Into the Velvet

The Thanksgiving

My mom smacked Olly's hand before he could reach for the pumpkin pie.

"Olly," she scolded, warning him with a stern look. "Wait for your father to finish in the bathroom. How old are you?"

Olly crossed his arms like a child, scowling. "I can't be held responsible for someone else's bladder control," he huffed. "I've waited all day. That pie is mine."

An assortment of plates and foil-wrapped dishes crowded the cafeteria table, which threatened to buckle underneath us. The nurses hadn't approved. But Mom was adamant about bringing Thanksgiving to me. They lavished me with it. Sweet potato dishes drowning in marshmallows, aromatic stuffing, green beans with fried onion, and the most delicious roast turkey one could ever hope to experience.

It had all been lovingly cooked at home — a home that I hadn't visited in months.

I closed my eyes and breathed it in. The room was normally cold, unused to a bustling family. But I could pretend that I was back at home. Not stuck in a psychiatric facility with no exit doors.

"We have plenty of food here," my mother said gently. "Do you have any friends you'd like to invite to sit with us?"

A muscle inside my cheek jumped.

I had made no friends in this ward, and probably never would. I was the youngest inpatient and required the least amount of surveillance out of all my neighbours. At the women's only rooms, the middle-aged woman to my right liked to bang on the walls every night until a nurse calmed her down. The women on my left watched me whenever I entered the common room. She barged into my room frequently; either to stare eerily at me or demand that I return what I'd stolen from her.

I could time it all to a clock. Worst of all — I wasn't getting any closer to leaving. According to Kathryn, I wasn't making as much progress as I'd hoped for.

"No," I answered her after several minutes. Mom tried to hide her disappointment. Olly's eyes darted back and forth between us.

"I made friends with Bobby in room fourteen," he offered unhelpfully, beaming. "We chat all the time. Funny guy. We should bring him round."

I sighed, picking at my scarred hands. "His name's not Bobby."

"Then why have I been calling him Bobby this whole time?"

"His name is Matic. Sometimes he calls himself Bobby, sometimes he's a Slovenian opera singer named Maruša Delightful."

"Well, what about Kathryn?" Mom asked. "Your psychologist. You like her. You talk about her all the time."

"That's because I have to speak to her," I answered bitterly. "Every single week. She's not my friend. There's no one else to speak to."

Mom was getting desperate. "And the nurses? You don't get along with the nurses?"

I gritted my teeth. "Not since you made them all turn on me."

"I like Bobby," Olly noted happily. "He makes up the funniest songs."

Dad turned the corner and waltzed into the room, whistling to himself. He'd been looking forward to this feast just as much as Olly.

I kept my eyes down, willing myself not to make too much eye contact. I couldn't bear it. Though I missed my family terribly, and longed to see them whenever I was alone, it was insufferable to keep pretending that any normalcy existed between us. That I hadn't killed their chances of a good Thanksgiving.

Everything was near-unbearable. The romance books that kept me occupied were unbearable, too. I often ended up throwing them across the room. Sometimes, I'd feel a strange compulsion to flush them down the toilet — much to the horror of the nurses, who would find the bathroom waterlogged. The toilet stuffed with bloated pages.