Broken

Chapter 4

After a few minutes of smoking another three cigarettes and thinking a million thoughts I decide to look over the papers Abigail had left me about an hour ago. I need to keep myself occupied or I will just start to think about him again. And that's definitely a no can do right now.

I pick up the papers from the bed and start to flip through the many sheets. I stop at one of them and begin to read.  

Out- and indoor times. 

The residents are allowed to be outside of the residence until 10 pm on weeknights and 12 pm during the weekends. Not following these scheduled times and/or any use of drugs or alcohol during/after this time will be taken care of by punishment such as kitchen/cleaning duty and/or shorter freetime. The residents also have 3 breaks, scheduled by their guardian, per weekday and the whole weekend free until 12 pm. Other than these freeperiods the residents shall be in their rooms or in the lounges, librarys etc. You have to talk to your guardian about extrajobs etc. and get a permission card by the head director to be allowed to go outside of the residence on weekdays. 

NOTE, exceptions and changes will might take place depending on the resident's behavior.

Seems perfectly fine with me, as long as I have my training and my cigarettes. I have already decided to keep a low profile at school, not wanting to drag any attention toward me. I'm not planning on staying here for long anyways. Soon my mother will understand that she needs me just as much as I need her, she has to. Right?

Next page. Stop thinking.

Visitors

The residents are allowed visitors both weekdays and weekends depending on the resident's behavior. The visitors will be going through a smaller background check, to prevent the residents from bad influences, before getting a visitation pass card. Depending on the visitor's background the visitor will get a certain amount of hours and these visits might be supervised and the time fluctuates, also depending on both individuals.

Do I have any friends with criminal pasts? Not that I have any friends at all now, at least no one who would take a plane and go through 'a smaller background check' just to visit me for an hour or two. Would Darren visit me, if he could? Or would he be just as distancing as my own mother?

I quickly push the thought away, knowing how wrong I am. He would go trough fire and ice to meet me. He would tell me something like: "If you turn your face towards the sun, Jackie, the shadow falls behind you" and then quickly add: "And maybe you wouldn't be so freaking pale all the time." Or he would just hold me without saying a thing, letting his actions speak instead of words. But he can't.

I can feel the panic taking over. The feeling so familiar, yet so strange and unexplainable. It's like a big black cloud, hunting me into a corner and pressing it's full weight on top of me. I can't breathe. I can't see. I drop the papers to the floor and stumble my way over to the bed. Need to lay down, need to breathe. It's as if a monster is roaming around in my stomach, ripping my inside to treads. The pain is almost unbearable.  I hear loud voices surrounding me, but can't make out a single word of what they're saying. 

Someone is screaming. And I know that that someone is me.