5. Meeting others

I looked around the room, once again. The walls were painted in white and light green, the same as our uniforms. Our bedsheets were a pastel yellow with light pink pillows. It truly felt like a child's bedroom.

The stuffed animal I was holding felt soft against my hands. It was a blue elephant. I wondered why we all got stuffed animals if we were, as for now, still teenagers. Wouldn't it be more suitable to give these once we were babies?

As I watched the soft animal rotating in my hands a strong feeling of sadness overwhelmed me. I missed my home, I missed my bedroom, my books, my own clothes. I even missed the presence of my parents. Maybe they weren't the greatest in showing their love for me, they were still my parents and I held a deep respect for them. 

But the thing I missed the most was my brother Alexander. How would he react if he heard I was sent away? Or did he already know I would be gone if he came back?

Tears rolled down my cheeks. The thought of never seeing him made me cry. I held the soft elephant close to my chest while bringing my knees up. I laid my head down on my arms and cried softly. Morning for the loss of my old life.

My crying was cut off short by the sound of people entering the dorm room. The first thing I heard was footsteps following with a slightly annoyed voice, "Yes, yes we know! Change into the uniforms and fold our old clothes, we got it!" I looked over my shoulder and I saw two girls standing in the doorway. The black-haired girl spoke up again, "Gosh, they are so annoying, telling us what to do!" Her face had a deep frown and everything about her demeanor spoke of anger. The other girl responded with, "I think they are only trying to look after us, you know, to be a good guardian and all." She shrugged her shoulders while speaking.

Then the black-haired girl poked her elbow into the blond-haired girl, "Looks like we are not the first to arrive in our room." When they had acknowledged my presence I quickly wiped the tears off my face and put my legs down to sit up straight. "Talking about a depressing atmosphere. Jeez, I thought we would leave that behind us when entering this building."

I didn't know how to act, at school I was often picked on because I always tried so hard to be the best in class but would always end up being one of the dumbest ones in the classroom. I would try and ask questions to understand better what we were learning. Only I would always ask something that was just explained, without me knowing so.

So hearing such a comment made me crawl back into my scalp. I looked down and didn't want to pay any mind to them. Unfortunately, for me, they didn't let me. "Don't mind her, she is just adjusting to all of this in a different way than we are," the blond-haired girl tried to assure me.

"Hey!" the black-haired girl shouted. "What? It's true. You express a difficult situation with anger, she with sadness," the blond-haired girl shrugged.

"Well anger is better than pitying yourself," the black-haired girl stated as a matter-of-fact.

The other girl sighed while sitting on her bed, which was next to mine. "Lexi please, we are all in this together let's just try and get along with each other oke?" Now the girl turned to me and introduced herself, "I'm sorry for that, I'm Nancy, and as you already heard that hot-headed head is Lexi. What's your name?" She asked me sweetly. "A-Alice."

"Well Alice, it's nice to meet you," Nancy said with a smile on her face. "Likewise," I whispered. I heard a scoff coming from Lexi but she remained silent. As they were changing the words of Nancy repeated in my head, 'let's try and get along. With that mindset, I tried to make conversation with the two girls. "Do you know each other? Like are you friends?" I asked hesitantly.

"Unfortunately yes," Nancy answered.

"Hey! Well nice to know you too, bitch!" Lexi said half hurt and half-joking.

I was confused about how you could treat each other like that if you were friends. It looked like Nancy caught up to my confusion and said, "We have a love-hate friendship."

I just nodded my head and remained quiet. When the girls were done with changing into their uniforms, Lexi let herself fall onto the bed and asked me, "Why are you here, elephant girl?" The moment she mentioned the elephant I put the stuffed animal aside. Letting go of the comfort it gave me, moments ago. When I didn't answer immediately she asked, "Are you a mute or something?"

I coward a bit. It was something my father would ask me if I couldn't answer his questions. It would only silence me more, too afraid to say something wrong.

"Lexi please, leave the poor girl alone," Nancy said quite stern.

"What? I'm only trying to make conversation, you know getting along and all that shit you were just babbling about."

"Well yes, but I don't think Alice understands your way of expressing things, so play nice."

"Yes mom," Lexi whined.

"Well?" Lexi pressed, "Why are you here?"

I shook my head and whispered, "I don't want to talk about it."