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He wanted Ian.
Meal time in the cafeteria was compulsory. The intent was obvious. Even the most reclusive patients had to eat. Alek was onday two of a hunger strike. Not for suicidal reasons; that would take far too long. He was trying to negotiate a room service arrangement.
“Fuck me, you’re pretty,” said a wisp of a young woman dressed in all dark like a shadow.
Alek started. He hadn’t heard her approach over the cafeteria’s ever present soundtrack of grumbling conversation, plates clashing against tabletops, blunted sporks scraping like nails on a chalkboard.
He’d seen the girl before, but she’d never made contact. Usually, Alek’s resting fuck-off-and-die face was enough to keep the other patients away.
She dropped into the seat across from him.
Alek scowled at her over his egg scramble.
The girl had black hair with blonde roots and anemic, nearly-translucent skin. It was difficult to guess her age as there was neither a wrinkle nor sunspot on her face, but she had to be at least eighteen. Minors were not allowed.
“What did you do to get put inside here?” she asked.
Wasn’t there an unspoken rule that fellow patients weren’t supposed to ask each other that? It was like prison, but with better accommodations.
“Oh, I see,” the girl continued. “You can’t control anything so you’ll eat your words and starve yourself while you push your food around your plate and do what you can to feel like you’re not completely powerless. Right?”
She was. That was precisely what he was doing.
The girl piled her hair into a messy bun on the top of her head, securing it with a telephone wire hair tie she’d slid off her wrist. There were a series of pinprick holes along the delicate shell of her ear and rows of shiny scars carved into her forearms.
Absently, he wondered if it would be possible to fashion a garotte out of one of her hair ties.
“I’m Briar,” she said. “What’s your name?”
If he responded in Bulgarian, would she go away?
“I’ve been here for eight months, but don’t worry. That’s not typical. I mean, there’s definitely some lifers here.”
She flicked her gaze to a catatonic woman at the neighboring table who was frozen with her spork a few inches in front of her mouth.
“But most people don’t stay long—not because they get better—they’re hidden away somewhere with a private nurse to keep them out of sight. I’m hiding too, but not like that. Every time I’m about to go home, there’s a sudden setback.” She shielded her mouth with her hand and leaned across the table, stage whispering, “It’s all an act. I don’t want to go home.”
If she thought he’d believe that, she was as insane as he was.
She sat back in her chair.
“If you don’t tell me your name, I’ll have to make one up for you and I must warn you that I’m very bad at naming things. I once had a goldfish named Cat. I named my dog Doug and it was very confusing for everybody involved. ‘Your dog is named Dog?’ the person would ask. ‘No. Doug. Like the human name,’ I’d say. Then they would say that was a funny name and I would ask how so and then there would be a long awkward pause, which was fine. I thrive in silence.”
He should have left, but this girl—Briar, was it?—was strangely magnetic, and inpatient psychiatric hospitalization was exceedingly boring, especially when his schedule was stacked with group and individual therapy he refused to participate in, and forced attendance to holistic classes calledYoga Your Way,Art of the Heart,andReap What You Sow.That last one was gardening without toolsbecause some study alleged that humans needed to feel their hands touch the earth to connect with their prehistoric ancestors, when really it was because most garden tools could double as a weapon.
He didn’t like the garden. It reminded him of the fox, and if he thought about the fox, in addition to experiencing the loss of her death all over again, he thought about the last time he saw Ian, and he couldn’t think about Ian. He’d tried to get out of gardening on the grounds that his hands were still mangled, but an aspiring Nurse Ratched said he didn’t have to garden, but he still had to be there. At least he was excused fromMusic Moods.
“Are you going to tell me your name or not?” Briar nudged.
He stared at her.
“Very well, then.” She chewed on her bottom lip and it reminded Alek so much of Ian that he wanted to cry. Everything could remind him of Ian if he wasn’t careful.
“Broody? No. That’s something chickens do. What’s that guy's name? The one Dracula was named after...Something the Impaler—don’t get the wrong idea. I’m not implying I’d like you to impale me…” She looked at his lap as if he needed help grasping the innuendo. “Although I wouldn’t say no if you asked nicely. It’s just that you have a goth, I live in a haunted mansion and get turned on by the sight of blood sort of look about you.”
Pot, meet kettle.
“God! What was his name?” She looked at him.
