Her (7 page)

Ms. Mosley didn’t turn on the lights when we walked into the room.  She kept the door open and let the hallway light shine in.  I sat my bag at the edge of the bed like she told me to.  She told me not to worry about putting any clothes away.  She said I could put my things away in the morning. She told me to try to get some rest because wake up time was at seven a.m.  When I looked at my watch, I saw that wake up time was only six hours away.  I didn’t realize how late it was. 

I lay down in the bed.  It was cold in there.  I curled up under the useless, thin, white blanket as Ms. Mosley said good night and closed the door.  The light from the hallway started to disappear, and soon it became completely dark in the room.  My eyes wouldn’t adjust, so I closed them.

I tried to take all of this into my memory.  I wanted to remember what it looked like and what it smelled like.  There was a smell to that place.  It wasn’t like a smell that stunk, nor was it a sweet smell.  You could never forget a smell like that.  It was a smell that all hospitals had. It began to creep me out.  It was as if the smell was there for me to remember, so that I would never forget where I was or what I had done.

CHAPTER 6

In the morning, I heard footsteps in the bedroom.  I still had the thin, white blanket over my face.  I lifted the blanket from my face to see to whom the footsteps belonged.  When I did, I only saw bright sunlight, shining directly in my eyes.  I pulled the blanket back over my face.

“No! Get up!” a loud voice shouted.  I looked up, and Ms. Mosley was standing over me.  “Come on!  Get some socks on your feet, and come get your vitals checked!  It’s time to get up!”  She yelled even louder.

Prison! I knew it! I was already getting yelled at.  Ms. Mosley was different from the night before.  She was now being loud, serious, and stern.  Her hands were cold when she touched my arm while pulling me up off the bed.  She had long nails that dug into my skin.  She didn’t even attempt to leave until she saw that I was up and out of bed. 

On her way to out of the room, she tapped on the bathroom door.  She yelled, “Janine, you know what’s going down!  Don’t let me come back in here in five minutes and see that you’re still in that bathroom.  Hurry up so you can get your vitals checked and
eat breakfast
.”

Janine was my roommate.  I hadn’t noticed her when I had come in last night.  I had arrived so late.  I hadn’t fallen asleep, but I had been tired.  I was still tired.  I couldn’t believe I was expected to be all bright-eyed and welcoming the sun.

I slowly dressed into my socks.  I was able to keep most of my things after the nurses had raided my bag. I saw that I had my robe in there, but no robe belt.  Oh, that’s right, I thought, so that I wouldn’t hang myself.  I noticed that I was still wearing my clothes from the day before.  I wanted to shower and change my clothes, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to without wetting the stitches in my wrists. 

Ms. Mosley stormed back into the room.  She banged on the bathroom door, yelling, “That’s enough, Janine!  I am coming in.” 

Ms. Mosley opened the door, and a tall, dark-haired, skinny girl came out.  She had rosy cheeks and looked like she could have been one of those teen magazine models. 

“See, I’m finished.  Here’s my make-up kit.”  The girl handed Ms. Mosley a small pink bag.  “Gosh, that’s all I was doing.  You’d think the world was coming to an end, the way you were screaming.”

“Humph,” Ms. Mosley grunted.  “Five minutes, Janine.  That’s all it takes.  You know better.”

The girl rolled her eyes and threw herself carelessly on her bed.  She looked up at Ms. Mosley, whose arms were folded across her chest.

Ms. Mosley grunted again.  “No!  Get up, Janine! You have to get your vitals checked.  Come on!”  Ms. Mosley yanked Janine up as Janine squealed, seemingly frustrated.  It looked like she had a death grip on the poor girl’s arm.  Janine snatched her arm away, cursing her and storming out of the room.

I swallowed hard as Ms. Mosley started towards me. “Hurry up.  We have to get your vitals, too.”  She turned away and left me there.

I sighed in relief.  I was glad that she’d stopped yelling.  My head was ringing.  I slipped on my shoes and walked out of the room.  I was all right until I walked through the double doors and saw a living room full of teenagers.  They were standing around, talking, and getting together in groups.  Some of them were watching cartoons on TV and some were in line, waiting to get their vital signs checked.  I nervously stepped into line behind my roommate, and a tall, somewhat heavy-set boy came up and stood behind me.  I started to feel crowded and closed in. I stepped out of the line and sort of stood next to my roommate.

When it was Janine’s turn to get checked, Ms. Mosley made her sit down, and she began checking her blood pressure first.

“How are you feeling today, Janine?” Ms. Mosley asked.

“Better.  Can I go home?” my roommate said as she looked up at Ms. Mosley with a smile.

“Sure! You can go home, Janine,” Ms. Mosley responded.  “Just do me one favor first.”

“What’s that?  Anything for you, Ms. Mosley,” she sarcastically responded.

Ms. Mosley leaned down and looked Janine in her face.  “You know what you can do for me, Precious?  Why don’t you eat all of your breakfast this morning, and your lunch, along with your dinner? If you do that for me today, I will see what I can do about getting your doctor to let you go home.”

Janine rolled her eyes and sat back silently as Ms. Mosley put a thermometer in her mouth.  The thermometer beeped, and she released it from the plastic probe protector.  Janine got up angrily with the plastic probe in her mouth.

“Throw that away, Janine!” Ms. Mosley yelled to her.

Janine kept walking away.  She stopped at the trash can and spit the plastic probe into it.  Turning to Ms. Mosley, she smiled prissily.  Ms. Mosley returned the smile with just as much prissiness.  She then turned to me and motioned for me to sit down where Janine had been sitting.  The boy behind me pushed me along like he was getting impatient.  I sat down.  She began taking my blood pressure.

When she finished taking my temperature, she told me to go on so that the next person could be checked.  The boy behind me nearly knocked me over trying to get me out of the way.  I stood off to the side.  Nervously, I watched all of the other kids who were there.  They didn’t look sick.  Some of them looked pale.  Nobody seemed as if they really cared that they were at Bent Creek.  They talked to each other, laughed, and made jokes. It was just like at school.

I began to feel shy and alone. I wanted to try to sneak back to my room, but Ms. Mosley was watching me.  I was starting to think that the kids would look at me and find something to laugh about.  They would say that I looked funny, or that I didn’t fit in.  I hadn’t really had any friends in high school. I hadn’t even had a boyfriend.

Mom had thought I was crazy for wanting to home school.  She had asked, “What about the pep rallies and the football games?  What about Homecoming and your Senior Prom?  Oh, wait, and the Writing Club?  What about the Writing Club? You love being in your Writing Club. I know those were things that you were crazy about.”

I was not crazy about those things.  Those things made me crazy.  I loved the Writing Club, but I hated the pep rallies. I never went to a football game. There was no chance that I’d ever be nominated for Homecoming Queen, and no one would ever ask me to Prom.

I’d told Mom that home schooling would give me more of a challenge than regular school.  I’d told her that I had felt that public school just wasn’t getting me through, and that I’d work and be able to pay for it myself, and even be able to help her out with a few bills.  After I’d told her that, she was excited about it.

I’d been in public high school until the end of my sophomore year.  I’d left and had started home school when John had left.  He and Lexus had graduated two years before me.  I hated school.  I hated being stared at and teased by the other kids.  I hated to be singled out.  I was always alone.

There I was in Bent Creek, feeling trapped.  It felt like a school that I couldn’t escape.  My mind started racing with uncontrollable thoughts.  I knew they all could see the bandages around my wrists.  They’ll know everything.  They’ll call me weird.  They’ll make fun of me, I thought to myself.

“Hey,” said a voice from beside me.  I turned, and big, brown eyes stared back at me.

“We’re roommates,” said the pretty girl.

“Hi,” I said.

“I’m Janine. Bulimic Manic Depressive,” she introduced herself.  “Come over here with me.  Meet our group.”

I hesitated.  Before I could decline, she yanked my hand and pulled me over to a table full of other people.  At the table were three girls and two boys.  Janine went over to another table and yelled for one of the boys to help her push the tables together to make room for me.  When they finished setting up, Janine and I grabbed a chair and sat down. 

Janine looked around at everyone and said, “Hey, you guys, this is my roommate.  Her name is – wait, what’s your name?”

Still looking down and not making eye contact, I told her that my name was Kristen.

“Okay, this is Kristen.  Kristen, this is Daniel, Tai, Chris, Cadence, and Lenni.”

“Hey, Kristen, welcome to The Insane Part Two,” said Chris.  He was trying to be funny and nice.

I couldn’t smile.  I was too nervous.  I looked away from his smile.

“Thanks,” I said in a low voice.

“When did you get here?” Janine asked.

“Early this morning,” I told her.

“That check in stuff takes way too long,” Janine sympathized with me.

“Man, I need a cigarette,” a very shaky and sleepy-looking guy said.

I looked up at him. He was the first boy in a long time that I had seen with long hair. He didn’t seem to care that it was long and hanging down. His hair half-covered his eyes, but I could see them, very bright and beautiful. His name was Daniel. When Daniel looked up at me, he caught me staring. I quickly looked back down, away from his beautiful eyes.

“I hear that,” Tai agreed with him.  Tai had a tanned complexion. She was very even-toned and had wild, curly, sandy-brown hair.  She was thin.  When she smiled, her teeth were yellow.  It was obvious that a simple toothbrush wouldn’t get the job done.

Cadence was a very pale girl.  She had straight, short, black hair.  She didn’t say much.  She mostly stared off into nothing.  Her lips were bright pink.  She wore heavy eyeliner around her big, dark brown eyes.  Cadence held on tightly to a doll. The doll looked like it was made of smooth white resin.  It had long, black hair that was all matted up on one side. And it had one creepy looking stitched-up eye. The eye that wasn’t stitched up was beady and red.  I tried not to stare at it.

Chris had chin-length blonde hair and could pass for one of those California surfer boys with the way he looked and dressed if he had a surfboard in his front pocket.

Daniel, Tai, and Lenni were the angry ones of the group. I sensed that Daniel would have been more pleasant if he wasn’t shaking so badly, and if he had a cigarette.  Lenni was angry because she felt that she didn’t need to be at Bent Creek.  She told us the story about how, when she had been twelve, she had written letters about wanting to run away from home.  Her mother had found them and had stuck her in Bent Creek.  Her mother was somehow convinced that she was going to run away. 

Janine seemed sweet. She tried to calm Lenni down by telling her to tell her doctor that the letters were old and that she didn’t feel like running away.  While Janine was talking, Chris started swearing angrily at Cadence.  Cadence looked over at me and stared. Chris stopped and apologized.  Cadence didn’t care.  She and her one eyed doll just kept staring at me.  I began to feel creeped out.

“Don’t worry about it, Chris,” Janine said to him.  “We all know about your DID.”

“What is DID?” asked Lenni.

“It is Dissociative Identity Disorder,” Chris said.

“What does that mean?” Lenni pressed.

“It means that I have four people living inside of me, besides myself.” Chris said.  He seemed sad.  “I’m sorry, you guys. Jake has a bad attitude.  He doesn’t really like it here, but
I
like
you guys.  I’m not trying to be rude.”

“Who
does
like it here?” Tai commented.

“Look, Chris,” Janine said. “Just tell Jake that we’re all in the same position here. Chill out. Nobody wants to be here.”

I looked past Chris and I saw that Cadence was still staring at me.  She was holding her doll against her chest and she was rocking back and forth.  I looked away from her.

“So, what did you do?  Did you do one of those cry-for-help things and drag your mom’s steak knife across your skin to get a little blood? Did you take a razor and do a few cuts across the wrists to make some stains?  Come on, tell us,” Tai pressed me.

“Oh, shut up!” Janine spat at her.  “Why don’t you tell us what you did?”