Sane

20

"So, it seems we need to take new precautions here." Dean's deep voice broke through the small chatter of the leisure room. All eyes and attention turned to him as he stood at the entrance of the room.

"I've just been informed by our personal caretaker that someone has been hiding their medication in our potted plants." Multiple sets of eyes look around as the different women try to spot the culprit.

"I tried taking it easy on y'all, but it seems someone wanted to take advantage of the privileges you are given. From now on you all have to take your medication with the authority of a nurse watching. Nurse Ruth at the booth will be the proctor and will make sure everything goes accordingly." By now small chatter broke out around the room; everyone desperate to figure out who's to blame.
Me being me I played my role and leaned back comfortably in my seat and watched everyone's different reactions.
The only person who didn't seem fazed was Kyra. Instead of bothering to acknowledge Dean's existence; she picked up a stack of cards and began to shuffle them before passing them around to the participanting players.

"Is that all Dean? We kinda have a game going here." She sarcastically spat at him.
He grinned an obvious fake grin while squinting his eyes.

"Yes...for now." With that he swiftly left the room and left everyone questioning who was to blame.

Muttering under her breath, Kyra invited me to a game (which I denied) and began fanning her cards out in the order she wanted.

I couldn't help but already try and think of a way out of taking the medication. A slight sweat broke out at my overthinking and even the sound of the game in front of me seemed to fade away. Taking their medicine was something that scared me; I don't need to be off my game especially if I'm trying to escape.

"Calm down Destiny, they've done this before." I couldn't help but jump as Minnie placed her hand on my shoulder comfortingly.
I wanted to badly to act like nothing bothered me, like I wasn't actually crying out for help mentally as I scanned through all the possible solutions of how I was gonna get out of this.

"I-uh... r-right..."
She smiled her bright smile and muttered a quick "You'll figure it out" before going back to her game. Meanwhile, Kyra flicked her dark eyes in our direction before carelessly tossing down a jack of hearts as she tuned back into the game.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Yimani?"

"Hmm?"

"What was your life, like before all of this?"

A soft smile made its way to her face as she continued placing the fresh tray down.

"Before all of what."

"Y'know, before working here..." I couldn't help but accentuate my words with light disgust.

How could anyone even wanna walk into this dreadful place?

"Not much different than what it is now; there was just more freedom to go places and do things. I took this job so I could care for my son Hakim who was sick at the time."
I could help but notice the reminisce reflecting from her eyes as she spoke.

"You have a son?" Her small smile appeared again as she nodded.

"We had little to nothing and I could only find small paying jobs since I wasn't a full citizen yet. He couldn't even go to school because of our circumstances." Pain now started to replace them.

"If you don't mine me asking, did his father come over with y'all?"an amused huff of hair escaped her nose.

"Lord no. His father was... let's just say had different values than mine. Shortly after Hakim was born I left him to come here. Haven't spoken to him since." I raised my eyes lightly in shock as I listened. A part of me couldn't help but feel comfortable around her and be able to trust her.

Yimani stopped talking and looked at me with a more serious expression. She looked like she was hesitating before she decided to speak.

"Destiny, speaking to you and having conversations led me to realize that you truly don't belong here. I've noticed the signs..." She lowered her voice now to a whisper as she sat on the bed softly next to me.

"I know you've tried to tell me, and I'm not ignoring you." I couldn't help the tight feeling in my chest at the thought of someone actually understanding my situation.

"I've tried to get multiple other patients out and usually they always failed, so we need to take our time and figure everything out."

Other patients?

I couldn't even speak from the intercom calling her. She got up quickly and went for the door before turning around.

"A few things you can do to start is staying away from James. Don't eat the food he brings you, and start trying to maintain a routine do no one suspects anything." She spoke quietly with determination. I nodded and seconds later she was gone and out of the door to continue distributing food. I couldn't lie to myself, excitement was growing at the thought of getting out. I also couldn't lie and say joining more group therapy wouldn't be worth it because it definitely would...

Later on that day towards the evening I made sure to set out time to ask Kyra how I could get out of taking pills. Obviously with an attitude, she agreed and started to get an item from her side of the room.

"See this?" She held up a banana and two small white pills for me to see. I nodded in confusion while watching as she popped the pill in her mouth.

"Hide it in the back of your tongue beside your molars, and press your tongue against the pill to hide it." She did like she explained and opened her mouth to demonstrate.

"Now you try, don't worry it's just aspirin." I hesitantly took the pill and did the same except not as fluently as she did.

"Now once they check your mouth, you walk over to where we play card, take a banana, and push it in secretly without them noticing. After that you can throw it away or do whatever." I couldn't help but be amazed at how she could have come up with that idea.

"And this definitely works?"
She nodded.

"I still do it to this day. Trust me." The idea of trusting get still seemed a ways away, but we are making progress. I need all the help I can get it I wanna get out of here.