From my real, and not so imagined, life as a bipolar princess:
So Nick, you remember him, right? Dirty blonde hair, bulging biceps. From A3? (For those of you who haven't read part 1 yet - we're talking ‘A3', on the psych ward.) Well he does notice me! Dunno when he did, but he did. Process of elimination, I guess. There are slim pickin's on the psych ward. Not really much to choose from if you know what I mean. The only female choices are this jailbait Kleptomaniac and me on the ward. She's cute and all, spiral curls and tawny skin but way too young, even for him.
So Nick and me, we're back out in the smoke garden. I've bought my own pack by now. That makes me a ‘real' smoker according to Jim. He's this old guy with yellowy fingertips and dirty nails whose room is two doors away from mine. Jim keeps telling me that I: ‘Better watch it, better watch it, lung cancer you know' and then he explains he's got OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) and repeats ‘better watch it' about a zillion times more. He's getting on my nerves.
So we're all here, me, Nick, Jim oh and this other guy: a quiet Japanese guy, who just stares into space, never in your eye. We're all sitting at this thin red card table. But it starts to rain. So Jim puts out his smoke, walks into the common room, grumbling about the rain and how they should let patients smoke wherever they ‘god-damn well please'.
The Asian guy, Tom, puts his cigarette between his teeth and then punches his hands into his cargo pants pocket. They let you wear you own clothes once you show some self-control. I'm still in the regulation blue hospital pants and pull on top. Anyway Tom, he moves away from the card table and leans close to a leaky drain pipe, away from the pressure of having to interact with those of us who are left.
So now it's just Nick and me. We both huddle on one side of this wobbly table, under the eves, hunching over our smokes, protecting them against the wet and the wind that's just picked up. Nick looks at me - huge Bambi eyes, flashing these spider web eyelashes (the kind women would kill for). And he says - like he's winking with his voice ‘Do you have an overnight pass for this weekend?'
And I know he's up to something. Not that that's bad - I'm always up for something when something is up, especially being in the hospital still high and all. Even more when it involves a cute guy with deer eyes and my new bad girl habit of smoking.
‘Yeah, I've got a pass.' I say trying to pass for relatively disinterested - which is really hard, because I am definitely interested.
To be continued...
© 2009 Victoria Maxwell
