Hollow (Perfect Little Pieces) by Ava Conway

eyes in recognition. Just like before, I saw something untamed moving just beneath his golden orbs. “Struggling a little today.”
    Jayden patted him on the shoulder. “That’s too bad, buddy. You should bring it up to Polanski. She might need to adjust your dosage.”
    I’ll say. I inched back from Carter. It wasn’t normal, the way he looked at me like that. What were the voices inside of his head saying? Did it have anything to do with me?
    I didn’t have time to dwell on it. Jayden swept me away from Carter and introduced me to the other patients at the tournament, calling them all ‘sweetheart’ and ‘beautiful’ and ‘honey’. He asked each of them how they were doing and seemed genuinely interested in their answers. Although he never openly mentioned their sicknesses, I could tell from his questions why each patient had been admitted. By the end of the introductions, the only person’s illness that was still a mystery was his.
    “Come on, beautiful.” Jayden tugged on my hand and dragged me out into the hall. He showed me the Communications Room, the common bathrooms and the art room.
    “So for every activity you participate in, you get points,” he said as we walked. “You can turn these points in for privileges.”
    “Like, what kind of privileges?” I already knew, but he seemed so caught up in the moment. I didn’t want to burst his bubble.
    “Coffee downstairs, visitors, walks in the courtyard, stuff like that.”
    There was a certain bounce in Jayden’s steps. He spoke with a sing-song quality I found soothing. He high-fived Elias as we passed in the hall, calling him ‘dude’.  He did a secret handshake with another and called her ‘sunshine’. Was he always so familiar with everyone?
    I noticed that besides introducing people to me, he never mentioned anyone by name, preferring instead to call them things like ‘sweetie’ or ‘buddy’. People warmed to the nicknames—and him—instantly. My mood also brightened. It was hard to be around so much warmth and not be affected by it. The man was like a cresting wave of light, and I was caught up in his wake.
    “You mentioned something called Sedation Therapy,” I said after a few moments. “What’s that?”
    We rounded a corner and stopped. Jayden’s smile fell and his expression turned serious. He glanced up and down the hall, then lowered his voice. “Yeah. They use Sedation Therapy when they feel you’re a danger to yourself or others.”
    “What is it?”
    “They fill you up with mood suppressors and tranquilizers until all of the aggression is sucked out of you.” He let out a long breath. “It feels like hell.”
    “Is that what they did to Nesto?”
    He pressed his lips together as some indefinable emotion crossed his features. In that moment I knew that not only did the staff put Martinez into Sedation Therapy, but sometime in the past, they had done the same to Jayden.
    Jayden glanced over his shoulder. “Have you ever tried Tai Chi?”
    I furrowed my brow. “No.” My mother was into all of that mystical meditation crap. Not me.
    “A class should be starting right about now. They like to do the meditative stuff at the end of the day. It helps calm people.” He tugged on my arm. “Come on, it will be fun.”
    “I don’t know. I’m not really the exercise type.”
    He dragged his gaze down my body, making me feel warm all over. “Could have fooled me.” He tugged on my fingers. “Let’s go. We don’t want to be late.”
    He dragged me down the hall toward the Tai Chi room. With each step it felt as if a new weight had been placed on my heart.
    “Jayden, stop.”
    He didn’t seem to hear me.
    “Jayden.” I tugged on his arm until he paused and turned to face me. “I don’t want to do this.”
    He frowned. “Why not?”
    How could I tell him that I didn’t want to do it because my mother liked holistic healing and crystals and shit—which was the same thing as Tai Chi in my mind—and all this