Soup Is Good Food

M'Jello, fighting over my luscious body, AGAIN...

Oh, God. I’ve done something terribly wrong. Really, really wrong.

I don’t know how I’ve done it, exactly.

I don’t think I’ve been doing anything differently. I certainly haven’t made any particular, conscious effort to. But alas, somewhere along the way, I have fucked up horribly.

The others girls, here in hop-sital, in the program, they...they...

Christ. I can’t even write it.

Fuck.

They...they like me.

UuuuuuuggggghhhhhAAAAAAAAAAA. DA FUCK?!?!?!?!

I don’t know how it happened! I swear I didn’t do anything differently. I’m the miserable cow I always am. Mr. Reznor (my iPod) is always in my ears. I am constantly aloof and unavailable. And even if I like them (and by sheer accident, I do) I am careful not to let them know it.

So how the fuck did this happen?!

I found out this morning at breakfast. Ugh.

We were all chowing down on our respective brekkers, and Dachau asked LynnLynn which day next week we would all be frogmarched down to the hop-sital cafeteria and lined up before the firing squad (ie: the real food).

“Well, how bout Tuesday?” LynnLynn asked, and most of the girls shrugged their slender shoulders and mumbled their assents.

“But Kage won’t be here!” Dachau cried. “We have to do it before Kage leaves.”

My eyes snapped up from where I was dithering at the far end of the table, and I misswallowed my (small, heh heh) mouthful of Bran Flakes. I started to cough and choke. (Surprise, surprise).

“Are you okay?” Debbie Gibson looked up worriedly from beside me.

“Fine, fine,” I spluttered, and slapped my chest. “Sorry. I got some food in my mouth.”

The conversation moved on, but I was terribly shocked. What had Dachau said? Why did she say that? What did that mean?

There were two more suspicious events to come. Both took place in the dorm room this morning, after breakfast.

The first one was expected, but still managed to surprise me all the same. I mean, she said she was gonna do it, but I was like, YEAAAAAAAH, right. Like you don’t have better shit to do on a Saturday morning?!

Remember Day Program? Of the romantic Christine Daae curls, flute-playing, book-review-writing, oozing-with-potential goodness?

She came to hop-sital today.

Why, you may ask?

No, she’s not dying. No, she’s not interviewing witnesses for my upcoming murder trial if I don’t get out of here on Monday, as planned. She wasn’t even here cuz she left her cell charger behind when she graduated from this program, eight weeks ago.

She came to see ME. Day Program came to visit me in hop-sital, to see how I was doing, and to say hi.

 I was stunned, to say the least. I mean, yes, she had said it, and yes, she had confirmed it, but I didn’t think she’d really do it. I could be miserable to her on the phone, she didn’t have to come all the way down to hop-sital to get some.

It was nice to see her, though. She’s doing really well. Like, REALLY well. She was smiling and happy and laughing, and all that other nauseating stuff that makes you want to kill a person, unless they deserve it. Which she does, so I let it pass.

I was actually surprised when she said that she still has five more weeks to go of Day Program for her eating disorder. She just seems so...over it. Her life is moving on, she’s doing all these exciting new things and her eating disorder has nothing to do with any of it.

I’d never tell her, but I’m very proud of her.

The second suspicious event came after Day Program left, and the other incarcerated mentalers and I had finished our Morning Snack.

We were all going outside for a walk. I always strap Mr. Reznor on when we go out on our walks, and for whatever reason, the counselors never try to stop me - even though technically we are still in group, and I shouldn’t be listening to music.

It’s funny, but nobody seems to want to get between me and my iPod. Huh. How odd.

I was by the lockers, already strapped in for sound, but was just searching through my iPod library for something. I overheard LynnLynn talking to the other girls, and I listened while I flicked through Mr. Reznor’s files.

“...so we have two new girls coming on Monday, one’s from Our City, and one’s from Southern Province.”

“So that means Kage really is being discharged on Monday?” Debbie Gibson asked softly.

(My discharge date is still just a vicious rumor - started by me - that has not been confirmed by anyone of importance yet. You know, like a DOCTOR.)

“Oh. Um,” LynnLynn said awkwardly, and pressed her lips together. She looked up to the lockers to see me watching her, and I smiled winningly, to let her know that I had heard.

“Hi, LynnLynn,” I said brightly.

“Oh, God,” she groaned, and I whooped.

“I am leaving on Monday, then,” I said gleefully, and clapped my hands together purposefully, as though I have a whole life out there, just waiting for me to come back and live it! Which I don’t.

But when I looked around, nobody else was smiling. In fact, they looked subdued.

Well, that’s not very nice, I thought, as the other nutters looked away, and remained mute. They could at least be happy to be rid of me. 

Then I thought, I’d prolly be sour too, if I had to stay. So whatever.

We went out into the cold day for our walk. I trailed a few feet behind the others, feeing antisocial and singing along obnoxiously loudly to...wait for it...(actually, you shouldn’t have to wait for it, people, it’s the theme this month)...Dead Kennedys:

"Soup is Good Food! 


We're sorry, we hate to interrupt
But it's against the law to jump off this bridge 
You'll just have to kill yourself somewhere else
A tourist might see you, and we wouldn't want that 


I'm just doing my job, you know
So say uncle! And we'll take you to the mental health zoo
Force feed you mind-melting chemicals
Til even the outside world looks great."

We weren’t outside very long - it was just too cold for a bunch of chicks with BMIs below 16. We went in through the back of the hop-sital, and up the elevators back up to Unit 32. As we all trudged back down the hall towards the dorm room, Debbie Gibson pulled on the sleeve of my jacket, and motioned for me to pull an earbud out of my ear.

“Hello,” I said, somewhat reluctantly. I was listening to a new song, goddamnit!

“Kage, I just wanted to tell you, I think you’re really beautiful,” she just blurted out, and my eyebrows shot up, while my mouth popped open in a perfect ‘o’. Da fuck? I wasn’t expecting that. “You’re really tall, and I’m tall, and I always thought that made me look fat, but then I look at you, and you’re tall, but I still think you look thin, and that you’re beautiful.”

(Debbie Gibson is only 16 years old, and has less self esteem than a battered and punctured blow-up doll, despite being pretty and intelligent, tall and feminine.)

Suddenly, she wrapped her arms around my waist.

“Fuck me!” I exclaimed.

After a stunned moment of silence, I wrapped my arm awkwardly around her shoulders, and patted the top of her head. She’s not a DOG, Kage! I thought, rolling my eyes at my own stupidity.

“Debbie Gibson, you silly girl,” I said, and allowed my cheek to press against her head. “Guys LOVE tall girls! You’re just too young to know it, cuz high school boys are retarded. I didn’t know that shit when I was your age either, but trust me. Being tall is awesome.”

“You think?” she mumbled, from inside my neck.

“Fuck yeah,” I said. “It’s some kind of Amazonian thing, something about being able to wrap your legs around their face and snap their neck with your bare thighs. They love that shit.”

Silence.

Hmmm. Too much, I decided.

“What I meant to say is, I still wear heels, and look how tall I am,” I said enthusiastically.

She gave a small laugh, then released me, and wandered into the dorm room, and off to her bed. I wandered back to my own in silence, feeling surreal.

See what I mean?! They fucking like me! I’m sure of it! Even when I say stupid shit like that.

Now what the fuck am I supposed to do?!

Just...just leave, I guess. Right?

Right.

Phew!

THAT was close.