I shot my palm into the air, slicing the thick Irish accent. “Please … stop talking.”
Maddie pursed her lips together. “Take the puss off ya face, I’m only codding ya! I wanted to see how long you would go before ya cut me off.”
I glanced over to Detached Tiny Lady who watched me from across the room, probably making sure I ate. Maddie turned her head to see what had caught my eye. “Ya, she’s a brutal one. If ya don’t eat, they’ll hold you down and force feed ya.”
“You’re joking.”
“Ah, I wish.” Maddie leaned back in the chair and fixed her sweatshirt. “You see that girl right over there with the blonde pony?” She nudged her head.
Turning slightly behind me, I saw a girl about the same age as me. Her hair was pulled back so tight, I wondered if she aged ten years once she released her hair tie—instant Facelift.
“Just yesterday they strapped her to her chair and fed her like a chiseler. It was a holy show.” Maddie let out a chuckle, and the thought alone made me bring the spoon to my mouth.
“There ya go. All you need is five bites, and Dr. L will leave ya be.” Maddie smiled, and I flashed her a tight-lipped grin with a mouthful of porridge in return. “Ya play cards?”
I shook my head.
“After you eat, I’ll teach you.”
As I counted down each bite, I wondered if Maddie was a secret informant hired by Dr. L to get the crazies to eat. She seemed annoyingly normal, and I wondered what she had to do to end up here. Every person who passed our table stopped for a quick conversation with Maddie, and she smiled back up at them as I ate.
After my last disgusting bite, I pushed the tray away from me as Maddie pulled a deck of cards from under the table. Had she been holding them this entire time?
“What’s the craic on campus? I haven’t been there since the summer …”
Great, Maddie liked drama. “I’m sure nothing has changed.”
Maddie shuffled the cards flawlessly like a professional. “Liam still a dick-wad?”
I laughed. “Liam is harmless.”
“Sounds like ya know from experience,” she said with amusement in her tone.
Rolling my eyes, I relaxed in the chair. “Liam is predictable. Its people like you who you have to watch out for.”
Maddie slowed her shuffling pace, and there was a small lift in the corner of her mouth. Anyone else would’ve missed the slight curve, but I didn’t, and a part of me knew I was correct about her. She was trouble.
“You and Liam together or something?” she asked.
“Nope.”
“You with anyone on that side?”
“Nope.”
“What group you attached to over there?”
What was this, twenty-one questions? My patience was thin. “What’s it to you? If there’s something you want to ask me, stop beating around the bush and ask me already.”
Maddie slammed the deck of cards on the table and leaned in. Her tone was harsh but controlled. “I’m only trying to get to know ya, pet. Nothing more. Now don’t cause a scene.” She scanned the room before retreating back into her seat and reshuffling the cards. “Me fella is on that side. He’s waiting for me to come back.”
Remembering what Jake, Alicia, and Ollie had told me, I said, “I thought there were no relationships at Dolor.”
“Ours is a secret.”
“It’s not a secret if you’re telling people about it, now is it?”
She chuckled. “Ya have a point there.”
Her mood swings made me dizzy, so I didn’t bother answering any more of her ridiculous questions. After one round of poker, which she won, of course, everyone took off for recreation as I retreated to my room.
Later, I ate lunch in my room to avoid Maddie, and by the time dinner rolled around, Dr. L dragged me out again to the common area. Maddie eyed me from afar as I tried figuring her out. She was tall, thin, and with a pretty face—I would guess five-foot-eight. She sat poised as her bangs dropped slightly below her eyebrows. Every few minutes, she shook her head to move them from her eyes as she shuffled the deck nervously. Everything about her stance, the way she spoke, and her facial expressions screamed confidence, but irony filled her blue eyes.
“These meds are for you,” Dr. L said, handing me over a small cup containing two pills.
“No, I’m not supposed to be on meds. I’m not taking anything until I talk to Dr. Conway.”
“Alright, so be it. I’ll give you one more day. But if Dr. Conway doesn’t show, you’ll be forced to take your meds. It’s in your paperwork, Mia.”
Even though it was in my paperwork, Dr. Conway had taken me off all medication since my first office visit with her. It had to be in her notes. Where the hell was she? I couldn’t go back to the way I was. “Has anyone tried reaching out to her?”
“I’ll make a phone call.” Dr. L sighed before leaving.
“They’re serious about those meds, ya?” Maddie asked as she pulled out the chair in front of me. “Pretend to take them like I do.”
“How do you pretend?”
“It takes practice, but ya have to hold them in your throat … then when she leaves, cough them back up.” Maddie shrugged. “Or ya can hide them between your gum and upper lip if you can’t.”
“You do that every time?”
“Sure do. I am how God made me. We’re all normal. It’s the pills making you not the full shilling.”
I partly agreed with her, partially disagreed. Sure, God had made us, but was it with a blank slate or with our lives already planned out? Because it was what happened to us that changed us, molding us into who we’d actually become. Nature vs. nurture bullshit. I hadn’t been born emotionally detached. I’d become this way because of what my uncle had put me through. But then I thought about actual psychopaths. The ones raised in decent homes and loving families. Had they been born that way, or had a moment in their life happened to trigger it? Did they ever have the same chance? Were we all born with the same amount of light in our hearts?
“Penny for ya thoughts?” Maddie asked.
“Ha. My thoughts would put you in debt.”
Maddie giggled as her overgrown bangs swayed from side to side. “You’re funny. I like ya, Mia.”
Wonderful. Maddie knew my name.
After dinner and the shower routine, Dr. L led me back to my empty room and closed the door behind her before I curled over the plastic mattress. The room was freezing and I pulled my arms into my sweatshirt, then pulled my knees up inside, hugging myself as I shivered in a ball.