When Usagi throws the door open to her room she doesn't expect her roommate, who'd been absent up until then, to be sitting cross-legged on her bed flipping through a magazine. The blonde freezes, trapped under the intense violet-eyed gaze of the girl, until she turns back to her magazine.
"You must be Tsukino Usagi. The nurse left your CD player on your bed." Her delicate, porcelain hued hand flips to the next page, which she scans briefly before adding, "I'm Rei Hino. I won't bother you if you don't bother me."
Perfect, Usagi thinks, scooping up her CD player and flopping down on her bed. The sharp crinkle reminds her of the plastic sheet below her regular one, and she briefly wonders if they actually have a problem with patients and bed wetting. Allowing herself to relax as much as possible, under the circumstances, she closes her eyes and lets the music from her headphones drift through her head until she dozes off.
Unpleasantly, she wakes to silence and a flashlight beam directly in her face. A moment later the light leaves and the door to the room closes, leaving her vision swimming with dots for several minutes afterwards. Startling her further, she hears a voice to her right say, "Checks, to make sure you don't sneak out. Since you're new and all. Over time, they check less and less."
Usagi turns her head towards Rei's bed, removing her headphones which have her ears aching, since they've been in so long. Her vision is still dotty, but she can see Rei's violet eyes almost glowing in the dimly moonlit room. Before she can think she's asking, "How long have you been here?"
Rei looks momentarily furious, but she pauses. As if realizing she brought the question on herself, she replies calmly, "Four months, in and out. Borderline personality, they call it. Sometimes I just snap without warning."
For an instant, Usagi wishes she had Minako's guide to the types of crazy, but instead she chances inquiry, "What does Borderline mean, exactly?" She waits, expecting the raven haired girl to get upset again, but she only ponders a moment.
"Well, according to the Cures' handbook, 'emotional instability, lack of impulse control, outbursts of violence or threatening behavior are common,' things like that. Of course, they also throw in nice perks like a flair for getting involved in intense, unstable relationships and repeated emotional crises." Rei smirks in a sardonic way, and Usagi smiles uncertainly back. "I guess you don't have a label yet, being a newbie."
"No, but I'm sure the therapist will be happy to provide me with one tomorrow. Then I can be a part of Minako's name and rank game." Usagi grins over at Rei, who, to her own surprise, chuckles.
"Good night, Usagi."
"Good night, Rei."
xXx
Usagi stares across the visitor's room table yet again, into her father's eyes. It isn't dear old dad who stares back, however, but her younger brother Shingo. He is her half brother to be exact, because Shingo and Usagi Tsukino were born from different mothers. When he finally speaks, his voice rings out deeper than Usagi remembers it being.
"I don't understand you, Odango. You know you could've come home. You could've called me anytime." He sounds so sincere and so sorrowful, she almost feels badly for him. For a second or two, she feels terrible that Shingo has to have such an awful sister like her and a dreadful father like they both have. Then, as always, Usagi remembers that Shingo has something she never did. Shingo has his mother.
"Don't make it sound so easy, Shingo. It's not like you would have had time to listen to poor older sister's problems. You were probably grocery shopping for your mother, anyway," the bitter tone reverberates through Usagi's words as she speaks, and Shingo's fists clench in his lap, under the sea foam tabletop. He can't contain all his anger when he meets eyes with his sister again.
"You know, Odango, I try the best that I can but sometimes I think...you just don't want to be helped. All those times your things disappeared, that was me you know. But no matter how many times I flushed the pills down the toilet there would always be more there later. I can't do it anymore, you have to help yourself." Shingo stands, and turns to leave her in the same way she left her father the day before.
Her eyes fill with tears, because more than anyone Shingo had always been there for her. No matter how many times she came stumbling through the door in the late hours of the night, when her father wasn't even home, the dirty blonde boy would come padding out of his bedroom sleepily. He'd take her coat off, walk her to her bed and settle her in to sleep. There would always be aspirin and a glass of water on her bedside table the next morning.
"I wish you would've been born a little earlier, Shingo," he pauses at the door, turning to consider her once more. She had bowed her head, but she lifts it again to look him in the eyes, and his breath catches. He'd never seen his older sister cry. "Maybe you would've been there in time to save me."
Shingo feels his throat tighten painfully, and he exits the room quickly. His mother is waiting in the lobby. Usagi swipes angrily at her eyes and stands, just before a nurse walks in and beckons her to follow. "It's time for your therapy session, sweetheart."
"Don't call me that." Usagi snaps, the image of her four year old self filling her mind again, her father's office door slamming down the hall. Apparently working in a mental institution is a little desensitizing, for the nurse is unfazed and continues to lead her to the therapist's office. When she walks in, and sees the therapist, her first inclination is to turn on her heel and walk out.
The resident loony bin therapist is a male, no older than thirty-five. He has dark hair that falls in one of his eyes and not the other, and a pair of eyes so piercing that Usagi can't look at them long enough to determine a color. The brief glances suggest a grayish shade. Just being in the room, in the presence of the person in front of her, reminds her of being a little kid again with her father looking solemnly down at her.
Her blue eyes flicker over his name plate; it reads Hatori Sohma. The nurse that brought her to the office closes the door and leaves, abandoning Usagi all together. Hatori leans back in his chair, bringing his fingertips together, and the whole time his eyes stay glued to the short blonde girl standing at the door. "Come. Sit down."
Obediently, Usagi sits in the chair opposite Hatori but still doesn't look at him. He must know he has this effect, for he finally averts his gaze to the manila folder sitting before him and flips through the papers with indifference. A bit of apprehension lifts from Usagi and she glances around the office, bored. Everything is tidy and professional, no personal belongings except for one picture frame sitting innocently on the desk.
"You have a pretty wife," the words don't come out timid like she thought they would. Though Hatori has an intimidating presence, he isn't her father. She isn't afraid. Hatori follows her gaze to the photograph and turns it to face the other direction.
"She isn't my wife. We no longer speak with each other."
"That's unfortunate. Is there a reason for that?" For all she's worth Usagi appears genuinely curious, perhaps even concerned at the somewhat melancholy shade his eyes take on when he glances at the woman. It touches the part of her that nurses the picture on her bedside table, the part that is holding on to a memory too close to her heart to let go. Hatori isn't baited by the question and sends her a piercing gaze across the desk between them.
"We're here to talk about you, not me." Usagi leans back into her chair, her curiosity piqued at the dodged question, and shrugs offhandedly. There's another moment's silence where Hatori finishes skimming the folder and she watches him.
"I wonder, do therapists ever seek therapy or do they live under the illusion that they are above such help?" The question isn't exactly rhetorical but Hatori apparently takes it that way, because he doesn't even pause to ponder a response. He finally closes the folder and turns full attention to the blonde in the chair across from him. Usagi fidgets.
"This is your first time in a mental institution. You've been accused of drug use on multiple accounts but never charged, expelled from two different schools, and were once on antidepressants," he states blandly.
"Is this some sort of therapy strategy they teach you in college? It's really doing nothing to make me feel better," Usagi hides her emotions behind her scowl, which she aims at the wall instead of the source of her anger. Hatori doesn't respond to this either, and lets the subsequent silence linger for a full minute. Then, he crosses his arms in front of him and leans his weight into the desk, sending another intense look at her.
"How'd you get into the drugs, Usagi?" The responding flinch is very noticeable, as though the words physically struck her, but Usagi knows why it hurts. She never chose to do drugs in the first place, but who could believe that? What credibility did she hold in any person's view? Her eyes slowly close and her mind drifts back, to the very first time she used.
Flashback
Usagi enters the party arm in arm with her best friend, Naru, both of them still flushed from the chilly night air outside. The music is incredibly loud, but it fazes neither of them as they mingle with the mass of people on the dance floor. Soon the party thrower, a popular girl from their school named Hana, finds them and pulls them to the side.
"I thought you guys weren't coming. Would you like something to drink? Guaranteed to loosen you up," Hana offers a wink, and Usagi turns to her friend for confirmation only to find she's already wandered off into the crowd. Hesitating only a moment, Usagi nods and waits by the wall while Hana goes to the kitchen. The blue eyed girl observes the huge house, nearly a mansion by any means, and thinks how lucky Hana is to have rich parents who let her have parties like this in the house.
"Coke is alright, right?" Usagi nods to the brunette girl at her side and takes the cup of still fizzing soda from her hand. Slowly, with Hana still watching her, she takes a sip, and then a gulp, and then downs the rest of the drink. When she lowers it, her face contorts. For a soda, it has a strangely bitter taste. Hana is still looking at her, a Cheshire grin stretched over her lips, waiting.
Suddenly, it happens, violently and unexpected like a train wreck. The whole room lurches, and shifts colorfully like Usagi's looking at it through a kaleidoscope. Hana is tugging her arm and they're suddenly in the middle of the dance floor, spinning and laughing. Nothing has ever been so funny, or so beautiful.
"Usagi, look out!" Bright white light fills her vision momentarily. An arm jerks her backwards, and she lands hard on concrete. Looking around, she realizes she is on the sidewalk, outside. Her best friend, Naru, is fallen beside her and panting heavily. In front of her, a red car has stopped and a stunned, horrified woman is just stepping from the driver's seat. How did she get outside?
Looking down, her white dress is now decorated with red splotches, and her whole body starts to shake. Usagi is covered in blood, Hana's blood that is now pooling rapidly under her mangled body. The brunette girl had been thrown several feet forward by the impact and it was clear that she could no longer be alive. That's when the shadows start. They swallow Hana into the street and start to move toward her.
Usagi screams as her body goes into convulsions, and a horrified Naru can do nothing but watch. When the police officers deliver Usagi to her home later that night, dazed and wrapped in a blanket, they explain to Kenji Tsukino that both girls were assumed to be high on LSD. They found stashes of it all over the kitchen and Usagi was having a hallucinogenic episode when paramedics arrived at the house.
End Flashback
Usagi considers telling Hatori this story, or about the kids at school that accused her of killing Hana, that caused the fights that led to her expulsion. She thinks about telling him of Hana's friends that held her down and fed her speed pills until she had to be rushed to the emergency room to get her stomach pumped, and after that there was no stopping her addiction. Usagi tells all these stories to people, but no one ever believes her.
An hour passes by in complete silence, with Hatori staring her down the whole time, simply waiting for an answer. When the hour is gone, he opens a drawer in his desk and puts her folder away. "You haven't answered my question yet. I'll ask the question again at the beginning of tomorrow's session, in case you forget it. This will repeat until you provide me with an answer. Have a good day, Usagi."
xXx
Usagi ventures out to the patio, into the fenced in 'outside area' to catch a breath of fresh air. In this square patch of land there's a volleyball net, and three picnic tables in a row lining the building's outside wall. The grass is a dreary, dead brown color and is probably, by the looks of it, never watered. Minako is the only other person outside at the moment, and Usagi takes an edgy seat beside her.
"Look, Minako, I'm sorry about yesterday. I'm just a little freaked out to be in this place." Minako sends her a sideways glance, before smiling. Though the expression never reaches her eyes, there is a hint of understanding there.
"It's okay. I didn't know you were a first timer. I was scared too the first time I was sent to one of these places, but the people here are more normal than you think." Minako chuckles at the idea of normal people in a mental institution, and Usagi joins in the humor halfheartedly. They share a comfortable silence, in which Minako draws out a pack of cigarettes and offers one to Usagi, who declines.
"I'm not fond of the taste, but it helps keep the weight off." The other blonde explains, drawing out a lighter and lighting her cigarette. Usagi is surprised to see the lighter, since her own hairdryer is forbidden, but she doesn't question it. Instead she takes in the structure of Minako's face and, timidly, decides to ask the question she'd been pondering since yesterday.
"You're so pretty, Minako, how did you get into, you know, bulimia?" Her face flushes lightly, but Minako doesn't do anything to make her feel uncomfortable. She flicks the ashes from the tip of her cigarette before answering.
"Modeling. When I first got into the business, everything was fine, but the more popular I got, the more I was pressured to lose weight. Five pounds here or there, you know, even though I was never the least bit chubby. It got to the point were the stress was too much, and the dieting and exercise just wasn't working fast enough. Once you start, it becomes something like an addiction, I guess." Usagi nods like she understands, though she isn't sure she does, and Minako turns to look at her again. "So, why are you here?"
"I don't know. Well, I do, but I don't. Overdose I suppose would be the official reason I was Baker Acted (1) and forced to come here, but my life has been a mess ever since I was born." Usagi pauses, and considers telling Minako the stories. For some reason she knows the girl beside her will believe her, but instead she stays quiet. Once Minako finishes her cigarette, she puts it out and the two of them walk back inside.
xXx
(1) Baker Acted: A person can be taken to a receiving facility for an involuntary examination if there is reason to believe that he or she is mentally ill and because of his or her mental illness has refused an exam or is unable to determine whether an exam is necessary. Persons can be "Baker Acted" if they are a serious danger to self or others, or if they are likely to suffer from neglect or harm if current behavior continues. I think Baker Act is the term used in Florida, where I live, but I applied it here since I don't really know what else to call it.
Well, as per usual the story is AU and Usagi is terribly out of character. x-x; I apologize for the sloppiness of last chapter. Half way through writing it I got the sudden urge to narrate in the present tense and ended up making a huge mess of things. This is my first time writing a story in this format so I apologize for the mistakes I'm bound to make. I'll have to reread more carefully now.
Egad, I actually have time! I'm going to go write some review replies, and write a decent summary, so maybe more people will consider reading this. Also, just to make things clear, Usagi is in a mental institution as opposed to a rehab center. There's quite a difference, especially when it comes to freedoms. Once a person is placed in a mental institution, especially as a result of 'Baker Acting,' their rights are completely taken away. They aren't allowed off of the grounds either until they're released.
Also, it's a lot different from an insane asylum where the people, I believe, are confined to a room most of if not all of the time. There are solitary confinement rooms in mental institutions, but they're only used when patients are acting in a way that might harm themselves or others. And that's all for now...
♥SachiNyoko♥