Institutionalized

First thing in the morning, I was introduced to my roommate.

Or rather, she introduced herself in a rather abrupt manner.

I woke up, feeling much better after a night of crying, with the Charmander toy still in my hands, to find myself face-to-face with the greenest eyes I had ever seen in my life. The face they were attached to was startlingly pale, which provided an even greater contrast to the dark circles underneath the eyes and her red-pink lips. Two uneven, golden-blonde pigtails dangled on either side of her face. All in all, she was pretty, if a little psychotic-looking.

I took in a deep breath sharply and my eyes shot open. “Shit!” I cried, sitting up quickly and almost colliding foreheads with the girl.

A slender, black-nailed hand rose up to cover her mouth. She blushed slightly at my language. “A lady doesn’t swear,” she chided, stepping off of the bed. “But I suppose that isn’t any of my business. However, seeing as we’ll be in such close proximity to each other, I think you should try to control your—“

“Hang on,” I interjected, “who are you?”

She spun around, which caused her long black skirt to flutter around her. “Me? I’m your roommate. My name is Trinity Marshall. You’re a really heavy sleeper, did you know that?”

I tilted my head to the side. “How…did you figure that out?”

She smiled and picked up the violin on the dresser. “Well, because you slept through my midnight recital! Usually my roommates wake up before my bow even touches the strings, but you! You slept through the whole thing! You didn’t even wake up during the crescendo of my newest masterpiece!”

I blinked. “So you didn’t, like, rape me or anything?”

She let out a loud bark of laughter and began spinning around the room. “A rapist? Moi? No, no, no. Absolutely not.” She stopped her frenzied twirling to stare intently at me. “Why, did you want me to rape you? Because if you did, I’d be happy to oblige.”

“Uh, no thanks.”

“Well, that’s good. Because if you wanted it, then it wouldn’t be a proper rape.” She giggled a little at this statement, and I just stared at her. She set the violin back down on the dresser and looked long and hard at me with a serious expression on her face.

“Why weren’t you at dinner last night?” she inquired.

“Huh?”

“Dinner. It’s served every evening in the cafeteria at 6:30. The food is rather tasty. Everyone was talking about the new girl, and Kevin, Rachelle and I were so looking forward to meeting you. Why didn’t you show up to eat?”

I looked down at my lap and stared at my hands. This was like Dr. Lowenstein’s interrogation all over again, except at least Dr. Lowenstein was sane.

“I was tired. It was a pretty long drive from my place to here,” I muttered, as if that explained everything.

She nodded and spun around some more. “Of course, of course!” She stopped mid-twirl and looked at me seriously. “But dinner would have fixed that. You know, a little food in your system would have helped out a lot. Nutrients and all that.” She glided over to my bedside and knelt down so we were face-to-face once again. She propped her chin up on her hand.

“So are the rumors about you true?” she whispered. Then she straightened herself out abruptly with a small gasp. “Oh, please don’t feel obliged to answer that—I’m so sorry, it’s terribly rude to gossip, what a horrible thing to do to my new roommate...by the way, dearie, you haven’t told me your name.”

“Oh. Uh, don’t mention it. It’s no big deal. My name’s Lilly Finnegan. Nice to meet you.” I extended my hand, hoping this girl wasn’t so weird that she wouldn’t know what a handshake was.

“The pleasure is mine, Miss Finnegan,” she replied with a curtsy. I withdrew my hand. “Welcome to Shady Acres! I hope we can be good friends and that I can play my violin for you. I’ve been working on a new largo for the violin, and if I’m correct, you’ll simply adore it. By the way, if you don’t mind me asking, what’s your reason for institutionalization?”

“I’m—uh, that is to say, I have severe depression. And I recently, um, attempted suicide.” I felt my face heat up in shame. I was ashamed that I could tell a near stranger the reason that I was locked up, but I couldn’t tell my little brother.

Trinity’s face fell. “Oh. Well, that’s a disappointment.”

I shot her a weird look. “Excuse me?”

“Oh, I didn’t mean it in a bad way! It’s just, well; there are so many people here like that. Last I counted, there’s you, Mikhail Voyabrev—he’s a friend of Kevin’s—Rosanne Little, and at least a dozen more!” She sighed and covered her face.

I arched my eyebrow. “Well, what about you? What’s wrong with your head?”

Trinity beamed. “Why, I was beginning to worry that you’d never ask, dearie! I’m schizophrenic!” She said it with such exuberance and such a happy look on her face that it almost seemed that she was proud of her disease.

“By the way, you can go take a shower if you’d like. The girls’ dorms are connected to a shower.”

“Oh! Thanks,” I responded, jumping out of bed and rummaging through my suitcase for a towel.

“Do you need soap? Because I have some that has the most marvelous jasmine smell—“

“No, thanks…I’ve got my own.”

Once I was safely inside my shower stall, I went over the facts in my head. I woke up to find the girl practically laying on to p of me. She played her violin at midnight. She was proud of her schizophrenia. She was cheerful to the point of being creepy. Coupled with the room décor I had seen yesterday evening, I felt that I could safely confirm my suspicions about my new roommate, Trinity—this girl was a freak.

Well, at least she’s a nice freak, I thought as I lathered up. And she seems to want to get along. The least I can do is give her the benefit of the doubt.

And doubt I did.