Irene rises from her seat, rounds the desk, then settles on the edge of the table, as she waits patiently for Wendy to calm down. The sobs gradually subside, but Wendy continues to keep her head down, and fixes her gaze on Irene’s pair of red heels instead. The ticking of the industrial clock thumps the heavy air in the room.

“Are you going to tell me now?” Irene finally speaks, wrapped in a voice so velvety smooth that the compassion of hers could bore a hole through galvanized steel.

Wendy slowly shakes her head, a motion powered by misery. She hears the psychiatrist releasing a sigh. And she wonders if Irene sighs as much with other patients. “Can I tell you some other time?” she asks in a small voice, lifting her head, but never directing her gaze at Irene.

“When?”

A blend of conflicting emotions brews in Wendy’s head as she grapples between telling Irene everything in one-shot or postponing it until she’s ready to regale the psychiatrist with yet another bleak story of hers, which is probably even worse. Because the longer she puts it off, the more memories she has to dredge through when the time comes. She groans inwardly and exhales a soft sigh. “Tomorrow,” the stubborn girl relents.

“Can you promise me that then?”

“Yeah, I promise. If I break that promise, I’ll cross my heart and swear to die.”

“Wendy,” Irene says in a stern voice, “don’t-“

“Sorry,” the brunette swiftly interjects, as her eyes train on Irene. At the same time, she unconsciously trails a finger along her scars while she mentally counts the number of times the pad of her finger feels the jagged lines. “I don’t break promises, unless it sort of slips off my mind. But still, I would like to think that it's one more thing that I’m doing right in life, apart from my stellar grades. I’ll tell you tomorrow.”

“Shall we do a pinky swear then?”

“I’m not a kid,” Wendy scoffs, as she folds her arms.

“I know,” Irene replies with a smile. “I just wanted to make our deal a bit more interesting.” She brings her right hand in front of Wendy and sticks out her pinky finger. “Embrace the child in us because it’s beautiful,” she adds, wagging her waiting finger.

Wendy cracks a broad smile and hooks her pinky finger with Irene’s.

Irene definitely has a special way of handling her stubborn patient.

Wendy stumbles to her bed, yawning as she plops herself onto the fairly decent mattress.

“I’m telling you, you’re not going to get a good sleep. The bed is as hard as a damned boulder. I would rather sleep on the grass.”

“It's not really that hard," Wendy counters in a quiet voice. The bed isn't too hard, it isn't soft like her queen-sized downy bed back at home either, it is just... right. To put it simply, Wendy doesn't see any point in nitpicking over such little, redundant things since the place isn't even a five-star hotel to begin with.

The last thing one should worry about is a bed. A freaking bed. Hell, that shouldn't even be on the list of 'Things I need to worry about while I'm in a psychiatric ward'.

"You don't know that for sure unless you've tried sleeping on it."

"I do know," Wendy responds, as she sits cross-legged on her bed.

“Ah, then you’re not someone new huh?"

Wendy nods. "Yeah."

"How many times have you been here?”

“It’s my third time here.”

"Why are you here?"

"Because my psychiatrist told me I needed to be here."

"Who's your psychiatrist?"

Now, the onslaught of questions is bothering Wendy. She notices that her nameless roommate's initial harmless curiosity has evaporated from her face and unfortunately, it has morphed into a pointed nosiness instead, which Wendy doesn't appreciate one bit. She's about to tune out and drop her heavy head to the pillow until her roommate asks another question.

“What’s your name then?”

“Wendy."

“Wendy," the roommate echoes, visibly enlightened. "So you’re the girl that schizophrenic girl’s crazy about.”

Wendy immediately knows whom her roommate was talking about since there is only one patient she has interacted with the entire day. “Ayumi- Momo’s not schizophrenic,” she says matter-of-factly.

“Geez, now you're being defensive. Seems like you are crazy over her as well,” the nameless roommate snorts. “Why am I not surprised, that’s the reason why we’re all here anyway.”

“I wasn’t defending her, I was only correcting your mistake. You made a factual error. She’s not schizophrenic,” Wendy repeats, placing a greater emphasis on ‘not’.

“Whatever,” the roommates shrugs. “Just make sure she keeps her hands in her pocket.”

A faint frown line appears between Wendy’s eyes. “Why?”

“Because she turns aggressive when she’s mad. Technically she is mad, but you know what I mean. And don't ask me which personality of hers is an aggressive because I can't be bothered to find that out. But maybe she might make an exception for you.” The roommate smirks, then snickers, “She might wanna get her hands in your pants instead.”

Wendy feels her face turn crimson at that comment.

"You blush so easily, now I know why the schizo girl is heads over heels for you. You're so easy to tease."

Wendy doesn't answer. Instead, she lies down and pulls the blanket over her head to hide her embarrassment.

"Nayeon isn't going to be happy if you cover your face like that."

Wendy peeks out from underneath her blanket and inquires, "Who's Nayeon?"

"A hot chick that got herself checked into this asylum," her roommate grins.

"Oh."

"Maybe you'll see her tomorrow. Don't steal her from me, she's mine," her roommate warns playfully, though Wendy believes her fellow roommate isn’t at all joking.

Before closing her eyes, Wendy manages to ask one last question, “Hey, um, what’s your name?”

“Y-E-R-I,” the roommate spells out her name proudly. “My name’s Yeri.”

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