“I don’t know,” I growl, irritated.
He taps his chin, humming. “I know who you are.” He pushes himself off the door and my eyes widen at the movement. I’m tied to a table in a closed room with a man that has the power to do anything he wants with me. “I know your father is known to be a very powerful, dangerous man,” he states, but I don’t reply. I remain silent.
“I’m sure you’ve seen things or heard things that have you feeling uneasy?” His glasses slip down his nose, his eyes looking at me intently.
“I’m not talking about my father,” I finally tell him, and he pushes the glasses back onto his nose with a disappointed look. He wouldn’t be the first person to try to squeeze juicy stories out of me.
“Right, well I have twenty-four hours to do my job, if you want my help, and I think you do, then I suggest you cooperate with me, Romeo.” He raises a brow.
I look to my restrained feet, the straps look brand new. I wiggle my toes within the tan hospital socks. I don’t know what happened yesterday, and I don’t know what is going on inside of me. I can’t talk to my father about it, he’s always busy and irritated by my presence. My mother has enough problems with what my father does, so that leaves me alone in my room rocking back and forth wondering why I feel the way I do.
“Okay,” I mumble, the urge to rebel is tempting but deep down I am tired of these… moods, I have. I want to be a normal kid and not feel like I’m on a never-ending roller coaster.
“I get sad, yes,” I state, l turning to look at the gray blank wall. “Sometimes I want to hurt myself, sometimes I just want to lay in my bed and not be bothered for days, and sometimes I want to take whatever is inside of me out on someone else just to feel something different than unhappy.” My own words surprise me, I didn’t know I had all of that inside of me. When I opened my mouth to explain myself, I wasn’t expecting my soul to pour from my lips.
“I see,” he mumbles, scratching his chin with clean fingernails. His hands look soft and clean, he sits behind a desk all day judging people, that’s as dirty as his hands get.
“When you attacked the kid at school, what was going through your mind?” He digs deeper.
I roll my shoulders, the jacket hugging me suddenly feeling relaxing as I tell this man things I don’t want to talk about. Things that have been rolling in the back of my mind like a tumbleweed in a western movie.
“I don’t know… relief.” I shrug. When I was beating the shit out of Casen I felt in the right, like it was okay, it felt good and I wanted to keep doing it… until I was pulled away and I saw what I had really done. It was like I slipped into a black void and and now that I’m out and looking back.. it didn’t feel so okay anymore. I wanted to slump into a vast darkness and hide from everyone, including myself.
“So you didn’t blackout, you knew what you were doing?”
My brows furrow, anger settling on the tip of my tongue, ready to lash out like a whip. His questions are narrowing in on me being a crazy person, getting off on hurting others, and that’s not it.
“I don’t want to do this anymore,” I snap, my eyes focused on my feet again.
He sighs, taking the clipboard out, he scribbles on it and it makes me even more mad. I don’t know what he’s writing, but I feel it’s not good. He’s judging me, dissecting me, and trying to get me to say things I don’t want to.
“We only have so many hours together, Romeo.” His voice slips into my ear like a hushed whisper, the watch on his wrist suddenly ticking loudly as the minutes count down my escape from this place. If I want his so-called help, I have to talk about feelings, and things even I don’t understand, but couldn’t I just be a kid with hormones or something? I’ve seen on TV where doctors are over-diagnosing children and putting them on unnecessary medication.
Feeling exposed, I yell, “Get out.”
Walking up to the foot of the bed, he undoes the strap around my feet with one quick move, blood floods to my toes making them feel all tingly. I lift my left leg, the freedom somewhat settling. He reaches for the straitjacket, I jump away from him.
“No, I want to keep it on,” I protest, looking at him as if he was ready to strike me instead of taking a restraining device off a kid who means no harm.
He looks at me with that unreadable look again and writes on the clipboard. Grinding my teeth, I look to the wall again, curious what he’s saying about me; thinking.
“Stop writing about me. I’m fine, there’s nothing wrong with me and you can’t fix me.” I slowly turn my head toward him, glaring at him through hooded eyes.
His thin lips turn into an arrogant smirk. That spark of anger inside of me blooming into a rage ready to plow his stupid face in.
“One thing I’ve learned in my fifteen years of working here. Those that need my help the most are the first to say they’re fine, that they’re normal.” My mouth parts, I want to scream at him, cuss him out even, but I’m left speechless as he leaves the room.
I’m not crazy.
I’m normal.
Breathing heavily, feeling agitated as ever, I feel my nostrils flare. The thought of a normal kid running with others and playing innocently flaring in the back of my head like a commercial on a cable TV show for children.
I’m not that. Far from it. I’d be the one on the stairs, wearing all black, looking at them all with hatred. Their bright-colored clothes and Cheshire Cat grins making me want to stomp over to them and tell them life isn’t fucking rainbows and smiles.
Later on, after I settled down, I walk out into the main room, the air in here carrying a chill, and find the girl in the corner is still drawing. Passing the children of the corn watching TV, I head to her and sit across the round table. Her hand slides across the paper as she hums a song I don’t recognize, drawing a flower, but it looks wilted. Weird. Her hair is even more crazy than earlier, kinked and curly like she hasn’t brushed it in days. She seems lost in her own world, not caring what others think of her.
“Nice flower,” I finally speak. Her hand stops drawing for a split second, her bottom lip slipping into her mouth, before looking up at me. I hold my breath as she looks me right in the eyes. Hers so green they look like the grass in Central Park.
“It’s a sunflower,” she informs me, her voice soft and silky. She sits back, flipping through the pages of the sketchbook, almost all of them drawn with the same looking sunflower and all of them looking near dead. My brows furrow at the near-dead ominous flowers, it doesn’t suit her. Her down-to-earth energy, beautiful bright eyes, and lively hair.
The straitjacket giving me a bit of courage, I scoot up to the table to get closer to her. She watches my movement, and I notice the side of her palm covered in black-silver from the lead of the pencil. She tucks some of her hair behind her ear, resting an elbow on the table, she holds her hand behind her head and smiles at me.
“Did you know that on dark days, sunflowers turn toward each other for energy?” She tilts her head to the side, waiting for me to reply.
I shake my head. Why would I know that?
She gives me an awkward look, drops her hand to the table, and begins to shade around the flower.