Death is Black and White

Powder pink walls and no windows except for the wall behind my bed and it faces an employee parking lot. No roommate. No sharp objects and no electronics. No pencils. No paper. 

"Do you have a sharpie marker?" I ask the nurse when she comes to check on me. 

"Why?" 

Why the hell not? I want to scream. "Because I like to draw and you won't give me a pencil. So can I have a sharpie marker?" 

"Why don't you go to the lounge?" she asks me again. 

Because it's filled with a bunch of psychotic emos. "Can't I just have a sharpie?" 

"What would you draw on?" She really wants me to go to the lounge. They want everyone to go to the lounge and watch Keeping Up With the Kardashians and laugh it up and be best buddies, so much that we'll stop cutting ourselves and hating ourselves and hating them and the world and knives. 

"I don't know, my arm or something." 

She gives me a look. I sigh. "It's better than cutting myself, wouldn't you think?" I sneer at her. 

She stands up a little straighter, a little taller as if maybe she's making a difference. "Here," she says. "How about you go to the lounge and I'll see if I can find one around here." 

I purse my lips. "Fine." 

I've been here for three weeks and I haven't talked to anyone once. My parents said I would only have to stay for two, but oh look! I'm still here. Looks like they forgot to pick up their kid from daycare. 

The lounge consists of three card tables in the corner, an L shaped couch and a flat screened tv on the wall playing-- you guessed it-- some variation of the Kardashians. At first I just stand in the doorway, trying to find someone who slightly resembles Sam. 

There's a tall girl in the corner with crimped blonde hair and big lips. Her eyes are wide, with sparkly blue eyeliner around her lash line. She's wearing a Tshirt and black yoga pants, which show off her stick thin legs. She looks sickly skinny. 

She's sitting with a guy with closely shaved hair and green eyes, and they're laughing about something, doing some weird imitation of something. 

There's a pale guy on the couch counting the scars on his hands. There's a blank look on his face that shows he doesn't want to be here as much as I do. 

At one of the card tables sits a group of short girls with flat hair and eyelashes that look like black spider legs and Hollister sweatshirts and painted nails. 

One sees me and smiles. She gets  up and one of the legs of her pants raises up and exposes a puffy and scarred ankle. I cringe and put my hand on my left arm. 

"Hey," the girl says in a low voice. "I'm Alyssa, but call me Lissi. You should come sit with our group." 

I blink a couple of times then follow without a word. I hate her already. We walk to the card table where her friends' eyes are glued to the Tv. 

"See," one of them says, "I knew Kim didn't get those butt enhancers!" 

Another snorts. "But it's just not possible to have such a tight ass without help!" 

The last girl shrugs. "Well she is a supermodel. What do you expect? She's in the gym all the time. Remember that episode when she..." 

Lissi coughs and the girls look up. "Girlssss," she draws out the s. "This is...erm. What's your name?" 

"Lydia," I say monotonously. 

"Ooh, pretty!" one girl says. She has split ends and a high squeaky voice. 

I nod and press my lips together. 

"That's Amy," Lissi points to the squeaky voiced girl. Then she points to a girl with red, chin-length hair and freckles. "That's Chelsea, and that's Bridget." Bridget has thick brown hair with blonde highlights. 

But they all have the same look on their eyes. 

"You look familiar," Bridget points out. "Have you been here before?" 

"I've been here for three weeks." 

They all nod. "Do you like this show?" Amy asks. I try to keep the annoyed look off my face and paste a fake smile on my face. "I, like, live for it." 

I just nod. 

Lissi pulls out a chair and I sit down hesitantly. They all stare at me like I'm a piece of chocolate cake that they wouldn't dare eat because of all the calories. 

"So did you hear about the new kid, Tristan?" Amy leans in towards the center of the table and the other girls follow her example. She points to the guy on the couch.

"Oh my god, no! What's he in for?" Lissi whispers. 

"They found him in his basement, passed out after swallowing a bottle of ibuprofen!" They all giggle with each other as if they're normal and he's a freak. But there's no normal people in rehab.

I glance over at the guy on the couch, he lifts his head. I think he can hear us...but the girls don't notice. I stare at my hands.  

"So we know like everything about everyone here," Lissi tells me after a while. "Except for you. So what landed you in this lovely hellhole?" 

I laugh and push my chair back. "None of your lovely business," I imitate them. 

They draw back, looking offended. "We didn't mean it to be like that," Lissi says. 

"Yeah," Bridget says. "we didn't mean to offend you..." 

I roll my eyes and push my sleeve back, holding my arm out for the girls to see. "Too late," I say, and take a seat on the couch next to Tristan. 

He doesn't look up at me, he just keeps counting his scars for two more hours until I get up and go to my room with one window behind my bed. 

There's a sharpie on my pillow. 

I uncap it and stand on my bed. Instead of writing on my hand of my arm, I draw a tree on the window. Maybe, me being the little shit that i am, my parents will get billed extra for me vandalizing. I draw a lake and a sunset and house and a little girl. 

And I stare at it for a long time, gears clicking in my brain. I drop the sharpie and fall on the bed. 

"She's everywhere," I moan. 

Lotty's giggle resonates in my mind.