Total pages in book: 48
Estimated words: 46398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 232(@200wpm)___ 186(@250wpm)___ 155(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 232(@200wpm)___ 186(@250wpm)___ 155(@300wpm)
I don’t deserve this. No one fucking deserves this.
It’s not a school, and the treatments aren’t really treatments—they’re just torture.
That’s obvious after about an hour in this place, and it only gets more obvious as the days go by. If you stand in silence, perfectly still, just listening to the cries and screams, the things they tell us… it’s not right. Nothing here is what it’s supposed to be. I really do wonder how they sold this place to our parents. What the hell would they put on a brochure to make this seem like it would help?
It feels like my soul is chipping away piece by piece.
I wonder if they needed my dad’s consent for the treatments, because I’ve been in treatments for months, and there’s nothing to treat. Nobody in their right mind would call this medicine. Nothing about it will heal me. It’ll only make things worse.
That’s the goal. These people want to break me. They want to turn me into someone who follows orders at every cost.
I’ve been doing that already. They don’t know how much it costs to feel like this, but then they don’t care.
Mr. Jay cares least of all. I’ve been alone with him in this room for an hour. Maybe two. Maybe three. There’s no clock, so there’s no way for me to be sure what time it is. After dinner, I think. I try not to guess what time it is. Time doesn’t matter anyway. You’re up when they tell you to get up. If that’s 3am or noon, it doesn’t matter. If you got to bed at 9 and they say rise and shine at 10, you get your ass up or you get the shit beat out of you.
Besides, time doesn’t pass normally here. I think it’s been hours, so it’s probably only been minutes. I think it’s been years, so I’ve probably only been here for months.
It’s better if I don’t think about it.
Most of what’s on my mind is that my stomach hurts.
It hurts because it’s full of water. Mr. Jay said to drink a bottle when we first came in. Then another. Then another.
It’s been hours and he keeps bringing in bottles to drink. I don’t know how many so far. All I can remember is that it was warm and tasted like plastic, like it had been sitting in a case too long. I can’t move from where I am. I can’t let my back rest against the chair. I have to sit on the edge of it. The stack of books in my lap. My legs stiff.
I have to piss and I know he wants me to piss myself. To hurt and ache. To be weak and pathetic. I hold it in though. Silently sitting perfectly still. Staring ahead and trying not to cry when the baton comes down on the books.
This is because of what happened at dinner, which was…
I don’t know what it was. Something one of the staff members didn’t like. Might just have been my face being my face. I can’t remember the details anymore. I’m not even completely sure I’m remembering the right dinner. All the days are starting to seem like the same day.
Maybe that’s what they’re trying to do. Fuck up our sense of time so badly that we don’t know what year it is, or month.
The joke is on those bastards. I know it’s the middle of the year because the room is hot. If it was fall or spring, the room would be freezing.
It’s sweltering now. Sweat drips down my back.
“I have to use the bathroom.”
“No you don’t,” he tells me and I close my mouth. I could scream. I could scream but then I’d be hit again.
“You need to answer the question correctly,” he tells me, his tone condescending.
My ass has gone numb from sitting on the hard chair so long, my bladder full and my legs aching with the pressure of the stack of textbooks.
“What’s the first rule that all students are required to follow?” Mr. Jay glances at the wall as he speaks like he might find a window there. Who knows? Maybe there’s some window he can see that I can’t.
I answer hoping to be done with this. “Rule number one.” We’ve gone over this at least a hundred times. “Do not look at another student.”
“What’s the second rule all students are required to follow?”
“Rule number two. Do not make verbal contact with another student.”
“What’s the third rule all students are required to follow?”
“Rule number three. Do not—” My stomach lurches, and I clamp my teeth together and swallow hard to stop myself from being sick or pissing myself. “Do not make physical contact with another student.”
“What’s the fourth rule all students are required to follow?”
He goes on through his list, and I go on through the rules. When he gets to the end of the list, he starts over at the first rule.