Chapter 3

 The next morning I awoke with a splitting headache, and as I propped myself up on my arms, I tried to remember the events of last night, but the only thing I could remember was a name. Jessica.

     “Eva,” came a familiar voice from my door  “Is it ok if I come in?” My answer was simply my usual silence, and the opening of the door as Brianna entered my room. “Hun, I need to talk to you. Something happened last night and Jessica is in the hospital in critical condition. It seems that she tried to overdose on some of the sleeping pills she was being administered.” She took a moment to look at me and noticed I was beginning to cry and kneeled down in front of me and pulled me into her. “It will be ok, I will put in a request to take you to the hospital for an hour to visit her.” Hearing this, I nodded, but as soon as I thought I was pulling myself together, I completely broke down and tucked myself into a ball and started sobbing silently. Seeing this, she said she would be right back then left. A few minutes passed when she came back and sat down next to me as I cried.

    When I woke up, I found Brianna asleep on the floor next to me, and I assumed that when she left she asked if I could have the day off of all activities and lessons. I stood up, and stumbled a little bit, but made my way to the bed where I got a light blanket and covered her with it, but when it touched her, she awoke.

     “Are you doing better?” She asked as she stood up and put the blanket back on my bed. She is use to my never answering, but when I very slowly began to nod my head, a look of awe struck across her face and suddenly she hugged me tightly, then she looked at her phone and noticed it was seven thirty in the morning. “I guess we slept through the day, and night, do you want to go to the lunchroom and get your breakfast early?” I slowly nodded again, and looked down hiding my face behind my hair as we left and went to the cafeteria.

     When we got into the cafeteria, it seemed that everyone’s eyes were on me and I pulled myself closer to Brianna where I was practically hiding behind her like a shy little kid hiding under her mothers skirt, but when we stopped I suddenly felt a hand press gently into my shoulder, and as I looked up, I noticed it was Emily, my best friend aside from Jess.

     “Hey, I'm here for you if you need anything.” Emily said quietly where only I could hear.

     “OK, Eva. I’m going to go talk to some people about some things, I think you will be safe with Emily for an hour without me,” she hugged me again, and then started walking towards the counselors offices when Emily took me to get our breakfast.

     Going through the line to get our food, I seemed to notice that the people serving food this morning were exceptionally nice to me, I was wondering why, but my questions were answered when we sat down next to Emily who noticed me looking around with a confused look on my face.

     “Everyone knows what happened with Jess, and they also know how close the two of you are…” She explained. “When you didn’t come to any of your activities yesterday people began to worry.”

     “WOW!” Matt exclaimed as he sat down next to us. “I love donuts!”

     “How long has it been since they served these” Emily asked as she took a large bite out of her jelly donut.

     “They haven’t” Said a voice which I didn’t quite recognize.

     “Hey Sarah!” Yelled Emily, clearly exited to see her, but seeing my look of confusion she explained to me that Sarah has been in and out of Bears Den practically her entire life, and that she has been here longer than anyone else.

     “They are serving them as a morale boost for everyone. This is the third time this week that there has been an incident with one of the residents,” Sarah explained, “they are trying to raise morale so that they wont have to report any more ‘accidents’ so they wont get shut down.”

     “Oh…” Emily and Matt said at the same time.

     “So, what’s your name?” Sarah asked me.

     “She doesn’t talk…” Emily said.

     “Well why not? Did your tongue get cut out or something when you were little?” Sarah laughed.

     “She just doesn’t talk, does it matter why?!” Emily snapped in my defense”

     “Hopefully you'll be next to try to off yourself…” Sarah laughed at me as she walked off.

     “Gosh I can’t stand her…” Emily said when Sarah was out of hearing range.

Just then I looked over and saw Brianna walking over to me, so I got up to throw away my untouched food, and left before anyone noticed I was crying.

Reviews

[TL Boehm]

good job. and it just occured to me that you are eighteen? Right? Wow. When I was eighteen - i had zero abillity to manage a story line so kudos to you. I hope you continue this work. It definitely deserves to be a complete story.