Page 17 of Heart of a Killer

Still standing where Brie left me, I’m nearly knocked on my ass when a sharp pain hits me in the shoulder. Mrs. Gertrude comes shuffling by me with her cane up in the air.

“Out of my way. The kitty seat is mine.”

Mrs. Gertrude has a thing for cats, and there’s a desk in the art room where someone painted cats. The mean hag of an old lady, being the feline lover she is, has claimed it as her own. May a higher power help whoever is sitting in that seat when she gets there.

“What the hell? You don’t have to fight me over it,” I say, exasperated.

She has minor red scratches scattered on her forearm. When she enters, screams pour into the hall. Loud voices from the staff follow, and a bout of hysterical laughter from Benji. I’m sure she is beating someone with her cane for getting in her seat again.

“Hey, Skylar. What are you still doing standing out here?”

A deep voice startles me, making me spin around and fall on my ass from tripping over my own two feet.

“Oof.”

“I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.”

Alex is crouching down with his face inches from mine. My heart is beating out of my chest, and blood rushes in my ears. He offers his hand to assist me, and I hesitate. When I grab it, a wave of heat climbs my neck, and I have to look away from him when I stand.

“I have to go.”

“No, wait,” he says.

His hand brushes my arm, trying to halt me, but I keep putting distance between us before he notices how red my face is. When I enter the art class, I sit next to Brie, but she isn’t talking to me.

I ignore the assignment for the day, picking at my nails. I worry that I may have offended Brie in some way. This is our first real fight.

The teacher stops at our table and crouches down to meet my eyes.

“Is everything okay, Skylar?”

Shoving my hands between my thighs, I look at her.

“Yeah, sorry.”

“You haven’t drawn anything on the paper to show a happy memory.”

I’m thankful she mentioned what we were supposed to be drawing. Because before, I was too busy wondering what Brie was thinking and how she felt toward me.

“I’m just thinking of something good before I start.”

“Okay, well, if you need anything, just let me know,” the teacher says.

Not wanting to give her reason to be concerned. I offer her a smile before she walks to another patient.

Focusing back on my blank sheet of paper, I grab a red marker and draw the memory of mom and me on the swing. I’m not an artist, so I do my best with stick figures.

Before the staff announces that it’s time to leave and put all art supplies away, Brie slips a note to me. I slip it into my pocket to read later in private. Thankfully, Brie has cooled down a bit from our spat earlier and wants to walk with me like usual.

We take the same route to get our evening medications, then head to dinner in silence. We grab our trays and sit beside each other. It’s the first time in weeks that we aren’t talking about the other patients around us but instead sit in silence, pushing our food around. That’s when I notice the woman Brie calls Clarissa isn’t sitting at the table across the cafeteria from us. She’s usually the first I see every day. It strikes me as odd, so much so that I break the silence between Brie and me.

“Hey, where do you think Clarissa is today?”

She just shrugs.

“Oh, come on, Brie. You can’t still be mad at me from what I said earlier. You were right, you know. The more I thought about it, I realized money isn’t something that would actually make me happy. It might make life a bit easier. Not happy, though.”

“It’s not that, Sky. I’m not upset with you. I’m upset about my situation with my family. They don’t even know I’m here because they are more worried about their appearance than they are about my mental health.”

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