Open mind

Chapter 3

I sat at the dinner table with my drawing in front of me. I liked to draw with neon markers and a ruler. The result was always as chaotic as my mind, and I liked it. Natalie came downstairs in a long dress and with wet hair. It was the first time I saw her after I had gotten back from school. This afternoon, just after lunch, she was caught blowing and was sent to her room. But now she was getting something to drink. I looked at her, and I shivered. Her thoughts, they were horrible. I couldn't do nothing after seeing that. But my legs refused to carry me to the office where Mark and Jose were.

'Can I come in?' I asked them. 'Of course!' They both replied and I closed the door behind me. And I told them. 'Natalie hurt herself.' They frowned. 'How do you know.' I didn't want them to know about my mind reading. 'I saw blood.' I lied to them. 'Are you sure?' Jose asked me, her body was tensed and her mind focussed on what to do if I was right. 'I'm sure.'

I hid myself on the toilet as I heard Jose ask Natalie to come to the office. Natalie's thoughts were getting more blurry by the second. I felt tears on my cheeks. I wanted to be upstairs. I didn't want to interrupt the conversation but my head was getting loud. So I knocked on the door and asked if I could go upstairs.

I was in my room, staring out of my window. Tears were dripping from my chin and I closed my eyes in an attempt to stop crying. There was a quiet warm, aura in front of the door. 'Lotus? It's dinner time.' It was Shawn. It surprised me that he took the time to come upstairs and tell me that. I hadn't expected anyone to come to me. 'I'm not hungry.' The silence that followed was two seconds too long. He was thinking about something. 'Are you not hungry, or do you not want to come downstairs?' I sighed at his question, knowing it was the latter.

Less than five minutes later I was sitting on my bed with a plate on my lap. I felt the heat come through my jeans. Shawn had somehow managed to bring me dinner upstairs, with permission from the caretakers. I started to like him. Not like-like, more in the sense of appreciating. He wasn't as cold and heartless as he seemed. Of course I got to know that right when I met him, but still. Normally I wasn't even worth a glance. And now he got me something to eat. He was strange in an interesting way. It made me want to know more about him.

Thinking about what I saw from Natalie made me sick. Her thoughts had been so clear she could have just said it as well. The images of her sitting on the bathroom floor with bloody legs, her razor in her hands. She was stoned and that was what made it so dangerous. She had barely felt anything and had cut herself deeper than normal. I knew how it felt, I knew exactly what she had been through. That was what had made me so upset. Happy things. Think about happy things. But I couldn't, Natalie haunted my thoughts and refused to leave.

Layka came to my room a few times to check on me. I kept saying the same, I needed to be alone. And finally I fell asleep. The only thing that could make everything around me calm and nice. Because only when I slept I felt nothing, I heard nothing. When I slept, I was nothing.

'Are you okay?' Jessica asked me. 'Yeah..' I mumbled as I played with my pen. 'Where are Cheyenne and Lewe?' I wanted to get happy again. 'Cheyenne told me she's sick and Lewe's aunt is marrying today. I nodded. Not that I didn't like to spend my day with just Jessica, I had just hoped I could see Lewe. 'I have my evaluation tomorrow.' I told her. Even at school I couldn't stop thinking about it. Tomorrow I lived there two weeks. After two weeks you got an evaluation. It was a conversation about how what the caretakers had observed in those weeks. How they thought I was doing there. We would talk about what is going to happen when I get back home again. But the thing most important to me was my freedom.

When you just start there you have no freedom at all. You have to hand in your phone and laptop and there was no way you could use internet. I hoped I could have my phone now sometimes.