These Days

ix

"NOVA TRIED TO KILL HERSELF. She ended up paralysed instead."

Aaron jumps, startled, turning to face the girl sat next to him. She has specks of sun scattered across the wonky bridge of her nose and hair that was probably once the colour of candyfloss that falls in tangles to her shoulders.

"I'm Rena," she says, holding out a hand. "You must be new."

Aaron accepts the greeting, nodding. "Aaron," he tells her. He turns back, gesturing towards the girl at the window. She's staring through the tainted glass wistfully as though she wishes it were open so that she could just tumble straight down. "Is it true? What you said about her?"

Rena nods. "Yeah. But don't bring it up. And don't get on the wrong side of her. Being in a wheelchair doesn't make her any less bitchy."

Aaron swallows hard. He's not sure if he's supposed to laugh so he just nods awkwardly.

When they'd first uttered the word "inpatient" it had been in hushed tones, in whispers of fear that had made his head spin and his heart pound as hard as it could. He'd expected a hospital ward where he could do nothing but sit in bed and watch TV all day and be force fed by a nurse who wouldn't understand that he couldn't do it, that he was too fat for anything bad to really happen.

He certainly hadn't expected this.

Aaron doesn't really know how to describe this place. It's a bit like a big home for young people who have been shipped off by their families. Aaron hasn't really seen many people in the three days that he's been here. He likes to sit in his room most of the time and pretend that this isn't really happening.

"So what did you do to get referred here?"

Rena's blunt words don't match her soft voice. They're wrong, like everything else in this place. Like everything else in Aaron's life.

"Collapsed."

"Ahh. Ana junkie?"

"I'm sorry?" Aaron looks taken aback.

Rena blinks. "Sorry," she echoes. "My bad." She glances over at the older woman sat in the corner pretending to read her newspaper instead of keeping a careful eye on everyone in the room. "Good thing ol' Linda didn't hear me or else she'd be mad at me again." She sighs, brushing a strand off grey-pink hair off her face. "I mean - anorexia?"

"That's what they say," Aaron replies noncommittally. "What did you mean by Ana junkie?"

"Shh," Rena hisses, pretending to duck and glance furtively at Linda, but Aaron knows that she's just kidding around. "Don't say that so loud! It's un PC. But yeah - we're all in here because we're addicts in the end, right? Junkies of some sort. You're addicted to starving yourself, Nova's addicted to thinking awful thoughts - you get it."

Aaron wants to ask her what she's addicted to but he thinks that he already knows. Rena has spent most of the past three hundred seconds pulling down her long sleeves and glancing around her. Her eyes dart everywhere like she's paranoid, like someone might leap out of the shadows and attack her if she's not careful.

"There's five of us about our age - assuming you're my age, that is. Me, Tahlia, Jonny, Bradley and Nova. Nova doesn't really talk to us, though. She doesn't really talk to anyone."

"I'm eighteen," Aaron tells her.

Rena nods. "I assumed as much. They lump us in with the older lot for security reasons. You look too young to be one of them."

Aaron wonders who she means. The older residents here, with their withered smiles and fading scars? Why should they be any different?

He doesn't know.