CHAPTER FOUR: Rose- What Next
Ebony stayed in the cafeteria with me to finish breakfast. What a blessing. I really needed someone to talk to. As much as it wasn't wanted, though, the conversation steered toward Skylar and how we hated her. We were all ready to think that she never got along with anybody else.
"She's almost like a princess," Amber had said the first day Skylar was here.
"A princess? That crazy kid?" I'd replied.
"Well, she really has that icy beauty to her," Amber had said back.
That might have been true, but even if a person is beautiful on the outside, it changes a lot when they're ugly inside. And poor Violet was the first to find out- the hard way.
I remember visiting her in the emergency room after she got kicked- I was the oldest, so Violet agreed to let me be her breathing coach during the delivery. Her poor, four-months-pregnant body pitifully poked up from under the blanket, and her weepy green eyes looked like they would waterfall any second. She looked like she was dying…
Fortunately, she and the baby would be okay, but Violet retreated further into her shell. She wouldn't talk to anyone except the doctors and us, and only to them if it was really necessary.
"She better have been telling the truth," I muttered again, looking down at my arms and legs. The scars had healed for the most part, but I knew they would always be there, just another cold reminder of my bitter, lie-filled past.
Suddenly I remembered that this was the first time in a month and a half that actually looked at my cuts- a new record, I thought sarcastically. And the Guinness honor goes to-
I shook my head. Forget about it. No honors would ever go to me again, no prizes, no awards, not even a stinkin' round of applause. I was washed up and finished, and only a few weeks short of eighteen.
How fitting, I thought, that I've suffered the fate that happens to most stars sooner or later. And were there any of them that got back up from the pit? I tried to remember, but my brain came up blank.
Ebony dropped her voice to a low, earnest tone, and said, "Frankly, I don't care what happens to the rest of us, I just want Violet out of here before she goes into labor. She deserves to be out more than any of us."
I nodded. Violet was the only one of us four who hadn't experienced a breakdown since entering Lakewood, if you didn't count the Skylar incident. Amber would wake up screaming when she had the nightmare about her father's death- she'd told us about it, and it was frightening indeed. Ebony would rage at any patient that appeared to be following her- a flashback to her stalker. And I'd cry like a baby after my grandparents left, having to be given a sedative every time, and an appointment with one of the BS therapists.
"Your crying is out of loneliness-" gee, tell me something I don't know- "and a regression to your younger days. An outpouring of emotion would result in your family paying attention to you, and you've stuck with it." Well, duh. I remember crying a lot after my parents "died," and every time a family holiday rolled around, I'd be sad that I was on Earth enjoying life, while my parents were supposedly stone cold dead in the ground somewhere in Maine.
A bank robbery. Of all the bloody things. So many questions were left unanswered. What was the money for? Whose idea was it? Did one of them actually not want to do it? Why couldn't they take me with them? Where did the money go? What would happen to them now?
After the initial capture and the entire media buzz surrounding it, I hadn't heard about my parents since. My grandparents never mentioned the case on their visits. Just as well.
But my ordeal seemed like a picnic compared to everyone else's agony. Nobody should've paid attention to me when I was suffering and bleeding backstage. I didn't need help. I didn't deserve it. Lock me up, throw away the key, and let me bleed…
Interrupting our thoughts, Dr. Engle, an older black psychologist who worked with Ebony, entered the cafeteria and headed toward our table. She looked up at him with a sort of dread.
"Miss Lalique?" Dr. Engle adjusted his glasses as he spoke. "As soon as you're finished breakfast, could you please come to my office? It will only take a few minutes." Before we could say anything, he turned around and left.
I put down my glass and looked Ebony in the face.
"Wow," I said. "Goodbye, Ebony."
She looked at me, face full of fear. "You really think this is it?" she asked.
"Have you ever seen Dr. Engle look so official?" I sighed and prevented oncoming tears. "Eb, the only other time I've had a premonition was when I first came here. I knew that when I got out- if I ever got out- I'd never see my grandparents again or live a normal life again. All the signs pointed to it. And now-" A pause to catch my breath- "I know this is your chance. That guy you shot, that was a freak occurrence, a result of stress, I doubt it'd ever happen again." Jeez, I was starting to sound like that BS therapist. A Jewish teen channeling Sigmeund Freud.
But this was actually making sense. Ebony's life had pretty much been normal until that guy started stalking her, and she snapped. Given her situation, I'd most likely do the same thing. I'm not saying it's right to take another person's life, but her actions were most likely justified. Like I said, one-time occurrence, it'd never happen again.
Ebony swallowed the last of her orange juice and crammed her last piece of toast in her mouth, quickly wiping the buttery crumbs away from her face. She chewed noisily as usual, then swallowed.
"I'm ready," she said, then quickly coughed and pounded on her chest. "Food went down the wrong way," she muttered.
"Just stay calm like you normally do," I offered.
She scoffed, "What's normal?" and headed out of the cafeteria.
Hmm. Ebony had a good point there. Just what was normal?
Oh, well. Once she was out of here, she would be fully accepted again. One down, three to go.
This was amazing. Skylar had actually told the truth for once. I wiped my mouth with a napkin and ran off to tell Amber and Violet the good news.
(To be continued...)
Ebony stayed in the cafeteria with me to finish breakfast. What a blessing. I really needed someone to talk to. As much as it wasn't wanted, though, the conversation steered toward Skylar and how we hated her. We were all ready to think that she never got along with anybody else.
"She's almost like a princess," Amber had said the first day Skylar was here.
"A princess? That crazy kid?" I'd replied.
"Well, she really has that icy beauty to her," Amber had said back.
That might have been true, but even if a person is beautiful on the outside, it changes a lot when they're ugly inside. And poor Violet was the first to find out- the hard way.
I remember visiting her in the emergency room after she got kicked- I was the oldest, so Violet agreed to let me be her breathing coach during the delivery. Her poor, four-months-pregnant body pitifully poked up from under the blanket, and her weepy green eyes looked like they would waterfall any second. She looked like she was dying…
Fortunately, she and the baby would be okay, but Violet retreated further into her shell. She wouldn't talk to anyone except the doctors and us, and only to them if it was really necessary.
"She better have been telling the truth," I muttered again, looking down at my arms and legs. The scars had healed for the most part, but I knew they would always be there, just another cold reminder of my bitter, lie-filled past.
Suddenly I remembered that this was the first time in a month and a half that actually looked at my cuts- a new record, I thought sarcastically. And the Guinness honor goes to-
I shook my head. Forget about it. No honors would ever go to me again, no prizes, no awards, not even a stinkin' round of applause. I was washed up and finished, and only a few weeks short of eighteen.
How fitting, I thought, that I've suffered the fate that happens to most stars sooner or later. And were there any of them that got back up from the pit? I tried to remember, but my brain came up blank.
Ebony dropped her voice to a low, earnest tone, and said, "Frankly, I don't care what happens to the rest of us, I just want Violet out of here before she goes into labor. She deserves to be out more than any of us."
I nodded. Violet was the only one of us four who hadn't experienced a breakdown since entering Lakewood, if you didn't count the Skylar incident. Amber would wake up screaming when she had the nightmare about her father's death- she'd told us about it, and it was frightening indeed. Ebony would rage at any patient that appeared to be following her- a flashback to her stalker. And I'd cry like a baby after my grandparents left, having to be given a sedative every time, and an appointment with one of the BS therapists.
"Your crying is out of loneliness-" gee, tell me something I don't know- "and a regression to your younger days. An outpouring of emotion would result in your family paying attention to you, and you've stuck with it." Well, duh. I remember crying a lot after my parents "died," and every time a family holiday rolled around, I'd be sad that I was on Earth enjoying life, while my parents were supposedly stone cold dead in the ground somewhere in Maine.
A bank robbery. Of all the bloody things. So many questions were left unanswered. What was the money for? Whose idea was it? Did one of them actually not want to do it? Why couldn't they take me with them? Where did the money go? What would happen to them now?
After the initial capture and the entire media buzz surrounding it, I hadn't heard about my parents since. My grandparents never mentioned the case on their visits. Just as well.
But my ordeal seemed like a picnic compared to everyone else's agony. Nobody should've paid attention to me when I was suffering and bleeding backstage. I didn't need help. I didn't deserve it. Lock me up, throw away the key, and let me bleed…
Interrupting our thoughts, Dr. Engle, an older black psychologist who worked with Ebony, entered the cafeteria and headed toward our table. She looked up at him with a sort of dread.
"Miss Lalique?" Dr. Engle adjusted his glasses as he spoke. "As soon as you're finished breakfast, could you please come to my office? It will only take a few minutes." Before we could say anything, he turned around and left.
I put down my glass and looked Ebony in the face.
"Wow," I said. "Goodbye, Ebony."
She looked at me, face full of fear. "You really think this is it?" she asked.
"Have you ever seen Dr. Engle look so official?" I sighed and prevented oncoming tears. "Eb, the only other time I've had a premonition was when I first came here. I knew that when I got out- if I ever got out- I'd never see my grandparents again or live a normal life again. All the signs pointed to it. And now-" A pause to catch my breath- "I know this is your chance. That guy you shot, that was a freak occurrence, a result of stress, I doubt it'd ever happen again." Jeez, I was starting to sound like that BS therapist. A Jewish teen channeling Sigmeund Freud.
But this was actually making sense. Ebony's life had pretty much been normal until that guy started stalking her, and she snapped. Given her situation, I'd most likely do the same thing. I'm not saying it's right to take another person's life, but her actions were most likely justified. Like I said, one-time occurrence, it'd never happen again.
Ebony swallowed the last of her orange juice and crammed her last piece of toast in her mouth, quickly wiping the buttery crumbs away from her face. She chewed noisily as usual, then swallowed.
"I'm ready," she said, then quickly coughed and pounded on her chest. "Food went down the wrong way," she muttered.
"Just stay calm like you normally do," I offered.
She scoffed, "What's normal?" and headed out of the cafeteria.
Hmm. Ebony had a good point there. Just what was normal?
Oh, well. Once she was out of here, she would be fully accepted again. One down, three to go.
This was amazing. Skylar had actually told the truth for once. I wiped my mouth with a napkin and ran off to tell Amber and Violet the good news.
(To be continued...)