Chapter 2: Sawyer

            “They got me another one,” Sawyer said.  Henry looked up from his dinner of red beans and rice and laughed.

            “Ha, another one already?  How long do you expect this one to last?” Henry asked.  Sawyer smiled briefly, a glimmer really, and then she threw one of her soggy carrots at his head when Baker had her back turned.

            “About as long as the last one I guess,” replied Sawyer nonchalantly.  She didn’t want anyone to think she cared about someone being her roommate at all.

            “Or the one before that, or the one before that?” chided Henry.  The words seemed harsh but not when she looked into Henry’s clear blue eyes and that mischievous smile.  Too much time cooped up inside had given Henry’s natural olive skin an almost sickly pale pallor, but nothing could ebb the intensity of those eyes.

            “Whatever, no point getting attached to another eating disorder.  They are usually all the same anyway.  Drama is air and tragedy is life to those girls, like I need more of that in my life,” Sawyer replied coldly.  She was scribbling in a journal but before she could realize it she had almost torn through the page.

            “Sure,” Henry said, still smiling.  “None of your roommates have mattered.”

            “They haven’t,” Sawyer declared.  “What’s one more?”

            “Then why don’t you buy a single room or better yet why don’t you just leave Sawyer?” Henry asked.  Sawyer stared down at her plate pushing peas back and forth.

            “I think I’m done eating, good night Henry,” said Sawyer.  “Jackass,” she called back as she left smiling.

            Henry grinned at her and waved goodbye as she avoided his question just like always.  She walked past a table of girls that conveniently held her new roommate.  Billie looked up at her and half smiled at Sawyer before another girl kicked her leg under the table.  Everyone at the table saw what happened, but Sawyer walked right by.  She would never give anyone the satisfaction of knowing they mattered to her.  She wouldn’t let anyone hurt her again.

            She could hear whispers as she left the dining room just like yesterday, and the day before that.  Sawyer often wondered how bored these people had to be to find constant fascination in her entertaining, but she shrugged them off once again because it didn’t matter.  Sawyer tucked her journal in close to her chest as she passed through the familiar gray walls.  Nurse Baker called the color ‘battleship gray,’ and it was supposed to have a calming effect on the patients, but Sawyer hated it.  She had never really pursued fashion or furniture in her early teens, but she’d spent enough time in hospitals to know gray, taupe, and beige were supposed to be soothing.  It was supposed to surround a hundred hearts that were crazy and broken with a bland peace registering gray to the senses.  How was she supposed to think in here with walls that had no life in them?  They have no life, Sawyer pondered.  Maybe they were right, lifeless walls for lifeless people.

            As she trudged down the hall she stopped short for a split second at the sight of Alice and Marley.  The tweaked twins, just what she didn’t want to deal with today.  She tried to seem nonchalant and steady as she passed by the TV room door where they lay in wait for unsuspecting victims.  She could just imagine Alice pouncing off the chair on all fours, nose flaring, fangs gleaming.  Sawyer had to stop herself from openly smiling at the thought.

            “Hey Sawyer, got a new roommate, huh?” Marley called out.  Marley was Alice’s only friend at Merry Acres.  She’d gotten here about a month ago and was trying to not let anyone know why she was here.  As if the scars on her arms weren’t evidence enough.  Sawyer and Marley were in the same group therapy class in the afternoons.  She would sit silently like Sawyer, but Marley was an eye roller, and whatever therapy was for Marley, the only thing she did was roll her eyes and tell people to leave her alone.  There was one exception for Marley and that was Alice.  Before she moved out Alice had told her that Marley said Alice reminded her of her little sister who had passed away.  Sawyer guessed that everybody has at least one weak spot; Alice was Marley’s.

            Alice looked at the floor while Sawyer plodded by without a word.  Sawyer found comfort in the silence, and not saying anything at all was a lot easier than facing the people around her.  Marley started whispering to Alice about the time Sawyer turned the corner to make the dull gray trek to the floral nightmare that was her room.