“I don’t know,” I growl, irritated.
He taps his chin, humming. “I know who you are.” He pushes himself off the door and my eyes widen at the movement. I’m tied to a table in a closed room with a man that has the power to do anything he wants with me. “I know your father is known to be a very powerful, dangerous man,” he states, but I don’t reply. I remain silent.
“I’m sure you’ve seen things or heard things that have you feeling uneasy?” His glasses slip down his nose, his eyes looking at me intently.
“I’m not talking about my father,” I finally tell him, and he pushes the glasses back onto his nose with a disappointed look. He wouldn’t be the first person to try to squeeze juicy stories out of me.
“Right, well I have twenty-four hours to do my job, if you want my help, and I think you do, then I suggest you cooperate with me, Romeo.” He raises a brow.
I look to my restrained feet, the straps look brand new. I wiggle my toes within the tan hospital socks. I don’t know what happened yesterday, and I don’t know what is going on inside of me. I can’t talk to my father about it, he’s always busy and irritated by my presence. My mother has enough problems with what my father does, so that leaves me alone in my room rocking back and forth wondering why I feel the way I do.
“Okay,” I mumble, the urge to rebel is tempting but deep down I am tired of these… moods, I have. I want to be a normal kid and not feel like I’m on a never-ending roller coaster.
“I get sad, yes,” I state, l turning to look at the gray blank wall. “Sometimes I want to hurt myself, sometimes I just want to lay in my bed and not be bothered for days, and sometimes I want to take whatever is inside of me out on someone else just to feel something different than unhappy.” My own words surprise me, I didn’t know I had all of that inside of me. When I opened my mouth to explain myself, I wasn’t expecting my soul to pour from my lips.“I see,” he mumbles, scratching his chin with clean fingernails. His hands look soft and clean, he sits behind a desk all day judging people, that’s as dirty as his hands get.
“When you attacked the kid at school, what was going through your mind?” He digs deeper.
I roll my shoulders, the jacket hugging me suddenly feeling relaxing as I tell this man things I don’t want to talk about. Things that have been rolling in the back of my mind like a tumbleweed in a western movie.
“I don’t know… relief.” I shrug. When I was beating the shit out of Casen I felt in the right, like it was okay, it felt good and I wanted to keep doing it… until I was pulled away and I saw what I had really done. It was like I slipped into a black void and and now that I’m out and looking back.. it didn’t feel so okay anymore. I wanted to slump into a vast darkness and hide from everyone, including myself.
“So you didn’t blackout, you knew what you were doing?”
My brows furrow, anger settling on the tip of my tongue, ready to lash out like a whip. His questions are narrowing in on me being a crazy person, getting off on hurting others, and that’s not it.
“I don’t want to do this anymore,” I snap, my eyes focused on my feet again.
He sighs, taking the clipboard out, he scribbles on it and it makes me even more mad. I don’t know what he’s writing, but I feel it’s not good. He’s judging me, dissecting me, and trying to get me to say things I don’t want to.
“We only have so many hours together, Romeo.” His voice slips into my ear like a hushed whisper, the watch on his wrist suddenly ticking loudly as the minutes count down my escape from this place. If I want his so-called help, I have to talk about feelings, and things even I don’t understand, but couldn’t I just be a kid with hormones or something? I’ve seen on TV where doctors are over-diagnosing children and putting them on unnecessary medication.
Feeling exposed, I yell, “Get out.”
Walking up to the foot of the bed, he undoes the strap around my feet with one quick move, blood floods to my toes making them feel all tingly. I lift my left leg, the freedom somewhat settling. He reaches for the straitjacket, I jump away from him.
“No, I want to keep it on,” I protest, looking at him as if he was ready to strike me instead of taking a restraining device off a kid who means no harm.