Institutionalized

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I woke the next morning feeling restless. The sun from the tiny window was glaring directly in my face and no matter how I moved, it would not go away. I was forced to sit up with a slight sense of vertigo. I rolled out of the hard bed, which was more like a cot, and gripped the nightstand for balance. I slowly stood up straight and eventually my head stopped spinning.

“Are you alright?” a voice from behind me asked, making me jump. I turned around to see Lucius sitting at the small table with one of his books and a nub of a pencil. He was staring at me expectantly.

“I’m fine,” I replied shortly, before ducking into the washroom for a piss. After washing my hands I splashed water on my face and tried to wake up. I didn’t want to go back out there and face Lucius or anything else about this place. Lucius is totally weird, which he proved to me last night.

After completely forgetting me, and reintroducing himself, he suddenly became really friendly. Like really. I played go fish and tic-tac-toe with him for fucking three hours straight, and some shit just gets old really quick. In fact, the whole experience may have actually made me a little crazy. But I didn’t want to be rude and Lucius didn’t seem to know any other card games.

And all the while Lucius kept getting excited about winning, or extremely animated when it was a close game; and he remained excited like that for the whole three hours. He’d talk about weird stuff like his toy car collection that he’s been missing for years, or about how happy he was to have a roommate so the bad man can’t get him at night. I figured he gets nightmares, and so do I, so I’m not much help to him there.

Then suddenly, he dropped his cards and stood up from the floor where we’d been sitting and said he didn’t want to play anymore. Don’t get me wrong, I was ecstatic that I didn’t have to play cards anymore, but deeply disturbed by Lucius’ sudden change of behavior. He definitely hadn’t slipped into another “personality” but instead seemed to instantly lose all interest, yet he was still talking to me, asking me all kinds of questions I had no answers for, like whether or not I’d stay long, or if his sister was ever going to come to visit. When I had gone to bed that night I had done so feeling deeply confused.

My feelings from the night before hadn’t dissipated entirely by the time I’d left the washroom. Lucius was still sitting at the table, except now there was food in front of him, and a full plate across from him. There were two fold up chairs that I hadn’t noticed before set about the table.

I sat down across from him and looked at the food greedily. Somehow I had missed all three of my meals since being here and I was fucking starving. I shoved a piece of toast in my mouth and glanced at my roommate. He was barely eating, mostly picking at his food and avoiding my gaze.

“So...do they always bring our meals to us?” I asked with my mouth full, finding it rather odd that we wouldn’t be eating with everyone else.

“Only dinner is served in the main room, but not on Mondays or Tuesdays. Today’s Tuesday,” he replied looking at me finally. His voice sounded so hollow and his icy blue eyes suddenly looking at me ran a shiver down my spine.

“Oh,” that’s all I said, even though I thought the whole arrangement was totally weird and in fact, I had plenty to say about it.

“Hey,” he said, setting down his fork and getting my attention, “I know yesterday was probably kind of strange for you and...well, I’m sorry if you were uncomfortable.”

“Huh,” I replied, “Strange might be an understatement,” I said without thinking.

“Well, you’re obviously here for a reason,” he shot back defensively.

“I’m not. I mean, I don’t think I am.”

“Well everyone can see why you’re here,” he said, pointedly looking at my uncovered wrists. I set my arms on the table in front of me, displaying my scars. I glared at him slightly, and he glared back at me.

“I’m not how you think I am. I’m not insecure about my scars, I don’t have issues, and it doesn’t bother me if you stare. They’re like my tattoos, and each one represents something I think is important, and I don’t give a fuck about what you see, or what any of these other crazy’s and shrinks think they see,” I deadpanned. Lucius squirmed slightly, and avoided looking at my scars.

“I didn’t mean anything...”

“Are you going to drink that?” I interrupted, pointing at his untouched coffee. I didn’t wait for a response before helping myself, and dumping 5 scoops of sugar in it.

“Uh, no,” he said.

“Well why are you here?” I asked, while gulping down half the coffee before shoving more toast in my mouth.

“I don’t know; I’ve been here a long time,” he said, as if he’d forgotten why he was here.

“Well, you seemed out of it last night,” I replied under my breath.

“Yeah, I know it too. Did you know I couldn’t sleep all night because you were in a fit half the time?” He said, bitterly, as if he knew he was messed up last night, and needed to somehow shift the attention back to me.

“What the fuck do you want me to do? I can’t control whether or not I dream.”

“You weren’t dreaming, you were having nightmares and actually, to tell you the truth, you kind of scared me,” he said, timidly.

“Why didn’t you wake me up?” I snapped, secretly wishing he had of.

“I just said I was scared!”

“Fine whatever,” I replied. I actually did feel sorry for keeping him up all night, but it’s not like I had the greatest sleep either.

I watched as he folded his arms over his chest, in a self protective way. He looked incredibly sad all of a sudden. He was pouting slightly and his eyes were starting to water. I instantly felt guilty for how I’d talked to Lucius; I still didn’t know him and he was obviously very naïve and emotional, apparently.

“Look, don’t be like that. I didn’t mean to talk to you like that,” I said, feeling at a loss. I’m not very good at apologizing or with handling crying...unless it’s me crying, which I wouldn’t do in front of anyone...so I didn’t really know how to react.

“I didn’t mean it either,” he mumbled timidly while wiping his face on his sleeve; but he still wouldn’t look at me. I reached out to him and grasped his chin slightly and lifted his head to look at me. He looked like a deer in the headlights and for some reason I wanted to kiss him. I immediately dropped my hand as if burned and looked away from him. What the hell possessed me to touch him?

“Are you okay?” I asked feeling slightly frazzled. I was used to touching and flirting with people...but in this place, with Lucius? I felt like I was doing something wrong. I knew Lucius had been here since he was an adolescent, and may have even gone through puberty behind these walls, so I figured he didn’t know anything about sex, and therefore it was wrong to touch him in any way. Especially because I was thinking about sex; and I already knew that Lucius most likely wasn’t thinking anything like that at all.

“I’m okay. I just want to be friends Salem, I don’t want to fight.”

“I know me neither. That’s just the way I’ve gotten used to talking to people,” I replied, knowing that lashing out at people was my main method of defense.

He smiled at me and continued eating his food. I stared at my eggs and bacon and shoved the plate away. I’d been a vegan since I was 14. I sat awkwardly for a moment, trying not to look at Lucius.

“So what did you do on the outside?” he asked, suddenly. When I looked over at him he was staring expectantly.

“Oh, you know…I went to school, hung out with my friends, stuff like that,” I replied, not really telling the truth but not lying either.

“I really miss going to school, although I never really had any friends,” he reply’s.

“I don’t miss school, that’s for sure. I don’t have many friends either,” I said, adding the last part as an afterthought.

“You look like someone who would have a lot of friends,” he stated, almost matter-of-factly.

“I guess people just don’t like certain things about me.”

“Is it because you cut yourself?” he asked me without a hint of judgment in his voice.

“No, not exactly, I was just different from everyone I grew up with. I had a few close friends...I mean, I do have some close friends,” I replied, correcting myself.

“What’s your best friends’ name?” he asked, sounding like a curious 12-year-old.

“Well, I guess I have two best friends; Damien and Sabrina; the three of us have been friends since we were kids; my brother too,” I replied, not understanding why he wanted to know.

“So if it wasn’t the cutting that made you different,” he said skeptically, abruptly changing the subject, “was it because of your...uh...mental illness?”

“I’m not ‘mentally ill’,” I responded, glaring at Lucius; but he didn’t seem to notice or care. Truthfully, I didn’t want to get into all the details about why I was so unpopular at school or about anything else about me, basically.

“Okay, I didn’t know,” he replied, smirking at me. I didn’t really know what to say, but I realized that there was a lot more to Lucius than I thought.

Before I could reply a nurse walked into our room. I hadn’t met this nurse yet but I liked her already. She was tall and young with auburn hair. She had pretty, delicate features and soft looking skin...

“Salem?” she asks, looking at me. I nod, I think. “I’m Scarlet; I’m here to take you to your appointment with Dr. Savage,” she explains. She looked at me expectantly.

“What, right now?” I ask.

“Yes, right now. I haven’t got all day,” she replied in an irritated tone. She put her hands on her hips and tapped her foot impatiently.

I stand up slowly looking around and move towards the pretty nurse. I look at Lucius and he gives a slight wave. I flash him the peace sign and follow Scarlet into the hall.

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