Troubled Thoughts and the Self-Esteem to Match

Bill

"William?" Mr.Way poked his head out the door after a good fifteen minutes of me waiting impatiently, eyes landing on me. "Are you wanting to speak to him before we lock him up?" Obviously I did, otherwise I wouldn't be outside the door waiting. I had a good twenty minutes since the fight to let the anger simmer, building up inside of me. I'd told him not to do anything, dammit, and what did he do? Exactly the opposite of what I said, and now he was in big trouble. I nodded to Mr.Way and stood up, body sore from the beating I'd received earlier but I pushed that aside and took the couple steps to the door.
He stepped around me, holding the door open as I slipped inside, then closing it behind me. This was the ISO room? It just looked like our rooms, except more bare. The only thing even in here was a bed, which Gabe was slouched on. He knew I was about to bitch him out thoroughly.

I paused in front of the door, crossing my arms over my chest to keep my shaking hands from his line of vision whenever he was going to look up at me, if he planned to at all. I took a deep breath, remembering everything I wanted to say to him right now, but the first thing my voice managed to enunciate was a harsh, and very pissed off "Why did you fucking do that? I told you to leave it alone!" His head gyrated back and forth in response, his eyes still trained to the floor beneath his feet. "You don't understand, okay? I wasn't about to let that fucker get away with it again." He responded, voice ragged and exhausted sounding. Good. He deserved that much, at least.
"I won't understand? Understand what, Gabe? That you couldn't just sit back and do nothing or else that would make things too easy? That's bullshit!" I yelped, irate. This could have passed with ease, without it ending in him being in ISO, but no. No one listened to me.

"Listen, this has way fucking more to it than just what happened today, alright?" He bellowed back, pushing himself from the bed and standing his full height before stepping close. A nervous energy was practically oozing from his pores here in the room, his whole body looking very obviously tense. "I told him that I would kill him if he ever touched anyone on my turf again, and I couldn't just let him get away with that." His voice was laced with an indignant anger over the situation, near shaking with the intensity of what had happened, fueling him to continue. "You're on my turf. You're mine, Guillermo!" He belted out even louder than his voice previously reached, his hands lurching forward to latch onto my upper arms, jerking me closer to ensue an intent gaze between us before he felt he could continue. "You belong to me now, and that bastard hurt you. I can't just let that pass without a fight..Okay?"
What was I supposed to say at that moment? He seemed absolutely certain that his reasoning meant what he'd done was right; he thought he was protecting what was 'his', but what did that even mean? Apparently, I was his property to watch out for...Was I supposed to take that as a compliment, or feel like he shouldn't be tagging me as 'his turf' like I was some inanimate object?

A sigh bubbled past my lips and into the concrete air around us. "This guy needs to be kept in line like that, Guillermo. He's killed a person, you know? I can't let him think that he can do that to you, so I had to beat him as bad as I could before anyone interfered."
My eyes unintentionally split open wider as I stared back at him, processing this information anew. I was attacked by a killer and came out of the ordeal with nothing more than minimal damage. "Wait..." I murmured, remembering what he'd said maybe two minutes ago. "What did you mean by 'if he ever touched anyone on your turf again'? This has happened before?" It was his turn to pause in order to let a sigh escape him now, eyes shifting away from mine as soon as I asked this.
"Listen, the guy was put in here for gang violence and speculation of robbery, but two years ago, he and a guy that was in this block got into a fight and he beat my block-mate to death. It killed me because the guy that he killed was one of my friends, you know? So I told him that I would kill him if he ever touched anyone else on my turf...I had the mind to do just that tonight."

I felt kind of like an asshole now. I had no idea about any of this, so I hadn't done anything wrong by getting pissed at Gabe, but now that I knew the back story on this guy, it was different. What would have happened if he decided he wanted to kill me too? That thought was enough to scare me. "I didn't know..." was the only response I could come up with, though I felt that apologizing would be appropriate. "Well, now you do." He shot back, returning his gaze to my face again. "And I want you to do me a favor from now on. I don't want you going anywhere in this facility by yourself because now that he knows you're in my block, he'll more than likely come back after you again. He thinks of shit like this as a game, has basically no regard for other people's lives, and I have a feeling that he would try to get you just to spite me."

Hearing this sent an apprehensive tremor through my veins, thinking that I could be attacked by this guy again at any given time and finished off for real. I nodded in agreement to Gabe's request and opened my mouth to let him know I wasn't so pissed anymore when the door cracked open. "Okay William. Time's up." Mr.Way stated, ending the conversation for us. I took Gabe by surprise then, slipping my arms around him and squishing our bodies together in a tight hug to thank him. He returned the notion hesitantly, and the contact was comforting after what I'd been told in here, regardless of how much it hurt to have any pressure against my chest.

After breaking apart and plodding to the door, I turned to give a small wave, knowing it would be a day or two before I could see him again, a disheartening thought. I stepped out of the room and watched as Mr.Way locked him inside, his face secretly conveying that he didn't like Gabe being in the room any more than I did. "H-how long does he have to be in there?" I questioned after he straightened back to a normal stance, giving me a small, sympathetic smile. "Rules are that if you start a fight, you get three days in ISO."
That sucked so bad. I didn't want to wait three days to talk to him again. Maybe I would do like Travis did when Danny was put in ISO, and pass notes under the door. I didn't want to have to speak with him that way though. I slumped to my room afterward, deciding a hot shower was needed. I found a change of clothes to wear after and headed across the hall in pursuit of the shower room, but a sudden voice stopped me. "Oh, William! There you are." I turned to watch the nurse hurrying my way, heels clacking against the hard floor with an over-exaggerated amount of volume in the silent hall.

Upon reaching me, she handed me a small container that weighed approximately a pound. "Pour some of this in a hot bath-water and relax in it for a while. It will soothe and relax the sore muscles."
I thanked her profusely, willing to try anything in order to alleviate the pain hugging my body. I stepped into the shower-room and scouted out the only bathtub in the room, hidden in the corner between the shower stalls and sink counter. I hadn't used it before, and I didn't normally go for baths, but the idea sounded decent for the time being.

I left my change of clothes on the bench along with a towel, crossing the room to the bathtub. I made sure the stopper was in place before twisting the hot water faucet, followed by the cold. I made sure the water was as hot as I could stand it before removing myself from the rim of the tub that I was sitting on, rising to rid myself of the clothes I was wearing. I deposited them into the hamper and retrieved the container the nurse had given me, reading the directions in search of how much I was supposed to pour into the water. Doing as the fine print instructed, I poured the right amount of tiny crystalline pain relievers into the cap of the container and dumped it into the water, repeating this process as I was supposed to. As soon as the tub was filled, I turned the faucets off and stepped in, the heat burning my legs in such a way that I needed it to.

I sank into the water and laid back until all of my body below my shoulders was submerged. The heat of the water alone was soothing, but the therapeutic bath salt dissolved in the bath was working wonders though I hadn't expected it to. I wasn't sure if it was okay to get it in your eyes or not, but I slipped further into the water until my head was submerged too. Simply lying there, holding my breath under the water was numbing for not only my body but my mind as well, I staying that way until I couldn't starve myself of oxygen any longer.
Sitting up and breaking through the surface of the water, a deep gasp of air was sucked into my lungs in order to replenish my starved airways.

Gradually, I pulled my knees up closer to my chest and rested my face between them, letting my breaths fall normal again. It hurt to breathe after taking a kick to the ribs, but in a way, the pain was nothing new. I was used to hurting somehow or another. I reluctantly moved my face away from my knees, twisting enough that I could examine the damage done to my fragile skin. A splotch of discolored yellow and blue was beginning to paint my side, starting where the skin was stretched taut over the bottom rib and crawling up toward my arm. I twisted my right arm around over my torso and started prodding the discoloration with my fingertips; it hurt to such a degree that I had to clamp my lip between my teeth, but it was a habit. I sometimes had an unshakable need to prod at areas of my body that had been harmed, increasing the pain while I took to creating a map of the injured area. It may have just been my masochistic nature, but I believed that I did this to remind myself that I was still alive and fully capable of feeling very human sensations.

Not giving myself the ability to think on it before acting, I moved my fingers up to my left arm, finding the metal clasp holding the bandages in place. Pulling it from the gauze wrap and setting it on the edge of the tub, I watched as the end of the wrap nearest my wrist fell away from my skin, I beginning to unravel it. The scars stood out like embroidery, no better or no worse than they'd been the last time I removed the gauze from them.
By now, most of the lacerations were near healed, closer to scars now than cuts, but several were still sensitive and scabbed over. They were too deep and gaping to heal as easily as the others, and I imagined it would be another month or more before the skin finally started to seal back. I removed the gauze on my other arm and tossed the wraps on the floor beside the tub, scrutinizing the extent of how permanently mangled the skin was. I would have these forever, a thought of which I didn't like. Sure, I made them knowing exactly how bad they could look after they were healed, but mind you, I didn't expect to come out of the ordeal alive in the first place.

A sudden knock on the door sent a jolt in my posture, I sitting up straight and curling my arms around my legs to hide the mutilation. "Is it alright if I come in?" A voice emitted from the doorway, I not needing to turn around to know it was Travis. I relaxed the slightest degree; I wasn't too worried about him coming in here and seeing my arms as opposed to anyone else. I listened to his feet scuffling across the floor, muffled by his socks but still audible. "I thought I would come in here and check on you." He offered as he placed a seat on the edge of the tub. Of all people, he could understand why I'd been mad about Gabe picking that fight. After all, he went through somewhat of the same situation with Danny a while back. I knew he could see that I wasn't fuming anymore, but I was sure he could detect my sour mood that was attached to other thoughts.

"Wanna know a secret?" He uttered, his voice stooping lower as if it were top secret information that I couldn't live without hearing. "Sure." I replied, turning around to hug the side of the tub I'd been leaning on so I was fully turned toward him.
"Well...I was walking by the Secretary office and accidentally overheard Mr.Way talking to Ms.Dougan and apparently, that empty room by Ryan and Brendon's may be filled soon."

New block mates? I wasn't sure how to feel about the information. What block would they come from? What if they were actually bad and were in here for something like rape? I instantly banished the thought, shaking my head lightly at how ridiculous I was being. If I remembered correctly, I thought the same things when Danny and Travis were moving into our block, but they turned out to be great people, so who was to say these others wouldn't too? "Do you know anything about them?" I pressed, a thick curiosity blanketing my mind.
"Well, I heard that they're in block three right now. Maybe you've met them before when you went to see Chizzy." I doubted that. Every time I ever went to see Chizzy in his block, all of his block mates were in the living room or their rooms, while we stayed in his room. I'd caught sight of a few of them, but there was no telling if they were the ones that would be moving here.

"Anything else? Like, why they're being moved here or what they're here for?" I continued, brushing my soaked hair away from my face. He gave me a curious expression brought about by my incessant questioning, but answered regardless.
"I don't know what they're here for, but I heard Mr.Way say something about how there were a couple of boys being transferred here and the head of the facility wanted block three's councilor to work with them because it was his main field of study or something."

I didn't know how to feel about it. If we got more block mates, we wouldn't be the eight kids in block eight, but ten. That just didn't go together. Then there was the thought of having to get used to new people. I was just now settling down and feeling comfortable around my block, but throw in new people and I would have to get used to the balance of things again. I wasn't fond of change, obviously.
"But, you know, you can't believe anything about new transfers until it actually happens." He assured, somehow knowing that I didn't like the idea too much. "So, how many days did Gabe get?"
"Three." I sighed, slouching further into the water. It was already losing it's warmth, I knowing I wouldn't be able to sit in it much longer because of that.
"That sucks. I don't think I could go three days in that room or I would go insane." He mused aloud, I nodding in agreement. I had a feeling that Gabe knew the room quite well though, judging by how he'd been thrown in it three times since I'd came here.

I motioned for my towel on the bench and asked if he could hand it to me while pulling the stopper out of it's place to drain the water. He did as asked, handing me the towel and turning around so I could cover myself. I wrapped the material around myself snugly and stepped out of the water, the cold air drilling into my skin like the stingers of angry wasps. I would be happy if we could just get a little more warmth in these blocks.
"Well, everyone's in the living room right now. Some movie called Secret Window is about to come on in around ten minutes and Frank thinks we all need to watch it. I'll be in there waiting." He informed me with a shrug of his shoulders before disappearing out the door, leaving me alone again.

I didn't want to watch any movie right now, but I didn't want to be the little emo that hulled up in his room being anti-social. I hurried into my clothes and tousled my hair until there was no excess moisture in it, tossing the towel in the hamper and heading to the nurses office to get a fresh change of bandages before I joined them.