Soft Yellow Eyes
Tears Running over my eyes, I watch. I watch the pavement hundreds of feet below me. I watch Cars on the bridge that I stand on.  I stand on the edge of the bridge I hold on to. I hold on only to let go. Let go of the memories that haunt me. Let go of the sadness that scars me. Let go of the life I no longer want to live. I lean over toward the edge of the bridge. I feel like I’m in my own world. Everyone, everything is a blur. I put out one foot to take a step that’s not there. Suddenly, there’s a sharp pain on my wrist. I turn my head to see a child latched onto my forearm. I’m in awe of what I see. There’s a little boy looking up at me with soft yellow eyes and a gentle smile. I step back on the bridge, weak and frail. My wrists sting from the boys dirty fingers pressing against the fresh cuts that line my wrists. I wince and shake my arm free.
He says quietly, “ Follow me .”
My impulse is to walk with him so I do. I take small steps next to him, for my legs are much longer than his. He looks back up at me, but I don’t see pity in his eyes, I see understanding.
“ So what’s your..your name? “ he asks with a young stutter.
“ Pandora “ I say shyly.
“ Well Pandora, My name is Tyrone, and I find you beautiful,” he says with much confidence.
I don’t understand what he is seeing through those yellow eyes because when I look in the mirror, beauty isn’t even a concept.
    After walking for an amount of time I can’t process, we arrive. I see a blue sign that reads Woodland Mental Hospital. I stop in my tracks. I look into his yellow eyes again, but my eyes portray fear.
    “No.”
    “Pandora.”
    “No!” I scream.
    “Pandora,” he repeats as he grabs my hand and laces his fingers into mine.
    “Together,” he says.
    I walk in slowly toward the entrance.
    “Andrea!” he yells. A large African American woman titles her body out of a doorway.
    “She needs help,” he says as he gestures toward me. The woman yells a few words I don’t understand and before i know it, I’m being taken away by a tall man. He brings me into a room with scientific-looking equipment. He pulls down a bottle of pills and firstaid wrap. He applies the wrap to my “ignored” wrist and tells me to swallow one pill. Many questions rush through my head and spill off my tongue. “What’s going on?” I ask. “Where’s Tyrone?”
    I’m scared, but the man tells me to calm down and to take a pill. After I swallow it we head down a hallway and enter a dark room. The man switches on a dim light. I see a small, stiff bed in the corner. It has  grey sweatpants, a gray t-shirt all nicely folded on top of it. There are no windows, just cinderblocks painted a faded orange. The man tells me to change into my “uniform” and put my clothes in the opposite corner when I’m done. He told me to wait in my room until someone comes to get me. Gets me from the goddamn hell hole.
    After two hours of waiting, the woman named Andrea walks in. She has a stool that’s too small for her rear end to fit on, but she sits down anyway. I shift uncomfortably in my oversized uniform. She brought me food on a light blue tray. “Eat,” she says. I don’t touch my food. “Why are you here?” I ask.
    “The real question is why you are here?” I know the answer, but I refuse to say it, so I tell her, “I don’t know.” She can tell I’m lying. She can also tell I’ve been through a lot today, so she changes the topic.
    “Ty told me your name is Pandora, is that correct?”
    “Yes.”
    My name’s doctor Andrea, and I will be your counselor until we both think you’re ready to leave this.
    “I want to see Tyrone,” I announce.
    “Yeah, Tyrone is one special kid, but for the next 24 hours, you aren’t allowed to leave this room.”
    “Why not?” I almost yell.
    “It’s just the way things work at the Woodland Mental Hospital, but as soon as those 24 hours are up, I’ll take you straight to Tyrone. I promise.” I don’t trust the words I promise but I trust Ty, so I guess I trust her. “Here,” Andrea says as she hands me a notebook and a velvet pen. “Writing is among the best coping skills there are. Feel free to write about how you feel if you're not willing to talk about it.” I open the cheap notebook and the pen and the paper collide. The pen moves with its fake ink forming into words, forming into emotion. I’m no longer in control.
My writing is interrupted by Andrea. “I have to go. I must see another patient.” She takes the pen and notebook out of my hands.
“Why?” I start to ask, but it’s only seconds later when I figure it out myself.
“Okay,” I say quietly as I look down at my bandaged wrists.
“I’ll come back as soon as I can, but in the meantime, eat or we’ll have a problem,” she says. I already have too many problems to worry about so I shove the nasty food down my throat.  As soon as it goes down, it comes right back up. I rush to the small toilet located on one of the walls in my cell. I feel so nauseous and I collapse on the floor. Just a few seconds later, I fall into a deep sleep.
I’m awoken by the tall man and a few other people behind him. He holds me down to the floor. One of them rolls up my sleeve and sticks a needle into my arm. I’m not exactly sure what’s happening, but I’m too tired to fight it. I luckily get a glimpse of a watch that reads 4:02 AM. Three vials of blood late, them men lift me onto my so called bed and I fall back into my deep sleep.

I wake up standing. I'm Standing on the bridge. My head starts to throb when my heart starts to race. My adrenaline pushes me over the edge, but it is all in slow motion. I see Ty; He’s running toward me. He reaches out to grab me but just misses. I see his yellow eyes turn grey and they fill with tears.
“No” he sighs, and that’s the last thing I see before I arrive. I’m in a heaven of some sort. I look around and see nothing but space. I walk forward till I see the back of someone. I turn them around to ask them where I am. I see the face of my brother whom I thought I’d never see again.
    “Redden!” I scream as my eyes fill with tears.
    “Pandora?” he asks. “What are you doing up here?”
    “That’s not important. What’s important is that I’m with you now,” I say.
    Redden embraces me with a welcoming hug. “I’ve missed you so much,” he says.
    “I’ve missed you too.”
    “Pandora, I miss life. I miss everything.”
    “I don’t,” I mutter under my breath.
    It’s at that point when I start to miss Tyrone. I left him. I want him back. “I miss it too.”
    “Pandora, I love you, and I will always be with you, but you must go back,” he says.
    I don’t understand. He gives me a soft kiss on the forehead. “Keep me with you, Pandora, don’t forget about me.”
    I wake in my cell, sweating. My stale tears have sealed my eyes shut. I crack them open, but only to see Andrea holding a big tray of food and some water in the other hand.
    “Looks like someone got her beauty rest,” she says joyfully.
    “G’morning, Andrea,” I say.
    “Oh, no, honey, it’s the afternoon.”
    The afternoon? “How long did I sleep?!” I ask. “Long enough to miss breakfast,” she replies. She hands me the tray and tells me to eat slowly. After I finish, she hands me a pill. I want to know what it is, but at this point, I just don’t care. Andrea hands me the notebook and that same velvet pen. “Thank you,” I whisper, but I think the thank you was more read on my face than it was heard through my lips. The same thing happens as last time. My pen turns into an instrument and my writing becomes my melody. I write until I cannot compose any longer. I hand the notebook back to Andrea. She looks me straight in the face and says, “Your 24 hours are up.”
    “He’s in the (not so free) free room. It’s down the hall to the left.” I sprint as fast as I can, which is not very fast, down the hall to the left. There’s a short, slim woman standing by the free room door. She asks me who my counselor is. “Andrea,” I say impatiently. “This is the free room. You many not come in contact with any other patient,” she says as she opens the door.
    I see him. He’s sitting on the hardwood floor talking to a boy who looks about 12. I’ve noticed that Ty likes people older than him. He’s only 7 and I’m 16. It stuns me that he even had the courage to walk up to me when I was standing on that bridge. I walk over to him and sit down. The woman running the “free” room stares right at me, but the second she turns away, I wrap by buff arms around him? “How was your first day in prison?” He laughs.
    “It was wonderful, darling,” I say in a royal accent sarcastically. I see the boy he was talking to, so I ask him, “What’s your name?”
    “His name is Red,” Ty interrupts.
Red….Redden...this causes my train of thought to start chugging. I think about my story, why I’m here. I know why I’m here, but what’s a boy like Tyrone doing here?
    “Tyrone, you don’t have to tell me, but why are you here?” I ask nervously. “I’ll tell you, but you must be willing to listen,” he says.
    “Okay.”
    “I was only four when my father died of lung cancer. That’s when things got tough. My mom had to get a job, but things weren’t working out, so she jumped. The Same exact bridge as you,” he says painfully. I can see the hurt in his eyes. “That’s why I’m allowed to go to the bridge. That’s why I caught you,” he added on as he tries to smile at me.
    He changes the subject trying to ignore his ugly past.
“So why are you here?I mean why did you want to jump?” He asks. My face flushes; my muscles tense up. I can’t move. I feel like I’m going to vomit. Just as Tyrone tries to ask again, the woman running the free room yells, “Free time is up! God back to your rooms immediately.”
I sit on my bed and stare at the blank wall in front of me.It’s like a prison here. I’m always being watched. The only freedom I get is fake. The only difference is one has bars and the other has pills to keep us locked up. The only way to freedom is through the pages of the notebook Andrea continues to give me.
Soon enough I get used to my 4 AM wakeup call to blood being drained from my blue looking veins. I get used to my average dosage of 30 mg of Prozac. I get used to going to group therapy sessions. I get used too the nasty food they serve in the cafeteria. I get used to getting lost in my writing. I get used to Tyrone. I spend all my free time with him and sit by him at all three meals I get in a day. Andrea says he changes me for the better. I believe her. Every time I’m with him, I crawl like a baby to happiness, or at least a similar feeling. I don’t want to leave his side.
One day at breakfast, Tyrone asks me, “Pandora, you need to take the weight of your past of your shoulders. You need to be free from your memories Why are you here?’
I respond with a smirk, “ I will tell you, but you must be willing to listen.”
“ My ears listen for your voice. “
“For the first 16 years of my life, my father abused and raped my mother over and over again. Only three weeks ago, my father beat her to death. My brother, Redden, tried to attack him but he was so drunk, that he shot my brother.  Having my mother and brother dead was too much of a burden to bear so that same day I ran to the bridge to jump. That’s when you found me.” I explained. It was difficult to bring myself to talk about what happened, but in someway I felt better, more alive, no longer numb.
My writs eventually heal, and I soon become happy. Tyrone fights his major depression to the point that he doesn’t need meds. Andrea tells me it’s time to go. She washes my clothes for me, and packs my bag. I hold my medicine and my uniform. There’s also a gift inside. I pull it out as Andrea says “Open it.” I peel back the brown paper to find a treasure. It’s a grey leather notebook, embroidered with gold, and there’s a beautiful velvet pen on the side of it. “Thank you, Andrea,” I say softly.
“I love you, girl. Take care of yourself out there, and remember to go straight to the foster care center,” she tells me.
“Yes, ma’am,” I respond.
After that Tyrone and I walked out hand in hand. His soft, yellow eyes look up at me as he flashes a gentle smile.