Stanley grabbed the ring of keys from his belt and opened the door before entering. After thoroughly scanning the dorm, he welcomed me inside. “It will get better,” he added, reading my body language accurately.
And the door slammed behind him as I stood in my new prison.
The walls of the room were gray-blue and cemented like the hall I’d just walked down. I hadn’t been expecting this, though I really hadn’t known what to expect. I suppose a white room with padded walls crossed my mind on the plane ride here. A twin bed without a headboard and a footboard sat against the left wall with a single gray sheet and pillow over a thin mattress, and an empty desk sat against the parallel wall with a single black metal chair. I approached the small window across the room to see a view of the back of the school behind the bars. Nothing but sparse woods and the brick wall in the distance.
My suitcase waited for me next to the door, but I didn’t care to unpack. There wasn’t a dresser, anyway, only a rolling cart under the bed. I sat on the bed and ran my fingers across the thin sheet. How many had slept in this room before me? A clock hung above the only door in the room that read 3:16 PM. I lay back on the bed, folded my hands behind my head, and stared at the ceiling as I thought back to what had put me in this hell-hole to begin with.
Me. I did this.
I’d caused multiple fights in school and landed myself in the principal’s office more times than I’d attended a class. The day I’d lit Principle Tomson’s car on fire was the day I was expelled and arrested. After hours of community service and therapy, I’d graduated with a perfect GPA under a home-school program. I’d hammered my own nail in the coffin when I drove Diane’s BMW through the garage intentionally. My father negotiated with the judge and offered to send me here so I could pursue a college degree in lieu of being forced into the mental institution.
I was smart, but most sociopaths were. The judge wanted to make an example of me, but I knew better. No one ever did anything out of the goodness of their hearts. The only reason the judge agreed was to add another success story to his resume at my father’s expense. I suppose it was better than the mental institution.
I grabbed the handbook beside me and dangled it above my head before flipping it open to the first page when there was a rap at the door.
Ignoring it, I flipped over to the second page.
Another impatient knock.
My feet found the floor, and I cursed my way toward the door.
On the other side stood two individuals; a girl with medium-length curly black hair and a skinny blond-haired boy, a couple inches taller than the girl, with bright blue eyes and thin lips.
“See, Jake … I told you someone came in here,” the girl said to the boy, smacking him on the arm. She wore a black choker around her neck and a small, admirable mole to the side of her mouth.
“Not interested,” I said and began to close the door.
The boy wedged his foot in the door. “Not so fast.”
I opened the door again and rested against it with my hand over my hip, waiting for the purpose of this intrusion.
“I’m Jake. This is Alicia.”
“And let me guess, you’re fucking gay as a two-dollar bill, and Alicia here feeds off that shit, both looking for another member of your pity party by showing the new girl around?”
Alicia and Jake exchanged glances before a laugh broke out between them.
My eyes rolled. “Well?”
“We don’t see too many Americans come through these doors, but you’re right,”—Jake giggled between breaths—”we could use someone like you in our ‘pity party.’”
I waved them both off. “Go suck a dick.”
My comment didn’t faze them. Jake leaned over with his hands on his knees, and his giggle grew loud and obnoxious. Alicia patted her friend’s back as she came back from my comment. “I get it, you’re a badass who hates the world,” Alicia said, and I was sensing sarcasm in her tone, “but, if you’re looking for a fun time tonight, find us at dinner.”
Alicia and Jake turned away and proceeded to mock my accent down the hall. “’Go suck a dick,’” one of them said, shoving the other in the shoulder. Their laughs continued to echo through the wing before I slammed the door harder than I should have.
Lying on the bed once again, I pulled my cap over my face in an attempt to bring their annoying British accents to a stop as they bounced around in my brain.
By the time my eyes opened again, the clock read fifty minutes past five. Crap. I’d fallen asleep, and now I was twenty minutes late. With no time to change, I scurried out the door and wandered through the empty corridor, trying to remember Stanley’s directions to the mess hall. I should have listened.
Then, there it was, the distant sounds of chatter growing louder and louder with each step I took forward.
A sea of white shirts and black pants flocked the mess hall. I kept my eyes in front of me as I walked through middle between tables toward the non-existent food line toward the back. The chatter calmed as a stillness replaced the madness. Whispers and questions about my presence danced in the air as I passed each table, but I still didn’t bother to look at them.
An older lady in a hair net and sauce-splashed shirt approached the door to the buffet the same time as I did when she said, “Sorry, kitchen’s closed. Maybe next time you’ll be more conscious of your time.” I opened my mouth to speak, but she interrupted me. “Oh, and … I would go back to your dorm to change if I were you.”
And she closed the door in my face.
“Are you kidding me?” I shouted, hoping she could hear me on the other side of the door. The large mess hall fell silent, and when I turned back around, a hundred eyes were on me. “What?” I called out with my palms in the air.
Silence.
My eyes went wide for a reaction, but no one seemed to have a pair.
Everyone went back to their usual conversations, and I found an empty table beside the glass windows overlooking the front of the campus. Other than the gray day transforming to night, there wasn’t much to look at. A man in a jumpsuit drove a golf-cart-looking vehicle over the lawn, picking up litter. On the other side of me was my new fellow student body. Placed randomly throughout the mess hall were round tables, and students grouped together at each table as smiles, chuckles, and a few sneers crossed over their faces. It was high school all over again.
I noticed Alicia and Jake glaring at me from across the room as they talked in each other’s ears. There were four of them total at their table, and they didn’t bother concealing the topic of their discussion. A guy sat on top of the table with his long legs propped over the seat of a chair as a girl with a toothpick frame, pale skin, and pixie black hair laid her head over the table beside him.