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Challenge #27
Genre: Romance
Rating: Anything
Likes: People at a locked psychiatry ward that are NOT overly obsessed with their mental illness and/or their medication.
Dislikes: Mary Sues in general. Sexual abuse used simply for the angst factor.
3 Quotes/Phrases: "Jump in, it's only fire." "Living here between reasons to live." "The cake is a lie."

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Chapter One – When Ignorance is a Virtue

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Sadie

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Black.

White.

Black.

White.

My eyes stay open. I am mulling over the homework that Clarisse – Fieldman’s resident therapist – gave us yesterday.

We are supposed to go to a quiet, lonely room (my bedroom) and come up with the most powerful adjectives that we can think of to describe ourselves. They cannot be physical – Fieldman’s does not have any mirrors, not since Caraugh Eckhart went crazy and smashed them all, then used the pieces to cut herself – but they are supposed to be about what we feel inside.

I have been trying to keep my eyes shut, to try and see my ‘inner being’. It is one of Clarisse’s favourite phrases. Inner being. She says it is all about knowing yourself, because outside appearances are not who you are. It is what is on the inside that counts, and that we have to understand ourselves on the inside before anyone else can try to.

But I do not know what is on my inside. I know who I am aesthetically – I know that I have hazel eyes and shoulder-length brown hair that only ever gets cut every thirteenth Saturday, and that I am 158 centimetres tall – but on the inside, all I can see is black.

Frank Currerro gave me his answers last night, all written neatly on the back of an envelope. He used words like ‘loyal’, ‘faithful’ and ‘courageous’. I asked him how he saw them, and he scratched his beard and said, “I jus’ looked deep inside mysel’, didn’t I? An’ then I jus’… knew.”

I told him all I could see was darkness. He laughed and told me I was the sunshine in his day – which is impossible because I do not glow and we leave the windows open during the day so that the light can get through. I do not think he really understood what I meant, but I forced myself to smile anyway.

We have got Circle soon, and I have been up since four o’clock this morning, trying to answer Clarisse’s questions. One time I shut my eyes so hard I thought I could see some coloured lights, which might have stood for something, but then they went away and I was left with nothing.

Like I always am.

There is a single knock at the door and then Flossy comes bustling in, with her cheery white smile. I am somewhat envious of her teeth. I have never seen them with a speck of yellow – she tells me it is because she never forgets to brush them, but I have not forgotten to brush mine in 243 days, and I can tell that they are never going to be as perfect as hers are.

“Good morning,” she says to me as she walks past to push open the curtains. “Sleep well?” Flossy’s real name is Florence, but as long as I have known her I have never been allowed to call her that. The only person that is allowed to is Rolando, but that is only because he is so old and intimidating.

I usually share my room with my friend Mona. But last week she was taken away – Flossy told us she is on a holiday with her family, but Francesca keeps saying that she has been locked in the South Ward. I do not believe her, because the South Ward is the one place that no patient ever wants to go – if you go to the South Ward, you do not come back.

I mean to reply, but I cannot. The words get stuck in my throat and my mouth will not open. I am left staring at her mutely.

Flossy notices – I know she does, because her mouth turns down and her forehead becomes creased and she looks at me strangely – but she does not say anything about it.

“Don’t forget to go to breakfast before Circle,” she reminds me, even though I have never once neglected to go to mealtime. Then she pauses, brushes her yellow hair out of her face and bends down to me. “You’re sure you’re okay, Sadie?” she asks, and I want to tell her that I never said I was in the first place. “Because if you had a bad sleep—”

“I would not know,” I reply finally, and my voice is croaky and loud and I flinch because it hurts my ears. I keep staring at the ceiling. “I did not sleep.”

Flossy frowns. “Indoor voice,” she reminds me, like she does every morning when I have not quite adjusted my tone yet. “That’s been happening a lot lately, hasn’t it? Maybe we should up your dosage—”

“No!” I interrupt, swinging my legs out of bed and tripping before I manage to stand up. “No – I do not need it. I do not need it.” I reiterate firmly.

Flossy sighs and comes over, glancing at my legs. “That’s a nice array of bruises you’ve got there,” she grins, but sobers when I do not meet her eyes. I cannot bring myself to.

“You’re not having a good day, are you Sadie?”

I shrug, feeling uncomfortable with her so near. My hands twist around each other.

Her mouth is pursed, and I can only guess as to what she is about to say. “Sadie—” the interrogation stops when her back pocket emits a beeping noise, and she pulls out her pager. “I’ve got to go,” she says instead. “Clarisse would like you to meet with her in an hour, okay?”

I am only able to nod. She lets go of my forearm and runs out the door, leaving it to creak shut behind her. I can hear the sounds of people talking and laughing and shouting in the breakfast room, but then the door shuts and the only noise left is silence.

I do not much like silence, so I put on a robe and begin walking towards the meal area, even though I am not hungry.

It does not take a long time to reach the dining room because it is not very far from my bedroom. There are only four seats left, so I quickly try to head over to two spare ones, but I slip and knock my elbow against Leo’s chair.

“Ouch,” he says, but he does not look at me or check to see if I am all right. He just keeps eating his eggs, so I do not apologise.

I sit down in the chair and pull the one next to it as close to me as I possibly can. Two people pass by it and glance towards it, but they make no attempt to sit down so I take my hand off of it and lean forward to grab three slices of toast and one packet of vegemite.

But just as I am about to grab the butter the chair is tugged away from me and Danica, a black-haired girl who is bigger and older than me, tries to sit on it. But I do what Clarisse calls dissuading by clearing my throat, and without looking at me Danica slowly leaves to find another seat.

“Who’s tha’ for?” Frank Currerro asks me as he passes with a bagel.

“Mona,” I answer and push the rest of the toast into my mouth.

“Why?” he laughs and it sounds like the rumbling of thunder. “Sadie, she ain’t comin’ back, love.”

“Yes, she is,” I say firmly.

He opens his mouth to say something, closes it, and then opens it again. “Well, hows abou’ I sit there ‘til she comes ta kick me outta it?”

I ponder this. “Alright,” I concede. “But the second she comes back you have to leave.”

And instead of laughing at me like he usually does, Frank Currerro looks straight at me with shiny eyes, and I watch as a single drop of liquid rolls down his cheek. “Alright, love. Alright.” And then he turns away so I can’t see his face, but I can still see the droplets that keep splashing onto his bacon, so that eventually it looks like it is still in the deep fryer.

When I go to leave, instead of saying something strange that I do not understand and chuckling to himself, he grabs my arm and does not let go, even when I try to shake him off. “You take care o’ yoursel’, okay Sadie? If ya ever git lonely, you know where I am, don’t you?”

“Yes,” I say, pretending that I know what he is talking about. “I do.”

And his smile in reply is shaky, but he is satisfied and so I keep going on my way back to my room.

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I grab some clothes from my room and head up the hallway towards the washroom. There are two in our building – male and female – on either side of the hallway. The walls of the female’s are painted in a hideous fuchsia colour, although Esme (an elderly lady who constantly tries to woo the male nurses) thinks that it has dulled a bit since being applied back in the sixties.

The door swings open with full force as soon as I put the slightest amount of pressure on it. It has to be like that, for people who need wheelchairs or who do not have full motor coordination. The floor is covered in a giant anti-stick mat, and there are three toilets and three showers, all private. There used to be a bathtub, too, but a few years ago there was an incident, and so it was removed.

I have been demoted to the shower with the seat, ever since last month – I lost my balance and fell over, hitting my head on the side of the wall. I was unconscious for five full minutes before someone found me. It has also got an automatic temperature setting, which Flossy tells me is good because I usually turn the water on too hot and burn myself without realising it. She always had to turn the water on for me in the other shower.

I am under the water for nine minutes before I hear footsteps and someone bangs on the door.

“Come on, Sadie, we’re in a fucking drought!” It is Francesca. She likes to emphasise nearly everything she says with swearing; she says it makes it all the more meaningful. Esme just thinks that it is uncouth, and I am inclined to agree. It gets tiring after hearing it being applied to such mundane things as vegetables and the weather.

I push the button for the water. The showers are supposed to be modern and top-of-the-range, but even I can see the rust covering the pipe and the cracks in the tiles.

“We’re all waiting for you!” Francesca yells, but I do not think she means it nicely.

I turn around too quickly to find my pants and slip, smashing forward against the door. It does not snap open under my weight, but I can already see the bruises that are threatening to pop up. They do not hurt.

“Are you okay?”

I nod, then realise she cannot see me. “I am fine,” I mumble, fingers fumbling with the buttons to my top. I emerge to see her lounging against the wall, waiting for me.

“About fucking time,” she snaps, pushing some curly brown hair out of her face. “We’re late, thanks to you.”

I gather my courage and force myself to look at her in the face (the first real glance of the day) – but I get sidetracked. “You have a massive pimple,” I tell her, pointing to my chin. “Right there. Maybe you should get it fixed.”

I check the clock and see that she is right; I am actually late, so I leave the bathroom and head towards the meeting room, all the while with the sound of her indignant huff ringing in my ears.

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Every Thursday I have to go to Circle. Clarisse runs it, and the point of it is to be ‘comfortable with both ourselves and others’. It is like social skills training, but every now and then we have days where nobody seems to feel social – much like today.

“Well,” says Clarisse expectantly. Everyone is silent. We are all set up in a muddled oval because we cannot comfortably make a circle with the chairs in such a small space. Clarisse keeps trying to get the personal development room refurbished and up-and-running, but the government refuses to grant her the money, so we are stuck with an old former bedroom.

“Who completed the homework task I set you?”

Several hands go up; mine is not one of them.

“Leo,” she points to him, who looks small and forlorn at the far end of the oval. “Why not?” Clarisse does not take excuses. She likes to talk about how we need to have work ethic, and how when we get out we cannot just mope around all day and become vagrants – she is not very tolerant of them.

I do not think she realises that nobody ever expects to be let out.

Leo shrugs mutely.

Clarisse zeroes in on another failure. “Danica?”

She stares back at her expressionlessly.

Clarisse throws her hands up in frustration. “Is anybody willing to offer an excuse?”

No one so much as makes a sound. The broken fan above us squeaks.

“Okay,” she says, breathing deeply, “okay. Now, we’re going to try a new exercise today – we’ll go over the homework later,” she adds when Frank Currerro waves his yellow envelope in the air. “We’re all going to act like we’ve never met before.”

“But we have,” I point out. “How can we pretend we have not?”

Clarisse beams at me, and it is as though she knew I would say something. “It’s simple,” she replies, loudly enough for the whole group to hear. “Why don’t you go first, Sadie? I want you to introduce yourself, and tell us one thing that someone who you’d never met before might not know.”

My eyes dart around the room. “My name—”

“A bit quieter, please,” Clarisse interrupts, not unkindly.

I flush. “My name is Sadie Xuereb,” I begin, “and my mother abandoned me at a hospital on my ninth birthday because I did not get the Singing Susie doll I wanted, so I started to hit my head on the corner of a brick wall. And I nearly died, but she did not care because they say she was mad anyway—”

“Thank you, Sadie,” Clarisse says amidst the quiet, and somebody on the other side coughs.

“Jesus,” Francesca exclaims when nobody says anything after her. “This is like a fucking AA meeting, or something. I’m outta here.” She stands up and moves towards the door.

“Francesca—” Clarisse starts, but by then Francesca is already opening the door and all of a sudden, we can hear noise. Lots of noise.

“Fuck,” Francesca half-laughs, peering outside. “You gotta check this out. Old man Nazi’s gone all SS on some random!” She does not actually know anything about the Germans, Francesca. She has just retained a few various phrases and that is all she ever addresses Rolando as, even though he has lived in Australia nearly all his life and even fought in wars on our side – he talks about them a lot.

A few people get up from their chairs and rush over to her, all crowding about in the hallway near the door to the general lounge area. I glance over to Clarisse, who has already pulled out her mobile phone and is talking into it.

I am curious. Rolando is often delusional, so he is probably taking out his pent up anger on a poor, innocent paperboy. I edge closer to the door.

“It’s Charlie! Get the guns, mate, and shoot the bastard!”

I push my way through the assembling crowd. Rolando is still in his wheelchair, but his blanket is strewn on the floor and he is yelling at the top of his voice. Across the room, a young man with messy black hair is standing utterly still as Rolando continues to shout at him.

“I’ll get ya, if it’s the last thing I bloody do! Ya thought that bloody trap door trick was smart, didn’t ya? I’ll show you fucking smart, you smug prick!”

It takes me a minute to realise that the ‘mate’ Rolando’s referring to is not the boy at all. He is actually the ‘bastard’ that he wants to shoot.

“What the fuck?” he cries. “Are you off your meds, or something? I didn’t sign up for this!”

Elise, one of the nurses, is looking desperately between the two of them. She has not been here for very long, and Francesca is enjoying every bit of it. She is even commentating.

“And Nurse Big Arse can’t decide which way to go; protect the delinquent or restrain the old coot… Oh, look, there she goes, she’s going in for the kill… Ha! And the Nazi wheels over her toes in his quest for revenge… Oh, there goes the fucking phone…”

I wince. Not that I have anyone to call, but Mona calls her parents every Sunday night. She will be upset.

People are squealing and shouting, some wanting him to continue, others calling for him to calm down. I jump up to get a better view, and that is when Flossy comes in.

“What is going on here?” she demands, so loudly that everyone stops what they are doing and turn to look at her.

The boy speaks first. “He – ” he points to Rolando, who has limited himself to murmuring under his breath – “just started attacking me!”

“He’s got you fooled,” Rolando mutters rebelliously. “You’re all so trusting of him, but come nightfall he’ll give you back your bloody bombs and make you trip over them, then hide in his underground hole!”

“Oh,” Flossy says suddenly. “Mr Klum, Vinh’s not a member of the Viet Cong – the war’s over, remember?”

“That explains it,” Francesca mutters rudely. “He’s a fucking Jap.”

Vinh obviously hears her, because he moves towards her with clenched fists. “What did you say?”

“He damn well is the VC,” Rolando yells. “Look at him!”

We all turn to inspect him. He is definitely Asian; of what nationality, I cannot be sure.

Flossy sighs wearily and puts her head in her hands. “Look, I’m very sorry,” she says to him, “Rolando’s not feeling very well today. Perhaps it would be better if you came back tomorrow instead.” It is not a question. “Ah – ” she glances at the crowd – “Sadie will show you out.”

I do not move from my spot.

“Sadie, that’s you,” Francesca hisses in my ear, giving me a shove.

“Sadie, please,” Flossy says.

The crowd moves out of my way, and I turn abruptly, falling to my knees. Frank Currerro helps me up and I continue walking without turning back to see if the man – Vinh – is following behind.

I am near the main corridor by the time he catches up. I do not look at him, but I can feel him staring at me.

“Why are you doing that?”

I still do not glance at him. “What?”

“That thing – your hands,” he motions to them, where they are twisting around one another. My right hand has gripped my left so tightly that it is purple.

“I do not know,” I say simply, entering the foyer. As soon as his feet touch the blue of the carpet I turn around, nearly stumbling but catching my balance on a railing. He is still staring at me, and I look back to inspect him.

“You are Asian,” I tell him. “That is why nobody likes you.”

A corner of his mouth tips up and he raises an eyebrow. “You can’t say you’re not observant,” he says, although I do not think that he is talking specifically to me.

“I did not,” I reply anyway, confused. He heaves a sigh and I make up my mind to leave before he does whatever Ronaldo was shouting at him for, or shows me the reason that Francesca loathes him so much.

I have almost shuffled my way to the end of the corridor when I hear him.

“Fuck,” he says suddenly, his voice reverberating down to me. “Fuck – community service. Eight months with these freaks.”

I am instantly glad that I decided to lead him to the only door that has not been used in decades – he might be here for a while longer yet.

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A/N: Right, first chapter for the of ficathon challenge. And it's past the limit, so at least now I don't have to try and count every single word hoping that it's enough.

So, questions about Sadie? Criticisms? Any reviews at all?

I wonder if anyone can guess what she has...