Through the Vines
For some odd reason she always felt this way after seeing what she'd seen. She couldn't understand why she always felt like this. It used to not bother her as much. But now, as she got older, it caused so much damage to her sanity. Not many people saw how much she needed a friend, but this one boy did. Just this once, I thought, let her have a friend.
Many years had gone by since her friend had fallen into depression, and only a few years have passed since her friend did the worst to escape her problems. Her parents couldn't handle her hiding in her room all. They tried so many different ways to get her to go out and make new friends, but they never tried talking to her about it. After a year of her hiding in her room and avoiding people her parents moved her to floor thirteen.
Night held heavily on the windows and walls of Bowhealwell. It was not only the shroud, suffocating, thickness of the fog the drove the patients to their beds early that night, but it was Hermione Granger having another of her horrible nightmares. The nurses gave her medicine to help her sleep peacefully, though it didn't really work. She had a reputation for not sleeping. She could be found sleep walking, or lying awake in bed at any given hour.
In the morning when the nurse went to wake her up she found Hermione sitting up in bed staring at the boy sitting in the chair next to the iced over windows from the freezing fog outside. The boy was called Malfoy. When the police brought him in there weren't any family members to claim him and he didn't have any identification. The nurse nearly screamed when she saw him.
"Doctor!" The nurse screamed as she flew from of the room. Hermione and Malfoy looked out the door waiting for the Doctor and the nurse to come in. When neither the doctor nor the nurse came back to the room Malfoy turned his head and stared at Jack. No one really knew what was wrong with him. He didn't talk to anyone, never smiled, never made any attempt and communication. His eyes were empty.
When Hermione returned her gaze to Malfoy, he smiled a simple smile. Smiling seemed to suit him much better then the abnormal, yet usual deadpan expression he always wore. He had strong facial features with high cheekbones. His hair was a dark wavy brown. It was short. The broad shoulders enunciated how small he was. His attitude didn't fit him.
It seemed to take longer then it normally did for the nurse to arrive with the doctor. Malfoy wiped the smile off his face before they even caught a glimpse of a muscle twitch. Dr. Andaman looked between them both. With a thoughtful expression dancing upon his face he whispered something out of the corner of his mouth to the nurse who looked taken aback as though he had authorized a double on Jacks medication.
"Malfoy, come on." The doctor tried to convince Malfoy to leave Jacks room but he couldn't. After thirty minutes he called for physical force. Malfoy was locked in his room until lunch that day.
When breakfast came a few days later nurse Sarah took Hermione to the eating room. Hermione spotted Malfoy before nurse Sarah did. By the time Hermione was close enough to touch Malfoy nurse Sarah was pulling her away from him. Nurse Sarah sat Hermione on the opposite side of the room. Malfoy almost turned around but someone sat down in front of him catching his attention. It was Aaron, Jacks neighbor.
Nurse Sarah grabbed a trey from the bar and sat down in front of Jack. She used to be allowed to eat by herself, but ever since they found Malfoy in her room she wasn't left alone. It was obnoxious.
Hermione was allowed to go outside after breakfast for two hours a day. She always sat on the wooden bench near the sidewalk.
The backyard to Bowhealwell was actually quite nice. There were many trees. The area was fenced in and they had nearly no escapees.
Jacks eyes wandered to the trees. Malfoy was climbing out over a few bushes. He stopped when Hermione spotted him. She stood up from her bench and followed him into the small forest. She stayed a few feet behind him. Not because she was scared, she just didn't want to speed up. He came to a stop at a fallen tree and straddled it. After he was comfortable, he leaned forward and lightly tapped a spot directly in front of him. She sat.
Several seconds of thick silence passed. Malfoy lightly booted her foot. Jacks cheek twitched in yearning for a long overdue smile. With the suppression she'd grown accustomed to she hid her smile and let her foot swing about until it settled against the side of the tree.
The calm, simple smile of enjoying some ones company danced behind Malfoys eyes.
Malfoy and Hermione met outside in the trees every day. They had grown so east with each other, that was, until one day.
"Why are you in here?" Malfoy had asked her. Hermione looked up surprised. She'd never heard his voice. She sat silent for half an hour.
With a raspy voice, she began, "I watched,..." she coughed a few times to help clear her throat. "I watched my friend,... My friend had a rough life. Her parents were drunks, her brother had killed himself because he was always getting beaten. And one day, she couldn't take it anymore. She grabbed a gun from her dads closet and,... She stuck the gun in her mouth and shot her self." Hermione shuttered as she wiped a tear away as memories flashed behind her eyes.
You may ask what happened to Hermione, but that's another story all together.