CHAPTER SEVEN

LAURA

MARIA LEAVES SHORTLY after she realizes I have no information for her. I sink back into the pillow while squeezing my eyes shut against the image of Michelle walking in on Craig masturbating. A smile creeps across my face at the madness of it. I don’t know anyone well enough to know if it is true. But from what I have witnessed so far anything is liable to happen in this place.

And that’s how Rose finds me, smiling up at the ceiling. “I see you are feeling better?”

I push myself up quickly and hope she doesn’t ask me why I am smiling.

“Yeah. Thanks.”

Rose sits in the seat that Maria has vacated, glancing at the chart she holds in her hand, her eyes skim across it before looking up at me. She looks tired today, her normally vibrant blue eyes seem dull. There is no doubt in my mind what is causing it. I only wonder how she looked so alive before.

“Your blood pressure has returned to normal.” A soft smile is delivered with her words. “So you can return to your room.”

Yeah! I force a smile, one bed to another. The difference I don’t see. But here at least I have peace.

Now Rose glances back at her file and taps it before looking back up at me.

“Oh, actually you are being moved. You will be sharing a room.  Eleanor will escort you to your new room, once you have signed out.”

I had forgotten about sharing. I hate the idea of being that close to another person. Whom I don’t know. “Oh. Okay.” I can’t manage to force a smile now. My stomach squeezes painfully.

A knowing smile pulls at the corner of Rose’s mouth before she pats my leg, not much different than Maria had. My toes curl on cue at the contact.

“So you can get changed and sign out with Eleanor at the desk.” As Rose leaves, she pulls the curtain behind her giving me some privacy. I know lying here isn’t going to make this situation disappear. I need to get dressed.

Pulling on a pair of black jeans and a grey sweater, I let my hair fall down around my face. My hands itch to make the bed but I tell myself it would be too weird to make a hospital bed. Yet as I recite this in my head, I find myself tucking the sheet under the mattress before pulling the blue blanket back over the bed. I puff the pillow as my eyes scan the nearby machines. One that had held an IV drip sits out further than the locker did on the other side, pushing it back so they are parallel makes me feel ready to leave. Pulling the curtain back I make sure it goes as far as it can possibly go.

Eleanor never speaks as I sign the slip of paper that she hands to me before I follow her to my new room.

“Everything was packed and moved for you.” She says with a glance over her shoulder. I scratch my arm. I don’t like that anyone touched my stuff. But then I remember they aren’t my things. Even the clothes on my back aren’t mine.

“Thank you.” I say remembering my manners. 

Once we leave the hospital area, we move down a corridor to the left that has no windows. The walls are dashed white at the bottom and blue at the top. The grey tiles on the floor are the same theme throughout the hospital. Once again I focus on Eleanor’s shoes. The stitching around the heel is just like Rose’s shoes. Both are sensible and sturdy. We pass through a set of double doors, before taking a sharp left and up two steps.

This hallway is the same coloring but as I look up at the ceiling, it’s arched,  like you might see in a church. I know as I spent every Sunday sitting in one. Even when I didn’t want to. Even as God abandoned me and my sister. I swallow the salvia that fills my mouth and refocus on Eleanor’s sensible shoes.

She stops at a half open door. “Here you are.” Now I look up and force a smile.

“Thank you.” I say, and she smiles briefly and nods, before making her way back down the hall. I pause at the door as I listen to Eleanor’s departing footsteps and the soft cries coming from inside the room.

I count to ten. Ten is normally the number when I feel I might lose my temper. I’m not angry but tired of what will greet me on the other side of this door.

I walk in and am surprised to see Michelle curled up on her bed crying. Her head snaps up, her red swollen eyes barely open. I have mixed feelings about sharing this small room with Michelle. I’m glad it’s someone I’ve already meet, but I still don’t want to share.

“Hi.” She sniffles.

“Hi.” I say back before sitting down on the bed across from her.

“You’re my new room-mate.” She smiles through her tears and there is something so fragile and gentle about her that I find myself smiling back.

“Yeah.” I answer as she sits up and leans against the white wall. She stares at me until I don’t know what to do. I count to twenty and when no one has spoken, I do. “Are you okay?”

Once I ask she starts to cry again. Pulling the sleeves of her red top over her hands, she pushes them against her eyes, like she might be able to push the tears back in. It would explain why her eyes are as red as they are. I sit perfectly still. It takes her thirty-three seconds before she looks up.

“It’s Craig. He said I stabbed him.”

I nod.

“I was so angry when I went into his room.” She sniffles again while wiping her runny nose with the sleeve of her top. The sheen from the snot is instant and I find myself shifting slightly.

“And I pushed him, and then the next minute I could see he was bleeding. I thought that I had done it. But I didn’t touch him.” She shook her head rapidly as she speaks.

I nod again.

“I panicked and thought I had but now I realize I hadn’t and if he reports me I might get kicked out.” She pulls her hands back to her eyes.

I look at the chest of drawers that sits between the door and the wardrobe. A picture sits on top of it, one of Michelle and a young girl. The resemblance is there in how they both smile and the blue coloring of their eyes.

“You should tell them that you didn’t do it.” My voice sounds odd; I speak too low and worry now that Michelle hasn’t heard me as she continues to cry.

“They won’t believe the fat violent girl over him. The prince of this place.” Her angry words are delivered with a stab of her finger into the air. “They will laugh at me.” She adds while my mind is stuck on the word ‘violent.’

I hope it was safe to be here with her and if she did hurt Craig, does she still have the weapon? I push myself further back on the bed, my back flush with the wall.

“So, do you think he hurt himself?” I want to hear her logic.

She’s nodding before I even finish. “Yeah, you see, it was the glass from a mirror that cut him.” She’s smiling wide like that explains something. When I just nod again she moves to the edge of the bed. Closer to me. Could she hurt me? “The mirror that he smashed on Maria.” She clicks her fingers together now, it is as though I’m not even in the room now.

“Bastard.” She is out the door before I can ask anything else, don’t ask me why but I follow her. Maybe it is boredom or maybe a part of me doesn’t want her to hurt anyone else.