Skinny Love

Chapter 11

I think I called him earlier.

It was a thought I had out of nowhere and sitting up in bed I had a sinking feeling that it was true. I turned over in my uncomfortable hospital bed and adjusted my eyes to find the clock on the wall. It was only 5:30 in the afternoon, but I knew I'd been asleep for a while.

Earlier that morning, way before Kye was even awake probably I'd wandered off into the hospital. I'd been there for almost two weeks and I'd only seen to the end of the hallway and back. I wasn't expecting much, it was a hospital after all. But surprisingly it turned out the hospital grouped their patients a bit differently than regular.

I was in the psych wing, close to the shrink and physical therapy. I'd been moved there as soon as they saw how much I weighed. They were smart to assume the worst, but still I didn't belong with all the crazy people. Maybe that's why I didn't leave my room much at first. But being bored and the somewhat of a "falling out" with Kye (I'd basically laughed in his face when he said change was possible and he was really hurt because he'd been going without cutting ever since he told me he would), I had to find something to do.

I'd found more than something. I'd found someone. Well a couple of someone's actually. Teenage in-patients, some in for cutting, some quite suicidal, and some with severe mental diseases. The two I'd found were a couple. They had been sitting at a square lunch table hunched close together and hissing whispers at each other, looking a little more than suspicious in their secluded little corner. Every now and then the girl, with long black hair and gradual pink highlights, would look up and check over her shoulder slightly before hunching back over whatever they were hiding. The boy looked cool as he leaned over the table almost uninterestedly, his own black hair much more natural than hers. He was absently stroking her bangs away from her eyes and listening to her go on and on, only nodding in agreement on occasion. For a second I had been reminded of Kye and how amazingly patient he was with everything. But then I remembered how I'd managed to mess that up and felt slightly sick to my stomach. I would have probably dwelled on that feeling for much longer if it weren't for a demanding voice yelling my way.

"Hey!" The girl with the pink highlights was calling across the room toward me. "Yeah you, Bones! What are ya starin at?"

I shook out of my trance in time to see that I'd been standing there looking at them for a while. I could feel myself blushing as I dug my hands into my pockets and slowly shrank within myself. "I'm just, uh...trying to shake something off my mind."

I cursed myself for saying so much. I should have just said I didn't know. She seemed to rise taller hearing this, looking me up and down with a look I didn't really understand she nodded in her approval and then cocked her head for me to come toward her. "I think I can help you out." She said as she summoned me over.

I slowly began to near the table. Not sure what she had in mind when she claimed she could "Help me out" but honestly I was curious.

"What is this place?" I asked as I stopped around a foot away from the table.

"Ah, you're the new girl. The one who won't eat." She said while nodding and looking me up and down. Out of the corner of my eye I could see her friend looking at her incredulously.

"Please excuse her, she's chronically insensitive." He said very politely while shooting her another look.

She just stuck her tongue out at him, then turned back to me. "Well it's true isn't it. I hear those ladies talking about you all the time. They're real bitches but for some reason they love you. And to think you give them such a hard time."

"Oh," I said looking down and twisting my fingers slightly. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to be trouble to anyone."

She looked at me for a while and then adjusted herself in her seat. "So you say you're tryna shake something!"