VII

You have to go.  You don't know where.  Anywhere but here, you suppose.  Its wrong.  What is, exactly, you aren't sure, but its wrong.  You haven't been here in over two weeks.  At least, not since the last attack, and you can't stand it.  The purple hooded sweatshirt, Rocky Horror, the girl who now rests her head on another, the whispers, the guffaws, the hair cuts, the lofted beds, the television, sitting indian-style on the sweating tile floor, the heat, the presence, the grinding of teeth, its intense.  It shouldn't be, you think.  Is not normal to feel this way, you think. Thy are going to come looking for you, you think.  Regardless, it is time to leave.  Battling your own sense, your legs, in their torn jeans, lift you involuntarily, and your ankles and feet, in their scuffed black boots, bring you to the door.  You turn, mouth gaping, a portal, an absence of sound; your mind shuts down, unconsciously, you exit.  The room lengthens.  You spread your legs to accomodate the expanding linolium, and with a motion unfamiliarly fluid, you disappear. 

No longer existing in the uncomfortable silence of a television set, the hallway slides into focus.  The cream colored walls breathe hard in your presence, rising and falling, constricting and expanding with your own breath.  You feel your way along them to the common room.  The Lounge, they call it, and its a good thing, since that's exactly what you need.

Don't pass out.

Don't pass out.

Don't pass out.

You feel light, tired, it is hot.  Breathing is a task, and the air is thin.  For a moment, you consider outside, but the ground is cold with last night's ice, and you left your coat and shoes inside with your silent friends.  Are they friends?  You believe you consider them as such, but it appears that your body, which carried you out to this ugly, lonely couch, may feel differently.  Someone down the hall is listening to "Such Great Heights."

Why haven't they come looking?