Crazy Fate||Michael Clifford

Two.

“Get a piece of pizza.” A voice muttered to my right. I looked up to see Michael standing beside me, his thumbs tapping slightly on his tray.

“I-I’m not hungry.” I shrugged, trying to play it off.

“They take away points and then you don’t get to go home.” He warned, looking up momentarily to smile at the woman behind the counter who smiled back, placing a piece of pizza in front of him. “Could I get one for her as well, please? She has a bit of social anxiety, she’ll warm up to you soon.” He said to her. She smiled again, this time at me.

“Of course, dear. I’m Ellie. It’s not so bad here, I promise. If you work at it, you’ll be out soon enough.” She said to me as she set another slice on the counter.

“Thanks, El.” Michael smiled, putting a piece on my tray and one on his. He then led me through the rest of the line, grabbing juice for both of us and leading me to a table near the back.

“I told you I wasn’t hungry.” I muttered as he sat down across from me.

“Don’t lie to me, Spencer. We’re all here for a reason. You’re obviously depressed, dealing with self-harm and suffering an eating disorder. Or many, whatever. But they know that. And if you don’t eat and you don’t get better, you can’t go home and move on. So eat.” With that, he took a bite of his pizza. I picked mine up and took a small nibble, glaring slightly at him. He looked up from his food at me and rolled his eyes. “Don’t be angry with me, be angry with the system. Finish that slice or lose points, simple as that.”

“Why are you doing this?” I demanded. He raised an eyebrow, looking at me skeptically.

“Doing what? Helping you?” he asked in an oblivious tone. To be honest, at the moment I saw him as the bad guy. If he weren’t here right now, I could be picking at a salad and drinking water. I could be living my life as it was meant to be lived. I could be losing weight while still in here and yet, here he is, staring right at me, urging me silently to eat the piece of pizza, which, on average, had about 285 calories. Add on the bottle of grape juice he’d grabbed for me (170 calories!) and it was 455 calories. 455 little molecules that’ll put on weight. Yes, I was hungry. Yes, my stomach hurt. But that meant dropping weight. The pain was the fat going away. That was when I realized that I’d gone from talking to Michael to glaring at the food in front of me. He slid his hand across the table and tapped my tray.

“Hey,” he muttered, “stop that.” I looked up at him and gave him a small smile, acting as if my head wasn’t spinning at the idea of finishing off the food.

“Stop what?” I asked innocently.

“Stop counting the calories.” He was looking up slightly into my eyes as he reached across the table, his palm still flat on the surface near my tray.

“Oh I-I… I wasn’t I-”

“Spencer, I know what’s going on in your head right now. But you’ve got to stop that. If you want to get out of here, you have to completely wipe your mind clean of those things. I’m helping you because I want you out of here. Maybe more than I want me out of here.” All of a sudden, someone began to scream. “Shit.” Michael muttered, staring past my shoulder. I turned around, looking where his eyes were trained.  About three tables away, a girl sat on her chair, her knees to her chest and hands covering her ears, screaming.

“Stop it stop it stop it!” she wailed. “Make it stop! Make them stop!” her eyes were screwed shut as she let out another scream. “No no no! I’m not going to hurt her! I’m not going to hurt anyone! Stop it!” suddenly, two male nurses approached her, coaxing her in smooth voices as they stuck a needle in her vein, one having to hold her still.

“Easy, Taylor.” One of them soothed as he picked her up, sleep already taking over her brain.

“They say, they say you’re gonna hurt me.” she muttered in a lazy voice.

“We’re not gonna hurt you, Tay. Go to sleep sweetheart.” The same guy cooed.

“Please.” She whispered, her eyes closing. “Please don’t hurt me.”

-

“Taylor Wilhelm. She’s been here a while.” Michael explained quietly during social hour. A movie was playing in the corner, capturing the attention of most of the patients while we sat in the back corner. A tech kept glancing warily toward us, Michael guessing she was worried we’d break the strict “no touching” rule.

“How do you know that?” I asked and he froze up a moment before his face relaxed.

“My old roommate told me that. She was admitted the same day as him.”

“Why do I feel like you’re not telling me the whole story?”

“Because maybe you have trust issues, I don’t know. But that’s it. His name was Will. He was sixteen. Homicidal ideation.” I stared at Michael, suspicious about the story of Will.

“How long was Will your roommate?”

“About two weeks, then I-he left.” He stuttered.

“You left?”

“No, dammit, did you not hear me? Will left.”

“So how long have you been here?”

“Can we stop with all the fucking questions, please? They’re getting really annoying.” He snapped. I drew back slightly, his sudden outburst surprising. He sighed. “Sorry. So back to Taylor. Schizophrenic. When she was yelling about ‘her’, she was talking about one of her sisters or her mother.” He explained.

“How many sisters does she have?” I honestly didn’t know why I was so intrigued by this. Maybe it was the fact that I wanted something else to think about other than the reason I was here.

“Three. One younger, one older, and a twin.”

“Should I find it at all creepy that you know so much?” I asked skeptically.

“I know everything, Spencer. If you ask me about anyone in this hospital that’s been here for more than five hours, I could tell you anything. Their father’s middle name, their mother’s maiden name, the species of their first pet. I could tell you why they’re here, I could tell you why they’re in that state, and I could practically tell you what they’re thinking. Think of me what you will, Spencer, but know that I’m always a step ahead of you.” he grumbled in a low voice, his eyes intensifying.

“That makes you sound insane.” I muttered, my voice catching.

“Insane, huh?” he laughed slightly. “Aren’t we all?”