The Broken Mirror

Chapter 17: Christmas Cookies

"Alynne?" I questioned as I tapped lightly on the door leading to her room. I was told that she wouldn't have any kind of therapy today, just have somewhat of a day off, so I decided to grab this opportunity by the horns and plan a little activity for the both of us to do.

The Christmas season has set upon us and there is nothing even slightly Christmasy in this place so I've decided to change that, well, a little bit. I don't mean changing it like going on an all-out decorating spree and Christmasifying the whole place but with something as small as making and decorating some Christmas cookies and sharing them with all the inpatients and staff.

You might think of it as kind of wrong for me to be making food and handing it out to the inpatients, of which a vast majority of them have an eating disorder of some sort, and making them with someone who is an anorexic, but Alynne's getting better with every passing day. At every meal she used to count peas for her meals and crumble up chips but she sometimes actually eats a whole meal, or the basics of a whole meal in a much smaller size. She eats a few bites of chicken, some carrots, and drinks some water but most commonly drinks juices such as tomato and orange.

After a few more knocks there was still no response so I began to grow a little concerned, but maybe more so than that because the many things that could play a role in her not answering aren't exactly all positive. I'm not going to paint that picture out for you. When I least expected, the door creaked open, and because the nervousness as well as curiosity has gotten to me, and I stepped inside.

I swear my heart skipped a beat when I saw a note on the floor that had a little streak of red upon it. I desperately hoped that this didn't confirm my almost already certain suspicions, but I also felt that I was jumping the gun so I picked up the note to make sure that it had written what I had worked myself up over.

'If anybody needs me I'll be in the staff kitchen

~A'

Thankfully, I was just jumping to conclusions. The red streak was also cause of the paper the note was written on. The only paper that's available for the inpatients to use is this pasty gray paper that occasionally had red dye within it.

Why would she be in the kitchen? I couldn't help but ask myself. I guess I'll just have to go and find out. I was also planning on bringing Alynne to the staff kitchen anyways so looks like attempting to drag her in there will be one less thing I have to do today.

Alynne's room wasn't located all that far away from the staff kitchen so I was able to get there with a short walk in less than five minutes, which isn't bad considering everything else that I need to be able to go takes forever and a day to get to. I took a couple steps inside of the staff kitchen to see that Alynne had already decided to make use of the supplies that I had set out for our gingerbread cookie making/decorating.

"Hi, Benji," Alynne greeted, seeming distracted but I knew exactly what by. She was focusing very intently on spreading out the gingerbread dough with the wooden rolling pin to ready it for being pressed into cookies of different shapes.

"I see that you've already found out what I had planned for today," I stated, this evidently being true.

"Where are the cookie stamps?" She inquired, making eye contact with me for a few brief seconds.

"Check the little green tote under the sink," I suggested. She nodded curtly then opened up the wooden door and pulled out the tote that I had mentioned.

"Thanks," She thanked as she nodded her head slightly with a tiny hint of a smile upon her face. She then ripped the top off of it then tore through the contents, pulling out a cookie stamp every so often.