Chapter: 2

 

               

 

Jon’s  P.O.V

 

 

 

A mute.  They had put me up with a mute.  Great…make me go crazier from having continuous one sided conversation.

I woke up later that night with a start.  Stupid nightmares.  As my heartbeat slowed to a regular rhythm I rolled over onto my other side.  It had to be about four in the morning.  She was sitting up in bed, wide awake and staring right at me.  I almost jumped right out of my skin.  Her electric blue eyes burned through the darkness and shone with the moon’s aid.  It was creepy.  In my paranoid days I would have thought that she was trying to kill me.

“Are you alright?” I asked shakily, my voice breaking the silence.  I watched through the darkness as she nodded her head.

“Do you need me to get you anything?” I asked.  Again I watched her shake her head ‘no’.

“Okay goodnight then.” I said and rolled over yet again.

“Goodnight.” She whispered…or so I thought.  I turned around violently only to see that she was fast asleep, curled up in the fetal position, her eyelids cloaking those violent blue eyes.

 

***

 

            When I opened my eyes again to the morning light she was staring back at me.  I yelped out loud.  I swear I was so startled that I almost pissed myself.  The nightmare that had started again were making me nervous and jumpy.  There was a knock on the door and I jumped again.

“Breakfast,” Bob called through the door before unlocking and opening it.

“Geez Jon you don’t look so good.” He commented as he stepped into the tiny room.

“Oh, I’m okay,” I said as steadily as possible, “just a little tiered.”  Secretly I didn’t want to tell Bob that I was having trouble sleeping.  I just knew that he would tell the doctors, after all it was his job.  But I had just got off of a series of medications including anti-depressants and a sedative.  I wasn’t prepared to feel like a drugged up zombie again.

“Well let’s go to the cafeteria then shall we?” Bob said, gesturing to the doorway for me to exit before him.  I looked behind me at my mysterious room mate.  She was sitting on her bed, knees pulled up to her chest, looking out the window.  I thought I saw a tear fall down her pale cheek.

“Can’t she come too?” I asked Bob abruptly.

“Who?...Oh Adrienne?” he replied.  So that’s her name- better make a mental note of that.

“Uh..yeah” I replied as if I had known her name all along.

“She doesn’t have that privilege yet.” Bob responded as he started to lock the door.  I grabbed his arm quickly.

“Bob please?” I pleaded.  I don’t know what came over me but just the thought of Adrienne being left alone made me sad…or did I not want to be alone?

 

 

Adrienne’s P.O.V

 

            I was never a heavy sleeper and rooming with Jon didn’t help.  It was awful watching him have nightmare- no not nightmares- night terrors.  It broke my heart to watch him thrash around in his bed pleading and crying to some invisible tormentor, covering his terrified face with his hands.  I tried to keep him quiet so the nurses wouldn’t come and take him from me.  I know it sounds selfish but I missed human contact…besides the cold orderlies.  I just wanted to go over and wrap my arms around Jon like his mother would have done, but every time I neared he woke up.  And I scared him.

I awoke that morning before Jon…I think I’m an insomniac…or maybe the slight environment change threw me.  Anyway I was watching him sleep, finally soundly.  The poor guy probably never got much of a rest.  When he woke up he yelled so loud that I just managed to restrain myself from clamping my hands over my ears.  Shortly after an orderly came to the door.  Shit they’re gonna take him away from me already!

“Breakfast!” the orderly called into the room before he opened the door.  He glanced at Jon’s sleepy face, purple smudges were under his deep set eyes.

“Geez…you don’t look so good.” He commented.  ‘That’s because he was up half the night.’ I thought but couldn’t say for obvious reasons.  I didn’t bother to get up off the bed as Jon and the orderly left, I just turned to look out the barred window.  ‘Why am I here?’ I thought as the first wave of self pity rolled through me.  ‘I know I’m sane…I know I am…but how do I convince them?’  That’s when the door opened again.

“Well c’ mon Adrienne !” Jon called to me.  I looked over my shoulder sharply to see him standing in the doorway expectantly.  ‘How does he know my name?’  I awkwardly unfolded myself, discarding my self pity and followed him out the door. My heart was beating rapidly and looking up to Jon’s face didn’t make it any better.  Geez he’s tall…  Jon stood probably a foot taller than me.  His warm, brown eyes shone down at me.  I almost didn’t notice when he held out his hand for me to take.  Shakily I took it.  His hand was so big.  I remembered the days when I had watched him and the rest of Korn on television, in concert, when I could sit there for hours on end with my cd player blaring their music in my ears.  But those days were long gone.  I was in an institution…and so was Jon…but why?

 

 FLASHBACK<>

 

<          They were coming up the stairs.  I could hear them trying to disguise their heavy footsteps.  Backing away from my bedroom door, fighting the urge to greet them there, I retreated to the closet in the corner.  I felt like the girl in the “Falling Away from Me” video.  Except my fate was much worse than that of a fathers belt.  I knew that I would be taken somewhere far away from here.  But I didn’t understand why.  I was sixteen!  Why were they coming to take me away from the only home I’d ever felt safe in.  I hunched into a ball, pulling the closet door closed as quietly as possible.  As the last moon beam disappeared from view I pulled back further into the closet…and heard the door to my bedroom open…>

 

            I cringed at the memory.  That was the first institution I had ever been to.  I was still talking then.  They had shut me up for good.

“We’re here!” the orderly called in a sing song voice, pretty weird coming from a huge black man.  Then again…he looked pretty friendly.  The cafeteria was not what I expected.  Clearly this was meant for the almost “healthy” people.  There were tables…just like my old high school…what was it called…Huron? (a/n: I couldn’t think of a name s I used one of the high schools I went to.)  Patients were lined up at a canteen.  Some were filing back to seats.  I noticed that they all had only one thing in common; the gross hospital gowns.  Otherwise I would have thought that they were normal.  But no.  These gown were like a giant sign reading “Corrupted” or “Unstable.”  I followed Jon to the line up.  Despite my lack of human contact I felt that there were too many people here.

“So what do you like?” Jon asked when we were almost at the counter.  I decide he deserved a response.  I shrugged my shoulders.

“Oh yeah!” Jon exclaimed, smacking himself on the forehead, “you don’t speak my language.” He finished teasingly.  I stuck my tongue out at him.

“Very funny!” he replied with a smile. 

“Do you like…” Jon scanned the counter, “Fruit?”  I just shrugged my shoulders and he plunked a fruit cup onto his tray.

“Eggs?” I wrinkled my nose in disgust and shook my head.  ‘Hey maybe it’s a conspiracy by the egg farmers to put me here because I don’t support them  .I am such an idiot.’  I joked to myself.  The rest of  selecting my breakfast went pretty much the same way until I had a muffin and A bowl of Fruit Loops added to the mix.

“You like Fruit Loops?” Jon exclaimed loudly when I picked it out of the other mini cereal boxes. I nodded matter of factly.

“You and I are gonna be just fine!” he said draping a long thin arm across my shoulders.

 

 

 

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