Draft One

Chapter three

CHAPTER 3
"Snack time after showers. Calls before you shower if you want one. Go to the closet where nurse Chey is and grab a towel and your bin of supplies."
For showers we get a white washcloth, and white normal sized towel. In our bins we have a toothbrush, made of malleable plastic and bristles that won't hurt if you swallow them, with toothpaste. Not much however, because if a kid ate a tube of that, it would give them poisoning. Next thing in our bin was deodorant. The deodorant is the kind with the ball point. If a kid were to eat it, they would have to, one lick at a time. They would get caught before they would ingest enough to hurt them. In each bin, everynight the staff fills many little ketchup cups with shampoo and conditioner. You only get one. No more, no less.
"Oh shit, calls", Briony mutters.
"What's wrong with call time? Isn't that where you get to call your family?"
"Yeah."
Kaal stays quiet for a second, before he realizes. "Oh". He gave a smirk saying sorry. "Why don't you shower first? I'll make my call then you can save a seat for me after. Ok?"
She smiles, then gets up to grab her things. "Miss?"
Nurse Chey turns around in a manner suggesting that Briony is disrupting her. "What?"
"Can I get a tampon please?"
"No."
"What?
"Safety reasons, here's pads you can only keep two at a time. Here."
"Yea some girl swallowed a tampon in hopes to escape. They took her to the hospital and once they got it out, she took a run for it", Mya butts in.
"Girl, shush. Grab your stuff and go shower."
"Uh, th-thanks", Briony stutters, still confused and slightly uncomfortable. She hears Kaals name being called for phone time. Each kid gets five minutes twice a day with the person of their choice. Only thing, they have to be on the call list. And most often the person you want to call won't be able to get on the list.
Briony loves showers. But at the same time she dreads them. This is the only time she can be alone while in this place. For fifteen minutes only. If you take any longer the staff is required to come banging on the door... that doesn't lock, and open it, barge in if they choose.
There is a mirror made of unbreakable glass in the bathroom. The toilet has the loudest flush anyone has heard. Mya takes off her shirt slowly, revealing many scares differing in sizes. Some fresh, some not so fresh. She slides off her leggings, then her granny style panties. Her legs, showing more scars, but not the same kind. They are burn marks. She turns the shower to heat, all the way. Then she grabs the lighter from the padding in her bra and lights it. He holds it onto her inner thigh and holds it for as long as she can. Wincing, she makes sure to do this silently so no one hears. After she gets into the shower, it's steaming hot.
You are allowed to bring your own soap if you want. She decided to bring a bar of soap.
Once she gets in the shower she wets her hair and stands for a moment. The boiling water trickling down her burn stings, almost worse than the burn itself. Once the pain has subsided, she grabs the bar of soap. Digging her fingers inside, she pulls out a razor blade. She lifts up her left boob and gently and slowly slices a gash.
The staff did body checks, but they were not allowed to make them take their underwear off unless they absolutely had to. Briony made sure some of her scars were visible, exactly for this. She could say yea that's the only place i did it, and they wouldn't think twice about searching more.
The gash begins filling up with bubbles of blood, before it starts leaking from the wound.
The pain causes the brain to reset, making whatever you were thinking about or doing before, just simply disappear. Even just for a moment. Briony always found a sense of calming, watching the blood flow.
She always makes sure to wash up. She wouldn't want it getting infected, that would ruin the secrecy of it all.
After this part, the rest of her daily showers go by quickly, as lightning. Stepping out of the shower she notices a bit of blood got onto the white towel.
"Shit", she mumbles under her breath. She wets the toothbrush and brushes her hair quickly.
When she walks out she makes sure to do so at the same time as someone else. They throw their dirty towels into the bin at the same time.
"Where is the other pad?" A new nurse asks.
"Uhm, Miss Chey said I could keep it in the bathroom."
"No bring it now, Now!"
Briony hears a boy chuckling as she runs back to the room to grab the other pad.
"Here", she says in a quiet tone, giving it to the nurse.
The nurses switch out at seven in the morning and seven in the afternoon. No nurse the same two days in a row.
"Briony, over here."
Briony takes a seat next to Kaal.
"I swiped an extra bag of crackers, wanna share?"
"Sure", she says, letting a soft smile pierce through. "How was your call?"
"Oh, no one picked up. It's fine though, I wasn't expecting them to. I had an idea while you were in the shower."
"Yea."
"So you know my amazing performance earlier today, before breakfast?"
"Yea."
"And you know how you dont like your roommate?"
"Yea. Where are you getting at?"
"Well, I don't want my roommate either. It's that Jay kid. He's fine and all, I just wanna actually sleep when I want to. SO I was thinking... let's do a little maneuvering.
Briony is puzzled and asks, "How and what exactly are you plotting?"
"I will tell the staff I so desperately want to change rooms because I identify as a girl and don't want to be rooming with a guy. Then you a little later will say you are uncomfortable with your roommate because you are scared of her. They will have no choice but to give us diff rooms. There is only one other open room. That will make room for either Jay or Krise to move to that room. They can't move you into the room with Jay. If they move me to the room with Krise ill throw a fit ab her and their only other option will to room me with you."
"God damn Kaal. What kind of master scheme plotter are you? I'm completely in though. Much rather you than that girl. She just creeps me out, even before I knew all the stuff about her.