Chapter 11: Nine - Bonding

Bonding

Parish:

He was in a bad mood.

He hadn’t been in the Institute for more than twelve hours, but already Parish was starting to hate the place. The yellow wallpaper that had been designed to look cheery made him nauseas; the wooden floors and homey furniture filled him with loathing; and the smiling faces that had been plastered onto every single nurse in the building made him compelled to punch someone.

The only thing that had managed to put a smile on his face was the fact that they’d served his favorite foods for breakfast, and even that smile hadn’t lasted long when he found out from Sid that French toast for breakfast was extremely, extremely rare.

He had escaped to the entertainment room directly after breakfast. He wanted to be alone, and hiding from all the Institute’s other inhabitants seemed to be the only way to achieve that. It wasn’t that he hated them. Far from it. He just wasn’t happy being here with them. He wanted things back to the way they were.

The sound of a girl laughing pulled Parish’s attention from the view outside the window and back into the entertainment room. Yanking his iPod out from his jeans pocket, he increased the volume and continued to ignore the outside world.

As the sounds of heavy metal blasted in his ears, Parish was suddenly startled into the real world by a soft tap on his shoulder. He leapt out of his seat and wheeled around to find himself face to face with one of the prettiest girls he’d ever seen.

She was much taller and slimmer than the girl from the hallway – October – had been, and seemed to be in a much better mood. The girl had a head of thick, glossy black hair; a pair of bright blue eyes and a wide smile that displayed a set of brilliantly white teeth. Parish might have considered her to be extremely beautiful, had he not noticed the conniving look that was flashing in her eyes.

His smile disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.

“What do you want?” He snapped, shutting off his iPod and stuffing it into his pocket.

“Aw,” The girl pouted, looking like a porcelain doll who hadn’t got her way. “For a moment there, it looked like you were happy to see me.”

“That was a grimace.” He replied coldly. “It’s how people respond when they’re not happy to see someone.”

The girl’s smile abruptly transformed into a dark scowl, making everything that had made her look devastatingly pretty only a few minutes ago, disappear in the blink of an eye. “I wouldn’t diss me so easily if I were you.” She warned primly, draping her arms over the back of the large, stuffed armchair he had just vacated.

“Thank God you’re not me, then.”

She ignored his retort, wiping her frown off her face and turning it into a too-sweet smile. “There aren’t any other girls in this place, you know.”

He rolled his eyes in annoyance, trying to keep his rising temper from getting out of hand. He couldn’t imagine what the nurses would do to him if he flew off the handle and slapped the girl in front of him. “Which is funny considering that I know for a fact that there are two other girls living here.”

She scoffed. “Them? Please. You don’t want to associate with them, trust me. The pretty one’s a bipolar and the biggest flake you’ll ever meet, and the ugly one is loner weirdo who’s got Schizophrenia. Not the kind of company a guy like you would ever keep.”

Parish’s blood boiled at the girl’s comments about her fellow inhabitants. How could she talk about the other girls like that? They were sick, yes. But so was she. Otherwise she wouldn’t be standing in front of him, would she?

His hands curled into tight fists at his side and his stubby nails dug into his flesh. He hated people who put other people down behind their backs. Those were the kind of people who he usually got into trouble for beating up. “Actually, err…” He looked at the girl questioningly. “Who the hell are you anyway?”

“Bethany. Bethany Kirk.”

He waved his hand in her direction dismissively. “Yeah, Bethany, whatever. I think I can judge who I want to keep company with, thank you very much.” She pursed her lips in annoyance, but didn’t say anything. “And, you know, right now, the only person who isn’t the kind of company I want to keep is you.”

Parish watched emotionlessly as Bethany’s jaw dropped in shock. Behind them, a soft voice spoke up in awe. “Whoa.”

Parish turned around to see Sid leaning against the doorframe and observing Bethany and him in amusement. “That,” Sid said, pushing off the doorframe and walking over to stand beside him, “was epic.”

Despite himself, Parish couldn’t help but smirk at awe in Sid’s words. Apparently Bethany wasn’t much liked around the house.

“Well, Bethany.” Sid cocked his eyebrow in the stunned girl’s direction. “You heard the man, didn’t you? He has no interest in being your new plaything, so I suggest you be the good little girl you pretend to be and skedaddle.”

Bethany turned her back on the two boys with and, with an indignant huff, waltzed out of the entertainment room, seething with fury. Once the furious figure was out of the room and out of their sights, the boys burst into laughter, high-fiving each other as they guffawed.

“Who the hell is that chick?” Parish asked Sid, once they’d both managed to stop laughing.

“That, my friend,” the other boy grunted, pushing his glasses higher up his nose as he struggled to locate a CD in the game cabinet. “was Bethany Kirk – resident sociopath. She’s got some sort of superiority complex and she thinks she’s queen of the world.”

Rolling his eyes, Parish dropped down onto the comfy couch in front of the TV. “Really? She hides it so well.” Sid laughed at the sarcasm dripping from his roommate’s voice.

“I know, right?” Sid stood up and stretched his arms over his head. “It took the rest of us ages to figure it out. You wanna play?” Confused at the abrupt change in topic, Parish glanced at Sid. In one hand the boy held a white Xbox controller and in the other, a Gears of War CD case.

Parish couldn’t stop the smirk that crept onto his face. “Definitely.” Smiling, Sid tossed him the other controller, popped the CD into the game console and joined him on the couch.

After only ten minutes into the game, the two boys had already bonded. Sid, Parish had discovered, had been in the Institute for six months. He’d been admitted to the Institute by his parents when they discovered that he had a severe case of post-traumatic stress disorder. For years, the Witherberrys had been oblivious to the fact that, when he was only a child, Sid was being abused by his next-door neighbor.

Couple that with the fact that he was bullied incessantly throughout his pre-teens as well as his early teens, and it was no wonder that the boy constantly felt as if the people around him were going to hurt him and wake up almost every night screaming from night terrors.

“I’m much better now, though.” The boy confided in Parish as he killed a virtual opponent with a clean shot to the head. “I don’t feel scared to socialize anymore. The nightmares have decreased a lot. I’m a lot more secure than I used to be.”

“Being here has helped you?” Parish inquired curiously. Maybe if the Institute had managed to help Sid the way it had, there was probably some hope for him, too.

His spirits fell for a moment when Sid shook his head. “Yes, but not in the way you might think. It’s not because of Larkson or any of the other doctors here at the Institute, but because of my friends here. October and Kara.”

Parish noticed a small smile appear on Sid’s face as he thought of the two girls. “Mack had helped a little while he was here, but October and Kara were the ones who were really there for me. They listened. They made me laugh. They made me feel… like I belonged.” Sid finished after mentally groping for the right words. “I don’t know if that makes much sense to you, but…”

“I get it.” Parish replied with a small nod. He understood what Sid had been trying to say perfectly. He’d gone years feeling as if he didn’t belong anywhere in the world. He understood the need to feel like he belonged somewhere; to feel that someone out there cared about him. The only person who’d ever made him feel even close to that after his mother’s disappearance was his Aunt Helena, and he hadn’t seen her in almost a year.

The two boys fell into a short silence after that, only interrupted by the sounds of gun shots from the video game they were playing.  A few minutes later Parish, unable to trample his curiosity, broke the silence. “Which one’s the prettier one?”

“Huh?”

“That girl, Bethany, told me that one of the girls was pretty and was bi-polar, and that the other one was ugly and had Schizophrenia.” He started to explain. “I’m pretty sure that she was lying about their looks, but I was just wondering—”

“Which one’s bipolar and which one’s Schizo?”

Parish nodded, unable to hide the sheepish look on his face.

Sid chuckled at Parish’s expression. “Kara’s the one who’s bi-polar. October was diagnosed with Schizophrenia just yesterday.”

“Wait.” Parish frowned. “October’s the Schizophrenic?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Nothing. It’s just that… I kind of met her last night. She’s not—”

“Not ugly?” Sid finished, guessing what he’d been about to say. “Yeah, she’s not. You were right about Bethany lying about their looks. October is definitely not ugly. Personally I think Kara’s the prettiest out of the three of them, but I guess that’s a matter of opinion.”

Parish raised his eyebrow. “You got the hots for her or something?”

Sid’s face turned a startling shade of red. “Dude, don’t tell her, okay? She can’t even remember my last name. She’ll flip out if she finds out about this.”

“Chill. I won’t tell.”

“Thanks.”

“I can’t believe that October’s Schizo, though.” Parish confessed, tapping the green A on his remote viciously. “She looked pretty normal when I saw her last night. I figured that maybe she just had something a little less significant than Schizophrenia.”

“Tell me about it.” The other boy replied. “Kara and I were pretty stunned when we heard. October’s been here for over two months now, and the only signs of distress she’s ever shown were the nightmares and the talking to herself. We just figured that she was just going through some trauma because of the accident, because apart from those, she’s been pretty normal.”

“Man… That must’ve been one hell of an accident for her to become a Schizophrenic. What happened?”

Sid shifted in his seat, discomfort clearly showing on his face. “Look, dude. It’s really not my place to tell you that. October’s my friend, and she’s pretty sensitive when it comes to the accident. You’re going to have to ask her about it, sorry.”

“Nah, it’s okay. I get it.” Parish waved off his apology. “But I doubt she’ll ever tell me.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Well, I don’t know if you’ve heard, but I’ve apparently got an MPD.”

Sid nodded sympathetically. “Yeah, I heard about that.”

“Yeah, so you probably know that I tend to be pretty moody because of it.” Sid nodded slowly, uncertainty painted on his face. “Well, I was kind of a jerk to her last night… A really, really big jerk.”

“Well, that’s definitely going to put a damper on things.”

“You have no idea.” Parish shook his head glumly. “She slammed the door in my face.”

The other burst into laughter, leaving Parish feeling like a fool. He hadn’t been able to fall asleep easily that night because of the way he’d treated the hazel-eyed girl. She had been crying, she’d been sad, and he’d been a jerk to her. And to top it all off, he’d just discovered that she was Schizophrenic. He’d been an ass to a schizophrenic girl who’d been crying in the bathroom. Those realizations didn’t do anything to make him feel any bit good about himself.

“Jeez, man. Stop looking so worried.” Sid’s voice broke through his thoughts. “October may be a tough cookie, but she never holds a grudge. Just apologize. I’m sure she won’t stay mad.”

Parish forced himself to smile. He couldn’t really tell why he cared about October’s opinion of him. Or Sid’s for that matter. All he knew was that he wanted to make a fresh start in the Institute. He was going to prove to his father that he wasn’t insane. That he wasn’t a waste of space.

Maybe finding a place where he belonged would help him achieve all that, he didn’t know. But he knew that he wasn’t going to sabotage his hopes of getting better to spite his father. He was going to get better to spite him.

“Well, well…” Sid dropped his controller onto the space on the sofa between him and Parish as he nodded towards the doorway. “Looks like you’re going to get a chance to apologize right now.”

Confused, Parish turned around to see what Sid was talking about, only to find himself staring at two girls having some sort of argument. One of the girls was tall and leggy, with a beautiful strawberry blonde mane, and a pair of twinkling blue eyes. The other one was October.

And she was glaring at him.