Broken Innocence

Ch. XII

With Halloween just a few weeks away, Smith’s Grove was allowing us to paint pumpkins. Not cut, because they obviously didn’t want to give us knives. I felt like I was back in elementary school. Sitting in the cafeteria with a bunch of people just painting my small pumpkin. It was raining outside, so they didn’t want us outside after lunch. I wasn’t very happy about that. I wanted to see Michael. But here I was spending my afternoon surrounded by people who were getting more paint on themselves than their pumpkins. 

It’s been so long since I’ve held a paintbrush in my hand, so I was actually enjoying it more than I would ever admit. I was painting ghosts on it, making a little scenery. I looked over and saw a couple girls talking and whispering, and I looked up and saw a girl walking over with her pumpkin.

At least, I thought it was one. She wore an orange robe over her white clothes, and my eyes widened a little at what I saw. It wasn’t a pumpkin. It was her stomach.

I watched her go over to a table and take a pumpkin from the table and walked over and sat at the table across from mine. I couldn’t imagine a woman being pregnant in this place and I couldn’t help but stare. 

“That’s Sabrina.” I heard someone whisper. I look over quickly and saw a girl moving to sit next to me. She had dark skin and her black hair was pulled back in a ponytail. “Just showed up yesterday.”

I eyed the girl next to me before looking at Sabrina. She rolled her sleeves up and started to paint quietly. She had brown hair that went to her slim shoulders and bright blue eyes. She was probably about my age. “I can’t believe they let her in here...what’d she do?” I whispered and looked back at the girl next to me.

“Dunno. I met her in the group therapy session yesterday, but she didn’t say much.”  The girl dipped her paintbrush in the water and swirled it around. “Oh and my name is Maya.” She smiled at me.

I smiled weakly. “Ari.” I started to dip my paintbrush into the black paint.

“Ari Fisher? Michael’s girl?”

Her words shocked me a little, causing me to knock some of the paint over a little. I gasped and quickly moved my pumpkin to the side. I looked over at her with wide eyes. “What?”

The girl laughed. “Don’t act like no one noticed. People see you two sitting next to each other by the fence.” She started to paint on her pumpkin. 

I felt my cheeks heat up as I eye her. “We’re just friends.” I told her. And I meant it. I mean, it’s not like he and I was going to start having some steamy affair. I’m just now getting comfortable enough for him to even be next to me without freezing up. 

Maya looked at me and arched an eyebrow. “I don’t see how you can do it. He freaks me out.” 

“He’s not that bad...” I muttered and looked down at my pumpkin, then moved to take a napkin to work on trying to clean up some of the paint I had dumped. I then decided to change the topic. “How long have you been in here?”

“Two years.” She looked at me. I widened my eyes and looked at her. “I killed my boyfriend after he cheated on me. Snapped and they found me in the bathroom rocking back and forth. I had completely lost my mind.” She used the paintbrush to draw swirls. “In all honesty, I should be in prison. But my mother begged my lawyer to try to convince them that I was insane.” She snorted. “I don’t know if that title is any better.” She looked at me. “What about you? How did you end up in here? Minus being friends with that Myers guy, you seem pretty content.”

I bit my lip and looked down. “Uh, ha...I’m not that content.” I looked over at the Sabrina girl, who was really into what she was doing. “I killed my family.” I looked back at Maya. “I was going to just kill my brother-in-law, but I guess I just couldn’t stop myself.