PEARL

EIGHT

TRACK 8
BIKE RIDE
THE BROBECKS

🚬

IDA was led down the hospital corridors by Nathan Gold for the second time that day, and the walls' sterile whiteness was beautified by what little moonlight made it through the modified windows.

As they walked, she couldn't help but think that it would've made for far better cinema if she'd attacked Nate in her bedroom; if he'd somehow ended up on top of her on the bed, and they'd kickstarted the long, drawn-out chain of breathless near-kisses that was set in stone to come.

"Nice nightdress, by the way," Nate commented, subtly echoing what he'd said to her earlier and surveying the candy-pink version of Lily's nightdress that Ida had found waiting for her in deadly-silent room twenty-three after a dinner almost as tasteless and tepid as the communal room's furnishings, sitting patiently and patronisingly on her pillow. Keeping the nightdress company had been a pile of clothes far too neatly folded, including a hoodie the exact same sky-blue shade as Rowan's sweats and exact same style as his, Micah's and Nate's sweaters (proving Ida's earlier assumption that the hospital handed them around to be correct), which was incredibly ill-fitting.

Not in the usual cute, over-sized way, but the very opposite - Ida had barely been able to get said sweater over her head, so she'd quickly banished it beneath her bed, where her white blouse, frilled socks, blue jeans and mother's pearl-gray cardigan were no longer gathering dust.

"There's two answers to that one," Nate told her, as they turned a corner and were greeted by even more doors, each bearing its own number-plaque and patient. In a funny sort of way, they reminded Ida of teeth, white and identical and sitting in rows - healthy teeth, that is, rather than ones already beginning to turn as yellow as the oddly pretty downstairs bathroom tiles due to a sizable (and shocking, at only seventeen years of age) smoking addiction. "Either one of your neighbours liked the look of your stuff and stole it, courtesy of your shitty door lock, or some nurse was sent to sneak in and take it before one of us tried to poke our eyes out with your buttons and zips."

Remembering the altercation she'd had only a few hours ago with Dr. White and her saccharine smile, featuring the kidnapping of her pearl earrings, Ida had a feeling that the latter was the case.

"Guess my black boots will be gone by morning, then."

The moon-coloured bandage around Nate's left hand greatly supported said feeling.

"So go on," Ida decided to change the conversation's course, trying to keep the clacking of the Mary Janes on her un-socked feet to a minimum, "tell me. Tell me the totally unrealistic way you break out of here every Thursday, and the even more unrealistic way you get away with it. I'm all ears."

"Oh it's very unrealistic," Nate agreed, as they started to descend a curl of linoleum-lined stairs as quietly as possible. "Ro's room is right next to mine, and Micah sleeps in there basically every night, so we talk to each other through a glory hole some previous patient knocked into the partition."

Ida raised an eyebrow at that. Not all the way.

"We wait an hour after lights out," Nate carried on explaining, directing her to the right when they reached the bottom of the stairs, towards another row of white metal teeth, "to make sure all the staff are asleep or busy, then we split. I go and get Nicole, while Ro and Micah go and get supplies from the medicine storage room on the ground floor. This floor. Ryan brought them a bobby pin a while ago, so they use that to pick the lock. I've told about Ryan, right? Rowan's twin? Brings us stuff?"

"Uh huh."

"Well, the only thing he doesn't bring us is drugs. Weed and cigarettes, sure, but no hard drugs. He offered, but Ro said he didn't want his brother getting involved in any of that, so we have to make do with stealing whatever sounds good in the store cupboard. We use the bag Ryan secretly leaves Ro's hormones in every visiting day, around the back of the building. Have I told you about that?"