me and give me a Band-Aid so I could treat it. I wished it went away as easily as she pretended it did. But the truth was I was really f***ed up. And both of us knew that. Only one of us couldn’t admit it out loud though.
“Theo, hey!” It was Rafael, holding a glass of champagne. He seemed to have missed my mother’s death glare. Either that, or he was an angel for making an attempt to save me.
“Hey, man,” I said, tolerating the brotherly pat on my shoulder, gritting my teeth against the pain as I began to step away from Mom with him.
“Theodore,” she grabbed my arm and turned me to face her. “Your eyes… were you crying?” I started laughing, and I just couldn’t stop. Mom, I’m twenty four! I can assure you I was not crying! “Are you high?” she asked coldly. S***, maybe I should’ve had a more realistic reaction to the crying thing. That would have been easier to handle than the lecture I knew I was in for.
Pathetic, isn’t it? I’m still being lectured by Mom like I haven’t aged a bit since high school.
“Relax, Deb. It’s my wedding.” I was surprised, but thankful, for Raffe’s lovely interruption. Mom loved him. I’d totally be in the clear if he buttered her up. As he guided her to the bar, listening to her, he glanced over at me and winked. Damn, I owed the guy for that one.
I turned around to apologize to Fire-Head for all of that, and to assure her I wasn’t as pathetic as it looked just now (which wasn’t true because I’m certain I was). But when I glanced behind me, she was gone. She wasn’t lingering in the back of the reception hall-I walked the perimeter three times to make sure. I waited outside of the ladies room for a half hour before coming back. But she was gone, leaving her taste in my mouth as the only evidence she’d ever been here at all.