Rose
Someone new is here today. I have no idea how this person ended up here—their gender, their age…nothing. I only see the same white van that brought me here, sitting outside the entrance. Before I can get a look, the nurses clear their throats and exercise as much force as they can without causing a disturbance.
Without forcing me to cause a disturbance.
I back away from the barred window just as escorts get out and open the passenger door, keeping my eyes on them for as long as I can, until all I can see is wall and then the cheap, dingy linoleum under my feet as I walk toward an empty table.
Welcome to the cattle farm. Try not to go crazier than you already are.
Allison looks at me as if she wants me to fill her in and I shake my head. I ignore the way her face falls. Truthfully, I’m not in the mood for her enthusiastic attitude; the way saliva pools at the corners of her lips and she lisps. Every time she speaks, I worry that this is the day I’ll be wearing her spittle on my face.
That’ll be the day Allison no longer looks at me with anything other than fear.
I stare longingly at the door. Waiting. Hoping.
It’s a feeling I haven’t been acquainted with in a very long time, the foreign feeling sitting on my shoulders before sliding its way down to my stomach.
I secretly want the new patient to be my age because I’m sick of the fact that the person closest to eighteen is thirty-one and randomly shrieks from time to time, making any sort of interaction impossible. Her random outbursts make me want to shove a pair of socks in her mouth. Maybe place my pillow over her head and press until her last breath gives out from her lifeless body.
Joe has a point, though. I shouldn’t treat her like she’s being rude just because she won’t let me complete a full sentence before she starts yelling. This is what he’s been filling my head with since my last stint in solitary after my birthday.
Still, I bet it would feel good to silence her screams. Perhaps even give her a real reason to scream. I mull these thoughts over as I get up and walk around the rec room, ignoring Allison, who keeps trying to wave me over. I glance her way to see her talking to the empty space beside her. Her ratty ponytail, full of coarse dark hair, doesn’t move while she speaks enthusiastically to her own demons. Before she can catch me staring, I look away. She bores me. Everyone in here bores me.
Still, the nurses pay me extra attention. They think I can’t feel their stares, like I can’t read their minds.
Better be careful. Don’t get too close.
The doors open, and I don’t bother looking because everything is the same as yesterday and the day before and my hope is an angel on my shoulder that will soon fall like Lucifer.
I’m restless. I’m a prisoner.
I’m a slave to my violence and my boredom.
I hear Joe and can’t help but look his way because he’s hardly ever in the rec room. Unless…
I see the crisp olive button-up shirt Joe always wears on Tuesdays.
My eyes skate over Joe’s graying hair and are drawn to the person he’s speaking to.
Dark brown eyes a bit sunken, tan skin, hair the color of black coffee. The sight of him is as strong and shocking as a gut punch.
I imagine this is how Lucifer felt when he fell. That sweet fear mingled with weightless euphoria as gravity pulls your body toward your world’s center.
He must’ve fallen with a smile on his face.
Is it my boredom? Or his looks that can’t quite be classified as handsome? His sinister features intrigue me.
I’d like to be perfect for a moment just to be ruined by him. I’d hand him my crooked tiara and watch him break it.
Joe is speaking to him, but he turns his head just a fraction and those deep eyes reach out to me.
I meet a stare that doesn’t make me itch to hurt. He doesn’t watch me.
He sees me.
What is he seeing? My long blonde hair covers part of my face. I’m skinnier than I once was. The arms that hang at my sides are only decorated by the small scars from a never-ending stay at Silverwing and my blue-green veins that create paths below my skin.
The very same veins that the nurses use to betray me, pumping me with sedatives to keep me under control.
I wonder if, in my moments of passion, I am a fool.
I should stop wondering. It’s as pointless as hoping.
He’s still staring at me, all through my inner thinkings. I turn away and continue walking the perimeter of the room, wondering if maybe my reaction has to do with the fact that he looks close to my age. Or how beautifully he wears every second he’s ever lived, hunched over a little, lips relaxed into a thin line. He is at ease with his suffering. So at ease, it’s as if he’s made a coat of it and wears it all his days.
I’ve never asked anyone why they’re in here. And no one’s asked me. Not even the somewhat sane nurses. The staff is likely more than knowledgeable on every note in my file and the patrons here are otherwise occupied.
But something about this person and his contradicting looks—soft and sharp all at once—begs for the question to be asked.
One look at him and I don’t know if I could ever kill him. Did my face ever warm like this? Was I ever this curious?
Before I was locked up in this place, I used to have sex. I used to smile at the boys in my prep school and let them shove their penises inside me. A smile, really, was all it took most times. I liked the way it felt, knowing they were vulnerable in those moments. I’d let them grind against me and I’d watch them as they finished, always knowing exactly what they were thinking.
This is the best feeling in the world.
Was it? Maybe I’d never know how that feels other than in the moments I managed to hurt.
I skirt around the edges of the room as Joe leaves the newest cattle member inside with us. He doesn’t have the fidgety look most of the newcomers have at the idea of being stuck in here.
I admit, on my first day I kept looking at the windows and doors, trying to find the best way to escape while still hoping my sister would show up and take me away from here. After all, it wasn’t just my fault I wound up here. The phantom-like feel of pain lacing through the seam of the puckered skin of my scar reminds me of that.
But every day that passed was like a fresh blade pushed into my body until I stopped counting the days.
I glance over my shoulder because I swear I can feel someone’s stare. Sure enough, those brown eyes are on me again.
They don’t follow me to keep track of me for his own safety.
They’re regarding me with curiosity and they don’t blink or hide from me when I meet them.
My skin heats all over again and I look away.
I can’t make out his thoughts.
Am I broken?
Have I been broken all along?