Anya left right after she took a shower and left me to find my own way to the cafeteria. Dressed in my designer jeans, high heel shoes and diamond earrings, I grabbed the map off of my dresser and walked down the unfamiliar hallways.
They were completely empty. The map was so poorly drawn that I couldn’t follow the halls too easily, so I just headed towards the sound of female voices. When I stepped through the narrow archway, all of their heads turned my way and all the voices went down to a whisper.
It was like when I was back in sophomore year and the new student, Abigail Something-Or-Other, walked into the cafeteria. We all gave her death stares, I led the pack. We stared at her until she ran out of the lunch room, then we all laughed.
I was Abigail, and Anya was leading the pack. I spotted her face as soon as I entered the room. She stared at me with her friends. I noticed the ones that had come into our room and Kristie, there were some others with them. I didn’t recognize them.
I blinked and thrust my head up high. I wasn’t Abigail; I was Isabelle Bailey, the most popular junior at my high school. I marched over to the buffet style table, like I was walking a runway rather than in a shelter, hearing the satisfying click of my shoes, and the whispers of others. I picked up a tray and put a small amount of a gooey egg-like substance, two pancakes and grabbed some orange juice. At the end of the counter there was a little paper condiment cup, with a tiny pill.
“Here, honey, it’s your prenatal vitamin,” the old woman sitting by the cups said. I picked up the cup and went to sit next to Kristie.
“Hey, Kristie, how are you?” I asked, confidently smiling.
“I’m fine,” she quietly said, astonishingly looking at the faces of the other girls. “And you?”
“I’ve been better. It’s my first day getting morning sickness,” I explained.
The cafeteria soon grew in volume as new conversations erupted. Anya and her friends kept scoffing in my direction. I knew I was the main subject on every group’s minds. I didn’t mind, I would rather people be talking about me than not.
“You’re handling your first day here much better than everyone else did,” Kristie said after a pause.
“Am I?” I said, trying to act like I didn’t know what she was talking about.
“Yeah,” she laughed. “Everyone else usually skips their first day of meals. You’re one of the only ones, who have come here and acted like she owned the place, the only other was Anya.”
I choked on my orange juice.
“Anya? She acted like me?” I asked in a hoarse voice.
“Yeah. You don’t realize it, but you two are a lot alike.”
“How could you know only after a day?”
“Just trust me on this one,” she said, popping a piece of greasy bacon in her mouth. She looked down at my tray and saw the small amount of food. “Aren’t you hungry?”
“Yes, but this will fill me up. One must keep in shape, and that means not eating too much and not eating things that are high in fat,” I recited, pointing a finger up in the air. My mother would’ve been so proud.
“That’s going to change real soon,” she laughed. “Once you get further along in your pregnancy that kid is going to need more and more food and you will eat more and more.”
I rolled my eyes.
“It’s true,” she sang. I looked around the room. The only people that weren’t eating a lot were the girls like Anya and me, the ones who were very newly pregnant. The other girls were eating half of their body weight.
I didn’t respond. I just focused on eating and trying to look like I was comfortable in my surroundings.
“What’s up with the outfit, anyway?” Kristie asked, pointing a piece of sausage at my clothes.
“What about it?”
“You look like you’re dressed for a photo shoot instead of this place.” I smiled, flattered that she thought I looked like a model.
“Thanks,” I blushed.
“I hope you brought some sweatpants and larger clothes for later on,” she said.
“I did,” I replied. Kristie was getting on my nerves.
A bell rang, and all of the girls paused in their chatter.
“What was that?”
“The bell. It just tells us when the time frames are up,” she rolled her eyes like even an idiot would’ve known that. “Are you going to Church?”
“I wasn’t planning on it,” I mumbled. My mother and father weren’t religious people. My dad only said he was so he could get votes from different people. I’ve had to pretend I was Buddhist, Catholic and Jewish, so he could win an election.
“Okay, well I’m going. So you can just wait in your room, and I’ll come when their done; then I’ll introduce you to everyone.”
“All right.” I didn’t like having to wait for someone, everyone usually waited for me. She looked at my angered expression and snickered.
“Don’t worry, I’ll find someone for you to hang out with.” she looked up and down the table and her eyes rested on the worst person possible. “Hey, Anya, you’re not going to Church, right?”
“Kris, I know I haven’t been here that long, but I thought you knew me better than that,” Anya replied with a sarcastic laugh.
“I know. I know,” Kristie laughed. “Can you hang out with Isabelle? Just make sure she doesn’t get into to much trouble flaunting her…fashion sense… to everyone.”
“Why is everyone making fun of my clothes?” I nearly shouted. “At school I was voted Best-Dressed every year, I even beat the upperclassmen.”
“Ohmygahh! No way!!” Anya exclaimed, dropping her hand onto the table with a loud smack. The whole table erupted in laughter as my face turned red. Not from embarrassment, though, from anger. “But, yeah, Kris, I’ll babysit your new friend,” Anya said, focusing on Kristie again. I turned to glare at Kristie.
“What?” she asked. “You’re going to become friends with her soon enough, anyway.”
I gave her an incredulous look. “Trust me. You two have a lot in common. Anya’s only about two months pregnant and, by the looks of it, so are you. Once you get past her rough exterior, she’s a great friend. You’ll be very close.”
“She hates my guts!” I quietly exclaimed.
“Anya acts like she hates everybody. She’ll come around to you. But I really have to go to Church, okay? I’ll see you later,” she said. She slowly got up from the table and waddled away.
Anya stood up after her and glanced in my direction.
“Let’s go,” she said, starting to walk away. I jumped up from my chair and followed her to our room, listening to the monotonous click of my shoes. Anya silently led the way, holding her head high, like she was better than me or something.
“What’s your problem?” I asked when we were in our room.
“My problem?” she asked incredulously raising an eyebrow.
“Why are you always being rude to me?” I asked.
“You’ve been here for a day; do you honestly expect me to be buddy-buddy with you all ready?”
“Well usually people have some courtesy to the person they’re going to share a room with for nine months,” I said. She rolled her eyes and walked to her stereo, putting on another obnoxious CD. She sat down on her bed and started tapping her fingers to the beat.
“You’re just not my cup of tea, New Chick,” she said.
“What do you mean I’m not your cup- wait, what did you just call me?” I asked, sitting down on my own bed.
“New Chick, what else do you want me to call you?”
“Isabelle, perhaps, because that is my name, you know,” I sarcastically explained.
“When I like you enough I’ll call you that,” she shrugged. That bothered me, why didn’t she like me? Everyone in my school loved me, it was ridiculous, and now I come here and one person likes me? It was an unfathomable concept. I got up from the bed and walked to the stereo, turning it down about four decibels.
When I sat back down, Anya was looking at me.
“All right, I’ll make an effort to like you; it’s going to be hard though,” she sighed.
“Oh thank you for your friendliness,” I snapped.
“Okay, what do you want to talk about until Kristie gets back?” she asked.
“Does this place really run on this tight of a schedule?” I asked, not really caring about the answer.
“Yes, it’s too uptight, but it’s the only place for us.” The tone in her voice held some sadness I couldn’t recognize.
“And what about these visiting hours, who exactly is allowed to come?” I was scared of the man who haunted my dreams being here.
“Every day anyone can come, as long as they show they’re related to you somehow. On the weekends it’s a free for all; anyone can come and see you. This place isn’t really pro-security.” I bit my lip. “Don’t worry, during the weekends we can sit in the entry room to make sure the guy who did this to you doesn’t come in,” she casually said.
I smiled. She was trying to pretend like she didn’t like me. It made me feel a whole lot better.
“Has anything like that ever happened? Like when the girl doesn’t want to see the person and they have to forcibly remove them?”
“In my short time here, it’s happened about three times. But don’t worry, it won’t happen with you. Kristie and I will make sure no one get’s in who you don’t want to see.”
“Thanks, overly protective-older-sister,” I laughed.
“No problem, New Chick. Come on; let’s go into the Rec Room, I’ll introduce you to some of the guys.” She turned off the music and walked out of the room, not waiting to see if I was following. But, of course, I was. Fueled by my need to be accepted, I was following.
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thanks for reading!!
~Dommy
loved them!
