day nine - unsent letters

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Dear Cierra,
Katherine. She's mentally five and belongs more in Disneyland then here. She insane and I want to figure out why. I also want to ask her what hair dye she uses.
- Vicky
(P.S. Don't judge me about the hair dye thing. She has cool hair, alright?)

"Who do you write your letters to?" Steph asked, looking up from the letter she was currently writing.

"My best friend, Cierra." I replied, adding the normal doodles to the margins of the notebook paper. "Who do you write your letters to?"

She sighed, folding up her paper. "No one."

"I see you writing all the time, it's just to..no one?"
"Well, yes, but, no. I mean, yes. I mean." she stopped before she said anything else.

I just looked at her for a minute, waiting for her to give in. She closed her eyes, licking her bottom lip slightly, tapping her fingers against her thighs.

"Okay, I do write to someone," she said, moving closer to me as if she was going to tell me a secret. "They're to my..boyfriend. No, not my boyfriend. A very close guy friend. You know, the one I mentioned last night?"

"Yeah, you suppose he's your boyfriend."

"That's the one." she nodded, looking up at the ceiling, most likely thinking of him. I wondered what it was like, to have a boyfriend while you were trapped in a mental institution. It must of been hard, especially for Steph. She seemed so frail and fragile and missing him was probably were most of her sadness came from.

"But the thing is," she sighed, biting her fingernails. "I never mail them." she whispered the last part, like she wasn't supposed to be telling me this.

I said nothing, unsure of what to say. She wrote all these letters to him, and never sent them?

She crouched down on her hands and knees, pulling a small box about the size of the sheets of paper out from underneath it. She lifted the lid and I held my breath, like there was going to be some sort of bomb in the box. There was no bomb - just about twenty, or maybe even more than that, unsent letters to her so called boyfriend.

She looked at me with a sad smile, placing the last letter she just wrote to him in the bottom of the box.

"But- why don't you mail them?" I asked, shaking my head.

"I'm too scared," she chuckled. "I just, I don't know."

"Well has he sent you letters?" Steph nodded many times, the sad smile still on her face.

I jumped up from the bed, throwing up my arms as well. "You need to mail them!" I half shouted, but I wasn't mad at her. "He's waiting for a reply from you, he could be scared, Steph."

"I know, I know," she said, putting her head in her hands. "It's just - I was going to send them, I really was, but I never sent the first one and it got put in that box, and I told myself I was going to send it. But I never did, and then I wrote more, and never sent those. He sent me letters everyday, Vick, and I sat here feeling like a complete ass because I didn't have enough courage to send him one letter. And then one day his letters stopped coming and I just gave up."

"When did they stop coming?" I asked, tilting my head to the side a bit.

"About a week ago," she replied, still biting her fingernails. I was about to say something and I wasn't sure what, but we heard screaming from down the hall. And when I said screaming I meant screaming.

Steph looked at me, her green eyes open wide, and she tip-toed from her spot on the bed over to the door. She cracked it open slightly and poked her head out, and she waved me over. I followed her footsteps, peaking my head out the door as well.

The yelling continued, but it was clearer this time, we could make out what they were saying. I also heard slamming and some other noises that were unrecognizable, but I knew this couldn't be good.

"I gonna fucking murder you, I swear, I'm gonna fucking murder him," someone yelled, it came from Jimmy and Michael's room.

"Holy shit," Stephanie whispered, shaking her head. "This is bad, holy shit this is bad."

I looked at her confused, and she sighed.

"You don't know, do you?" she said, as she looked down the hallway for any doctors.

I shook my head, chewing on my bottom lip.

"Michael, he's, he's homocidal. He wants to kill everyone." she whispered.

I starting coughing and for some reason I wouldn't stop coughing. I guess that had kind of taken my breath away, and not the good in-love kind of way either.

"How do you know?" I choked out after my breath returned to my lungs.

"I'm good at figuring people out, Vicky." That's all she said but I had a feeling she knew otherwise.

"Has-has he killed anyone before?" I managed to say, even though it was hard to say that. Michael was a friend to me, at least a little, and I didn't want my friend to be some sort of serial killer.

"I don't know," she whispered. "Just, please don't tell anyone." I nodded, even though I could hardly get it through my own brain.

It was strange, everyone else here was suicidal - wanted to kill themselves. Michael was different, wanted to kill everyone else. That's why he got so pissed of at Jimmy the first day, that's why he mumbled something about killing Kat. I cringed at the thought of Michael holding a knife or a gun to someone else's head. Maybe he was getting better. Maybe. He didn't seem like he wanted to kill me, or Calum, or Steph. Or maybe it was just certain people he wanted to kill.

Soon enough later, doctors came rushing into the hallway, and into Michael and Jimmy's room. Steph and I crept back into our room, sitting on our own beds.

We heard the doctors outside and people yelling, the door was wide open so it wasn't hard to hear. A minute later Michael got dragged by the door by a bunch of doctors, who gave us a wave but truthfully, I was too scared to wave back. One wrong move could lead to Michael murdering me when we get out of here. Oh, Vicky, you truly are insane.

We sat looking at the ground for awhile, my hands fidgeted with the bottom of my flannel.

Steph left to go to the bathroom after awhile, I was alone.

I saw my unsent letter to Cierra sitting on the nightstand, and after all that had just taken place I had forgotten about the whole letter fiasco.

I picked up the letter to Cierra, I was going to give it to the front desk so they could send it to her. I started to leave when I saw the box of Steph's letters still sitting on her bed. I licked my bottom lip, reaching for the doorknob.

I need to send one of those letters, I thought.

I made my way over, walking slowly and then picking up speed. I knew I didn't have much time. I reached for the letter from the bottom pile, but instead of a letter from Steph, it was a letter from her boyfriend.

One part of my brain said don't, the other said, do it.

I read it.

December 18th

Dear Steph,
I miss you tons. Nothing is really the same without you. I hope you're doing okay. I'm doing okay. Well, at the least. Every night I'm thinking about you, every day too. I wonder if you think of me.
I hope you're great, I miss you alot. I already said that, oh well. I love you, Steph. See you soon.
Love, Ashton

Ashton, Ashton was his name. I heard the water running in the bathroom meaning I had approximately 15 seconds before I would get caught. I grabbed the next letter, this one was from Steph to Ashton. The date was the day after he sent his, so this was the first letter. I would send this one.

And I left the room with two letters in my hand, I was going to send them both.

The hallway was still clearing up, Jimmy was there, who was sniffling a little.

He smiled at me, I had never seen him smile before.

"Hey, Vicky," he said, it was the first nice words I had ever heard him say.

"Hi, Jimmy. You okay?" I asked, not really caring if he was okay or not.

"I'm just fine," he said, rubbing his nose. And then a doctor came and took him away and that was the end of our conversation. Pleasant, for a change.

Calum was also in the hallway, wandering outside him room.

"Vicky bear, fancy seeing you here," he said, smiling, like it was the weirdest thing in the world seeing me heard.

"Calum, same goes to you," I laughed a little, and he laughed too, the crinkles by his eyes showing.

"You're okay?" he asked, as I waited for the elevator that would take me to the main floor. I nodded.

"You just seem a little shook up," he commented, rubbing his arm.

"Aren't we all?" I said, and he smiled. The elevator came and I got it, ready to sent my letters, and I was also ready for Steph to kill me when I got back. Two potential death threats right there, Michael and Steph. Two ways of being killed in nine days. I loved this place.

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well this was eventful, now wasn't it

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