Empty

I sit alone at the white lunch table, stirring around the "mashed potatoes" with a plastic fork. I feel a whoosh of air and suddenly a guy maybe a little older than me is sitting next to me, looking over at my nametag on my shirt.

His movement was so sudden, I flinch away. I scoot over half a dozen inches and say nothing.

"Chill out, buddy," the guy says. "Malachi? What a stupid name. I'm calling you Kai. I'm Sawyer, by the way."

I glance at him. I think if I ignore him, he'll go away. I'm really uncomfortable.

"What's wrong with you?" he asks. "How did you end up in this psyche ward? I see that you're getting really anxious by the way you're biting your lip and digging your fingernails into your palms. You can't just have anxiety, though, that's stupid. I'm thinking PTSD and/or depression. So what happened to you?"

He talks fast, and I feel overwhelmed. I look at his face for the first time. He has a strong jawline and a pointy nose. His eyebrows are dark and bushy. I shrug at him and try to act natural. I lay my hands flat on my thighs.

"Personally, I think it's rape," he says.

I snap my head back to look at him. "How did you..."

Sawyer smiles wide. "He speaks. I guessed by the way you shrugged away from me and are very uncomfortable in my human presence alone."

"Yeah," I whisper.

"I'd say sorry, or try to comfort you or something, but I don't care," Sawyer says.

I look at him with something like gratefulness in my eyes. Everyone cares. My parents took me to therapy and all my old friends ask if I'm okay twenty times a day. Some people think I'm a liar, and some ask why I didn't fight back because I'm a guy. Nobody just doesn't care.

"I'm a diagnosed sociopath, by the way," Sawyer tells me. "They know they can't just 'fix' me, but to prevent me from doing something scary again, they keep me here."

I scoot away from him even more. Sawyer laughs at me.

"I won't kill you, don't worry. I just don't tolerate dumbasses. I'm told by Jayna, my therapist, that my lack of empathy and like feelings gave me a lot more room to be smart, or something. I'm really intelligent, apparently."

That's interesting, I think.

"Don't worry about feeling alone here, Kai. There are like two more people here who've been raped. They're girls, though."

I nod. "Do we do support group therapy?"

"Yeah, it's so boring. I never have anything to say except that I don't want to be there, and Bev always tries to get me to tell everyone about 'a moment where I didn't empathize' or something, and then I'm like, 'right now', and she gets annoyed and gives up."

I smile a bit. Sawyer is kind of funny, but a little unnerving.

After dinner, they make all the patients in the hospital go into a large, empty room. They have us sit down and a psychologist sits down with us.

Right away the woman smiles at me. "Hello, everyone. We have a new patient today, his name is Malachi. Please make him feel welcome here. Malachi, I'm Dr. Beverly, the leading therapist here."

I nod. "Hi."

"Okay," the Doctor starts, "today we're talking about labels. And your opinion on them, like whether they should exist or not. This goes for sexuality, gender, anything. Malachi, since you're new, can you introduce yourself and then share your opinion?"

I shrug. "Okay. I'm Malachi, and I'm seventeen years old. And um, a couple years ago I told my parents that I like guys, so I'm gay, I guess–"

"Wait," a girl in the circle says, "you're gay, but you still run around telling people you're a rape victim?"

My mouth hangs slightly open. Sawyer laughs from beside me.

"Um," I stutter, "there are other girls here who were raped, right?" Two girls in different places in the circle kind of nod. I look at one girl with brown hair and blue eyes. "What do you prefer, guys or girls?"

Quietly she says, "I like guys."

"Right," I nod. "And I'm assuming a guy raped her. Just because she prefers men doesn't mean she liked it when a guy shoved his dick into her without her consent. Just because I like guys, that does not mean I liked it when one raped me."

"Um," Dr. Beverly intervenes, "Malachi, that was a very good point you made. Would you mind if we got back on topic?"

I sigh; I'm kind of exasperated. "I told my parents I was gay, and they didn't care. That made me realize labels didn't matter, and we all are who we are, and none of us should care. That's it."

Dr. Beverly nods. "Thank you, Malachi. What about you, Sawyer?" She shoots him a pointed look.

"I don't think I have a label? So I guess my opinion is screw labels," Sawyer says. I try not to smile at the disappointed look on the doctor's face.

We move on throughout the kids in the circle. Everyone seems to be sixteen to twenty years old.

We get to the girl who questioned my whole gay/rape situation, and she starts talking about labels and how important they are, blah blah blah. She won't stop talking.

"As a millennial, I feel as if labels are such an important part of our society," she says. "They help us identify ourselves and find ourselves. For example, my sister–"

"Shut the fuck up, Cathy," Sawyer exclaims suddenly, standing up. "No one actually fucking cares. Labels are just a stupid thing teenagers use to make themselves feel special. They don't actually mean anything because nobody cares."

Dr. Beverly also stands up. "Sawyer, that was rude. Please apologize to Anna."

I wonder why Sawyer called Anna Cathy. I put it together in my mind: Anna is a Chatty Cathy. I smile at that.

"Why?" Sawyer questions. "I just said what we all were thinking."

"You were mean, Sawyer. And you know Anna hates it when you call her Cathy."

"Do I really know that? You always seem to be speaking for her," Sawyer sneers.

I'm full on grinning. I haven't smiled for months. The security finally comes over and breaks the circle up. They have the kids who need to take pills at night take them, and then they send the rest of us to our rooms for the night.

A doctor shows me to my room and tells me I'm rooming alone because of my "situation". I nod and close the door. I sit on the bunk bed and look through my things that I brought. I brought The Great Gatsby even though I hate the whole thing between Gatsby and Daisy. I open the book and start reading it from the beginning.

After I've been reading the book for about thirty minutes, a person knocks on my door. I don't feel like getting up to get it or telling them to come in, so I don't do anything but wait.

I only have to wait for ten seconds because Sawyer walks in.

"Hey, Kai. What are you reading?" he asks.

I nod hello and show Sawyer the cover of my book. He nods. He ruffles his blond hair and sits next to me.

"Cathy's an asshole, isn't she?" he starts.

"So are you," I breathe.

"Good point," he smiles. "So you like guys?"

I nod.

"Do you think you like me?"

I look at Sawyer. I hadn't thought about liking guys since the whole thing and that was months ago. Also Sawyer is a sociopath, so I don't know if he has feelings like that. I think I could like him, but I'm not ready for that.

"I don't know," I respond.

"Okay," he says. Sawyer sits with me until security makes him go back to his room.

For the first time in weeks I go to sleep easily, finally not feeling so empty.