Marcus's Home for Special Children (P.6)

The helpers escorted me back to my room but as I slam the door, the sun pokes its small pink fingertips over the horizon. I fall to my bed and try to think back to earlier. I can’t believe Thatcher forced me to go with him to go outside.

I feel so embarrassed and I curl up into a ball, resting my forehead on my knees and just crying. What if he had actually hurt me, like Doctor Marcus said he could? And because of him, Doctor Marcus now has me on his radar, knowing that I have to be watched for other misbehaviors. I rub furiously at my eyes and sit back.

And something hits me.

What if Thatcher isn’t even real?

I started hearing things around the time he showed up. I had that first vision with Mary the night he showed up. But why would Linda encourage my hallucinations? Unless she really didn’t. I could have imaged everything having to do with Thatcher.

I slide from the bed to the ground and dig around underneath my mattress. I pull the slightly crumpled drawing out, clamping it firmly in my shuddering hands. The picture on the paper fades in and out of my vision.

I shove it back under my mattress. The lock clicks open but I pace back and forth in my bright white room, dragging my fingers through my hair. I fling my closet open and shed my pajamas for day clothes then I slip from my room. The halls are filled with children and young adults shambling towards breakfast and I join the flood.

As I stand in line with the warm and slightly damp tray pressed to my chest, I look around, trying to see familiar faces. Josh and Robert already sit at our table and a few people back stands Rissa. The table where Thatcher usually sits is empty.

Pills on my tray, I trudge to the table, sitting myself beside Josh. “Hi you two,” I say, keeping all emotion out of my voice. Josh mewls quietly and Robert murmurs a greeting. We eat in silence for a few minutes, listening to the occasional scream that resounds through the room. Rissa joins us.

I place a finger under Josh’s jaw and say “Let me see your face.” He struggles for only a moment before giving in and letting my tilt his head towards me. The cut in his face are still there and as I lightly touch them, I worry they’ll scar. Then I ruffle his hair and say, “Thank you.”

“So, what do you think the alarm went off for last night?” Rissa asks, excitement filling her wide eyes. “I think someone snuck out ‘cause I heard someone running outside of my door way before the alarm went off.”

I stay silent as they discuss the possibilities and wonder about the punishments. My bagel is dry and hard. Finally, Robert turns to me and asks, “Where’s that b-boy you s-sit with now?”

I tap my feet below the table. “I don’t know.” I’ve never lied to these kids before. I’m slightly disgusted with myself. They continue talking, their conversation moving away from the alarms to the girl that killed herself on the playground.

I rest my head on my fist and try to casually glance over my shoulder at Thatcher’s table. He still isn’t there.

The table I’m sitting at falls into a sudden noiselessness. They all stare over my shoulder. As I turn, I expect to see Thatcher. But, instead, a tall, lean brunette girl stands there. Her eyes are just as black as Thatcher’s. She doesn’t look nearly crazy enough to be here.

“Are you Rose?” she asks, her voice snide and cold.

“Yeah? Why?”

“I’m Jocelyn.”

“…Okay?” I say hesitantly. I’m extremely confused who this girl is and why she’s talking to me. Behind me, Josh lets out a low hiss.

Jocelyn puts her hands on her voluptuous hips and glares at me. “Would you like to explain to me why you got my brother in trouble?”

And finally, it clicks. “You’re Thatcher’s sister.”

“No, really?” she says.

“There’s no need to be condescending,” I reply, my eyebrows knitting together. Who does this girl think she is? There’s really no need at all for her to be rude and she has no right to be either.

“I’m condescending?” she asks, laughing briefly, rudely. “Do you even know what condescending means?” I really don’t like this girl and I’ve known her all of thirty seconds. An angry flush creeps up my neck.

“Yes,” is all I manage. I take another breath and say, “I may be crazy, but I’m not stupid. Unlike you because, Thatcher got me in trouble, not the other way around, you incompetent bitch.”

“I’ve been called worse by better.” I’m standing now, though I don’t remember ever pushing up from the table. Jocelyn is at least five inches taller than me and I have to look up to make eye contact. In the back of my mind a question blooms. Why are they both here? It’s so rare to get even one crazy in a family.

With that retort, she turns, whipping my face with her wave of brown hair. I watch her push into the restroom at the other end of the dining hall.

My shoulders rise and fall rapidly, moving with my breath. Josh wraps his arms around me and meows softly, comfortingly. “Who was she?” I demand.

I hear the bell toll and as Robert passes me, he says, “You heard her. She’s Thatcher’s sister.”

I sit cross legged in the hard chair in the therapy room, hands on my calves. Doctor Collins talks across the circle of self control, self respect, and self love. The three essential selves. Josh sits to my right, licking the back of his hand and rubbing the side of his face with it. I know that my turn to talk is coming up.

As if having read my mind, Collins turns to me and says, “So how are you today, Rose?”

“My head hurts.”

“Oh, interesting. Scale the pain for me.” His pen hovers over the surface of the clipboard, waiting for my answer. I curl up, resting my forehead on the tips of my fingers, glaring at the floor. I don’t mean to be angsty. It just gets ridiculously annoying to have the same questions asked in the same pitying voice. I’m a person and I don’t want pity. I want to be treated like a fifteen year old.

Granted, I’m not special by wanting this. Every teenager thinks adults don’t understand them or they don’t treat them like they should be. So it doesn’t make me an individual to get angry at Collins or Marcus or anyone else who treats us all like this. It just makes me a normal, hormonal teenager.

“Rose?”

I look up, having completely forgotten about him. “Oh, sorry. A four, I guess.”

“Well, that’s good to hear!” He grins, and everything about it is just so fake. As he continues around the circle, I untie a scrap of fabric I have tied around my wrist and I tug my hair up into an ugly, lumpy ponytail.

I get up and murmur something or other about the bathroom then, without waiting for a response, I push my way out the door. Technically, I need to wait for another therapist to walk me there, but I just can’t wait.

Once in the bathroom, I lean over the sink, hands gripping the porcelain so tightly that my knuckles are white. I close my eyes and take a few deep breaths. Something on the edge of my consciousness flutters. Something about Thatcher and Doctor Marcus. One of them lied. I don’t know how I know, but I do. Yesterday, one of them lied to me and I can’t figure it out. My mind leans towards Thatcher.

My heart disagrees.

I roughly grab the faucet, turning the cold water on. It gushes from the rusty pipe jutting from the top of the sink. It splashes up on my clothes and I cup some of the icy water in my palms, bringing my face down and submerging it.

The water stings my cheeks and my eyes burn. I cup some more and dip my face in again. Gasping as I straighten, I stare at the girl looking in the mirror me. My eyelashes stick together in points like stars and my skin has a pink flush to it.

I feel like I’m going crazy.

Man, that was “punny,” wasn’t it?

I dry my face on the bottom of my shirt and exit the bathroom, trudging back to the therapy room. Linda is outside, waiting for me. She looks pissed. I halt a few yards from her, my heart rate speeding up.

“Rose, we’re having another private.” Her tone is clipped.

“About what?” I ask evasively.

She clucks her tongue, as she always done when she’s angry. “What do you think, Rose? I can’t keep covering for you.” She grabs my arm roughly and drags me towards the garden. I yelp but she ignores me.

She sits me down on of the marble benches and paces in front of me. I tilt my head to the side. She finally speaks. “What is wrong with you, Rose? Why on earth would you leave the Home?”

I rise. “I don’t know!” I’m so confused. Last night feels like it happened so long ago and it’s all fuzzy and disconnected. “I don’t even remember what happened, okay?” Linda opens her mouth to yell at me again but I hold up a hand, doubling over. I vomit all over the ground of the garden. I cough a few times then wipe my mouth on the back of my hand, sitting onto the bench behind me.

Linda’s face is tense, wrinkles creasing her forehead and chin. She pulls a radio from her belt and says into it, “I need a clean up in the garden.” A drop of sweat runs the length of my cheek.

My mouth is bitter and sour. I spit onto the ground, trying to get the taste from my mouth. “I have a question.”

“What?” Linda asks, her voice frustrated. What does she expect from me? I respond to her better than any of her other patients.

I ask my question anyway. “Is Thatcher’s sister here?”

Linda nods but I don’t have time to respond. I lean forward and throw up again. “I am so hot,” I say. My tongue feels heavy and thick. A helper walks up, flanked by two men in yellow suits. The helper takes one look at me and swings me up in his arms. I’m so weak that I don’t even fight back. I merely look over his shoulder at Linda.

She’s half turned away from me. My neck falls limp and I watch the lights high above me swing in a light breeze. The helper’s arms are tight around me, almost painfully so.

He carries me to the infirmary. I lay there, my vision blurring in and out of focus. I let my head loll to the side. I’ve never gotten this sick. A nurse walks up and jerks my head back up, clutching my jaw in her clammy hands. I let out an odd sort of mumble that’s half a grunt and half a whine.

She flashes a light in my eyes and I flinch, slamming my lids shut. She tugs them back open with her thumb and forefinger. I squirm below her grasp. I’m so not in the mood right now. I try to summon the strength to slap her hand away by my fingers merely twitch weakly at my sides.

The nurse spends the next god knows how long poking and prodding me, lifting my head up and pouring a bitter tasting medicine in my mouth. I watch the sun go down through the window across from my bed. At some point, my eyes drift shut.

I still feel her taking my pulse and hear her muttering darkly to herself. I just want to sleep. At some point, her footsteps drift away and I let out a long sigh. Alone, at last. Alone to suffer and wish my week of sleep would just come. This was always the worst part, when the weakness sets in and I struggle to move.

It’s just never gone so straight from the vomiting to the weakness. I usually have a few hours, at least.

As the night drags on, I grow more and more bored. I’m also starving. I never had dinner. There’s a faint dragging sound, like something moving across the ground but it sounds far away and I push it from my mind.

Just as I’m seriously considering doing… something (I’m not exactly sure what I could do in my current state), something brushes the back of my hand. I try to tug my eyes open but they barely move. I can see through the crack in between my lids. A dark shadow hunches beside me. I can’t make anything out.

“Who’s there?” I mumble, hoping they understand what I’m saying.

“Who do you think?”