Completely disoriented; I gasped and looked no more than three feet away from me, where two girls had abruptly stopped chatting and were staring at me. We were all awkwardly speechless for a moment, and my mind raced and panicked. I had no idea where I was. This room completely lacked the familiar shades of gray that I loved in my apartment. This room smelled clean; where was the cigarette smell?
All the emotion and physical exhaustion of the past few days caught up with me though; all at once. It started in my stomach, it felt hot and it gained intensity until the tips of my fingertips and the roof of my mouth tingled and my head felt like it was under an enormous amount of pressure. It was like being put in a heated box that just compressed me until I couldn’t get any smaller.
I was breathing hard, gaping like a fish, my eyes wide.
When I woke up again, it only felt like seconds later, but with all of that I’d been doing lately I wasn’t so sure how keen my sense of time passing was. My memory since the party was really spotty, I remembered a general angry feeling, and then calm. And then that dream about my mother, and then it was black again until a few seconds ago when I woke up. It felt like a long, long time had passed between the party and now though. Too long for comfort.
I winced as I got up off the floor, and the young man next to me got up too. I jumped away, confused. I took a defensive stance for a moment, eyeing him up and down. The three girls behind him looked nervous. He just looked pleading or something, like “don’t be scared.” or whatever.
“Who the fuck are you?”
“Vanilla Lemon LaPotentia, I’m a therapist. I own this facility. Don’t be alarmed, you’re safe here, Rowena.”
I was still skeptical. The yellow girl behind him stepped up closer to me and tried to reach for my arm, but I shrugged her off.
“I’m Daisy Dust, you can call me Daisy, I’m your worker.”
“Why?” I don’t know the whole purpose, but I was lacing my words with as much venom as possible.
“Your uh... friend Smog called an ambulance about three weeks ago. You two got in a really bad fight, and it got violent.”
I reached up for my face to feel for scars and found nothing. Daisy’s eyes followed my hand.
“He didn’t hit you, you hit him. You were highly intoxicated, and you had alcohol poisoning. It’s a miracle your baby survived, you’re about eight weeks along..”
“Wait wait wait, back this up. I am not fucking pregnant.”
Vanilla boy and Ditzy Daisy shared a look. The kind of “oh shit.” look that lets you know you’re in for something.
Daisy stepped forward, this time successful in touching me.
“You didn’t know..”
“Fuck no! I didn’t think I was gonna get pregnant, god damn. This is way too much shit all at once, look, I have to go. I have to tell Smog or something...” I trailed off, trying to push past them. But Vanilla boy grabbed my shoulder and held me there. I gave him a “Don’t fuck with me” look, but it had no effect.
“I’m sorry Miss Raven, but you can’t go. We’ve got court orders to keep you here, you had a lot of acid on you that day, and Smog had a concussion..”
“Fuck that!” I yelled, and ripped myself away from the group, tearing down the stairs and out of the house. The nighttime air bit at my eyes and worn lungs, and every time my feet slammed against the concrete it hurt because I was so out of shape.
I was crusading for my rights, escaping from the mind-washers and the friendly prison. Miss fucking Ditzy Daisy and Proper-Ass Vanilla back there. They thought they knew me. I saw the way they looked at me, all down their noses and such. They’re better than me because they never got addicted to the part scene, they never smoked cigarettes and they never got an “F”
I could do so much better without them trying to fix me into what they thought made me happy. I was happy back there in my apartment with no smoke detector, back in my symbiotic relationship. I was fucking zen. I didn’t need their opinion or their constructive criticism.
Nobody even came after me, but I didn’t make it that far down the road before being escorted back by the cops.
“I admire your speed.” I spat at Vanilla Boy as he helped me out of the cop car. He just chuckled. Ditzy Daisy looked worried and troubled.
“Don’t you do that again. You can’t get better if you run away from us, right? The first step to recovery is admitting you need help!”
Nobody even tried stopping me when I walked up to her and smacked her silly face. I think they were too shell-shocked by my charming disposition.
“I don’t need your help.” And with that, I walked past Miss Daisy and into the house again.
~o~
Let me tell you a little bit about “Renewing Springs Inn” and it’s inhabitants.
First of all, I’m pretty sure they named it that just so you might thing you have a choice on whether you’re here or not. Maybe on a subconscious level, it’s supposed to seem “friendlier,” because that’s what Ditzy Daisy is all about. If we’re all friends and we share secrets and we have nicknames and shit, we will totally get better! She has got it aaaaaaalllll figured out.
So: Daisy Dust LaPotentia. I call her: Ditzy Daisy. Everyone else calls her: Daisy.
She’s a little bit of a hippie. She loves gardening, and is always telling us to recycle everything. I think at this point in her life, the only thing she doesn’t know how to recycle is toilet paper, and she is surely going to find a way. She always says silly little things like “think positive!” and “you’re beautiful!” and I am never surprised when I “overhear” her complaining to Vanilla Boy about her love problems. Honestly, I don’t even know how she got her degree in... whatever, so I personally think it’s amazing that she’s even qualified to be a therapist.
Then, there’s Vanilla Lemon Lapotentia, Ditzy’s older brother by two years.
I call him: Vanilla Boy, nilla. Everyone else calls him: Lemon, or “Sir”
He tries to be professional, but he really can’t hide how laid back he is. He’s one of the only people who laugh at my jokes, which is refreshing. His actual passion is his work. Seriously. He spends so much time studying minds and the way they work that he doesn’t have time for anything else. Luckily, his work involves being around all of us, the patients! Yaay! He doesn’t take anyone seriously, but you can just tell that he secretly really cares about everyone in the house. aww.
Then we have the patients. We’re all young people, and this is generally “rehab.” and not “the crazy bin.” but “rehab” is a much broader term than what comes to mind. Some of the people you run into will tell you that rehab is not about getting better, but learning to live with what is given to you. In a lot of cases, we’re just learning to live with ourselves.
This girl is one of those cases, but we don’t know why. Nobody but Daisy and Sea Grape have ever heard her talk, and she does it so quietly that even if you sit outside Ditzy’s room with your ear flush up against her door during a therapy session, you can’t hear a word she says. Not even a whisper.
Her name is Persimmon Agave, and everyone calls her Persi.
Then, of course, there’s Sea Grape Melon. I call her Melon, and everyone else calls her Grape.
She’s fifeen and she’s here because she’s anorexic. Not the wimpy sense of the word most people use to just call someone skinny, she seriously doesn’t eat. She still flat-out refuses to eat dinner, but Vanilla boy makes her take vitamins. I can only imagine her depressing existence, eating only cereal and salad. Poor girl. She’s kinda bitchy though. She’s a bit of a brat and she likes to complain a lot, and whine about not having pockets, or pants or shoes or anything, cause they won’t let her. She also cuts herself sometimes, but I think it’s for attention.
Then there’s Wolfberry Medlar, but we call him Gogi. He is a young pyromaniac and aspiring criminal. He knows how to hi-jack cars, and the reason he’s here is because his mom found more than $5,000 worth of stolen objects in his room. Wow. He also set his aunt’s house on fire once. He’s only been allowed to have pockets for a week. I think he’s a pretty cool sixteen year old but that doesn’t seem to be the general consensus. Sometimes we have good fun playing pranks together, or on each other.
Finally, we have Pomegranate Rind. Boy is he a sight for sore eyes. I call him Pomme, at his request, and everyone else calls him Pomegranate. He has a soft French accent, but nobody knows if it’s real, and Vanilla Boy won’t tell us either. He, like me, doesn’t think he needs any help, but he’s a nympho and it freaks his mom out because she thinks he’s going to get an STD. We spend a lot of time together but Pomme’s not allowed to be in a room with a closed door unless it’s with Nilla. How sad.
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