I took Emilie's advice and got out of bed. Looking around, I just followed the sound of chatter to figure out where everyone was. I felt like shit being in these ugly ass clothes. They felt like they were soaked in starch for days! Hopefully Jack would bring me some clothes.
As I reached the main room, I saw three separated groups. A male and female sitting regularly on an old couch watching the news, two girls and a guy playing Foosball (hopefully there was a ball) and then two... more people, who were quite ambiguous, sitting with their knees tucking into their shirts and gossiping.
Looking around more, I saw that there was another couch across from the other, a couple chairs and what seemed to be what was slightly older carpet on the first level. A couple stairs up were book shelves filled with books, puzzles, coloring items and large tubs of random objects, lunch tables and plastic chairs of various colors. Sitting atop of an orange one, her legs crossed, was Emilie. She was just coloring a book with a large bucket in front of her.
Not knowing anyone, I decided to sit with the next best thing. Her. Maybe she could show me around a bit. I shuffled my way quietly to the table and watched her. She was quite a realistic color person. The picture she was coloring was of a girl with a tan skin tone, green eyes and brown hair. I was use to purple hair, green skin and yellow eyes, so this was a refreshing sight.
"Hi," I finally said, sitting down as I put one foot on the chair, my heel resting under my butt.
"Hello," she murmured.
"Can I... How did you know I was in the room this morning?" I asked, trying to start a conversation.
"Well, the name outside of the door had yours also, not just mine. Why are you here?"
I bit my lip and sighed, shrugging, "Because my loved ones didn't want me around?" I asked. "They just think that my eating isn't really controlled right. But I'm perfectly fine," I said.
"Husband?"
"Yes."
"Kids?"
"Two."
"Well, I've been here for a while. You can't let your kids go without a mother. I'll help you. Anything I can do... to bring a mother back to her kids," she said with a sigh.
"You okay?" I asked. Something seemed off about her. Call it a mother's intuition, but I think it had something to do with kids.
"Yeah," she said with a smile. Her emerald green eyes and perfectly white teeth were beautiful. She had choppy blonde hair that looked like she forgot to wash it yesterday, but it worked for her. She wore tattered clothing, but not trashy, like they were made that way. She was thin, and I was jealous of it.
"You want to talk about it?"
"I haven't with anyone here, so I don't know if you could get it out of me," she said. For some reason, before I got out of here, I will get it out of her, and keep it safe with me.
"So, what do we do here on a daily basis?" I asked, so I could understand the going ons.
"Well, first we get up and wake up. Then it's breakfast, pills and these forms to see how we are doing. We turn them in and have free time. After all that, about 11:15 or so, we do group for an hour. Then we have lunch, free time and more forms. Around 2:00, we do a group activity. Mostly it's an art thing. Then it's free time. Depending on what level you are, you're free to have a smoke or read or draw or watch TV, whatever. About 4:00 or so, we do more group. Then it's dinner, more pills and forms again. Free time, whatever. Then it's showers and bed. It's not great. but we get a fair amount of free time, and that gives everyone a chance to talk to therapists and all that fun stuff."
