Troubled Thoughts and the Self-Esteem to Match

Bill

"Get the picture!" A hushed whisper giggled, breaking past the barriers of my sleeping mind. I was caught between awake and asleep, unable to pry my eyes open, until a quick burst of blindingly bright light flashed over me. My right eye cracked open, blurred from my sleep, but I could see three people beside the bed, clearly enough to identify them. Brendon and Danny stood directly before the bed, while Frank stood at the doorway, devious grins clinging to their faces.
'What the hell are you doing?' I questioned, but it didn't leave my throat, staying inside my head rather than actually being voiced. I shifted so that I could bring a hand up to rub my eyes, but felt the weight holding my arms down.
It was only then that I remembered where I was, and why they would be in the room laughing.

Damn. I shrugged Gabe's arm off of me to sit up, glaring at them as fiercely as possible. "Shit, run!" Danny screeched, ripping a camera from Brendon's hands. They all fled the room quickly upon my sudden animation, making sure to create plenty of noise.
"Please tell me there wasn't a camera in their hands..." Gabe groaned, startling me. "Unfortunately, yes." I sighed in return, brushing my hair from my face and smoothing it down. "Damn." He growled, before his eyes finally popped open, his dark pupils finding me. "G'morning, Amado." He smirked, not giving me time to reply before rolling over and standing. I shivered violently at the cold that attacked my body, ready to run to the showers and stand under the hottest water I could stand.
Gabe hurried out into the hall, returning a second later. "Get a move on. Forty-five minutes until breakfast." With that, he disappeared down the hall, bellowing "Where'd you fuckers go?"

I inched off of the mattress, the cold of the floor stinging against my feet, even through my socks. I let my eyes flick toward the barred window, taking in the sight of the early morning's whitewashed sky, matching the white of the snow on the ground.
I gathered my warmest change of clothes, including Gabe's coat I'd been wearing lately, the one with the faux fur on the hood, before ducking across the hall to the shower-room. No one was occupying them, so I tossed my fresh clothes on one bench, threw my dirty ones in the hamper, and hurried to the last stall as fast as possible, hating how my skin felt as cold as marble.
The shower head buzzed to life, spewing out steam-laced water, heaven to my skin. The warmth slowly sank into my bandages, stinging against my newest form of mutilation, but soothing in a way.
It was no sooner that I had my hair lathered in shampoo that I heard the door open. I peeked over the side to watch Gabe shuffle into the room, scratching his shoulder before he began pulling his shirt off.
I hated showering with someone else in the room, though I knew I should really get used to it. I returned my attention to my hair, rinsing the suds away and reached for the conditioner, stealing a fair amount from the bottle and smearing it into my brunette locks.

Another shower stall's water buzzed to life close by, followed by a loud whistle of some song that I probably didn't know.
I reached for the most appealing bottle of body wash and squirted it into my palm. It was freezing against my skin, but had a strong scent, possibly shea cocoa or something like that. Whatever it may have been, the smell captivated the air completely, and it wasn't long before Gabe spoke.
"Getting nice and dolled up over there, Guillermo?" He snickered as I guessed the smell made it's way all the way over to him. I automatically shrugged, then remembered that he couldn't see me. "Sure thing, Gabey." I responded, before washing all remains of anything from my hair and body. He was almost instantly laughing. "Gabey? Where'd that one come from?"
I wasn't even sure myself, but I didn't care to let him know that, so as an alternative, I retorted "Well, better than what Brendon called you the first day I came here."
This obviously sparked his interest, because he was instantly questioning "What did he call me?" I gave a tiny chuckle at the weird-ass nickname, only just thinking about how funny it was. "Saporta-potty." I practically giggled, listening to a loud scoff from his direction. "I hate when he calls me that. Where does he come up with that stuff anyways?"

I didn't have time to reply before the sound of the main door opening caught our attention. I peeked over the top of the shower door again, this time watching Travis enter the room. He must have expected it to be only me in here, because upon seeing the top of Gabe's head bobbing over his own stall, he gave a quick sigh. It didn't chase him off though. Rather, he came further into the room, leaning against one of the large mirrors close by.
"So, I heard about what the commotion was started by." He began, staring nowhere in particular, since neither of us in the showers were watching him in return.
"Why were you two sleeping together?" His voice hinted that he found it amusing, and upon glancing back over the door to him, I caught a tiny smirk.
I was taken aback a little bit when a bar of soap flew through the air, from Gabe's stall, hitting Travis directly in the face.
He jumped away from the wall to swipe at his eyes, screeching "Ahh! That got in my eyes!"
A loud snort of a laugh came from Gabe, I turning my head in the direction to spot him leaning his chin on the top of his door, watching Travis squirm in pain, rubbing frantically at his eyes. "And I was rubbing that all over myself."
A look of horror contorted Travis' face upon hearing this. "Eww!" He pulled at the collar of his shirt, pulling it up over mouth and nose to wipe his eyes.

"Gabe, that was mean!" I screeched toward him, sending a glare his way, though he didn't seem to notice. "And?" He retorted back, before going back to his own business. Travis seemed to recover, peering toward me with at least one irritated eye.
"I was really coming in here to tell you guys that Mr.Way said we were going to breakfast a little early, but now I think I'll go tell him not to let Gabe go, because he's mean."
If there was one thing I learned about Gabe, that was kind of obvious, was that he loved his food. "Sorry Kiddo, but I don't anything can stop me from getting to that lunchroom. My stomach is screaming at me." He hitched his voice to a lower tone, to add "It's like "Feeed meeeeeee!" It wasn't even remotely funny, but I found myself laughing at it; I guessed it wasn't so much what he was doing, but how dumb he sounded. Either way, it was nice to laugh without thinking about it.

"Hey, Travis, could you hand me a towel?" I inquired then, deciding that I should probably get out since I was already finished. He nodded, before parading over to the towel rack and plucking a blue one from the top of the stack. He crossed the room again, tossing the towel onto my door. "Thanks." I murmured. I turned, shutting the water off, then grasped the towel, wrapping it around my waist and reluctantly stepping out. The cold instantly attacked me again, causing a shiver to capture my muscles.
I made my way over to my clothes, pulling my underwear on without taking my towel off, followed by a pair of pants. It was only then that I pulled the towel off, using it to tousle my hair, trying to steal all excess water from it.
"Travis, get me a towel too." Gabe ordered, shutting his water off as well.
"Nope. You're mean, so you don't deserve a towel." Travis shot back, crossing his arms over his chest as if to say 'you're-not-the-boss-of-me'.

"Uhh, okay." Gabe wasn't particularly bothered by it, shaking his head back and forth wildly, like a dog when they were wet. I didn't have time to laugh at it before he slung his door open, stepping out in all his, uh.. Uncovered glory, you could say.
"Oh my God!" Travis yelped, throwing his hands up to clap over his eyes. "Gabe, that's gross!" He wailed, but I couldn't say he didn't ask for that with the last comment he'd made.
That's exactly what Gabe was doing too. He was using his actions to say 'You brought it on yourself.' "Oh, come on Trav. You know it's nice." He snickered, before darting across the space that split the two apart, throwing his arms around the ginger and lifting him so that his feet were dangling about three inches above the floor.
"Bill, help me!" He squealed frantically, slinging his arms around crazily. "Eww, he's naked and touching me, and I think I'm scarred for life. Bill!" He tried his best to pry Gabe's arms off of him, but it didn't work.
"Oh, come on! I'm trying to be the next Party-Boy. You gotta get used to it." He guffawed, relentless in torturing the poor boy.

The door flung open then, revealing a confused looking Danny. "Holy shit...Gabe?" His eyes bulged in surprise at the rather odd sight, before adding "I know he's cute and all, but don't you think you should ask before trying to sex my boyfriend up? I mean, I'll only say no if you don't have the money."
This pulled an overly loud laugh from Gabe, he finally dropping Trav back to his feet. The poor boy looked exactly like he'd said, scarred for life.
"Cover your stuff, man." Danny chuckled, before grabbing Trav by the arm. "You floppin' balls naked isn't exactly what I want to see right before breakfast." Without another word, the two left us alone, Gabe still laughing to himself about the whole ordeal.
"I agree with Danny." I mused, throwing a towel at him. He took it without objection, wrapping it around himself snugly.

By the time we were both out of the shower-room and waiting with the rest of the group, in the living room, I was shivering again, even though I had a coat on.
"Mr.Way! Come on!" Gabe whined from his spot, yelling it so loudly that Mr.Way was guaranteed to hear it from down the hall.
"Oh, quit whining, Gabe." He piped up, stepping into the room as well. "Because I have a nice surprise for you guys."
Gabe instantly perked up at the 'surprise' word. He wasn't the only one either. Frankie, who had been so wholly consumed by Bob's presence, looked up with a bright glimmer in his eyes. "Surprise? What is it?"
Mr.Way gave a mysterious smile, tapping a finger to his chin as if to show us that he was considering whether he should tell us or not. "Well, let's just say that my wonderful wife is bringing it up here as we speak." Gabe turned around on the couch, all but throwing himself over the couch, his upper half draped over it to stare at Mr.way.
"That doesn't tell me anything. She could be bringing anything, man. Just cut to the chase and tell me what we're talking here."
Mr.Way rolled his hazel eyes at Gabe's lack of willingness to play along, giving up. "She's stopping at Taco Bell or some place like that on her way up here and getting you something to eat." He explained, prodding a finger up to press it against his lips, shushing us. "But you're aren't supposed to know, so act surprised, okay?"
Gabe pushed the rest of his body over the couch, thudding against the floor, before crawling over to Mr.way, hugging his legs. "Mr.Way, you're my fucking hero, you know that?"

I don't know what it was about the sight that made me react the way it did, but for some reason, the whole 'throwing himself over the couch and clinging to our counselors legs' thing was the most hilarious thing I felt like I'd witnessed in years. I shocked myself just as much as anyone else in the room when I was overcome with violent, spastic laughter bubbling from deep within my stomach.
I couldn't stop laughing when all eyes rolled toward me, which was even weirder. My face hid behind my hands as I lost my breath, laughing so hard that I wasn't making so much as a sound.
"I think Guillermo's on drugs." Gabe mumbled just loud enough to hear, and it didn't help my situation one bit. Brendon was the first to join me in the laughter, making me feel less alone.
"Bill, what the hell's so funny?" Danny interrogated, sounding stunned that I could find so much humor in something that no one else seemed to see.
I managed to say something along the lines of "Gabe's such a dumbass." In a pitiful screech. For a stunningly long second, no one else seemed to move, but then all at once, they roared to life with me. Everyone was laughing, even Mr.Way, and Gabe, though he was the butt of the joke. It sounded amazing to me, like for just that tiny amount of time in our lives, none of us had so much as a single problem bogging us down, which made me feel something foreign. I felt almost content where I was for the time being, the laughing hurting my stomach, and my face, because I was so unaccustomed to it all.