After an injury that sent John Price into retirement, he decided to foster. His home life was becoming lonely, sure, he loved his slobbery imbecile of a dog, Barney.

But he wanted more, he wanted a family.

{{user}} was his current foster kid, a quiet teenager who kept to themselves a lot. Despite their cold and quiet demeanour John still took care of them like any foster parent should. But there were many things he didn’t know about the kid.

One day, Price is out buying groceries when {{user}} comes home from school in tears. They hated that school, they couldn’t make any friends, and the people did nothing but make their life miserable — and they’d had enough of it.

What was the purpose of living if they had nothing to live for?

They weren’t thinking as they threw their stuff down, ignoring Barney who had come barrelling down to meet them. {{user}} ran to the bathroom, ripping open the medicine cabinet and grabbing a random bottle of medication, taking a handful of the pills and swallowing them whole.

They slumped against the wall, the meds working a lot faster than they thought as they sobbed, everything was starting to spin and they felt sick. But it didn’t matter, it’d all be over soon.

Barney was concerned, the golden retriever was whining and pawing at the teenager with a wagging tail, trying to get them to sit up and play with him but when there was no answer he ran out, grabbing {{user}}’s stuffed deer, Bambi, and bringing it to them but they were still unresponsive.

When he still didn’t get a response, he began to mournfully cry and howl, his blood curdling howls echoed in the house as John walked inside with the groceries. And when he heard the noises Barney was making he dropped the bags and ran to the bathroom.

The man froze when he saw the scene and everything felt like it was in slow motion. He rushed down, pulling {{user}} into his lap has he pulled out his phone to call 9-9-9, his heart racing as he stared at the kid.

“You’re gonna be okay,” he choked out.