Cracked by K. M. Walton Page B

Mastrick, wishing I had the guts to take his stupid crutches and just beat him till he begged me to stop.
    Walking in that room means I have to talk to these kids. Am I ready for that? Apparently I am, because I’m sitting on the sofa.
    The common room looks like a hospital waiting room, just with couches instead of plastic chairs. It has a TV, shelves with boxes of games, and a table with chairs where the two guys go start playing cards. Three of the girls spread out on the sofas, and then there’s me on one by myself. The other girl with the long black hair and the sour look on her face sits in the corner, facing the window, and writes in a notebook. I guess it’s her journal or something.
    One of the sofa girls asks me, “So, what did you do? Wait, let me guess: the car. You used the car, right?”
    “No way, he’s pills. He’s definitely pills,” the blond, curly-haired girl says. She is seriously the hottest girl to ever talk to me.
    I am solidly stunned that she even spoke to me at all. “Yeah, pills,” I say to her. I wonder how she knows this, but I’m afraid to ask her.
    The not-Brian guy turns around from the card table and says, “Parents are real assholes, you get bullied at school, never been laid, got no friends. Am I right?”
    “Pretty much,” I say, trying to figure out if they’re making fun of me or just showing off their creepy knowledge of suicide. Great, I can’t believe I just admitted to five strangers and the hottest girl alive that I’m a virgin. Genius.
    Nurse Ellie peeks her head into the common room and announces that some snacks are ready next door. I’m glad she’sback. Everyone jumps up and darts out, and Ellie comes in and tells me that once patients are up to it they eat everything in the dining room. That it is so much nicer to sit at a table and eat. Which I think I’ll agree with.
    She says it helps build friendships, too. That, I can’t see happening.
    Ellie walks me into the dining room and announces, “Bon appétit.” The dining room is a small room with one long rectangular table surrounded by eight plastic orange chairs. In the middle of the table sits a tray of blueberry muffins and another tray of bananas. A whole bunch of sodas and juices are scattered in between the trays. I take the empty seat next to Brian. The hot girl is all the way at the other end.
    The table is set with a white tablecloth and a centerpiece of fresh flowers. I can see the hospital has attempted to make this feel like home, except they’ve clearly failed on some crucial points:
    1. The tablecloth has faint stains.
    2. The flowers are almost dead.
    Despite the dirty tablecloth and crunchy flowers, everyone sitting around the table seems surprisingly normal.
    Not me. I am stained and almost dead.
    Most of the kids talk to each other and I just listen. I swallow a few bites of blueberry muffin, and I realize something. It is pretty cool to actually sit at a table with kids my age and not be asked to get up and leave.
    Or be sucker punched in the back.

Bull
    I WAKE WITH A START. AND I YELP. I JERKED MY freaking leg. The room is still dark on Victor’s side and I wonder where the hell he’s been all day. Then I say out loud, “Who gives a shit?”
    I’m trying to get comfortable when I notice a brown lunch bag sitting on my nightstand. It’s rolled up exactly like the two I found at the cemetery. I freak out a little bit and start looking around, half expecting someone to jump out of my closet or pull back the curtain. After a minute or so I’m pretty sure I’m alone. I unroll the bag. A plastic bottle of apple juice, a wrapped danish, another granola bar, and an orange. And another Post-it.
    Enjoy, son.
    The poem is from when I was a young dad.
    —Frank, the caretaker
    P.S. Your bike is safe.
    So, it was the lawnmower guy. I didn’t think he ever saw me, though. And how did he find me here? I never said one word to the guy. It’s weird, but in a good way. I reach back into the