After he leaves, I gather my things and head to my room for the night. I was rather surprised that Dr. Iero didn’t say anything about me not eating dinner. All the doctors practically shove the gross food down our throats. He might have been distracted by the whole sketchbook dilemma.

I’m glad he didn’t because I can feel the pills in my stomach and coursing through my veins. It’s changing how I think and how I respond to things. I’m afraid that if I eat that the food will somehow react with the pills and kill me. They already have control over me; why not just kill me already?

“They like you as a lab rat.” Ray inserts his opinion.

That may be right. I mean, they always keep me here. I haven’t improved, so they probably just keep testing new drugs out on me and if I die, I die. They can replace me the old guy who’s junk I’ve seen a lot more than I’d like to admit. They must think ‘Oh, his parents don’t care about him, so we can manipulate his mind and body however we like.’ Then they’ll probably laugh when I die and ask ‘Oh well, where’s the old guy?’

Once I’m in my room, I change into something comfortable to sleep in. I trudge to my bed. These thoughts are going to keep me up all night.

*

As the sun just starts to rise and the birds wake and chirp, I get out of bed. I can’t lie awake in bed anymore and I know I’ll be able to roam the halls at this time. I grab my sketchbook before I tiredly glide to the door and carefully open it; I don’t want to wake anyone up. While I walk down the hallway to the activities room, I drag my hand gently against the wall. The weird, tingly sensations on the tips of my fingers from the bumpy texture of the wall attempt to prove to me that they can’t change what I feel.

Since I’m the first in the room, I get my pick on what seat I want. I make my way to the chair closest to the windows. I hear the oh so recognizable nervous shuffle behind me. Why is he up so early? I bet he’s watching me. I know someone someday will actually be following me, but would someone really go through all this trouble to get to me. Dr. Iero had to somehow build up a reputation in order to get a job in this facility. I don’t believe my miniscule existence could cause people to invest their entire life on destroying me. Plus, Dr. Hollis said he was here to save me, not destroy me. But, she could be helping in his endeavor to hurt me, but wouldn’t she have exterminated me already? She’s had five years to do so. I shake my head to rid these thoughts. I know I have trust issues, but over the years Dr. Hollis has earned some trust.

I continue to walk to the chair, but his voice stops me. I actually freeze mid-step. “Good morning, Gerard. You’re up early.” He stifles a yawn after his greeting.

I turn around to face him and frown at his appearance. His hair’s slightly messy and he looks extremely tired. He still manages to work that black waistcoat, though. “So are you.” I try to make my concern for him as obvious as possible in that small amount of words. I don’t know why I genuinely care for his wellbeing. I never did for the other doctors, or even Dr. Hollis, who has been with me for all five years of this stupid disorder. He just has something about him that makes me want to make him happy. I haven’t quite figured him out yet. I mean, hell, it hasn’t even been a full day since I met him. It’s that fact that makes me confused on why I can already feel myself getting attached to him and wanting him to like me, but not just like me, I want him to be proud of me. It doesn’t make sense. I want him to look at me with pride instead of determination in his indescribably beautiful hazel eyes. I’m contradicting myself. My mind won’t let me trust him, but yet it wants to get attached to him and follow whatever orders he gives me.

“The new surroundings aren’t settling my nerves.” He looks down at his feet meekly. His voice is still kind of groggy and raspy from tiredness. I love that he’s admitting to his nerves. He’s nervous about the new job and the patients that ensue.

“You look tired.” I state the obvious.

“Sometimes, I wonder how you got so smart.”

“I could say the same for you.” He replies, grinning sleepily. I hope I don’t look as tired as him. I look away from him; I can’t stand him seeing me so weak. This would be the time for him to get me. But, by the looks of him, he wouldn’t be able to do anything. “I could also go for some coffee.” As soon as that slips out of his mouth, my head shoots up so fast it could break my neck. My eyes widen, begging and pleading for the taste of my own black gold. Screw oil, coffee is the shit and I haven’t had any in years.

As he takes in my expression, eyes scanning and calculating my face, I realize that he could easily slip something into my coffee. My face loses all expression and I turn around and continue to the putrid, springy chair. How could I be so stupid? He, in general, just makes me weak. He knows how to get me to do what he wants. What the fuck? He’s been here for less than a day and he already knows how to mold me into the perfect little specimen for his experiments. He knows what to say, what to do, and even what to wear. He looks fucking gorgeous today. He’s using my fucking sexuality against me. He’s trying to weaken the walls I have built up to keep people like him away. I can feel his fingers filing through my thoughts already. He has already made a hole in my barrier and I can’t stop him from making it bigger. The hole is just big enough for his tiny stature, but not for the others who also have been drilling and hammering at my walls. He wants to get deep inside of my head and if he keeps this up, I might just let him. I can’t trust him to keep what he finds in my fucked up head to himself. I want him to defend me from the other doctors that have failed to get to me. I want him to be different and do this for my benefit not to get a reputation for curing the incurable.

“Gerard, I wish I could give you some, but you know I can’t.” I can feel myself shattering and crumbling to the floor at a deadly slow pace and it’s not because of the rejection. He knows too much about me. Dr. Hollis doesn’t even know this much about me. Or, maybe she does and she doesn’t use the information against me. She might not know how to. Dr. Iero has already proved himself a better doctor than Dr. Hollis. That doesn’t automatically mean I can trust him. That just means he’s less trustworthy, he could easily increase the weakness in my barrier, then exploit it and invite whoever the hell he wants into my head.

I murmur something to calm his nerves. My mind is too busy trying to organize these thoughts and make some sort of sense out of the jumbled mess to actually care about a proper response. I sit down on the ugly chair and Dr. Iero sits on the one across from me. He keeps trying to catch my gaze, but I can’t do that until I can figure out what exactly is going through my mind about him. If eyes are the windows to the soul, they can also show him my thoughts. Then he’ll know he’s getting to me.

“You look tired.” He mocks me playfully. His words break me out of my cynical thoughts. I still try not to make eye contact with him. Maybe to break me out of here, he has to break my barrier down and see how my mind works. I should probably let him. Why do I care if he breaks me? I don’t have anything to live for. Yeah, I have Mikey, but he doesn’t need a psychotic brother to hold him in this horrid town. I decide that I don’t give a shit anymore. He can do whatever the hell he likes.

”You’re so useless, Gerard” I ignore Ray. I don’t need him to screw my thoughts up more.

“Thank you.” I meet Dr. Iero’s eyes and smile. That simple action seems to make him so happy. He looks fucking ecstatic that I didn’t reject him like he did to me a couple minutes ago.

*

My lack of sleep is catching up to my body. I feel exhausted all day, mentally and physically. Dr. Iero’s initial appearance caused my mind to go on overdrive with contradicting thoughts and tire it endlessly, until I finally just said fuck it. I don’t care what his intentions are for me. I give up on trying to protect myself. I’m his little ball of clay and he can sculpt me however he wants to. I’m not saying that if he decides to style me something ugly, I’ll let him. I’ll open up and show him what goes on inside me and if he finds something wrong, I’ll let him mold it to his liking. Hopefully, he’ll change it for the better.

I’ve never let any doctor do this before, but, if Dr. Iero is as good as Dr. Hollis believes, I’ll give him the privilege. He’ll work his new opportunity today at our first session. Even with the new mindset, I’m nervous as fuck to let him prod at my mind.

“I think he be one of me crew.” Bob states, nodding his head and looking around the circle with wide eyes, waiting for someone to grow the balls to speak up and tell him he’s wrong. “He gonna kill all ye off and take me back to me ship.” He says dreamily. It’s rather creepy that he dreams about all of our deaths.

“What makes you think that, Bob?” Dr. Hollis has her monotone mask on. She has been asking everybody about what they think of Dr. Iero. I still haven’t decided on how I should word my thoughts about him. Should I let her know about me letting him rewire my brain? Would she get jealous?

“The lad got the sailor markings.” Bob says, crossing his arms across his chest and smiling smugly.

“Do you mean his tattoos?” Dr. Hollis plays dumb.

“Aye” Bob nods his head and rolls his eyes. I swear I heard him mumble a ‘Scurvy land lubbers.’

“Well, I don’t think he is.” Dr. Hollis states. Bob’s eyes snap to hers. “I think he is here to be a doctor to some patients.” I can’t help but notice something flicker in her dull blue eyes. They light up for a second like she’s hiding something. She knows something about him that we don’t. I sit for a while to think about the possible secrets they could be hiding. For those moments, I regret my decision to open up to him. But my previous thought comes back, why the hell should I care? I’ve got nothing left.

Notes

Sorry his thoughts are all jumbled up, but that's how the mind of a schizophrenic is.
I even had to search pirate slang on the internet for this chapter as well as a little info on schizophrenia.

Is it just me or do periods make everything more intense?
He turned around bravely and saw... Juice.
With a final kiss, she whispered... Bubbles.
I really wish you would give me your... Waffles.