Roger spent his days cooped up inside. The walls were white. Each day, a man with a notebook would come in for a talk. About the island. About coping. About being a good British boy. Like Roger had any interest in that. He just wanted to get out of there, away from the small white room with the man who smelled like bleach and the woman with the scissors who came every month to chop his hair short just as it was getting to a nice length.
The only thing they let grow were his fingernails, and he relished it, digging his fingernails into his palms until they bled, knowing that it was him who was causing the pain.
He was sure his fingernails would be the next thing to go.
(After all, they were sharp and with his violent impulses, he could cause some real damage.)
"He's a broken boy. Keep him locked away," Roger imagined them saying. "Before he hurts someone else."
He was allowed to have visiting time each week. Only once a week though, because with his violent impulses, they couldn't be sure what he would do.
The second week of every month, Jack Merridew came. Jack Merridew, with his red hair and choir uniform. Sweet Merridew, how could he kill anyone? He couldn't hurt a fly. The way he strode into the room, smiling and telling the nurse that he would be fine made Roger sick. Sick with envy and resentment and loyalty. How do you know I won't kill you too? The dark haired boy wanted to ask, wanted to see the grin slip right off of Jack Merridew's face. If I'm as much of a monster as they say I am, why not kill one more?
Jack told him about school. About choir recitals and teachers. There was the unspoken rule, though. No hunts, no brilliant, batty boys with dark hair, no pig heads on sticks, no island. No island. No island.
Maurice showed up the fourth week of the month, most of the time. He talked, and laughed, and hugged Roger even though he knew he hated it. But it was nice to know that someone was there. He usually came alone, but sometimes he dragged along Robert, who stood in the corner, wanting to be anywhere else, as far away from the beast as he could get. Maurice was a tad bit quieter than he was before the island, but not by much, and he had plenty of stories to tell. None of Jack though, and Roger presumed that the red-haired boy was more of an outcast than he had let on.
His parents came on the first and third weeks of each month. Roger had never been close with his parents, and his indifference had slowly turned to hatred since the island. Why should he be locked up here when he could be hunting, walking alone in the jungle? When Jack Merridew got to go free?
But his parents came during the first and third week of each month. They dragged in two chairs from the hallway and sat on those, talking at him, while Roger sat on the bed, or the floor, or hid under the bed, or paced.
They talked about how things were at home. "Oh, your sister just started school," and "We repainted the dining room". As if Roger gave a damn.
He dug his fingernails into his palms, not even pretending to care.
After the first few months, they stopped with the news of home, and started focusing on his recovery, on his reentry into society, as a well-adjusted and normal boy. As if he had ever been normal.
"Roger," his father was saying, as the boy paced back and forth, sat down on the bed, paced again, and then returned to his seat. "This has to stop." Roger glanced up as the man continued on talking, talking, talking. He saw his mother occasionally nod for emphasis.
"The pacing, the scratching, the screaming…" Roger frowned. So his father had hurt of his nightly rituals as the doctors and nurses tucked him into his bed at night. "They'll think you're batty."
Batty. Roger remembered a boy with dark hair, throwing a faint, batty and brilliant and brave. He was overcome with violent emotion, his heartbeat rising in his throat. He lunged forward, his fingers finding his father's neck as the two crashed to the floor. Roger heard his mother shrieking and calling for a doctor as his father struggled to get free. Her hands dug into his shoulders but he resisted, his eyes filling with excitement as he watched the grown man thrash. Roger's mouth was open, he knew, and he was screaming something, but he wasn't so sure of it, feeling his fingernails dig into his father's flesh.
He felts hands like claws perched on his shoulders, grasping his arms, dragging him off of his father. A doctor helped the man up, brushing him off, assuring him that the boy wasn't normally like this.
"Not a boy, a beast," the man professed, and him and his wife left.
They didn't come back half as often after that.
Roger screamed and screamed and screamed as the night came.
The next day, the man who smelled of bleach was back. "Rough night, was it?" he asked, all humor gone from his voice, being too used to these sorts of conversations.
Roger didn't answer, used to these sorts of conversations too.
The next thing the man said, however, made Roger pause.
"You were screaming last night, about a boy, named Simon," the man started. "Was that Simon Reed? One of the boys killed on the island?"
Roger didn't answer. What could he say? That he was sorry. That Simon was an accident. That he had watched as Simon's body was dragged out to sea and spent the night wandering, hoping the beast would just come and take him away. Only he knew there was no beast.
The boy sat in silence until the man left, and then, he wept. For Simon, for himself.
The tears only stopped as he saw a woman enter with clippers in her hand. She took away his fingernails, cutting them to the quick, and left as Roger threw a fit. That night he walked back and forth, biting at his already too short fingernails.
They took them away, just like they had his spear, and his hair, and his freedom, and Simon.
The next day the woman with the scissors came into to hack off his hair, which was just now reaching down the nape of his neck. He clenched his teeth and shut his eyes, not wanting to see the dark tufts that fell to the floor.
He wished he could dye his hair red… then they would have to let him go, because he would look like Jack Merridew and Jack Merridew could do no wrong.
Maybe he would ask her.
The first week of the month, Roger didn't expect to have a visitor, yet he had one. She was an older woman, and when he first saw her, he compared her to a sow. Like the ones he used to hunt.
She sat on the opposite side of the room from him and cried her eyes out, looking up at him ever so often, and Roger knew she had to be Piggy's aunt. He stayed silent through her sobs and pretended he wasn't feeling guilty. Pretending he didn't hate himself.
He spent a lot of time doing that lately.
Pretending he didn't hate himself.
Pretending he didn't regret killing Simon- even pretending he hadn't killed Simon at all. Piggy was a pain, but Roger supposed he hadn't deserved it either.
Pretending it was Jack's fault.
(Well it was. That he was here at all. He should be outside, in school, in choir. Anywhere but in this plain room with white walls and the man who smelled like bleach).
More than ever now, Roger dreamed of the island, of hunting, and pigs, and painting a mask over his face.
(Maybe if he painted his face now, they wouldn't recognize him.)
He dreamed of Jack and the hunters.
(Jack, who had been his friend. Who everyone feared, who was an outcast, who was all things bad- or at least that was what he had gathered from Maurice)
The second week of the month came, and so did Jack Merridew, all smiles. Roger greeted him quietly as they boy dragged in a chair, sitting down as the door shut behind him.
"Roger," Jack replied, and Roger looked now, with the eyes of a friend, reading Jack's face like he could before he ended up here, in the white-walled room with the man who smelled like bleach. He could tell something was bothering him, but looked down to his hands, waiting for the other boy to speak.
The silence continued for a few minutes and Roger knew that Jack had something to say, knew it was on the tip of his tongue. He was debating whether or not to say it, whatever it was, Roger observing, priding himself on his ability to read people. He had always been good at that.
(Not as good as Simon, but still pretty good.)
Roger wanted to get up and pace, but figuring that it wouldn't help the situation, substituted it by tapping his hands against the bed.
He glanced up at Jack just as he opened his mouth to speak. "Do you feel guilty about what happened to Simon?" Roger's eyes widened considerably. The one rule they had. No island. No island. No island. He broke it. Not that Jack had ever cared about the rules.
"Well… yes," Roger said quietly. "But that shouldn't matter, what's done is done." It was a lie, plain as day, but as he said it, he could see something dim in Jack's eyes, and the redhead's face fell. "What?" he asked, trying to gather signs by searching Jack's face.
"Everyday I think about that, Roger. It's been a year! And everyday… every night, the dreams." Roger nodded; he had them too. Visions of Piggy's brains washing over the rocks, the red streaking the sand, the sows-head put up on a stick.
"I have them too," Roger admitted, and Jack sighed.
"I guessed that much," the redhead said with a labored breath, as if the weight of the world was resting on his shoulders. Roger sent him a questioning look and Jack responded, "I messed up so many things. It's my fault you're locked up in here. I killed Simon. I killed Piggy. I burned down the island. I'm a beast… and I turned you into one, too."
Jack was looked down now, his head in his arms, and Roger could hear his muffled cries. It had been so easy to blame Jack before, but now that he was in front of him, so weak, crying, it became a lot harder.
"I killed Piggy," Roger spoke quietly, realizing only after he said it that it would do no good.
"That makes it worse," Jack said curtly, bitterly. "I'm older than you, I should've…I should've set a better example. I dragged you down with me, and… I'm sorry."
Roger laughed, more cackled actually, and shook his head. "Set an example? I've never been one to follow examples, Mr. Merridew."
"I'm just trying to apologize, okay? For screwing you up, for getting you locked up here, for the island."
The dark-haired boy was quiet. It was an apology, what he had wanted. Jack's grin was gone, and now he was slumped over in his chair, his head in his hands. "Fine. I accept your apology." The redhead looked up, seeming relieved.
"Thank you," he answered. "I'm glad someone does."
Roger gathered what he meant simply from all that he had heard from Maurice. Jack got up quickly, and Roger could see his face flushing without the paint to hide it.
"Well… I have to go, choir practice," he said, picking up the chair. Roger nodded, loneliness sinking into the pit of his stomach.
"Jack." The redhead turned to look back at Roger, who added quickly, "You should come visit more often. I've missed you."
Jack nodded, and offered a smile, which Roger sheepishly returned. "Of course," he said. "Goodbye." The dark-haired boy echoed him and then Jack was gone.
Roger got up from the bed, paced back and forth, and decided that he couldn't hate Jack forever.