Mental Damage (C.H.)

3 ~ "He's Not What He Seems."

  Second day of classes and my nerves are a little calmer, not totally calm, but calmer. I feel I could classify Calum and I as friends and Kayla and I are pretty close. I'm pretty much already at home in our room. The lighting was harsh as I imagined it would be and the beds are actually comfy. It's like summer camp for the mentally challenged. Except instead of game time we have group therapy.

  I got out of bed and decided on wearing a pair of cuffed mom jeans, a white, cap-sleeve t shirt, and my black vans. I just pulled half my hair up in a high ponytail and pulled the hairs out of the front and shoved my arms through a jean jacket. I gave myself a thumbs up in the mirror after doing my makeup 

  I soon after walked to the cafeteria. I showed the lunch people my ID and got my food. I saw Calum sitting with his friends. I smiled and waved to him and he smiled and waved back. I gave him a thumbs up and went to sit with Kayla and crew. I just like giving thumbs up to people I like. We were eating and talking about how our classes yesterday. They were all asking about Calum and I. But I just said we were friends. I continued eating my burnt sausage patties.

  After I ate all my food I dismissed myself to the bathroom and I saw every eye turn to me and I got subconscious and tilted my head down and bit my lip. Now I was quickly shuffling to the bathroom hoping to get there quicker. That's when I felt something hit the back of my head. I reached back and felt a bit of hash-browns stuck in my hair. I turn around and see Amber-Leigh smirking while Jordan was snickering. I'm sure Christian would be there too, but he got dispatched yesterday evening.

  "Wow, Amber, how mature of you. I've seen better attempts at bullying, but y'know that works too." I saw Ashton standing up glaring at Amber-Leigh. He picked up one of his, syrup-covered, pancakes and threw it directly at her chest, staining her white, turtle neck. I widened my eyes and held back a laugh. I quickly walked into the bathroom, did my business, and left. Everyone watched me leave the cafeteria, a few were snickering.

   I kept overthinking about the whole cafeteria thing on my way to therapy. What if I just seem like an attention whore? But it's not like I can help it. It's just something that comes naturally. As I was walking I felt someone come up behind me. It was Calum.

   "You know, you should just ignore Amber. She just thrives off attention. If you don't give it to her, she'll eventually leave you alone." He told me as we walked down the empty hallway.

   "I mean, it's kinda hard to ignore food being thrown in your hair. Speaking of which, is there any left?" I turn around to show him the back of my hair. I feel him pull stuff out of my hair and watch him as he throws it in a nearby thrash can.

    "There, I got it all." I thank him as we walk into the classroom. It's just us, as we're like 20 minutes. We sit next to each other and I decide that I should get to know him better.

    "So, what's your least favorite part of being here?" I ask him quietly, not wanting to scare him due to the prolonged silence.

    "Not being able to have drawstrings in my pants and hoodies. Didn't know how useful those things were until they got taken away." He responds a little louder than how I asked the question. That was not the answer I was expecting. "What's yours?"

   "Probably the people to be completely honest. They're so mean." He looks at me, jokingly offended. "Well, I mean, most people." He smiles as I say that. We sit in our comfortable silence for another few minutes when other people start to walk in. The teacher walks in and we're all immediately paying attention.

   We get through that pretty quickly, nothing exciting or interesting happened. We all walk to our next class and Kayla walks next to me.

    "So... you and Calum, huh?" She teasingly asks as I just roll my eyes and keep walking. 

   I know that I kinda like him, but I also know it's probably not going to go anywhere. One of us will be dispatched before anything goes anywhere. And they don't let us exchanged social media or phone number. Even though we are aloud to have our phones. It really doesn't make sense. If anything it's frustrating. Because from what I can tell they're just here to keep us alive, not make us better.

   We walk into our next class and get through it pretty quickly. Today is just very boring. So as we're all in the lounge area watching some Disney Chanel Original and playing some card game I forgot the name of.

   "We should do something more fun." Amber-Leigh announced. "Maybe truth or dare?" She smiled and made eye contact with me. Everyone agreed and soon enough we were all sitting in a circle and getting ready to play one of the mot middle school games I knew.