A Past Of Secrets

Chapter 4

I crawled on top of my bed over to my calendar. Melissa had gone to the bathroom, so I was alone. I quickly found the date and saw a listed schedule for the day.

After breakfast, it said 'Group Therapy at ten'. I wondered what that meant. Did everyone and their therapists meet together? 'Lunch at twelve'. 'First Therapy Session at two'.

Wasn't the group therapy my first session? This place was so strange. Maybe the owners were crazy themselves. I smiled at the thought. Maybe if you obeyed them perfectly, they'd let you out quicker.

"Want to go to the recreation room?" Melissa asked, coming up behind me. "We have a couple hours, so we can find things to past the time in there. Plus, you can meet some other girls."

I nodded my head in agreement and trailed after Melissa. We walked past many rooms before turning a corner. A few doors stood wide open and you could hear lots of noise coming from one room.

We stepped up to it and I looked inside. It was very spacious and many girls were doing different things together. There was a TV in the corner with two couches surrounding it. On the right was a ping pong table and in the left corner were tables filled with art supplies.

"So, what do you like to do?" Melissa inquired. She glanced at me, before pointing at each area with her hand. "You're really quiet, so maybe you like drawing or writing?"

"I don't know," I replied quickly. I grabbed a braid and tugged. There were so many people and too many choices. I never did things like this at home. "I'll do what you do."

"Okay, cool," Melissa said. She ran over to the ping pong table and got in line. After waving at me to come over, she turned to a couple other girls and started chatting.

I self consciously made my way to her, wanting to hide under my bed whenever someone even glanced my way. I had no idea so many people needed to be in a recovery center.

"We just left Jess," Melissa was saying. She laughed and flipped some of her hair behind her shoulder. "She's probably still there for all we know. I mean, seriously, when is someone going to fix her?"

A girl I hadn't noticed before slipped toward Melissa. She was dressed in black tights and a long sleeve black shirt. Her dark hair was cut choppily over her shoulders and she wore heavy makeup.

"Some people take more time to figure out a way around the rules here," she said in a low voice. The room seemed to grow quiet instantly and all you could hear was the TV playing in the background. "Obviously you learned quickly, blondie, so leave her alone."

Melissa huffed and rolled her eyes. She took a step closer to the girl. "Who gave you permission to tell me what to do?" She asked with a threatening tone.

The girl fully turned toward my room mate with a straight face, but I caught her quick smirk before she did. "No one."

"Then leave us alone, Grace," Melissa commanded, turning on her heel and walking over to me. She looked over her shoulder before loudly saying, "Come on, Annie, let's leave that freak alone."

Before I could react, she began pushing me back into the hallway. I was able to glance back before we were out of the room and I saw Grace nod her head at me before slipping back into the crowd, unnoticed.

"I'm really sorry about that," Melissa gushed, looked apologetic. She led me back to our room. "That girl can just get on my nerves. She rarely ever talks, but it's annoying when she does. Anyway, what do you want to do now?"

I shrugged my shoulders and turned toward my dresser, pretending to be interested in the handles. Grace was just standing up for Jess. Why did that make Melissa so mad?