Page 33 of Braving the Valley

12

AVERY

Itake my meds like a good girl, swallowing my pills like my psychiatrist expects. From what I've heard, my doctor is better than the last one they had here because at least he hasn't raped anyone yet. Well, as far as I know, at least, though he doesn't seem like the type. Then again, when does anyone seem like the type? Still, the last time I saw him, he was barely awake enough to form words, or maybe he just didn't care enough to even pretend to care.

My meds include all the standard players, an antidepressant, a multivitamin, pills to increase my appetite, and so on. Every morning, I'm placed in line with the other students with eating disorders. We walk to the medication dispensary together, and each of us waits our turn before we head as a group into the dining hall, where we are still forced to eat together. I think some of them have to get pills at night too before they go to their dorms, but at least I only have to see the dispensary staff once a day.

Today, when it's my place in line, I step up to the thick sheet of reinforced plexiglass built into the wall that separates the staff from us. A man dressed in black scrubs asks for my name, and a moment after I answer, he slips a small white paper cup across the counter through a hole cut into the plexiglass. I estimate twenty calories in my multivitamin and another twenty in the handful of other pills as I take the cup and lift it to my mouth, tossing the pills onto my tongue. Then I swallow them with the cup of water they provide with the pills. My meds catch in my throat, and I choke them down with more water, the aftertaste bitter and leaving grains of sand on my tongue.

I grimace at the taste as the guard looks at me from his metal stool and orders, "Open your mouth and stick out your tongue."

I do just as he tells me.

"Dismissed," he barks a moment later with a dismissive wave of his hand. I push the empty paper cups back to him across the counter, and he grabs them through the hole cut into the plexiglass and throws them into the trash.

I join the other eating disorder students in line before we are walked like kindergartners into the dining hall and told to get in line for a tray. They make all of us get our own food now like they got tired of waiting on us. They still weigh my tray at every meal, which is expected, but it makes it harder to get away with not eating. If you eat, they stand against the wall and watch you. If you don't, they cart you off to the hole to the one they call the Butcher.

I don't think I want to meet him. I've heard the whispers at the table as one friend encourages another to swallow the slop in front of them.

You don't want the tube, do you?

I heard he didn't even sedate Rylan last time. They just held her down and started shoving.

Please eat. You know what the Butcher will do.

The creep is still with him. He's been gone for over a week, and his absence has been both a blessing and a curse, a blessing I guess, or that's what I tell myself at least. It's a blessing because I haven't had to sit next to him or see him in math class every morning and feel him staring at me, trying to pick me apart with his eyes.

But it's a curse as well because something in me—the insanity, I guess—misses his attention and feeling like I'm worthy because of it. Introspection is a cruel bitch, but I tell myself that thinking of him is not actually about him. It's about me.

Still, I can't get the last time I saw him out of my head. It's always there at the back of my brain, haunting me, like he's sent his own ghost to follow me around and shout,Boo!at the most inopportune moments.

The last time I saw him, I'd refused to give him what he wanted. I told him I wouldn't go with him to the basement, and I'm still not sure what mind-fuck he had planned for me down there. Then I refused to lower myself in front of him and beg for him to leave me alone.

Beg me for it, he had said.Grovel, baby girl.

He can eat a dick for all I'm concerned.

He's a creep.

I don't go places with creeps.

I don't beg creeps.

But then why does it feel like I did something wrong that day, like I caused him to lose his shit and start wailing on everyone before getting dragged to solitary confinement? He brought four students and three guards to the floor before they managed to restrain him. Bodies piled around him, moaning and wriggling on the stone like he was the altar, and they were sacrifices to his god. I can't forget it, no matter how hard I try—the image of his face and the front of his otherwise white dress shirt splattered with the blood of strangers, his thick hair slick and wet with it. He smiled, half of his upper teeth stained red, as the guards forced him to the ground, pinning him on his stomach, and latched the wrist hobbles into place.

I should be shouting for joy and celebrating the win, but I find myself looking across the dining hall at his empty chair instead. I catch eyes with his crazy friend, the blond one, and it sends a shiver skittering up my spine.

The creep's crazy, but that guy, I just know, is downright unhinged.

I think that I might miss my stalker, but then maybe I'm just crazy too.

I can't miss him. Ishouldn'tmiss him.

He's a freak.

He threatened to set me on fire multiple times.

He fucking force-fed me.

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