I Burn Everything

Chapter 3: It's You!

It's been a week at this place, and I still haven't managed to find that boy.  I haven't been able to see his pinkish hair anywhere.  It's not like girls and boys are completely separated; we have group therapy sessions, eat lunch together, and are free to spend our lesiure time together if we want to.  And there isn't even that many people here (not counting the staff).  I asked my assigned worker, Kelly, how many people were here for treatment, and she told me there's only sixteen people here:  ten girls and six boys.

So why haven't I been able to run into him yet?

I feel like I'm on a ledge teetering over into borderline obssessed territory.  Ever since I saw his hair - not even his face mind you - my mind became one-tracked on him.  It felt wrong in a way for me to look for him in a somehwt desparate way.  Don't get me wrong here, I was never one of those girls that was like a stalker for their crush.  This situation is more of an extreme yearning for answers.  If I could just talk to him and ask  questions, maybe I would figure out why I dream of him.

Kelly find my fascination with this "mystery" boy strange and has menioned it to the therapist here that I go to.  At first I was mad at her for doing that since I had trusted her enough to say it, but I realized she was just only doing her job.  My therapist doesn't seem to take it as seriously though.  He says we can't be sure he's a real person since I've only seen him in my dreams, meaning that he could just be a figment of my imagination.  But I know what I saw.  He has to be real.

"Tell me about this mystery guy of yours," Lily says leaning her head off the side of her bed looking at me upside down.  She's my roommate, and she's only fifteen years old.  On my first day here, she told me that she was here due to drug abuse that almost got her killed.  She says she was a crack baby and that her mom always had drugs with her and that one day two years ago, curiosity had gotten the best of her.

But I liked Lily; she was a cool person to be around.  For one thing, she didn't think that something is wrong with me and wasn't outright disgusted when she saw my disformed hand.  In my book, that made you a cool person that I could possibly be friends with.  Her wanting to know about the boy from my dreams just because was the cherry on top.  Too bad she won't be here much longer.  Her program is almost done.

"What else could you possibly want to know?  I've already told you everything I know about him from his looks to his obssession with fire like me," I reply back, flopping belly down on my bed.  I squirm around until I get into a similiar position, minus the whole upside down part.

"And by looks you mean what you could tell me about his body structure," she retorts, throwing a pillow at me.  "But seriously, tell me more about him.  You've got to be hiding something from me."

"Oh yeah?  Like what?  That he touches me in my dreams?" I ask with a laugh.  "Now that would be something."

"Well, anything like that would be nice, but I highly doubt that happens," she replies rolling her eyes.

"Yeah, you're right about that, but there is this one thing."  She sits upright in bed and then swivels over to face me.  "In every dream that I had with him in it, we're always in a hospital, and I don't know why."

"Have you been to hospitals a lot?" she asks placing her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands.

"Well I mean of course I have!  I've only just gotten out of one to come here," I tell her, "Why?  What are you thinking?"

"Do you think it's possible that this boy could've been in the hospital?" she asks clapping her hands together like a seal.  "Maybe that's why you dream of him!"

"I want to say no, but at the same time, I can't.  A lot of what happened during my last visit is hazy to me at best.  i was getting treatment and different types of medications were tried on me.  One of the side effects probably deals with memory loss, so that could be why I dream about him but not see his face," I explain to her.  As I was talking though, my heart began to race.  Maybe we actually did know each other, but I still don't know if he knows me.  "Lily, you're a genius!"