“So, tell me more about this cute boy,” Mia says with a grin the next day while we’re sitting in the common area with Renée playing some board game from the shelf. That’s really all there is to do here is play bored games, read books, or watch TV. I’m not sure how this boring routine of events will make people not want to kill themselves but that’s not my problem I guess.

I shrug. “There’s really nothing to tell. I didn’t even realize that he was cute, I didn’t really look at him. He just came outside and started talking to me and it wasn’t even a long conversation.”

“We see him around sometimes,” Renée says, which is kind of shocking because ever since Johnny left on Saturday, she’s been really quiet. She still hangs out with us but she’s obviously still affected harshly by his leaving. She doesn’t talk nearly as much as she did when Johnny was here and she’s just generally a lot more bummed out. “Like, we know that he’s related to Nurse Sophie but we’ve never talked to him. He rarely ever talks to any of the patients, actually.”

“He must have thought you were some sort of exception to that,” Mia grins at me, taking her turn with the game. “You seem to be some sort of guy magnet around here. You must tell us your secrets someday, oh wise one.”

I shake my head at both of them, biting my bottom lip between my teeth. “No. I’m not.”

“Oh, you so are,” Mia refutes teasingly. I know that she only means well but she can’t even imagine the kind of crap that she’s stirring up in my mind. Maybe, in some twisted way, I do attract male attention, but who ever said that it’s a good thing? In the case of a guy as awesome as Johnny or maybe this guy Niles (too soon to tell for sure though), it is a good thing that I caught their attention. But three years ago when I didn’t want it, I seemed to get a lot more attention than I ever wanted. It wasn’t a good thing at all- it was a nightmare.

“Well, I don’t want to be,” I tell her, hoping that she realizes that this isn’t a joking conversation to me and I would like to talk about something else. However, we live such incredibly boring lives in here that I’m not sure what else there really is to talk about. “So anyway, what’s up with this Halloween dance?”

“It’s nice,” Mia says, easily changing the subject for my benefit, which I’m very grateful for. “It’s a little party on Halloween and we get candy and cake and everything. They even bring in like, dresses and suits so that we can dress up for the dance. It is pretty nice but if you’re thinking about joining the committee, you shouldn’t do that.”

“Why not?” I ask her because I was kind of considering it. Doing something useful like planning a dance sounds a whole of a lot better than just sitting around like a potato all day every day. At least I could be doing something at least a little bit useful.

“Because Quinn is a tyrant. She seems nice at first- and she really is a nice girl- but when she is in charge of something, she really takes charge of it and she gets super intense and insufferable. Trust me, you’d want to pull your hair out by the end of it,” Mia explains to me as we play the board game on the table.

“I just thought that it’d give me something to do,” I explain. “I mean, playing board games and cards is awesome with you guys and everything, but there just has to be more to do. I’m going to go even crazier if I don’t have more to do, I think.”

“I get it. This life does seem pretty monotonous,” She agrees with a small nod. “But once you’re here for a while, you get used to it. And, depending on your behavior, sometimes they let patients go over to the humane society to volunteer a few hours a week with the animals there or you can get breaks where you can go out into the world as long as you have somebody with you. But that’s not until they’re super positive that you won’t try and escape. Like, if your parents came to visit and you had break privileges, they could take you out to lunch or something.”

I nod, appreciating all of the information but I still just feel like there’s no way out of this boring routine for right now. Sure, I can do all of that stuff in the future but right now, I’m stuck here playing bored games and pretending to love it so that they don’t try to shove pills down my throat. It’s just the same every single day though. Wake up at eight, breakfast, common area (board/ card games, TV, maybe read a book), lunch, more common area or go outside for a little bit, therapy, common area (and visitation when I get visitation rights which should be soon hopefully), dinner, common area or more outside time, and then lights out is at eleven. That is my day. Every single day.

With a yawn, Renée randomly stands up from the table, gaining both my and Mia’s attention. “I’m really tired. I’m going to go sleep for a while before therapy. I’ll talk to you guys later.”

“Are you okay?” Mia wonders, obviously concerned for Renée. “We can just go watch TV or something, you don’t have to go sleep.”

Because everybody here knows that excessive sleeping is a bad sign. It’s one of the first signs the nurses start looking for when they start suspecting that you’re getting bad again. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just a little tired,” Renée says but by the tired, heavy look in her eyes, I’m assuming that she’s really not fine. I don’t know what to say though, so I just clamp my mouth shut and let her walk away, because that’s what Mia does too.

“I’m worried about her,” Mia confesses to me with a small frown as we start cleaning up the board game because it isn’t something that we can play with only two people.

“I’m sure she just needs some time,” I tell her but in reality, I have no idea if that’s true or not, I just feel like it’s the right thing to say right now.

“Yeah. I’m sure that’s it,” She nods, more to herself than to me it seems. “She’s just taking this all really hard and I don’t know what to do. If I go to the nurses then they’ll put her in solitary and she’ll never forgive me but if she tries to hurt herself… then I’ll never forgive myself.”

“Do you really think that she’d do that?” I wonder.

Mia shrugs. “I’m not sure. I’ve never seen Renée like this.”

“Well, she’s not your responsibility. Whatever happens, it won’t be your fault,” I tell her, trying my best to be assuring but I’m just so bad at it that I’m not sure if I’m helping or just making things worse.

“But if I know that she’s acting weird and I don’t tell anybody then it kind of is my fault,” She explains, putting the lid on the box to the board game.

“If you want, I can tell one of the nurses for you. That way, if Renée is mad at anybody, she’s mad at me instead of you. I mean, it’ll suck but you two are way closer and you shouldn’t feel guilty about wanting to save your friend,” I tell her.

“You would do that?” Mia wonders with raised eyebrows and a seemingly relieved look on her face.

“Yeah, sure. I’ll go talk to one of the nurses tomorrow. That way, you have all of today to hang out with her. You know, just in case the really do decide to take her into solitary. Okay?”

Mia nods and wipes a tear off of her cheek as she stands from the table to go put the game away on the shelf. “Thanks, Ana. You’re a really awesome person.”

Before I have time to respond, Mia is already walking away from me and towards the dorm area, probably to go talk to Renée or something. Now that I’m alone and I still have a little while before my therapy session, I decide to go call Penn since it’s been a little while since I’ve talked to my brother.

At the phone bank, there’s a girl on the farthest one to the right and she’s crying but I pretend not to notice as I take the phone that’s farthest to the left. I dial Penn’s number while holding the black phone to my ear and listen to the rings.

“Hello?” Penn answers.

“Hey,” I greet him. “What’s up?”

“Ana, hi. I’m just getting off of work. What’s up with you?”

“Oh, I’m just finishing up with some really exciting stuff,” I assure him but I’m sure that he knows that I’m sarcastic. “It’s confidential though, so I can’t tell you what that exciting stuff is of course.”

“Of course,” He chuckles. “Don’t you like it over there?”

“It’s nice,” I say. “As far as whack-a-doodle rehab goes, it’s nice. That sets extremely low standards though, considering the extreme dullness of it all. Seriously, the most exciting thing that’s happened to me today is that there’s green bean casserole for dinner and I like the fried onion things on the top.”

“That does sound pretty exciting,” He agrees.

“Yeah, just riveting,” I sigh. “How’s work?”

“Definitely not as riveting as your green bean casserole, that’s for sure,” He assures me jokingly. “Just the same instructing and what not.”

“Still scaring the crap out of high schoolers?”

“I don’t know why people say that,” He says. “I am not that scary.”

“You are when you’re teaching,” I laugh a little bit.

“That’s what Sienna says too but I think that you’re both just wimps,” Penn tells me and I’m pretty sure that he’s just joking.

“I think Sienna would know best considering she was actually in your class a few years ago so she knows how terrifying you are when you’re in teacher mode,” I tease him, twirling the black phone cord around my fingers absentmindedly.

“Nope. Sienna is just a wimp too,” He tells me and then I hear somebody (probably Sienna) say in the background, ‘I heard that!’ which makes Penn laugh a little bit.

“You’re just mean,” I say. “Are you guys busy or something? We can talk later.”

“No, we can talk now it’s not a problem. We’re just hanging out at the house right now.”

“Ah, the house. I miss that house,” I sigh, remembering my big house in LA that I’d lived in for a whole year before being sent back into this whirlwind of crazy. I was in the hospital for two weeks and it’s been a few weeks since I moved into the rehab center so it’s been about a month since I’ve been home and I miss it. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

“I’m sure you will be, kiddo,” He agrees with me even though we both know that it’s not true. I’ll probably be stuck here for a lot longer and we both know it but neither one of us are willing to admit that out loud right now. “Oh, and now that I have you on the phone, I should tell you that you’ll probably be able for visitation soon, right?”

“Uh. Yeah, I guess so,” I confirm. “Why?”

“I’m thinking that we’ll fly over there to see you next weekend if you have the go ahead by then. Does that sound good?” He wonders.

“Yes!” I grin even though he can’t see me and it feels kind of awkward to be grinning when I can still hear the sniffles of the girl to my right crying into the phone. “That’s amazing. Who is ‘we’ though? Is Mom going to come? Or Peter?”

“I don’t think that Dad asked Mom about it yet but I don’t think that Peter is going to be able to make it. Dad, Sienna, and I are definitely coming and Mom will probably come too,” He says over the phone.

“Right, I’m sure she’ll be super excited to come see her nutty daughter in the nut house,” I mumble sarcastically. “It’s okay though, I’m so excited to see you guys. Maybe even more excited than for my green bean casserole.”

“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me,” He chuckles and I just roll my eyes at him.

“You’re an idiot,” I tell my brother, who just laughs again. “But anyway, I should probably go now, I just wanted to check in and everything. Tell Dad that I say hi and that I’ll call him tomorrow or in a few days or something.”

“Yeah, I’ll let him know. I’ll talk to you later, kiddo,” He tells me.

“Yeah, talk to you later,” I agree with him. “I love you, Penn.”

“I love you too, Ana,” Penn says and then he hangs up, filling the phone with a soft buzz sound. I put the phone back on the hook and walk away from the phone bank, listening to the crying girl’s sniffles fade away as I walk farther and farther down the hall.

----------------------------------------

Song: Asleep by The Smiths
Picture: Jennifer Connelly (Dr. Lombardi)

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT

Title: Sorry, Mama
Author: Unhealthy_Obsession
Genre:
Summary: It's funny how one person can change you so drastically without your permission. Like they're just going to take over your whole world and there's nothing that you can do about it. Just one person.

For nineteen year old Athena, that one person was Cyrus. Twenty-one years old, ripped jeans, tattoos, scarily rebellious, and deadly blue eyes, he could turn any good little girl bad.

And ironically enough, for Cyrus, that life-changing person just so happen to be Athena. Adventurous, carefree, and defiant.

Little did they know when they met each other that they were about to make some memories that neither one of them would ever forget.