I know I'm insane

the near-to-sweet escape

"You know, sometimes they have dances," James stated from her bunk. I was sitting in my own across the room, admiring my tattoo.

"Huh?" I asked.

"Can you not hear? I said this place sometimes has dances, to make us feel more like kids," she said and rolled her eyes. "But you would much rather stay here all alone like you would usually do."

"Actually, you're wrong," I stated. Lie. Being alone was much better than being in a sweaty room full of people. "When's the next dance?" I asked. I just really wanted to prove James wrong.

"What am I, a walking encyclopedia?" she said and shot me a dirty look.

"No, I wouldn't expect you to be that smart," I said and hopped off my bed and started walking to the door.

"Where do you think you're going?" she asked.

"The bathroom," I said and walked out the door. Lie. I was getting as far away from her as possible.

I started walking down the hallway, and then I saw Dylan's door. I hadn't seen him since his breakdown, and I wanted to talk to him.

I raised my fist up to knock on his door when it swung open, revealing Rose and Noah.

"Oh, hey Alec!" Rose said happily and waved. Noah just nodded. Sometimes I get the feeling he doesn't trust me. And if so, then he seems like the only person with common sense here.

"Hey. Why were you guys in Dylan's room?" I asked.

"I'm his roommate, and why do you care?" Noah said and raised and eyebrow.

"I don't." Lie. "I just wanted to say hi to Dylan."

"Well, he isn't here," Noah said and pushed passed me, making his way to the lobby. Rose sighed.

"I'm sorry, he has, um . . . trust issues," she said and shook her blonde head. "He thinks that people are going to take advantage of him because of his condition."

I knitted my eyebrows. "Oh. So what's his condition?"

"He doesn't want anyone to know," she replied and frowned. "I'm kind of his 'seeing eye dog' or something like that."

My mind raced. "So, you aren't in here with a condition?" I asked lightly, as if me getting out of here didn't count on it.

"Oh, no, I have a condition too: insomnia," she said, her smile faltering for a second. Then she saw my confused face. "You know, not sleeping?"

"Right," I said and nodded my head.

"By the way, you never told me your, um . . . reason for being here," she said and tilted her to the right.

"Oh, well, you know how Noah doesn't think he can trust people if they knew his condition? Well, I don't think anyone would trust me if they knew my illness," I paused for a second, "and that is vital for me."

With that I stocked off to the lobby, leaving Rose to question my quickly-said words.

<<'¤|¤'>>

"Stephen!" I called at the tall black man. He turned around and smiled. It was a fake smile, though. I was interrupting something but I didn't really care.

"Alec!" he said and walked over to me. He patted me on the back and asked, "What brings you here?" he asked.

"A free will," I said quickly. "Someone told me that there were dances for the kids here. Is that true?" I asked him.