Straightjacket Read Free

over there?” she yelled.
    A few heads around the common area popped up in response, but most of the torsos remained slumped over. As she came up behind Caleb, Carlene shooed the boys away with her hand. They kept laughing, but they were nervous now and retreated back to the corner as they slapped each other high fives. She came around the front of the couch and saw what they had done.
    “What are ya doin’ now?” she shouted. She was out of breath from the walk but managed to shake her finger angrily toward the guys in the corner. “Lord,” she muttered to herself as she took Caleb’s finger out of his nose. Her scrubs stretched defiantly against her body as she moved. They were white with small pink and red hearts.
    “I shouldn’t have to deal with these fools,” she mumbled. “Babysittin’ a bunch of rich lunatics day in and day out. And why I bother to get all done up…” She bent Caleb’s index finger back down to join the others and laid both arms down on his lap. After all the activity, she reached one hand up to the top of her head and felt around, surveying the position of each section of hair—the short, dark pieces at the crown were still sticking straight up while the longer, bright red sections cascading down and over her forehead hadn’t budged. Satisfied that each hair was still cemented into place, she walked toward the door. The blend of polyester and cotton rubbed together between her thighs.
    The laughter of the boys had died down to a few snickers. Anna didn’t laugh. She wanted to cry, but she would save that for later. Gripping her book tightly, she started reading the words without understanding what they meant. She didn’t want to look at Caleb anymore. He was a reminder that dignity didn’t exist here.
    The words. Just focus on the words .
    She’d been admitted only a few days ago, but she was already a quarter of the way through An American Tragedy . At this rate it would take her only a couple of days to read all 856 pages. She read it last year as a senior but liked it so much she didn’t mind reading it again. It filled the empty minutes and hours that dragged on, sitting in this place just waiting for nothing to happen. She read so she couldn’t notice what was around her—the dull white walls, the linoleum floor that made a sucking noise when you walked on it, the windows that let in filtered light and nothing else, the door locks that clicked loudly every time someone came or went.
    I don’t belong here became her mantra. She was so angry with her parents for throwing her in this place that she didn’t know what to do with herself. Sure, she wasn’t perfect, but this wasn’t what she needed. They were just punishing her in the cruelest way they knew how.
    It wasn’t normal to have crying fits every day, not being able to come up with a reason why. She was sad, deeply sad. For months, it had taken everything she had to make it out of bed and get through the day. Her only goal was to exist, maybe even function. Every hour brought her closer to the end of the day, when she could lie in bed and fall asleep, which was her only escape. But she had to get through every minute, every second leading up to it. The hardest part was dealing with the sick feeling in her stomach. It nagged at her constantly. It was like the sadness collected in her belly and would sit there content to torture her for the rest of her life. Even if she had to live with her parents at home, at least there were distractions there—school, television, music. Here there was nothing to distract her from herself.
    So she read.
    As for the other patients, she had nothing in common with them. It looked like most of them were out of their minds. Some were parked in front of the television all day. Others sat in a corner, drooling in a daze, unnoticed by anyone except when it was time to take their drugs. But the scariest ones would run around in a panicked terror. Yesterday afternoon an old man was