I think back to when Cellie and I stayed in that group home, the one where we pretended to be prisoners of war and slept in metal bunk beds with thin mattresses. They had this chart in there, and every morning we had to go up to it and spin a color wheel. At the top of the chart it said TODAY I FEEL . . . and then we’d use the spinner and guide it to the color that best reflected our current emotional state. Cellie always felt red (a color I associated with anger and the fires she loved so much), and usually I felt yellow. The yellow on the color wheel was bright and happy. Often I wished it was more of a pale yellow, the color of sickness, of decay. But today, if I had that chart in front of me, I would push the spinner to purple and leave it there. Chase and I are not talking, the kind of not talking that people notice and wonder about, the kind of not talking that makes everyone else feel a little on edge. And in a mental hospital, that’s the most dangerous kind. During breakfast we ignore each other, and I choke down a few bites of egg even though I’m too upset to taste anything.
