*Extra update because the Columbus Blue Jackets kicked butt last night and killed the Anaheim Ducks so Niles can suck it because my team is better than his.*

“We need glitter,” Desiree decides as she’s looking down at our large piece of craft paper with the beginnings of the Hollywood sign on it. Earlier in our Sunday meeting for the Halloween party, I sketched out what it would look like because apparently, I can draw well so they nominated me to be the artist. Anyway, I sketched it with a pencil and then we started working as a group to paint in the lines that I sketched out for us. I was painting the letters of the sign, Desiree was painting the dark blue sky, Katie was working on the mountain, and Mia insisted on supervising which is obviously her way of getting out of actually doing any work.

“There isn’t any glitter on the Hollywood sign,” I remind Desiree, looking up at her from where I’m painting the first ‘o’ on the sign.

“Well, no, but we don’t have silver for the letters so since you’re using white, we’ll just have to use glitter to make them silver,” She justifies and before I can tell her that the letters of the sign are really white, not silver, she’s already off to find Quinn to request some glitter.

“My hands are going to be green for days,” Katie says as she’s working on the grassy mountain that the Hollywood sign rests on. It’s a really dark green because we’re painting the sign as if it was at night, so everything is darker than it really should be.

“Free nail polish,” I grin at her jokingly. “But I know what you mean, only mine are just white which isn’t as exciting as green or blue.”

“I will gladly trade you,” She says with a long sigh. “And my butt hurts from sitting on the ground for so long. How much longer do we have?”

“About twenty minutes,” I say, looking up at the clock that’s caged on the wall beside the door to the meeting room where we were working.

“Okay, well I’m closing up early. Mia, can you take over for me?” Katie wonders, handing Mia the paint brush without giving her any time to respond.

“Where are you going?” Mia asks her, obviously not wanting to actually participate in the arts and crafts time but she dutifully gets onto the floor where Katie was working and starts creating a dark green mountain for the Hollywood sign.

“Darling, rules were meant to be broken,” She responds breezily. “And if we have to stay until two then I look at it as a small act of sticking it to the man to leave at 1:40 because that’s as rebellious as it gets around here. I’ll see you guys next week.”

We all say goodbye to her as she leaves the meeting room, looking like she doesn’t have a care in the world at all. I wonder why she’s here if she seems so careless about everything. Usually, the people around here care too much so it’s an odd change to see the complete opposite of that.

“I like her,” Mia decides. “She’s interesting.”

I nod in agreement. I liked her too. She was kind of mysterious and you don’t get a lot of that around here.

“I got glitter,” Desiree pipes as she arrives back at our group, fighting through all of the other groups as they’re working hard to get their tasks done as well. The group of three beside us was making a list of possible triggers that could set off somebody’s panic, which is something that they have to look out for around here. Things like flashing lights, some spooky sounds, monster masks. There’s a lot of Halloween things that can’t be implemented in a crazy house and it’s their job to make sure that we don’t stray from that idea. “Where’d Katie go?”

“She had to go to the bathroom,” Mia supplies quickly and I suspect that it’s because Desiree is really committed to this party thing and if she found out that Katie just left early, she’d be upset that Katie doesn’t care as much about it. So it’s best to just lie to avoid the conflict of the two personalities. Smart thinking on Mia’s part, really.

“Okay, well do you think that we should use the glitter to decorate the sky for stars or for the sign for sparkle?” She wonders curiously, eyeballing the work of art on the floor as I continue to make sure that the ‘o’ is painted fully without going over any of the lines to make it look nice.

“It doesn’t matter, Des,” Mia tells her. “You’re the glitter master, you go ahead and decide.”

She decides on the sky but I remind her that we can’t add glitter today because we have to paint the sky first and then we have to wait for it to dry before putting the glitter on. So she stores the glitter and glue away for another day and starts painting the sky again.

“So, I heard that you get to leave Bernard’s sometimes,” She speaks up as she’s painting and even though she doesn’t look up, it’s obvious that she’s talking to me.

“Uh, yeah. Not very much though, only every few weeks,” I tell her with a small shrug. “How’d you hear about that?”

“I told her about it,” Mia tells me sheepishly. “I think that it’s cool that you get to go out and explore things with your buddy on the outside. It’s exciting.”

“It’s not very exciting,” I mutter meekly. “All we did on Friday was go to the park and we sat on a bench and we talked for a while.”

“But what did you talk about?” Desiree wonders curiously. “I don’t mean to pry, it’s just that all of my friends back home really don’t know how to hold a conversation with me without mentioning the fact that I may or may not be clinically insane.”

“Niles isn’t like that,” I tell them with a shake of my head as I move on to the first ‘l’ in the word “Hollywood”. “We talked about hockey and tattoos and… some other stuff.”

“You said that very mysteriously. What kind of other stuff?” Mia wonders with suspiciously squinted eyes as she stops painting to look up at me.

“It was nothing,” I say quickly, not wanting to tell her about the conversation that I had with Niles yesterday about our magic alternate universe because that’s just what it is. Ours. And I don’t want to share it, not even with Mia.

“Whatever you say, girlie,” She sighs, obviously not going to push it because she is just awesome like that and is willing to respect my privacy.

“I wish that I could do that, just take a break from this place sometimes,” Desiree sighs just before Quinn announces that it’s probably a good time to start cleaning up our messes so I finish up the last few strokes and start putting the lids on all of the paints that I’ve used today which are only black and white.

“Maybe you can. You just have to be here for a little while longer,” I assure her optimistically but I’m not sure if that’s true or not. It’s different for everybody and I’m not sure why she’s even in here to begin with so maybe not but I feel like that’s the right thing to say to make her feel better.

After putting all of the paint and glitter away, I offer to wash all three of our paint brushes while Desiree and Mia find somewhere to stash the sign so that it’s not in anybody’s way while it dries. I’m on my way to the bathroom with the three brushes as I’m passing Dr. Lombardi’s office since the meeting rooms are down at the end of the therapists’ corridor. I wasn’t going to stop in and say hi or anything because she might not even be here on a Sunday but as I’m about to pass her open office door, I hear a familiar voice. It’s Sophie and I’m sure that it’s normal for them to be having conversations about other patients but it’s just in my instincts now to eavesdrop on conversations that have the potential to be about me because like I’ve said, that’s sometimes the only way that I can get information. And this is how the conversation goes.

Sophie: I’m just really worried, Andrea. (Dr. Lombardi’s first name)

Dr. Lombardi: I think that you need to have more faith in Niles.

Sophie: It’s not that I don’t have faith in him, I do. I’m just worried that this is too much for him. He’s only nineteen.”

Dr. Lombardi: I understand your worry, Sophie, I really do. I just sincerely believe that this is going to be extremely beneficial to Ana’s recovery.

Sophie: Right, I know that. And I want Ana to get better, I really do, she’s such a sweet girl. But somebody has to be thinking about Niles in all of this too. I know that he wants to help her but what if something happens and he realizes that he can’t help her like he wants to?

Dr. Lombardi: What do you mean by that?

Sophie: I mean, like what happened on Wednesday. I’m not saying that I think that she’s going to try and hurt herself again but she’s still on the path to recovery. What if she has another one of those episodes and Niles is there to see it? I’ve read her file, I know that it can get worse than just a panic attack and then it’s over. She’s had consistent panic attacks for a full week before. Niles can’t handle that kind of thing. He doesn’t know what he’s getting himself into.

Dr. Lombardi: I’m confident that Ana’s past that part of her illness if that helps at all. I don’t think that she’s going to get that bad again. Now if you want to stop Niles from seeing Ana, that is your decision to make and I respect that you’re trying to look out for your brother. However, I’m not going to stop signing off on it until Niles tells me that he doesn’t want to continue contact with her himself. My priority is Ana’s health and this is helping her. Your priority is Niles, so you should do whatever you feel is best for him.

Sophie: Do you think that it could hurt him? Without thinking about Ana, how do you think that this relationship is affecting him?

Dr. Lombardi: I can’t be certain. He isn’t my patient. However, from what I know about him, I don’t think that it’s a big risk to him at all. I think that it may be good for him as well, really.

Sophie: But I’ve seen patients relapse before. I’ve seen how bad they can get. And, God forbid, if Ana starts relapsing, Niles is going to want to save her. Can you imagine the amount of pressure that would put on his shoulders? If he thought that he had to save this girl that, in all honesty, might not be able to be saved?

Dr. Lombardi: Like I said, Sophie, you need to have more faith in Niles. What does your mother think about their relationship?

Sophie: She said that she isn’t worried about it, but she doesn’t know. She doesn’t see these patients every day and what they’re capable of. I’m just trying to look out for my brother here.

Dr. Lombardi: And I understand that. In my opinion, I think that you should just step back and let Niles make his own decisions. He seems to really enjoy spending time with Ana. Just as much as she likes to spend time with him. I’m not going to tell you what to do, I’m just saying that he’s an adult and he should make his own choices. And I really do not believe that Ana is going to relapse.

Sophie: Why not? She’s done it before. I mean, it’s not like I want her to or that I don’t believe in her. Like I said, she’s a nice girl, but this just isn’t fair to Niles.

Dr. Lombardi: I believe in her. And it’s not like Niles was tricked into the relationship. He knew what he was getting himself into from the beginning. I think that it’s up to him now.

Sophie: I’m just so worried about him.

Dr. Lombardi: I know. And that’s natural. It’s okay to be worried about him but I think that you just need to sit down with Niles and talk to him about it.

Sophie: I’ve tried. He just gets so dismissive.

Dr. Lombardi: Is there anything that you would like me to do?

Sophie: No, I don’t think so. Just… if you think that she might be relapsing at any time will you please tell me? That way I can at least talk to Niles about it so that he knows that he can’t be expected to save her.

Dr. Lombardi: Yes, I’ll let you know.

I’m done eavesdropping so I walk past the door and then continue walking down the hallway to where the bathroom is. I’m washing the second brush when I notice somebody else walk into the bathroom as well and I wouldn’t have paid much attention to it but it was Sophie, which kind of caught me off guard.

“Hey, Ana,” She chirps, walking over to me with a wide smile on her face. “Dr. Lombardi said that she saw you at her door just a little bit ago.”

“Yeah, I was in the meeting room, with the party committee,” I tell her, focusing on cleaning the brushes.

“Did you hear anything that we were talking about?” She wonders, taking the third brush and using the sink beside mine to clean it, filling the sink with green water.

“Yeah, I heard it,” I assure her. “But it’s okay. I understand.”

“You understand what?” Sophie asks me.

“That you’re looking out for Niles. I mean, somebody has to,” I say. “I’ve always tried to warn him that I’m not somebody to make friends with. I try to get him to understand that but even after what happened on Wednesday, he won’t listen to me.”

“Ana, I’m sorry,” She sighs. “You weren’t supposed to hear that.”

“It’s fine. Honest. I know that I’m crazy and it’s a very real possibility that I could relapse and Niles shouldn’t have to deal with that. But he’s heard it all from me. I’m not trying to catch him in a trap or anything, I’m trying to make sure that he knows everything that’s up with me so that he knows what he’s getting into. I don’t think he cares though.”

“I’m noticing that.”

Continuing to scrub the blue out of the brush, I say, “But I’m very grateful that he’s so stubborn. He’s not ‘saving’ me or whatever, but he’s making this whole process a whole lot more bearable. And that’s more than I could ever ask for. But I get it if you don’t want him to be friends with me. I really do.”

She gives me a sad look and then hands me the now-clean paint brush that she had rinsed off. “You’re surprisingly wise for your age, you know.”

I don’t know what to say to that so I just shrug. “It comes with the territory, I suppose. Have a nice day, Sophie.”

“You too, Ana,” She says as I leave the bathroom to return the paint brushes to the storage area by the meeting room where they’re stored with the paint and everything else and then I head out to the common area to enjoy the rest of my day with Mia and Desiree without putting too much thought into my not-so-confrontational confrontation with Sophie. I don’t even tell Mia or Desiree about it because it really wasn’t a big deal.

Not a big deal at all.

--------------------------------------------

Song: Fix You by Coldplay
Picture: Fan cover by ilovvvvboooks
 

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT

Title: The Princess and the Vampire
Author: Levimylovee
Genre: Vampire/Fantasy/Romance
Summary: Valentine Adams is a shy, obedient, quite princess. Sounds like a proper princess right? It's not. The Adams are hunters. What type? She Doesn't know. Well, at least not until she gets kidnapped. By the thing they've all been looking for.