by Kayla Coca
Chapter 5
Day 10
“Syd,” I heard a boy’s voice next to me, “Sydney. Sydney, wake up!” I sat upright to see the boy I had drawn, Jeremy next to wearing the same green polo shirt, “Sydney, I’m bored.”
“Who are you?” I asked nervously. He titled his head and his dark hair flopped. I had to admit he had certain adorableness to him. If he was a few years older the kid would be hot. He was thin with children’s muscles. His hair was longer than I’d drawn, but not too much. It was long and you could tell he’d just woken up. His eyes were so blue and beautiful.
“Syd, are you alright? It’s me Jeremy,” He said.
I shook my head trying to shake the memories out, “Sorry. I just forgot. I hate mornings.”
“It’s okay,” He said smiling. “I’m sorry I woke you up. I’m just so bored. I hate this place.”
I heard whispering, “Grab Kelly. I’m not feeling well.”
“I’ll get her Jenny,” The boy said picking up the mysterious baby. I took the baby from him and marched him outside with me.
“I’ll take Kelly so you can relax.” Jeremy said quietly. “You seem a little stressed.” I nodded and passed him the baby before going to do the sunrise relaxation. Instead of feeling relaxed I felt even more keyed up. This shouldn’t be happening. Then we all went inside to breakfast.
“Mary Anne,” I asked before Jeremy came over, “Do you ever see things that aren’t there?”
“No, but I have MPD, I shouldn’t hallucinate,” She said simply. “Accepting that these things aren’t real is important though. I’ve gotten rid of a few personalities by understanding that they were merely a part of my brain and using hypnotherapy.”
“But,” I went to object but Jeremy sat down.
“I gave Kelly to Karen,” He informed me.
I nodded, “I have therapy. Alone.” I ran out to talk to the doctors. I had time to eat, but I wasn’t hungry. Any appetite I’d had was gone. “Dr. Adams they are evil. I can hear them. They want to use me. Please make it stop.”
He smiled briefly and reached into his desk drawer. He pulled out a bottle and slid it across the table, “These pills will help you if you agree to take them.”
“No, I don’t want drugs; I don’t want something messing with my mind. I want you to stop, stop whatever it is that you’re doing to me. There is something in the food here, or the water maybe, but it’s your fault that I’m losing my mind!”
“Sydney, we don’t drug patients without valid reason or their permission. Calm down and take a few deep breaths.”
“If this is supposed to be some kind of joke it’s not freaking funny!”
“I don’t understand; are you having additional hallucinations? Beyond your friends? I need you to be honest with me.”
“Yes! I’m hearing disembodied voices.” I said plopping onto his couch. I didn’t mention the truth, which was that my fake hallucinations were showing up as well. It would get everyone into trouble, and I couldn’t do that to everyone from my life. I had to just make them stop. If they knew I was onto them then maybe they’d give up.
“Sydney, I think you need help. Please, let me help you.”
I scoffed, “Help me. You haven’t helped me at all! All this place has done is make everything worse. Before I came here I was fine. I was living a normal life and I was completely fine. I hate this place! It’s made everything worse. I want you to stop helping me! I want you to stop interfering with everything. All you’ve done is make everything worse! I hate you! I hate everything about this place! I hate you! I want to just be left alone! I want everything to go back to normal. Even if it sucked it was better than this. I just want you to leave me the hell alone!”
His eyes widened and then he went back to looking neutral, “We can’t do that Sydney. You need our help.”
“No,” I said quietly. “I need you to leave me alone. I don’t need you at all.”
I stood up and stormed out of the room. I went into the closet in my room and locked it. I had to get out of here and I knew it. This place was too much. I began drawing the plans on the floor with a sharpie I had stolen. Once I had the outline of the building drawn out I knew I needed a different color to continue my map. It was with that in mind that I headed to the art room for art therapy.
We were pretty much flicking paint at the canvas for the first half hour. We had a million colors of paint that we could use. I was actually having a great time with it. I flicked red, orange, and black at the canvas and let it form its crazy irrational patterns.
After we finished that she pulled out a massive canvas.
“This is a really cool form of art. First fill the black water balloons with paint. Then you pin them onto the canvas. Then we throw the darts at the balloons. When they pop they form wicked cool pictures. Let’s start!”
We probably got as much paint on ourselves as we did in the balloons. We were all giggling and having a great time with the project. We finally finished and went to shower. I was glad it hadn’t gotten in my hair. Erin had and she told us that it was a real pain in the ass to get out later. I believed her. I had trouble getting it off my skin.
After the hours of “releasing pent up energy and aggression” with paint I slipped two new sharpies out of the room. I went back into my closet after my shower and began drawing the guards that I already knew were there and the patterns that they walked.
I went to lunch and attempted to act normally. The Jeremy kid was bouncing around like a child with way too much pent up energy, which I suppose he was. I’ll admit that it was hard to be mad. He was a kid and he was too cute. I knew I’d get attached to him quickly. I loved kids. I’d volunteered with kids and I’d babysat for family and friends of my parents.
When we were all told to get ready because we were going on a field trip, I wanted to laugh. They made this sound like school. I knew better. This wasn’t like summer camp, it was prison. It was a mental institution and a prison. It didn’t matter what we did it was still going to suck and we’d probably never be more than a foot away from some type of guard.
They had us all put on bathing suits and I was again amazed at the blandness that this place had. They gave all the girls a plain navy one-piece bathing suit. The younger kids also got a float that was built into their bathing suits so they’d stay floating. For boy’s it was navy shorts and a shirt.
They piled us all into a bus one to a seat so no two people were even next to each other. It was a bit disorienting and so unlike the school busses I had been on. School busses were packed full and never silent. On our bus you were isolated and no one even spoke to each other. We just sat and stared around absently. I had Kelly sitting on my lap and she was absentmindedly playing with my hair. She must have started to get tired because she put her head on my shoulders and reached her arms around my neck. I rubbed my hand up and down her back and I could feel her breathing slow down and the little girl fall asleep in my arms. I realized at that moment a few things that would become life mottos. One, was that I was falling in love with this little girl. Two, was that it wouldn’t take much to fall in love with Jeremy as well. Third was that sometimes you can’t beat what you’re up against, and sometimes you don’t understand what’s going on. Finally, I decided to do what my mom had always told me to do. “If you can’t beat them, join them.”
We arrived at a public pool that was technically closed. There was no one there, not even someone operating the gates. Dr. Adams had a key and he unlocked the slightly rusty gate. We went inside and I gently woke Kelly so I could get her ready as well as myself.
“Sweetheart, we’re gonna go swimming,” I whispered gently to her.
She smiled happily, “In the water?”
I nodded and she clapped her tiny hands, “Yay!” I took her outside with me and gently put her into the shallow part of the pool where Mary Anne’s daughter was.
Each patent was in a single lane and we were told to just keep swimming. If you got tire
d a guard helped you out and walked you to the locker rooms. In the locker rooms there were two female guards that handed you a cold bottle of water and waited till you were ready to swim again. They watched you constantly. The guards were cold calculating people. You were never more than a few feet away from one either, just like I’d guessed.
After two hours I asked if I could swim with Kelly. Dr. Adams said yes and I slid into the shallow water. My feet could easily reach the ground and I headed over to Kelly. She reached out to me and I pulled her as close as I could with her in the tube.
“Teach me,” She said. “Teach me to swim!” I helped her swim back and forth across the pool as well as she could in the float. She was tired quickly and I helped her out of the pool. I grabbed towels from the guards and asked if we could change. They said it was fine, since they were starting to pull everyone out anyway. One at a time we reloaded into the bus. I combed out Kelly’s hair with my fingers and she fell asleep on my shoulder sucking her thumb.
We got back to the building after about thirty minutes and I carried Kelly back to our room. I tried to put her down but she grabbed more tightly to my neck. I carried her with me to dinner where I sat down with Luke, which I’d been doing more and more often for dinner. Jeremy sat down and wolfed down his very full plate before he left.
Luke looked at me, “Sydney, are you alright?”
I shook my head, “I’m not sure. Maybe. Everything is just really weird right now.” He nodded and we lapsed into silence. He left when he’d finished eating and right at that time Kelly started to wake up. I got a bottle with some milk as well as a small plate of food for her. She drank the bottle and ate some of the food. I carried her back to our room and sat down with her in my bed. I picked up a book I’d been reading and just read softly out loud. Jeremy was already asleep and after I read for a while I changed her into pajamas and tucked her into her tiny bed.
I lay back in my bed and fell into a restless sleep where I dreamed of children and car crashes.
