Burlap

5 - Come As You Are

I glanced around the sterile lounge room for Ed, hoping no one would notice my wandering eyes. For whatever reason, asking questions to my other ward-mates intimidated me, and I couldn’t bring myself to face them. Maybe it was the fact that I didn’t quite trust them yet, or maybe it was the giant plethora of secrets the ward held, despite claiming to be a tight knit “family”. Whatever the case, I resolved to keep my inquiries to myself until I was alone with either John or Esther.

The six of us sat in silence, all of our gazes trapped on the large bay window with steel bars running vertically across it. Splatter after splatter of fat, heavy raindrops pounded the glass, sounding like thousands of tiny fists beating against the transparent surface and making it impossible to have conversations without shouting to each other over the noise. The sky loomed over Rosenton, as charcoal colored as the bars making sure we couldn’t escape.

Well, escape life anyway, I thought to myself, remembering the portly police officer jamming his sausage finger onto the seventh floor button on the elevator the night I’d been escorted here. Jumping from our particular lounge window meant certain death.

Weak people kill themselves, Power scoffed, and I could all but see her folding her arms across her chest in utter arrogance as she spoke to me. I shook my head and ignored her unwanted input.

“Hey, have you been able to find your way around by yourself yet?” John asked me after several minutes, leaning close so I could hear him over the thunder booming over us. Again, his warm breath on my ear caused a fresh batch of shivers to race from the nape of my neck all the way down my spine, electrifying every nerve ending on the way.

Swallowing the nervousness in my throat, I shook my head and twined my fingers together, unsure what to do with myself and scared to look up and see if Marcie had seen him talking to me. Her evident jealousy and kindness toward me seemed unbalanced and foreign, and the last thing I wanted to do was get on her bad side. The newcomer always lost out in these type situations, and I was certainly not looking for any reason to be involved in an altercation.

Not in this place, and not with these people.

“Come on,” he whispered, grabbing my hand and pulling me to my feet from the scratchy orange chair I’d come to familiarize myself with for its position in the back corner, next to the radio. I’d hoped by choosing that seat, I’d become less noticeable and blend with the wall, but the fact that John seemed to fancy sitting in the other scratchy orange chair beside it always caught at least Marcie’s attention, making me the target of her intense, but not unfriendly, stares.

I let him lead me from the room while the rest of our ward-mates gathered around the barred window to watch the lightning strike. They all seemed fascinated by the storm, and in a way, so was I. The dark skies, the rolling pewter clouds, the howling winds, and the bruising rain… It held a certain mystery and intrigue. Nothing could stop it. Nothing could touch it. Nothing could contain it. It simply was, and nothing could change that.

I’m like that, Power snipped, the playfulness she used in her tone unusual. I chalked it up to her confidence and the way I admired the storm, then made it a point not to reply to her, just like before.

As the heavy door closed behind us, I caught one last glimpse of Marcie, just as she turned to see us leave the room. Her beautiful face fell and her bottom lip quivered as her eyes moved over to the oblivious John, who kept walking, not bothering to look back. I averted my eyes, my heart aching for this girl who was in love with this man, and I let the door fall closed, blocking us from her sight. My teeth sank into my lip as I tried not to cry for her, all the while Power teased me for being so emotional and weak. Who was I, a mass murderer, to feel things like sympathy for other people?