Cry Until You Bleed

12- Reality Shock

“A boyfriend?” Penn wonders over the phone.

“No,” I sigh in exasperation with a roll of my eyes because this is the third time that he’s used that word. “He’s just this guy who likes to start conversations with me for some reason. I don’t know, it’s weird.”

“It sounds like he has a thing for you,” He states. “I don’t like it.”

“He doesn’t have a thing for me,” I tell my stupid brother. “He just likes to randomly talk to me when he’s around even though I’m not exactly the most welcoming company. He’s nice though, I think.”

“I still don’t like it,” He says stubbornly.

“Trust me, I’m not the biggest fan of it either but talking to Niles is better than just sitting around like a sack of potatoes all of the time,” I explain to Penn on Friday right before honesty circle, which is by far the worst part of my week. And considering how long this week has been already, I just don’t need something like honesty circle to make it even worse. However, if I skip my honesty circle session, it’ll be put in my file and so when they’re considering my release, it’ll be there and they might decide to keep me here longer if my honesty circle attendance isn’t top notch. That’s enough motivation to keep me going even though I despise it.

“Don’t you have other friends there?” He wonders curiously.

“Yeah, well, Johnny got out and he went home on Saturday. On Wednesday, Renée had tried to cut her wrists with a broken plastic fork, so she’s in the hospital still, and Mia is in therapy almost all day every day now. What happened to Renée really messed her up and she has this thing where she doesn’t want to eat. Basically what I’m saying is that I do have friends but they are currently unavailable,” I explain to him, basically summing up my horrible week. Dr. Lombardi had told me what happened to Renée while I was in her office on Wednesday but she also assured me that Renée is going to be okay, thankfully. They’re still considering whether they are going to move her to another facility or keep her here but if she stays here then she’ll be put in solitary. And because Mia hasn’t been eating enough on her own, it looks like that’s where Mia is headed too, into solitary where she isn’t allowed to have any contact with the other patients, including myself. The whole thing just makes me sick to my stomach and I try my best to just not think about any of it as much as possible.

“I’m really sorry to hear that, Ana,” He tells me sincerely. “That doesn’t mean that you have to be friends with the mysterious guy who randomly talks to you and nobody else though. Make female friends, that’d make things a lot easier for me.”

“Oh, shut up,” I mumble. “You know that you’ll never have to worry about playing the overprotective brother role with me when it comes to guys. I don’t associate with them enough to warrant you to become overprotective at all. I mean, I guess I was friends with Johnny but he doesn’t count because he’s gone now and I won’t be talking to him for a while. Even if he was still here, he was a pretty awesome dude. And as far as this Niles guy goes, you don’t have to worry about him either. I’m keeping my distance.”

“Good,” He sighs. “But I’ll always be overprotective of you. That’s just how it is.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I mutter, rolling my eyes even though he obviously can’t see me. “Well, you’re kind of hypocritical of you, don’t you think? Being skeptical of mysterious, brooding guys? Where would you be right now if somebody had told Sienna that when you two just met?”

“I’m not mysterious and I don’t brood,” He argues with a small laugh.

“No, but you come off as kind of brood-ish,” I shrug. “Anyway, my point is that you can’t be so judgmental. That’s what Dr. Lombardi told me, anyway, when I told her that I thought that Niles might be a dragon.”