Coping With Clarity

Chapter Eight

She doesn’t feel like crying, but in theory the situation she had just ejected herself from - as dramatized in movies and on TV- would have had her crying to the pitter-patter of the rain outside. But Selena was never that girl. As much as Nick made her want to be.

Its a saturday night and Selena’s denim skirt is dripping onto the sanitized floors of ward thirteen; thankfully, rather than dropping to the floor in the Jonas household. Selena shudders. Her hair is stuck to her cheeks, though the rain on her skin feels a cool sweat. The rain saved her really. No girl wants to stay out when she’s soaked to the bone and her sometimes-a-jerk-boyfriend and his brothers aren’t making it subtle that they’re looking at her see-through shirt. Thankyou rain.

The squelching in her shoes is the only sound in the hall. Since being caught by Dr DeLuise, Selena has been careful in her visits to Demi, not that she’s been sneaking or anything. Although she’s here before the official lights out, Demi’s room is in darkness. The room seemed to have been recently checked upon, the door was open, curtains still swaying from being closed. The material blocked out the speckles of water painted on the glass. As if someone had thought that protecting Demi from the sight of the rain would somehow keep her safe. Just like not knowing about A.M.L will keep Selena’s distance. Ignorance was bliss.

A disappointed sigh spills from her mouth as her dripping form enters. Selena hadn’t seen Demi since tuesday. The air of disagreement briefly shared had not-so-briefly caused Selena to avoid ward thirteen, check corridors as she walked them, and actually spend some time at the house. Not that she didn’t want to see the girl, the guilty feel that had built tosses inside just standing in the room after so long- tells her that she did. Thats why she came after the raining ‘disaster’ that was her date. Because in a way Demi was right.

Demi was also asleep.

The hard seat in Demi’s room has been pulled over to the bedside. The faint hope of a visitor other than herself passes Selena’s mind. Denim burns her upper thighs that aren’t protected by leggings - on Nick’s request. Selena holds her breath as she sits, squelching again, into the seat. Self-consciously she goes to cross her arms over her chest. But Demi’s eyes are probably half way around her head, so she doesn’t. Selena never really understood the whole ‘talking to people as they slept’ business that Doctors recommended. It was unlikely that the sleeping mind would hear more than murmurs of nothingness. It wouldn’t register fully, maybe play out in a dream; lines forgotten.

Someone’s left a can of diet coke on the bedside table. Unopened. There are some wrappers in the bin that don’t belong to Demi because the girl’s evening meal is only half eaten. Pushed to the side. Not hungry.

Suddenly Selena wishes she knew that feeling. The pit of her stomach is full and it only brings back everything that occurred in that damn diner. Patting her stomach Selena chances opening the can as quietly as possible. Her eyes only leave Demi to assure herself that she wasn’t making much noise. Crack, Click, Fizz.

The fizzy liquid swirls away the taste of whatever she’d eaten but does nothing to erase the ‘date’. Selena gently replaces the can and pushes her wet hair out of her face again.

Selena forces her feelings of stupidity away, Demi’s words about Nick not treating her right were shown in high definition tonight; so she speaks.

“I don’t normally say this but...I’m sorry.” She’d expected to stumble comically over the apology - a word so foreign to her usually - but it came out fine. Demi sleeps on. Selena wants to know what she’s dreaming of. Is she dreaming big? is she healthy? Is she happy?

“...and I also wanted to tell you, that, you were right.”

One of Demi’s legs poke from underneath the sheet covering her. Selena has no idea how she can be so tanned.