grace under pressure • jerome valeska

CHAP.4: A Friend And Stories

  Jerome held his promise. He became my friend and asked for nothing in return. Whenever we were allowed in the common room, he would stick to my side like glue. We would talk about random things and random topics. Weapons, killing, the inmates, basically anything around us. He was a very...unique person. He was different from anyone I had ever met. Although, he was a bit annoying, teasing me about anything. 

  As an example, whenever I ignored him because I was beginning to get tired of his crap he would say things like:

  "Silent treatment? Graaacccceeeee...I don't like to be ignored!." He would whine and I couldn't help cracking a smile whenever he did that. Other times he would tickle me. 

  Anything that was remotely funny he would laugh like there was no tomorrow. His laugh also caused me to either to smile or laugh along with him. I never smiled genuinely and I can't remember the last time I laughed without covering something up on the inside. Now it was all I was doing after meeting this ginger. 

  It turns out having a friend kept the guards disgusting stares at me to a minimum. And whenever a guard would look over me with Jerome around, he would either smile at them evilly and/or wave his pointer finger at them and they would turn away. I always found that funny when he did that. It even seemed like some of the inmates were scared of Jerome as well. That Greenwood guy, he cowered at the sight of him a bit and now stayed away from me. Thank god for that. If he had kept coming up to me anymore I would have broken his arm. And I know how much trouble I could get into because of that. 

  On the sides of my temples I had little burn marks, just little. The doctors had made it a regular thing to give me electrotherapy. It hurt and it sucked. Sometimes afterwards I would throw up. I think I have lost ten pounds since coming here. Other than that, the food was disgusting and I barley ate it. That could be part of it too. ...You don't say? HA! I seemed to do that a lot lately. Spouting off random jokes in my head. This place would be making me crazy if I wasn't so insane. 

  Those therapy session with Mr. Annoying sexist doctor of mine have not been going very well. He kept staring at my chest and whenever I commented about it he would turn away and tell me no he wasn't. I wasn't getting any "saner" and I wasn't even getting a bit better. Not that I wanted to. It just seems like this place probably doesn't give out many sane certificates. Really I just wanted out of here. If I had to act sane to get it, then I would. But it hasn't come to that yet. Besides the therapy, it's pretty good. Especially ever since meeting Jerome. 

  When coming here, it was all darkness in my mind. So dark I couldn't see anything before me. But when I met him, I saw a sliver of light. I have never seen the light before so you can imagine how I am feeling. I used to dread coming to the common room but now it's my highlight of my day.

  Currently, I was in my room, counting down the seconds until  the common room time comes. I had about ten minutes until so. I couldn't wait. Was it bad this was the bright point of my day? I guess not since I'm in an asylum. I didn't exactly know what Jerome and I would talk about it but it all had to do with the spur of the moment. We talked about random things that came to our heads. I liked that. It gave a sense of a certain chaos I loved.

  I guess I had been thinking a lot more than I thought (HA!) because while in the middle of thinking, the door to my room opened up and there stood my guard. I smiled and stood up, skipping to the door with my hands behind my back. I walked down the hall as the guard led me to the common room. I came into the common room, not even minding when I was pushed in there. Although I gave a small glare the guards way threw the gate and he walked off. I looked back at the common room and tried to spot red hair.