After three months of Dalacine, all Kya wanted to do was get out. She missed her family and she missed her friends and she missed not having to be followed around by a nurse all the time. The counselling sessions were the worst. Sure, Jeffrey was a nice guy and they had some interesting conversations, but he was too easy to fool. And honestly, over everything, Kya was dying for a cigarette.
Obviously, she'd smoked a little; going three months without that would have probably killed her faster than she wanted. But hanging out of your window whatever the weather clutching your paper weapon and ruining your lungs wasn't exactly an enjoyable experience. On the bright side, it kind of felt like home. Who was she kidding? Three months had done nothing for her beside making her wish she'd been more careful.
Her bed squeaked as she sat down. She looked at the wall. She looked at the window. Her hands itched towards the lighter she'd hidden in her drawer. She looked at arms. Her hands traced the blotchy red scars. She sighed. It was the general routine.
It was Wednesday, which meant she had three days before her mum came to visit her again. She always visited on a Saturday, always alone, always pretending nothing had changed. Kya wanted to pretend that it angered her, but she could understand the reasoning behind it. Kya was her oldest daughter; originally she had been the smartest in her class, the one who was going to go places. She'd certainly gone somewhere, but she didn't think a mental hospital counted. She wondered whether her fall from grace bothered her mum much. It probably did, but she never said anything about it. Pretending nothing had changed was her way of reassuring herself. Everything would be okay if everything was still the same as before.
But still, sometimes Kya wondered if it would kill her to acknowledge the problem. Maybe it would kill them both eventually.
Kya threw open the drawer and swiped up her refuge. It was a sunny day. No one would notice the cigarette smoke coming from her window. She let herself take a few more days from her life. It wasn't like she was going to miss them anyway. Gritting her teeth, she pressed it to her skin, rejoicing in the pain, her mind dancing in the ease of it all. She threw it out of the window, her euphoria crashing down with it. The relief got shorter with every time she felt it.
Sometimes she wondered why she still did it. Why not? She thought, there's nothing better to do with this life. She glanced up at the clock on the wall. Ten minutes until her nurse turned up. She ate a pack of mints and pretended to sleep.
At the sound of a knock on the door, she pretended to wake up. "Yeah?"
"Time to get up, Kya, honey." Her nurse always called her that. She didn't know why. "Breakfast is soon."
"Okay," Kya called back. She didn't move. She was already ready to go down to the cafeteria if she wanted to. She'd wait anyway, rustling the sheets for realism. She got up and opened and closed the wardrobe doors. A few minutes later she opened the door to meet her smiling nurse. Kya didn't understand how the woman's face didn't hurt.
Her nurse's name was Tiffany, and basically the only other thing that Kya knew about her was that she was far too happy to belong here. In fact, within three months, Kya had only seen Tiffany frown once, and that was when Kya told her why she had been sent to Dalacine. Any time other than that, Tiffany had been smiling like her face was frozen there. On the bright side, she had nice teeth, so at least it wasn't horrific to look at.
Tiffany led her to the cafeteria. On the way, they talked about what Kya had scheduled for the day. She reminded her of a counselling session with Jeffrey at 11 and a room check during that. Kya tried to mask her look of surprise. For a moment, her heart skipped; she had a few things in her room that they would definitely take out if they found them (which they inevitably would when they checked the room), and she kind of needed them to stay sane. It would be fine, she told herself, the cigarette box and her lighter could fit in her pocket. She would just take them with to Jeffrey's office.
