Categories > Original > Drama > Awake(working title)
4. Dorm
One Year Earlier
“Where are we going?” I heard myself ask in a haze. The painkiller/anti-depressant combo made my mind fuzzy, and I struggled to speak clearly.
“We agreed it would be best for you to go to a group house for girls like you.” Phil spoke indifferently as we turned off the highway.
“Group house?” The words felt like mush in my mouth. I heard Phil sigh in annoyance as I clearly didn’t grasp what he was saying.
“It’s only temporary, I assure you.” Why was he assuring me? I knew I had most of the pieces to the puzzle, but I felt like a child trying to put the triangle into the circular hole.
“How long am I going to?” I meant to finish the question, but the thought stopped itself halfway through my throat.
“A few weeks. We’ll come visit you, of course.” The way he said the last sentence made me feel like a burden more than a daughter. I turned to stare out the window at the passing foliage. It didn’t feel that we were very far from the hospital but we must have traveled for a while. The sun was slanting more westward now, hitting my side of the car and warming my skin.
A building came into view then. The outside was beige (somehow I wasn’t surprised) and the hedges framing the property were pristine. I wasn’t impressed at all, it seemed like just the place that Jane and Phil would send me.
As we rolled to a stop, Phil informed me that I wouldn’t be able to leave as I wanted.
“They have rules.” He explained, walking me to the front door. “It would be wise of you to follow them.”
I offered no retort as we walked through the sliding doors. The lobby smelled of chlorine and latex, just like a doctor’s office. If I had been more conscious, I would have cringed at the hospital smell emitting from every crevasse in the room.
I sat in one of the many chairs lining the edge of the space. I slowly leaned my head back against the wall behind me and closed my eyes. Phil’s voice drifted quietly, mildly distorted, as he spoke to the receptionist behind the counter.
“Katharina?” A quiet voice suddenly spoke from in front of me. I opened my eyes to see the woman, but no Phil standing beside her. Hadn’t I heard him just a moment before?
“Kat.” I muttered.
“Oh. Kat.” The little woman looked confused. “My name is Reese Donovan. I’m the head nurse here. If you’ll follow me, I’ll show you to your room.”
I stood automatically, struggling slightly with righting myself vertically. Doctor’s should know better than to give a gravitationally challenged girl inhibitors.
The woman, Reese? Yes, she had said that was her name, I was sure. Reese walked without sound, letting me follow a few feet behind her without complaint. We were winding through the white hallways for what seemed like an eternity. I must be in hell, because this place stretched on and on with physically impossible abundance.
“This is you’re room: 14-6.” The woman unlocked the heavy wooden door and let it swing slowly open. I didn’t look at her as I stepped inside. “This is your roommate, Lola King.” The woman gestured half-heartedly towards the bed to the left where a girl sat, sketching something on a pad of paper.
The door shut with a deafening CLICK! but the girl didn’t even look up from her paper. I watched her carefully, setting my bag on the brown blanket covering what was now my bed. My head felt foggy, and I was sure I was dreaming.
The blanket felt real beneath my fingertips, slightly stiff with starch. The mattress gave way below me slightly, but it was harder than I was used to. I let my feet dangle lifelessly over the edge of the bed, watching the flurry of dust and fuzz swirl in the sunlight coming in from the small window about the other girl’s bed.
Why was the window so small? And why were there bars on the outside? I must have been hallucinating. I had to be. Bars on the windows, locked doors behind you; what kind of place was this?
“The bars are for the jumpers.” I tore my gaze from the window. It landed on the blonde haired girl sketching something. She didn’t look up at me as she spoke, but she must have. How could she know what I was looking at?
“The bars are for the jumpers.” She repeated. “Anything above the first floor has reinforced steel bars so we don’t leap to our deaths. Not that a second story window is really death, just an attempt at escape.” Her eye brows lifted in emphasis as she spoke smoothly, continuing to draw without looking up.
How was she so calm? I began to panic, my body stiffening with adrenaline.
She did look up then, her eyes calm and passive. I looked away instantly, feeling that she saw too much of me in one glance. She laughed.
I stared intently at my pillow. I searched it for a long moment before glancing in the girl’s direction again. She still sat cross-legged, watching me.
“What’s your name?” I heard her say with a smile. My mind could identify when someone was smiling, but I couldn’t form a coherent sentence? How ironic.
“Kat.” I nearly whispered. I saw the girl shift in my peripheral vision. She uncrossed her legs and stood, taking slow steps towards me.
“Lola.” She held out her hand, a friendly look in her eyes warmed me slightly. “So what ya in for?” She bounced casually on the edge of my bed. I stared like a fool at her. “Not a big talker, are ya?”
I shook my head no.
“Hm. That’s interesting.” I could see her brow furrow in thought as she picked the fuzz off my blanket. “Word of advice, though. Since you’re new, they’re going to push you to be all open and emotional in therapy. Those of us stuck here are really only left here because our parents are assholes. They don’t judge.” She added the last sentence as if to soothe me.
Since when did I need to be soothed?
“Th-thanks.” I stammered. Lola smiled then, big and bright. I suddenly thought she should be an actress, or in theater. She was gorgeous.
“No problem.” She glanced at her clock, then the door. “They’ll be letting us out for community time any minute. You can stay in here, you’ll be fine.”
Wait, did she mean if I stayed in this room? Dear God, what was outside that door?
I didn’t notice the time on the clock, but the door lock clicked sharply, allowing us temporary freedom. I felt incredibly anxious as Lola walked across the room and grabbed her sketchpad.
“See you later, roomie.” She smiled at me like she knew something I didn’t, and left me with my thoughts.
I had to be dreaming, I repeated to myself over and over. This couldn’t be real. I wasn’t really staying in a strange room with a strange girl, away from everything I knew. I had to be dreaming. I must still be at home. Maybe I took too many painkillers and now I was dreaming some crazy fantasy. Yes, that had to be the answer. I tossed my bag on the floor, leaving it unpacked and sprawled face down in my pillow.
I was bound to wake up any minute.
My eyes felt impossibly heavy once I lay down. My thoughts slowed and I my body felt like it weighed nearly a ton. I closed my eyes for a moment, thinking I wouldn’t be able to sleep in my new surroundings. The black abyss I sank into felt glorious.
“—borrow the harpoon next time.” Laughter filled my head and my eyes shot open. There were two people in the room with me. I turned on my side, stretching my tense muscles.
“Oh, hey sleeping beauty.” Were they talking to me? I looked towards the door. Lola was leaning against the doorjamb, but it wasn’t her voice I had heard. Another woman stood farther in the room. She was wearing a brightly colored tunic and blue jeans.
“She’s been asleep for a while now. She looked out of it when she got here.” Lola’s smooth voice was comforting. It didn’t occur to me that that should be strange since I had just met her a short time ago.
“Her father said she was on pain medication. I’m not surprised. How do you feel, Katharina?” The woman kneeled beside my bed staring intently at my face.
“I feel better.” I wasn’t sure just how much I should tell these people.
“That’s wonderful to hear. I’m Laura.” The woman smiled at me. Why did everyone feel the need to smile at me?
“Hi.” I sat up, gauging my vertigo. I felt fine. Better than fine, I felt like me again.
“Do your arms hurt? Would you like another pain pill?” She eyed me authoritatively. I shook my head no, subconsciously running my hand over my bandages.
“Okay. Lights out in ten minutes. I had Lola here bring you some dinner since you slept through it.” I slept thought dinner? I felt like an idiot answering everyone’s statement with a question in my head.
“Thank you.” Was all I could think of. Maybe the drugs hadn’t completely worn off just yet.
Lola brought the tray to the little table we shared as a night stand. I hadn’t realized how small this room was before. Should I even call it a room? Was it more of a dorm? Yes, I suppose a dorm would do.
I heard the door shut but the lock didn’t click into place as it had before. We must still be free to leave our rooms.
“If you have to pee you should do it now. They get really cranky about letting you out in the middle of the night.”
“They?” Success! I had finally verbalized a coherent question.
“The goons who run this place. I’ll show you where it’s at. Come one.” Lola motioned for me to follow her out into the hall. I hesitated.
“It’s okay.” She assured me. I swallowed hard, and I was sure it was audibly from down the hall as we walked out of the doorway.
The first thing I noticed was that the walls weren’t white. Hadn’t I seen white walls when I had arrived? These were wallpapered with a light green flower pattern, and a thick green stripe traced the middle of the wall as far as I could see.
I could have sworn the walls had been white, I thought as Lola led me down the hallways to the right of our room. It wasn’t a long journey to the bathroom, and to be honest, I wasn’t expecting anything fantastic. What was inside disturbed me more than comforted. There were no metal latches on the stalls, only a Velcro latch that I had to play with for a good twenty seconds before I figured out how it worked. The toilet paper was held by Velcro as well. Had I been abducted by the Velcro fan club? What the hell was wrong with this place?
The sinks were even more peculiar. The spout looked as if it were bolted to the counter, and there was an automatic hand dryer that looked as if an alien species had designed it.
“Don’t let the bathrooms freak you out, Kat.” Lola smirked beside me as we strolled back to our room. “They have to make them as safe as possible. For the creepers.”
I stopped. “What the hell is a creeper?”
Lola burst with laughter so loud it echoed off the tiles around us. “A creeper is our code for suicidal in this place. You’ll get to know them. We’re not allowed to bunk with them, because they have to be monitored all the time. Whereas you and I,” She slung her arm around my shoulder, “We are in 14 because we’re the druggy manic depressives.”
I wished I had a response as we reached the door. The hall was nearly empty, save a few straggling girls heading to their bunks. I’d seen no more women dressed like Laura on our way to or from the bathroom.
I was in 14 because I was a druggy, manic depressive. I repeated the term in my head as Lola shut the door behind me.
“So who’s in 13?” I asked, naturally curious.
“We all have codes.” Lola whipped out her sketchpad again. “I’m not sure on all of them yet, but this is my second time through the program, so I’m getting to know them all a little better.”
The program. The words sat on my tongue for a moment. I contemplated ambushing her with questions, but my stomach growled loud enough for her to turn her head and look at me.
“I brought you food for a reason, you know. Eating disorders are in 7.” Her eyes were cautious when she said this, and I didn’t quite understand why. I grabbed the tray of food and set it next to me on my bed.
It looked bland and tasteless. Nearly identical to hospital food, I was sure of it. I lifted the sandwich, peeling it apart without enthusiasm. Peanut butter and jelly. I should have assumed.
“So much for real food.” I said to no one in particular. I heard Lola’s faint chuckle as I chewed my food carefully.
“So Lola.” I spoke with my eyes on my food. “What do you do for fun?”
One Year Earlier
“Where are we going?” I heard myself ask in a haze. The painkiller/anti-depressant combo made my mind fuzzy, and I struggled to speak clearly.
“We agreed it would be best for you to go to a group house for girls like you.” Phil spoke indifferently as we turned off the highway.
“Group house?” The words felt like mush in my mouth. I heard Phil sigh in annoyance as I clearly didn’t grasp what he was saying.
“It’s only temporary, I assure you.” Why was he assuring me? I knew I had most of the pieces to the puzzle, but I felt like a child trying to put the triangle into the circular hole.
“How long am I going to?” I meant to finish the question, but the thought stopped itself halfway through my throat.
“A few weeks. We’ll come visit you, of course.” The way he said the last sentence made me feel like a burden more than a daughter. I turned to stare out the window at the passing foliage. It didn’t feel that we were very far from the hospital but we must have traveled for a while. The sun was slanting more westward now, hitting my side of the car and warming my skin.
A building came into view then. The outside was beige (somehow I wasn’t surprised) and the hedges framing the property were pristine. I wasn’t impressed at all, it seemed like just the place that Jane and Phil would send me.
As we rolled to a stop, Phil informed me that I wouldn’t be able to leave as I wanted.
“They have rules.” He explained, walking me to the front door. “It would be wise of you to follow them.”
I offered no retort as we walked through the sliding doors. The lobby smelled of chlorine and latex, just like a doctor’s office. If I had been more conscious, I would have cringed at the hospital smell emitting from every crevasse in the room.
I sat in one of the many chairs lining the edge of the space. I slowly leaned my head back against the wall behind me and closed my eyes. Phil’s voice drifted quietly, mildly distorted, as he spoke to the receptionist behind the counter.
“Katharina?” A quiet voice suddenly spoke from in front of me. I opened my eyes to see the woman, but no Phil standing beside her. Hadn’t I heard him just a moment before?
“Kat.” I muttered.
“Oh. Kat.” The little woman looked confused. “My name is Reese Donovan. I’m the head nurse here. If you’ll follow me, I’ll show you to your room.”
I stood automatically, struggling slightly with righting myself vertically. Doctor’s should know better than to give a gravitationally challenged girl inhibitors.
The woman, Reese? Yes, she had said that was her name, I was sure. Reese walked without sound, letting me follow a few feet behind her without complaint. We were winding through the white hallways for what seemed like an eternity. I must be in hell, because this place stretched on and on with physically impossible abundance.
“This is you’re room: 14-6.” The woman unlocked the heavy wooden door and let it swing slowly open. I didn’t look at her as I stepped inside. “This is your roommate, Lola King.” The woman gestured half-heartedly towards the bed to the left where a girl sat, sketching something on a pad of paper.
The door shut with a deafening CLICK! but the girl didn’t even look up from her paper. I watched her carefully, setting my bag on the brown blanket covering what was now my bed. My head felt foggy, and I was sure I was dreaming.
The blanket felt real beneath my fingertips, slightly stiff with starch. The mattress gave way below me slightly, but it was harder than I was used to. I let my feet dangle lifelessly over the edge of the bed, watching the flurry of dust and fuzz swirl in the sunlight coming in from the small window about the other girl’s bed.
Why was the window so small? And why were there bars on the outside? I must have been hallucinating. I had to be. Bars on the windows, locked doors behind you; what kind of place was this?
“The bars are for the jumpers.” I tore my gaze from the window. It landed on the blonde haired girl sketching something. She didn’t look up at me as she spoke, but she must have. How could she know what I was looking at?
“The bars are for the jumpers.” She repeated. “Anything above the first floor has reinforced steel bars so we don’t leap to our deaths. Not that a second story window is really death, just an attempt at escape.” Her eye brows lifted in emphasis as she spoke smoothly, continuing to draw without looking up.
How was she so calm? I began to panic, my body stiffening with adrenaline.
She did look up then, her eyes calm and passive. I looked away instantly, feeling that she saw too much of me in one glance. She laughed.
I stared intently at my pillow. I searched it for a long moment before glancing in the girl’s direction again. She still sat cross-legged, watching me.
“What’s your name?” I heard her say with a smile. My mind could identify when someone was smiling, but I couldn’t form a coherent sentence? How ironic.
“Kat.” I nearly whispered. I saw the girl shift in my peripheral vision. She uncrossed her legs and stood, taking slow steps towards me.
“Lola.” She held out her hand, a friendly look in her eyes warmed me slightly. “So what ya in for?” She bounced casually on the edge of my bed. I stared like a fool at her. “Not a big talker, are ya?”
I shook my head no.
“Hm. That’s interesting.” I could see her brow furrow in thought as she picked the fuzz off my blanket. “Word of advice, though. Since you’re new, they’re going to push you to be all open and emotional in therapy. Those of us stuck here are really only left here because our parents are assholes. They don’t judge.” She added the last sentence as if to soothe me.
Since when did I need to be soothed?
“Th-thanks.” I stammered. Lola smiled then, big and bright. I suddenly thought she should be an actress, or in theater. She was gorgeous.
“No problem.” She glanced at her clock, then the door. “They’ll be letting us out for community time any minute. You can stay in here, you’ll be fine.”
Wait, did she mean if I stayed in this room? Dear God, what was outside that door?
I didn’t notice the time on the clock, but the door lock clicked sharply, allowing us temporary freedom. I felt incredibly anxious as Lola walked across the room and grabbed her sketchpad.
“See you later, roomie.” She smiled at me like she knew something I didn’t, and left me with my thoughts.
I had to be dreaming, I repeated to myself over and over. This couldn’t be real. I wasn’t really staying in a strange room with a strange girl, away from everything I knew. I had to be dreaming. I must still be at home. Maybe I took too many painkillers and now I was dreaming some crazy fantasy. Yes, that had to be the answer. I tossed my bag on the floor, leaving it unpacked and sprawled face down in my pillow.
I was bound to wake up any minute.
My eyes felt impossibly heavy once I lay down. My thoughts slowed and I my body felt like it weighed nearly a ton. I closed my eyes for a moment, thinking I wouldn’t be able to sleep in my new surroundings. The black abyss I sank into felt glorious.
“—borrow the harpoon next time.” Laughter filled my head and my eyes shot open. There were two people in the room with me. I turned on my side, stretching my tense muscles.
“Oh, hey sleeping beauty.” Were they talking to me? I looked towards the door. Lola was leaning against the doorjamb, but it wasn’t her voice I had heard. Another woman stood farther in the room. She was wearing a brightly colored tunic and blue jeans.
“She’s been asleep for a while now. She looked out of it when she got here.” Lola’s smooth voice was comforting. It didn’t occur to me that that should be strange since I had just met her a short time ago.
“Her father said she was on pain medication. I’m not surprised. How do you feel, Katharina?” The woman kneeled beside my bed staring intently at my face.
“I feel better.” I wasn’t sure just how much I should tell these people.
“That’s wonderful to hear. I’m Laura.” The woman smiled at me. Why did everyone feel the need to smile at me?
“Hi.” I sat up, gauging my vertigo. I felt fine. Better than fine, I felt like me again.
“Do your arms hurt? Would you like another pain pill?” She eyed me authoritatively. I shook my head no, subconsciously running my hand over my bandages.
“Okay. Lights out in ten minutes. I had Lola here bring you some dinner since you slept through it.” I slept thought dinner? I felt like an idiot answering everyone’s statement with a question in my head.
“Thank you.” Was all I could think of. Maybe the drugs hadn’t completely worn off just yet.
Lola brought the tray to the little table we shared as a night stand. I hadn’t realized how small this room was before. Should I even call it a room? Was it more of a dorm? Yes, I suppose a dorm would do.
I heard the door shut but the lock didn’t click into place as it had before. We must still be free to leave our rooms.
“If you have to pee you should do it now. They get really cranky about letting you out in the middle of the night.”
“They?” Success! I had finally verbalized a coherent question.
“The goons who run this place. I’ll show you where it’s at. Come one.” Lola motioned for me to follow her out into the hall. I hesitated.
“It’s okay.” She assured me. I swallowed hard, and I was sure it was audibly from down the hall as we walked out of the doorway.
The first thing I noticed was that the walls weren’t white. Hadn’t I seen white walls when I had arrived? These were wallpapered with a light green flower pattern, and a thick green stripe traced the middle of the wall as far as I could see.
I could have sworn the walls had been white, I thought as Lola led me down the hallways to the right of our room. It wasn’t a long journey to the bathroom, and to be honest, I wasn’t expecting anything fantastic. What was inside disturbed me more than comforted. There were no metal latches on the stalls, only a Velcro latch that I had to play with for a good twenty seconds before I figured out how it worked. The toilet paper was held by Velcro as well. Had I been abducted by the Velcro fan club? What the hell was wrong with this place?
The sinks were even more peculiar. The spout looked as if it were bolted to the counter, and there was an automatic hand dryer that looked as if an alien species had designed it.
“Don’t let the bathrooms freak you out, Kat.” Lola smirked beside me as we strolled back to our room. “They have to make them as safe as possible. For the creepers.”
I stopped. “What the hell is a creeper?”
Lola burst with laughter so loud it echoed off the tiles around us. “A creeper is our code for suicidal in this place. You’ll get to know them. We’re not allowed to bunk with them, because they have to be monitored all the time. Whereas you and I,” She slung her arm around my shoulder, “We are in 14 because we’re the druggy manic depressives.”
I wished I had a response as we reached the door. The hall was nearly empty, save a few straggling girls heading to their bunks. I’d seen no more women dressed like Laura on our way to or from the bathroom.
I was in 14 because I was a druggy, manic depressive. I repeated the term in my head as Lola shut the door behind me.
“So who’s in 13?” I asked, naturally curious.
“We all have codes.” Lola whipped out her sketchpad again. “I’m not sure on all of them yet, but this is my second time through the program, so I’m getting to know them all a little better.”
The program. The words sat on my tongue for a moment. I contemplated ambushing her with questions, but my stomach growled loud enough for her to turn her head and look at me.
“I brought you food for a reason, you know. Eating disorders are in 7.” Her eyes were cautious when she said this, and I didn’t quite understand why. I grabbed the tray of food and set it next to me on my bed.
It looked bland and tasteless. Nearly identical to hospital food, I was sure of it. I lifted the sandwich, peeling it apart without enthusiasm. Peanut butter and jelly. I should have assumed.
“So much for real food.” I said to no one in particular. I heard Lola’s faint chuckle as I chewed my food carefully.
“So Lola.” I spoke with my eyes on my food. “What do you do for fun?”
Sign up to rate and review this story