Beautifully Insane

Chapter Six

     I had a restless sleep. I got three, maybe four, hours of sleep. I was bothered by the fact that Jan was pregnant all because of that selfish, lowlife. That she was going to have an abortion she mostly likely would remember. I didn't want to leave my bed. I wanted to stay in the comforting warmth of my bed and pretend everything that has happened this past week was a nasty nightmare, but I couldn't. I needed to be there for Jan. My stomach yelled at me to feed it as I got up from my bed. I haven't had the need or the desire to eat since yesterday morning and, strangely, I wasn't hungry. Walking tiredly toward the stairs, my eyes caught the time as I was at the top of the staircase, 9:05am. Was Jan awake? I wondered as I felt my body grow heavily. My vision began to blur as my body leaned forward as the temperature rocketed sky high. Dizzily, I felt a tug on my wrist, having my body fall in the opposite direction. I opened my heavy set eyes to see Mitch Wright holding me up. His firm, soft, cold killer hands were touching me and instead of being petrified, I felt safe and comforted. "Avoiding your body's craving for food is a dangerous thing," Mitch warned. "Let me help you down."
Mitch's voice was low and roughly sweet. I could smell the worn out cologne still lingering on his skin. "Thank you," I managed to say as looked into his cornfield eyes as they were busy making sure I wouldn't slip on the way down the stairs. His blue eyes were brighter in person; they were hard to look away from. "I heard about you on the news," I inform him as I glanced down at my feet as they stepped down from the last of the stairs. "I think what you did to those people was remarkably impressive," I added hoping my candid compliment didn't cross him as mockery.
Mitch's eyes slowly came upon me as he had a surprised expression. He wasn't expecting to get
commendation for his sins. Mitch sat me down at the table I usually sit at and went over to the counter. Being out of his robust arms made me a bit glum, wishing he didn't let go. Mitch came back with a plate full of waffles next to a few pieces of bacon and placed it down in front of me. "Your not going to eat?" I asked observing only one plate on the table.
"Eating this early in the morning makes me nauseous," Mitch explained as he shook his head. He eyed me for a while, examining me. "How old are you?"
"Seventeen," I answered picking up a piece of bacon and biting into it.
Mitch widened his eyes in stupefaction. Then, he smiled. "What is a seventeen-year-old doing in a place like this?"
"I'll have to answer that another time," I smirked, "it's seems to me you have had enough surprises for one day."
You have this man on the edge of his seat. He is totally interested in you, Shelly stated.
"Oh come on."
I shook my head as I could feel butterflies in my stomach. I glanced over at the clock to see that it was nearly nine-thirty. Jan wasn't down yet. Maybe she is having a hard time getting up this morning, Charlie guessed.
Maybe.
    After my meal, I felt strong enough to walk on my own two feet. Not seeing Jan at breakfast at all, even though I stayed in extra twenty minutes after eating, concerned me as I climbed up the stairs. The closer I got to Jan's room, the more my nerves were harder to control. I was anxious for Jan. If Jan is a walking, emotionless zombie now, what will she be like after the procedure?
Hopefully Jan, in time, will go back to bring her old cheery self, Charlie sympathized to make me feel a bit better.
I thanked Charlie before stopping in front of Jan's closed door. I took a deep breath, relaxing my thoughts and knocked on the door. The door opened a crack as it wasn't shut all the way. "Jan, it's me Paige," I informed her.
I waited for a response before entering.
No answer.
I opened the door and took a small step inside, "Jan?"
I saw her bed empty as I widened the door. I looked over to the left side of the room. I covered my mouth as my eyes couldn't look away. I winced at the horrid sight of Jan hanging from the light attached to the high ceiling with a chair laying on its side with heavy, encyclopedia books scattered across the floor. Her body had hung perfectly still, without swaying. Jan had been this way for a long time as her skin already begun to turn that pale, grey color. Tears poured uncontrollably down my cheeks as I fell hard onto the floor. I shook my head and covered my eyes, trying to convince myself that it was a terrible nightmare, but it wouldn't go away. I looked around the room to see if there was any sign that Jan had help, but there was none I could find. My eyes caught a note that laid in the floor near the chair. I shakily and slowly got onto me knees and extended my arm to the note. I pulled the note towards me with my pointer and middle finger. I held the note in front of my blurry vision due to my tears and read: I love you Paige, Jan.
      I began to hear heels tapping on the floor outside of the door, getting closer as they became closer. The talking stopped abruptly followed my a gasps. "Oh my god!" the words fell out of Dr. Rosario's mouth as she had taken a step back.
Dr. Rosario took my hand and pulled me out if the room and closed the door. "Did you happen to see a note or anything?"
I held the note out to her with my trembling hands.
     I sat on the bottom of the stairs close to the railing as I saw two men in coroner suits go up the stairs to retrieve Jan's body. My eyes hurt from crying and I was so congested I couldn't breathe properly through my nose. I heard multiple footsteps behind me on the top of the stairs. I couldn't bring myself to turn around as I knew exactly what was going on. 
While looking straight ahead, I caught a glimpse of the body bag with the corner of my eyes as the coroners carried the gurney down onto the floor. Also on the left of me, I saw Mitch venturing his way over. I brought my sleeve of my black, woolly sweatshirt up to dry my eyes promptly. I stretched with my arms elongated over my head and flashed Mitch a fake, gummy smile, "Must be my lucky day running into you for the second time today."
Mitch beheld me with a dolor expression in his face. There was no fooling him that I wasn't balling my eyes just then. Mitch placed himself next to me as I watched the main door shut behind one of the men. "You don't have to suppress your emotions around me. I'm sorry about your friend," Mitch apologized.
"Thank you."
I could tell by the clicking of shoes stepping in each stair on the way down that Dr. Rosario was coming. She looked at Mitch with disgust, "If you don't mind, I would like to talk to Paige...alone."
"Sure," Mitch nodded and said goodbye to me before leaving Dr. Rosario and I unaccompanied.
Dr. Rosario watched Mitch walk away before speaking, "There will be a funeral for Jan this coming Thursday, with high supervision, you can come."
"Thank you."
"Paige, keep your distance from Mr. Wright."
I looked mysteriously at Dr. Rosario as I tried to see some reasoning in her eyes. Failing to do so, I nodded.