Hollow (Perfect Little Pieces) - By Ava Conway Page 0,2

their otherwise perfect life.

Evidently the staff had decided to use my parents’ ‘donation’ for some new form of patient-torture.

“Care to join us, Ms. White?”

I looked up from my perch by the window and met the head doctor’s brilliant smile. Such perfect teeth. How could she be so damn happy in such a depressing place?

Useless, all of it. I had only been in the hospital for a few days, but was already sick of this place. The poor woman had no idea how much this institution was a farce. She was just like my parents, covering herself in the latest fad to mask the fact she had no substance. The doctor had probably worked her entire life to become head shrink at this hospital, and for what? So she could walk around in a neatly-pressed pantsuit and wave a clipboard at a bunch of people half her age? I, like the rest of the teens and twenty-somethings at Newton Heights, was an embarrassment. If society could stuff all of us with our files in the records room down the hall, they would. No one wanted to deal with us, not even Dr. Fancy-Pantsuit. We were the rejects of society. The unwanted, unloved.

An infusion of money and some trendy program wasn’t going to change that. Nothing would. I frowned and turned back to my window without answering.

The doctor sighed and continued on with her speech. A few late stragglers tumbled into the room. One of them, a big, burly man with shaggy hair and golden eyes, stopped and stared at me. There was a wildness in his gaze that made me a little edgy, like he was more animal than human. Something wasn’t quite right with that one, more so than the normal craziness I saw around this place. It gave me the creeps.

He nodded to me and licked his lips. Uneasiness crawled over my skin as another patient nudged him and he turned away. I tightened my knees against my chest as a shiver rolled down my spine. Whoever that patient was, I vowed to stay far away from him. In fact, it was better to stay far away from everyone in this place. Hopelessness and despair permeated everything here. The patients wore it on their faces. The staff carried it in the slump of their shoulders. It was damn depressing.

Fuck it. It was pointless to think about. For the time being at least, this hell was my home. I let out a long breath and scanned the small courtyard behind the building through the window. Workers rushed about, busy pruning the bushes and flowers in preparation for winter a few, short weeks away. Just beyond the courtyard sat a large, wire fence. The fence was tall but climbable, if one had enough motivation. It was the first thing I had noticed when I arrived on the premises. It made me feel like a rat in a cage.

Over the fence sprawled the Virginia hills that overlooked the city of Greendale. My new home. Far enough away from Washington, but close enough to my parents’ summer house so that they could visit. When I had first arrived, the hills were crawling with reporters, looking to get a story for their papers. With parents so active in politics, my life was constantly under the microscope, and being checked into a psychiatric hospital was front-page news. After a while, the reporters finally realized that they weren’t going to get a story and dispersed. All but a few die-hards remained.

What would it be like to wander out over those hills? Tears filled my eyes as I stared at the bright green grass on the landscape. To be free of the reporters, my parents, my pain…

A loud bark disrupted my thoughts. I jerked back from the window and scanned the room. Who the hell brought dogs in here?

I blinked at the large golden retrievers as they moved about the circle of folding chairs. There were five of them. Each wore a small, blue cape with the words “White’s Howlistic Healers” on it.

I bit back a string of curses. Damn you, mother. Why does everything have to be a political game? I could almost see the headlines now: “White’s Dog-Healing Charity Rescues Daughter.” My parents would use the free press to gain traction for their latest cause—giving unloved animals to unloved humans so that they can be pathetic together. Having one of those dingy creatures heal their own daughter would be the perfect publicity. Did my parents