“Where are my parents?” I ask, and her smile thins.
“You are at White Wing Psychiatric Center. We’re here to help you get better, and your parents are just fine,” she states. Walking behind me, she unzips the back of the jacket and begins to unclip and loosen it.
“How are you feeling? Do you feel sick to your stomach?” she continues to evaluate me.
“No,” I lie, I feel like I drank too much water too fast and I need to puke. I’m not sure if it’s from waking up here or the shot they gave me.
“Okay, well, that’s good. The doctor will probably see you tomorrow, and we’ll know about your limitations and privileges. So until then, you can join the others in the common room, or return to your room, okay?” She pulls the heavy white coat off of me and looks down at me with an annoying big grin. Her red lipstick smudged on her bottom teeth.
“Oh!” She raises a finger, her lips puckering into an O-shape, and darts into the office, grabs something off her desk and comes back to hand it to me.
I take it, it’s pamphlets about the place, their mission to help us get better with smiling kids on the front. Glancing around the place, I don’t see a cheerful child in sight.
Sighing, I turn around completely, not sure where to go or what to do. I’m tired, really tired. The episode I had this morning at school really took it out of me, and I feel as if I could sleep for days.
My eyes land on a semi-pretty girl at a table in the middle of the room. She’s doing a puzzle by herself. She’s in clothes similar to mine. Scrubs, like we’re in a hospital, her hair comes down the left side of her shoulder in a tight braid, and she has big round eyes. She suspiciously looks around the room and quickly gobbles up a puzzle piece. My eyes widen. She just ate that!
Scratch sitting next to the girl who eats things. Crossing my arms, I look at the kids watching the movie, they all look very different. One bald with stitches in his head, a girl with green hair, and I can’t stop looking at the girl with cuts all over her face and neck. Did she do that?
I don’t think I want to sit there either. I don’t belong here. Where is my dad? He knows people to get me out of here. Just before I turn to head back to my room, I see someone sitting at a round table at the back of the room by two windows. She has crazy blonde hair down her back, and she’s hunched over as if she’s working on something.
Curiosity getting the best of me, I slowly tread that way and glance over her shoulder a good distance away.
She has a three-inch pencil with a dull head and is drawing on a sketch pad. I can’t really see her face, but she has pink cheeks and freckles.
“You can sit, you know,” she says, and I stiffen. She glances over her shoulder and big eyes with a color I can’t determine look at me. Her nose is too small for her face, and her bottom lip sticks out farther than her top.
Scratching the top of my head, I mull over her offer, and my hand suddenly aches. Pulling it down to inspect it, I notice my knuckles are cracked with dry blood. From beating up Casen.
My eyes flick to hers. I don’t know what happened this morning, maybe I’m not safe. I belong in that straitjacket.
Turning around, I reject her offer and head back to my room where the temperature drops ten degrees and then I lie back on the hospital-looking bed. I close my eyes and listen to my beating heart. It’s slower than it was earlier, but I’m scared shitless regardless of how it drums within. I want my brother, and I want out of here.
Tomorrow, that doctor will see that this morning was just a mistake and I’m normal.
Just like everyone else.
“Romeo, it’s time to get up.” A man’s voice makes me wake up immediately. Snapping upright, I find a man with graying hair with a matching mustache. He has on a suit, not as nice as my father’s, it’s not fitted, and a white doctors coat.
“W-what?” I groan, my throat dry. Looking to the window, it still looks like the same gray sky and I don’t feel like I slept at all. Is it the same day?
He walks up to me with a sense of power on his shoulders and grabs me by the chin. My heart throbs in my chest and I shove the stranger away.
“Don’t touch me!” I shout, my stomach still feeling ill. Who is this guy and why does he think he has the right to just come in here and grab me like that?
He lowers his head, his fuzzy brows glaring at me.
“Don’t make this harder than it needs to be, I just want to check your vitals.” His is voice deep and unsettling. His face is sharp, eyes unfriendly. He must be the doctor.
“Where is my dad? I want out of here,” I demand, pushing him away again. This is crazy, I don’t need to be in here.
He sighs loudly and leaves the room. That was too easy, where’d he go? Sliding my legs over the side of the bed, I stretch my neck as far as I can to see out the door. My back starts to sweat, the grappling jaws of fear nibbling at my flesh.
Kieran always said never let them see you break, so I take a deep breath and lift my shoulders.
The nurse comes in right behind the doctor with a straitjacket in her hands.
“Wait!” I fold my legs underneath me and hold my hands out to keep them away. The doctor grabs both of my wrists, jerking me forward. I kick and scream, trying to buck him off me.
“Should I get one of the men?” The nurse looks at the doctor with a nervous look.
“Nah, Miss Sissy, we can get him,” he says in a low, confident tone. He inches my left arm in the jacket, his strength surprising, he manhandles me into the tight coat before pushing me face down and strapping me in. Before I know it… I’m restrained.
They both grab a strap from the bottom of the bed and secure my legs and I freeze. I thought things like this only happened in movies. They can’t do this. I’m a human, a normal person. Letting me go, he takes a step back, taking a clipboard from Miss Sissy.
“Thank you, Miss Sissy,” he drawls out, and she leaves the room. “Now, let’s try this again.” He tucks the board with a thick amount of paperwork under his arm, and snatches my face by the chin, shining a flashlight into my eyes, blinding me. I wince and pull from his grip. Grinding my teeth, he looks my face over, his dull blue eyes unfazed by my attempt to fight.
He listens to my heart, watching the watch on his wrist. It’s an ugly watch, all black and plastic looking.
Satisfied with my vitals, he finally backs away and closes the door before leaning against it. He takes a deep breath, looking at the window while scratching his chin deep in thought. “So, you brutally attacked one of your classmates yesterday,” he states, not asks. I don’t answer. He obviously knows what happened.
“Have you ever done that before?” he continues to ask questions, tilting his head to the side as he adjusts his glasses on the bridge of his nose before looking at me with an unreadable look. He’s the stereotypical doctor you’d see in a horror movie overlooking a patient in an asylum.
“Do you ever feel sad, Romeo?”
I silently laugh. “Who doesn’t?”
“Right, but there’s sad, and then there’s a sadness where you don’t want to get out of bed for days or go even as far as wanting to hurt yourself,” he explains, watching me closely. He’s probably reading my reactions, the tone of my voice, all the things he learned in doctor school.