Milo's Story: Stories from The Gateway: Companion tales to The Gateway Trilogy by E.E. Holmes Page B

alone, they could go pretty happily through life. But no one ever leaves them alone. The world bullies and harasses and beats their square little selves into the socially acceptable round holes, and when they don’t fit, they end up in places like this.
    Then, you’ve got the Look-At-Mes. The Look-At-Mes need attention as badly as the Fixer-Uppers DON’T need it. They thrive on drama, and will do just about any crazy shit they can think of to get someone’s sympathy. Their behavior escalates and escalates with each new level of attention until they wind up someplace like this. And they’re actually proud of themselves for making it in, like this place is some kind of reward. They see it as validation. “See? I told you I was crazy! Look at how crazy I am!” They’re the ones the rest of us want to bitch slap. Repeatedly.
    Next, you’ve got the Periodics. As in Table. Chemistry. These kids aren’t crazy either. They’ve just got to find the right cocktail to keep their chemistry balanced, and then stay on that cocktail long enough to function normally. These are the depressives, the bi-polars, the kids who can do just fine on the outside if they play by the meds. Of course, a lot of the time they don’t. Sometimes they convince themselves they’re better and don’t need the meds anymore. Sometimes they just don’t like the side-effects or the way the meds make them feel. Sometimes they just want to flip-off their doctors or their parents, or the world, and won’t take them on rebellious principle. Either way, they are usually in and out a lot- periodically, in fact. I’ve flirted with Periodic status, but so far, I maintain my Fixer-Upper label.
    Finally, you’ve got the Foxes. As in, “crazy as a.” These are the lifers, with no chance of functioning outside the walls. They start in places like New Beginnings, but that’s usually just a stop on the way to someplace that makes New Beginnings look like a spa getaway. I hadn’t met many of them, but the few I had met scared the crap out of me.
    One look through that window, and I knew that girl was the craziest Fox I’d ever seen.
    And she was in my room. Of course. Because that was just my friggin’ luck.
    I hovered on the spot for a minute, trying to convince myself to go find a nurse, but also weirdly fascinated by what the girl was doing. The conversation, if that’s what it was, was escalating quickly. The girl’s hands were gesticulating wildly now, and she kept pointing to the door, where I stood gaping at her. Finally, she stood up, stamping her foot in frustration, and said, loudly enough so that I could actually understand her, “It’s not your room anymore! You have to leave!”
    She looked towards the door this time and froze. We stared at each other, neither of us moving a muscle, neither of us sure what to do. I was fighting an impulse to run. She looked like she would have jumped out the window if it hadn’t been barred. Finally, after a long, tense moment, she dropped the hand she had been pointing with. Her face fell into a perfectly serene expression, and she walked calmly towards me.
    I backed away until the opposite wall bumped gently against my shoulder blades. There was the sound of the bed being pulled away from the door, and then, it opened. The girl turned and closed it carefully behind her, before she turned to look at me again.
    She was tiny and frail-looking, with long, thick brown hair, a pale face, and enormous eyes; the kind of eyes you could fall into and not find your way back out of again. Her hands were clasped demurely in front of her, and her voice, when she spoke, was a fluttery thing.
    “I’m sorry about that. I think you should ask the nurses for another room,” she said. Then she walked away down the hall without another word of explanation and disappeared around the corner.
     
    ~
     
    She was there an hour later, in my first group therapy session, or as I fondly called them, the feelings circle. Group