Troubled -A Part of Dark like Me.-

*33* Weeping At My Beasts

The lunchroom is rather packed with patients eating and chatting away. Some of the staff members are hovering over the teenagers with eating disorders and one boy looks completely uncomfortable with this female drill sergeant looking staff member sitting with him and seriously eyeing him while he eats. I smile sympathetic to the poor boy. I get in the line and Lele comes up behind me.

"Hey, how'd the lone session go?" Lele asks fixing the shirt I let her borrow along with blue jeans.

"Stop fidgeting. It went well."

Lele smiles, "She asked you about Shakur, huh?"

"She did. It was no big deal though." I shrug it off.

"Everyone keeps up with who people are talking to, seeing, dating, and messing around with." Lele lets me know.

"I should stop being friends with some people then." I say trying to be serious, but Lele and I bust out laughing. I know it was not going to happen.

"Hey beautiful." Shakur calls me.

I smile and can feel the blood rush to my cheeks. I know Lele saw it because she started shoving me playfully.

"Hello, Shakur." I am not planning on being anything else but friends with Shakur, but for some reason a few of our friends think we should move on to something else.

We move up and Keiron along with the rest of the patients who have this lunch start to file in with the annoying bell. I am going to find a way to tune that bell out soon or starting a petition to change it to something loud yet pleasant to the ears.

"Sup ladies and bruh?" Keiron greets.

I try not to turn my nose up at his behavior but sometimes it's hard not to do that.

"Nothing much, Kei." Shakur says moving up in the line behind me.

I grab my tray and tell the chef what I want which is whatever is on the menu for today and the menu is taped on the glass shield between the chefs and the patients. He hands me back my tray with what I requested on it and I take my tray to the pay line to be rung up. Yesterday, I did not have any money on my account and could not eat but thankfully, Mr. Spaggiari paid for my lunch and dinner that day. I am not so sure if there is any money on my account today and I hope there is. If there is not any then they give the patient bag lunches with a peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich with too much peanut butter on it, chocolate milk, an apple, and a rice crispy treat. I know this because I have seen Lele eat it before.

Thankfully, there is money on my account. However, my curiosity gets the better of me, "How much do I have on my account?"

"You have," the pay woman types away at the computer to pull up my account. "Ah. A thousand dollars and eighty five cents on your account."

Mind blown. "Thank you." I leave the pay line and sit at the table with Meme and Jaxea.

"Hey Allyira." Jax greets me with a smile.

"Hey." I take a seat with my tray and begin eating the macaroni and cheese.

Meme is concentrated on some kind of book and it looks as if it is aggravating her to the fullest.

"Meme, what are you reading?"

"A 'learning how to read' book." Lele teases sitting next tot me with her own tray.

"Shut up, Lele." Meme looks down at her sister's tray. "Glad to see that mother and father finally put money on your account." She slashes back.

Lele's face drops not believing what her sister had just said to her, before she could get a comeback out Meme turns to me and says, "It's an advanced Lit book that my reading therapist gave to me. I like it, but it's hard to understand sometimes."

Lele bites into her burger, "Why they put you in that therapy education class is beyond me. You don't even like to read, Meme."

"I do too. That shows how much you know. Geez, you are so rude, it's a wonder that Allyira or Jax is your friend, seeing as how you have no friends of any kind at home." Meme jabs gathering her books, blanket, and leaving the lunch room.

I say nothing because I have reason to get in between them. That is a sister thing.

"Allyira, am I that bad?" Lele asks me setting down her burger.

Now, I am in the middle. How do I tell her; an aggressive teenager when spoken bad about and wants to fight; if she is that bad or not? I am not one for fighting and I doubt that I can fight. "You can be a bit---."

"Sup?" Shakur sits by me. "What's being talked about?" he smiles at me. That dazzling smile that I just can't help but smile back at him.

"Nothin--."

"Allyira was just about to tell me about myself, only because I asked her to." Lele turns from Shakur to me.

"You can be a bit---."

A royal bitch to people you don't know for no reason at all." Keiron interrupts me and sits on the opposite side of me. "None. People can look at you and you'd fly off the deep end. Ha! Don't let a boy tell you he likes you because you'd just turn your nose up at him and turn away." Keiron openly says.

Lele fumes, "I am not and I do not." She is sort of yelling now. Not everyone can hear her, but the people within earshot can.

"Psh." Keiron scoffs then takes a bite of his wedge potato fries. "I told you I was into you one year and you straight up laughed in my face." There is slight hurt in his voice still. "Hell, I even bought you flowers and told you. The next day when I found the flowers in the trash can, I confronted you about it and that's when you laughed in my face."

I can only imagine how hurt Keiron must have been to have been rejected by her in such an embarrassing manner. I continue to eat my macaroni and cheese and listen.

"HA, Keiron. You are so full of yourself. You think every girl wants you and you're the shiz." Lele says, "I don't want to be with someone with his head so far up his butt that he can't even see me."

Keiron snorts, "I don't want a stuck up bitch who thinks she is better than everyone else. New flash, Leilani Foster, you are just like the rest of us. In a mental hospital for teenagers and children, you aren't perfect and neither are we."

Lele blinks and stares at Keiron as if he totally just disrespected her. I look at Lele and I can tell she is fuming inside herself. Just her twisted facial expression and the pouting look says it all. I want to get up and leave before she does something explosive and I get caught in the middle of it. However, I am sure leaving her here with Keiron would be very bad even though there are staff members around and the two officers at the doors.

"Excuse me." Lele says very politely, stands up, and leaves the table.

I know her schedule has been changed for her anger management issues, but I wonder if they kept her in the self-harm program as well.

"That is not a good sign." I finally speak up.