Cry Until You Bleed

10- Worried Friends

“So, tell me more about this cute boy,” Mia says with a grin the next day while we’re sitting in the common area with Renée playing some board game from the shelf. That’s really all there is to do here is play bored games, read books, or watch TV. I’m not sure how this boring routine of events will make people not want to kill themselves but that’s not my problem I guess.

I shrug. “There’s really nothing to tell. I didn’t even realize that he was cute, I didn’t really look at him. He just came outside and started talking to me and it wasn’t even a long conversation.”

“We see him around sometimes,” Renée says, which is kind of shocking because ever since Johnny left on Saturday, she’s been really quiet. She still hangs out with us but she’s obviously still affected harshly by his leaving. She doesn’t talk nearly as much as she did when Johnny was here and she’s just generally a lot more bummed out. “Like, we know that he’s related to Nurse Sophie but we’ve never talked to him. He rarely ever talks to any of the patients, actually.”

“He must have thought you were some sort of exception to that,” Mia grins at me, taking her turn with the game. “You seem to be some sort of guy magnet around here. You must tell us your secrets someday, oh wise one.”

I shake my head at both of them, biting my bottom lip between my teeth. “No. I’m not.”

“Oh, you so are,” Mia refutes teasingly. I know that she only means well but she can’t even imagine the kind of crap that she’s stirring up in my mind. Maybe, in some twisted way, I do attract male attention, but who ever said that it’s a good thing? In the case of a guy as awesome as Johnny or maybe this guy Niles (too soon to tell for sure though), it is a good thing that I caught their attention. But three years ago when I didn’t want it, I seemed to get a lot more attention than I ever wanted. It wasn’t a good thing at all- it was a nightmare.

“Well, I don’t want to be,” I tell her, hoping that she realizes that this isn’t a joking conversation to me and I would like to talk about something else. However, we live such incredibly boring lives in here that I’m not sure what else there really is to talk about. “So anyway, what’s up with this Halloween dance?”

“It’s nice,” Mia says, easily changing the subject for my benefit, which I’m very grateful for. “It’s a little party on Halloween and we get candy and cake and everything. They even bring in like, dresses and suits so that we can dress up for the dance. It is pretty nice but if you’re thinking about joining the committee, you shouldn’t do that.”

“Why not?” I ask her because I was kind of considering it. Doing something useful like planning a dance sounds a whole of a lot better than just sitting around like a potato all day every day. At least I could be doing something at least a little bit useful.

“Because Quinn is a tyrant. She seems nice at first- and she really is a nice girl- but when she is in charge of something, she really takes charge of it and she gets super intense and insufferable. Trust me, you’d want to pull your hair out by the end of it,” Mia explains to me as we play the board game on the table.

“I just thought that it’d give me something to do,” I explain. “I mean, playing board games and cards is awesome with you guys and everything, but there just has to be more to do. I’m going to go even crazier if I don’t have more to do, I think.”

“I get it. This life does seem pretty monotonous,” She agrees with a small nod. “But once you’re here for a while, you get used to it. And, depending on your behavior, sometimes they let patients go over to the humane society to volunteer a few hours a week with the animals there or you can get breaks where you can go out into the world as long as you have somebody with you. But that’s not until they’re super positive that you won’t try and escape. Like, if your parents came to visit and you had break privileges, they could take you out to lunch or something.”