*Updates are changing to Wednesday and Saturday*
"Ana, we should do something fun today," Renée suggests with a chirpy grin and Mia is nodding vigorously beside her as I continue to slowly chew my bite of pancakes.
"Fun?" I wonder with raised eyebrows. "Like what? Jenga?"
"I don't know, we'll think of something," Mia says. "But you've been a little mopey ever since Monday. Maybe we can have a movie night or like, a game night or something."
"Yeah, I mean we get it. Everything that's happened with Niles is pretty bumming but you gotta pick yourself up and let's just get your mind off of it," Renée tells me before taking a big bite of her toast.
"I'm not that bummed," I tell her with a shake of my head. "It's only been a few days but I'll get over it. But sure, a game night sounds fun, let's do that."
"Good," She chirps. "Anyway, why did Dr. Lombardi make you call things off with Niles? That was kind of random of her, don't you think?"
"Not random at all. Remember what I'd told you on Sunday?" I ask them rhetorically and then they nod with mouths full of breakfast food. "Well, that girl, Shayla, she overheard me telling you guys that and she ratted me out."
"That bitch!" Renée shrieks way too loudly, causing many people sitting around us to glance over at us with strange expressions on their faces, which is kind of comical and both Mia and I laugh a little bit- me, more than Mia. Renée glances around at the strange stares as well but they don't seem to bother her at all. "I knew that girl was annoying as hell but I didn't think that she'd do something so terrible."
"Yeah," I sigh, poking my syrup-soaked pancakes a little bit. "It's fine though, I guess. It's not like we have to cut off all contact."
"That's still so awful," Mia says. "I've really never liked that girl. She's always looking down her nose at everybody else. She wants people to believe that she's just the perfect little patient."
Renée takes a gulp of her orange juice as if she's angrily chugging some alcoholic beverage, which is a little bit amusing because she looks like she thinks that she's going to convert her orange juice to whiskey just with her pure hatred for Shayla. "Seriously, do you know what she did when Johnny rejected her? She claimed that he attacked her in the shower. She's even more insane than anybody here. She needs to be in solitary or something, she's seriously psychotic."
"But boys and girls don't even share showers," I say on confusion. "How is that even a plausible accusation?"
"It wasn't, which is why he was found innocent but just the fact that she even tried that just shows you how unstable she is- even for us," Mia adds. "If we weren't locked up in here and threatened with solitary, I swear, we'd find some way to get her back."
"Well, we are stuck in here so don't do anything stupid," I tell them both quickly. "It's not like she lied- I did break Dr. Lombardi's rules, so I technically do deserve this but it just sucks. Anyway, you guys don't need to get in trouble just because of me."
"Of course, we won't do anything," Mia assures me and Renée nods in agreement. "But why'd your doctor believe Shayla over you? Wouldn't it just be her word against yours anyway?"
"I didn't deny anything," I sigh. "When Dr. Lombardi confirmed that Shayla had turned me in, I didn't lie about it. I could have but I'm just tired of lying. I've been lying for three whole years to everybody around me and if I lied I could be closer to Niles but that would be on my shoulders every time I talk to Dr. Lombardi, which is every day and I didn't want to deal with that."
"Well that's very noble of you," Renée sighs. "But I respect that. Way to go, Ana."
"Yeah, I'm a freaking saint," I admit sarcastically. "But let's talk about something else right now."
"Sure," Mia agreed. "I have some good news, actually."
"Yes, do share," I say, eager to get the topic of conversation off of me and onto somebody else, especially if the news is good.
"Well, I talked to my mom yesterday and she told me that she and my dad and sister are coming to visit next weekend."
"That's amazing," Renée grins excitedly. "Mia, wow. How long has it been since you've seen them?"
Mia shrugs, nibbling on the last piece of her toast. "I haven't seen them since I got here. I talk to them a lot and everything but they live so far away, in Oregon, and they just haven't had the time to make it over here. My mom works all of the time and they didn't want to come without her but she was finally able to get some vacation days so they're coming and I'm really excited."
"Do they know when you're getting out?" I ask her curiously.
"No, I haven't told them yet but I do have a definite date now. Dr. Cortez said that if everything goes as planned, my release date is November 23rd."
"Even more good news," Renée cheers. I finish my pancakes and stand up to throw away my empty tray and then quickly return to sit down with Mia and Renée again. "That means that you'll be home for Thanksgiving."
"Right," Mia nods. "Have they talked about your release at all yet?"
Renée just shrugs in response. "Not really but he's said that it's looking good for January. February at the latest but, you know, stabbing myself with a plastic utensil kind of delayed the recovery process so if that hadn't of happened, I probably would be gone by the New Year, which kind of sucks."
"Well, at least you're getting better now and you're still getting released soon-ish," I tell her with an enthusiastic smile. "So that's really good."
"It is. What about you, Ana? Has your doctor said anything about this whole Niles debacle slowing down your release?" Renée asks me, finishing her food and throwing away her trash before returning to the table.
I shake my head. "She didn't say anything about it. I don't think it will though, she's told me that she's impressed with how I'm taking it. I'm not as okay with it as she thinks though, I'm just a good actress when I want to be. I mean, it's not like I'm totally beat up about it but I don't want her to overreact."
"As long as you're sure that you're okay," Renée says with a smile.
"Yeah, I am. She just assumes the worst and I guess that's her job, it's just a bit annoying sometimes that she doesn't have faith in me," I explain to her with a sheepish shrug.
"That's part of the job description," Mia tells me, also finishing up her breakfast as well so she throws her trash away and we all stand up to leave the cafeteria. "Therapists are supposed to expect the worst so that they can prepare for it."
"I know that," I agree with her. "I just don't necessarily like it right now."
We sit down at one of the larger game tables that's empty except for Mia, who says that she's going to walk around and find people to have a game night with us. Except it's more of a game morning considering it's only 8:30 in the morning. It's Thursday so it's been a few days since Dr. Lombardi had caught me in my lie with Niles but I've been doing alright with it. Talking to Niles really helped me think optimistically about the whole situation so I'm not too bent out of shape about not being able to see him anymore. Obviously, I'm bummed enough to be mopey but I've been doing okay.
Five minutes later, Mia has gathered a group of four other girls including the tall and pale redheaded girl and a darker skinned girl that I've only talked to a few times and then Desiree, and surprisingly, Katie shows up as well. The two girls that I don't really know, I've only talked to when I was hanging out with Mia because they'd play games together occasionally before Renée came back but I'd kind of avoided them for a while since they seem pretty gossip-heavy and loved to interrogate me about Niles, which had gotten annoying pretty quickly.
"Aren't you working with Quinn for the party?" Renée asks Desiree when she sits down at the table and Mia goes over to the game shelf to grab a game that all of us can play.
"Yeah but Quinn is with her therapist right now working out her release," She explains. "She's getting released right after the dance, which is why she's kind of training me, so that I'll know how to take over when she leaves. Isn't that great?"
"It is," I nod. "You seem to really love doing all of that stuff."
"I do, it's nice to have something to keep me busy in here," She comments.
"Let's hope that you don't turn as psycho as Quinn does during holiday season," The redheaded girl, whose ID badge reads "Polly", says with a small laugh and her friend laughs along.
"She isn't psycho," Katie surprises us all by defending Quinn from where she's sitting beside me. Katie just seems so sarcastic and unenthusiastic about the party committee that I never really pegged her as a fan of Quinn's. "She's just passionate. I wish that I was that passionate about something."
Mia comes back with Apples to Apples, sitting down across from me and beside Polly's friend, who I can see that her name is Reyna because of what her ID badge says. "Who are we talking about?"
"Quinn," Renée fills her in. "A debate between psycho or passionate."
"Both," Mia decides. "But she's nice. She's better than Shayla or her boyfriend, that's for sure."
"What'd Shayla do to you?" Polly wonders, seemingly excited for the gossip as she leans closer to the table as if she's about to be told some top secret stuff that nobody is allowed to know about.
"She's a snitch," Renée fills them in. "And she's snobby and annoying. Really, does anybody like her other than Gregory?"
"True," Reyna agrees with a small laugh. "When I took the last crescent roll from the lunch line and she was right behind me, she squirted ketchup on my seat so that it looked like I bled through my pants. She knows how to throw temper tantrums, I'll give her that."
"But I've never done anything to her. Just when I got here, she just decided to hate me, I guess," I explain with a small shrug as Mia starts dealing out the red cards for the game.
"Well, if you want any help getting back at her for whatever she did, let me know. I'll think up something," Katie tells me with a mischievous smile, tapping her black nails on the table top.
"That's okay," I say with a small laugh at how sarcastically evil she looks right now. "I don't want anybody to get in trouble just for me. It's really not a big deal."
"Whatever you say," She sings.
The game starts a little while after that and it's a pretty fun game so we're able to play for about an hour and a half before Polly has to leave for her therapy session, leaving it to just six people but that's still enough people to keep playing, so we do for another hour.
"You look kind of out of it today, Ana," Desiree comments randomly in our second hour of playing the game. "What's wrong?"
I look up at her, surprised by her completely random observation. "No, I'm fine. Nothing's wrong."
"No, something's wrong," Katie agrees. "I mean, even I could notice, I just wasn't going to say anything."
"Really, I'm fine," I assure them with a half-smile to try and look convincing. "It's nothing to worry about, just a minor blip."
"Here," Katie says, pulling something out of her blue scrub pocket discretely and I look down to see a Twinkie in her hand. "For a little pick-me-up."
"How'd you get that?" I ask her with raised eyebrows, knowing that the cafeteria doesn't give us those and that's the only way that we get food.
She just shrugs and places it in my own pocket for me because I'm too surprised to take it myself. "I know some people on the outside. Contraband is kind of one of my things, that's why I don't talk to a lot of people. With my luck, I'd end up telling somebody like Shayla and I'd get my visitation taken away. Anyway, I was saving it for after lunch but you take it, since you're going through something. Even if it's small, a Twinkie will always cheer you up."
Surprised, not only about the illegality of the Twinkie but also that she's giving it to me because of my bad mood, I offer her a small smile. "Thanks, Katie."
"Don't mention it," She chirps as she refocuses on the game and ends that conversation.
That's when I truly feel better than I have all week because despite not being able to see Niles anymore, I still have some seriously amazing friends here in the facility who will be there for me and hang out with me. We will be there for each other until we can free ourselves from this prison-like place and that's never going to go away. I'm not alone.
And I have a feeling that even after I leave this facility and go back home, I won't ever be alone again. (but not in a creepy way)
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Song: Stay By Your Side by Waterdeep
Picture: Author Spotlight cover
——————Author Spotlight——————
Title: Hide Your Fires
Author: BeMineInJuly
Genre: Teen Romance
Summary:
"Stars, hide your fires,
Let not light see my black and deep desires.
The eye wink at the hand, yet let that be
Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see."
- Shakespeare
People make mistakes. People break rules. People even break the law. Sure, we aren't perfect creatures but the thing about people is that we usually have pretty good reasons behind those bad decisions. And another thing about people is that they tend not to care about reasons as much as actions.
Hallie Rhodes has found this out the hard way. No, she's not proud of the decisions that she's made that may have put her at odds with the law, but she had her reasons. Not that anybody cares about reasons. The way Hallie saw it, she had no choice except to forge the documents to get herself and her two younger brothers out of an abusive foster home.
She has had a lot of tough breaks in her life. She's only eighteen but she already has custody of her two younger brothers and to make ends meet, she's taken on a full-time job along with balancing her senior year of high school. Strong, determined, and mature- Hallie is ready for whatever life throws at her.
Except for Tate Conner, who is the exact opposite of Hallie. Lazy, entitled, immature, and cocky. Fresh out of reform school and on parole, he is the epitome of a bad influence, which is why Hallie is outraged when she notices that her younger brother is starting to befriend Tate. As they continuously but heads, Hallie starts to wonder just how put-together she really is.