Stuck In My Ways. Part 1

Chapter 2- Life:

Pete walked down the plain, bland hallway. He knew this place almost like the back of his hand. Next they will turn left, then after four locked doors, turn right, then right again, then finally go through the second set of doors to their left to the dining area for breakfast. Despite the feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach as he thought about what the rest of his day was bound to be like, the tired, dark-haired man smiled at people, other 'people like him', as he walked past them through the hallways. They didn’t return the friendly gesture. Pete had become the outcast of his wing, and a few smiles to his neighbors wasn't going to change that fact. Although Pete knew this, and had known this for quite a while, he still felt stabs of disappointment and slight anger towards them each time.

The woman, Clare, if Pete wasn’t mistaken, lead him to a stool, which he promptly sat down on. They were in the dining area, as Pete had correctly predicted. He looked at the dull green walls and horrid plastic tables as he stifled a yawn and turned to face Clare, knowing full well what to expect.

“Open wide, Mr. Wentz,” Clare said cheerfully, why she seemed so happy to say this each morning, Pete will never know. Pete reluctantly did so, and felt a pair of gloved hands in his mouth. He struggled, but it was no use, there was now two other workers coming to hold him down if needed as Clare shoved the pills down his throat. He swallowed painfully, slightly peeved that he'd lost his privileges to take his pills freely after they'd found his small stash of pills he'd decided to hide under his bed each night instead of ingesting. That was just over four months ago, although he hadn't seen much of a difference in himself since actually taking the pills. Sometimes he doubted the competence of the workers here.

“There, that wasn’t too hard, was it now?” Clare said, for the one hundred and thirty second time since he had met her. Pete had counted. Keeping count of these things gave him something to think about, kept him from going completely insane like some of the other nutcases around here. Pete lowered his eyes and growled quietly in response to Clare's question, knowing full well that she knew how much he hated it.

Pete's focus then switched to looking over to the table to his left, the one closest to where the workers stood at meal times. The popular table.. just like high school, some things never seem to change.

He could see the people sitting there, snickering at the workers while eating their porridge. Pete hissed at them; the only thing worse than the workers thinking they were better than Pete were clients that thought they were better than the ones that looked after them daily.

“That is enough, Peter!” Clare said, visibly annoyed at Pete's behaviour this morning. “Now how about you sit here quietly and I'll get you some porridge. Would you like juice today?” Pete nodded calmly as the pills he'd taken before started to take over his body. “That’s a good man,” she said at his response, smiling that forced smile that she always had plastered on her face when she was with him.

Pete watched her walk away before frowning as one of the people from the 'popular table' came over and stood next to Pete. Pete looked down and began to fidget with his earphones nervously, knowing who it was. “What do you want?” Pete muttered. The person didn’t respond so Pete tried again, this time with a bit of a nervous stutter in his voice. “G-go away, Mathew,” he said, finally mustering up a bit of courage to look up at the tall, black haired man looking down at him. If this was high school, Mathew would definitely be classed as the school bully, in Pete's eyes anyway.

Mathew stared at Pete, who had now begun chewing his earphones anxiously. The man smirked as he slowly raised his hand behind Pete’s head while Pete strained slightly, attempting to look back at the hand questioningly. Pete suddenly felt a blow at the back of his head as the other man's hand came into contact with it and he yelped in pain, grabbing the back of his skull as the man laughed bitterly. He heard the workers finally grab him as Pete had his eyes squeezed shut from the pain, and could hear that jerk's laughter getting fainter and fainter as he was dragged off to another part of the wing, hopefully for the rest of the day.