She blew a bubble at me; it burst on her nose. I snorted as she took it back in.
Another bubble was elicited from her anything but virgin lips. It was almost fragile, chemically induced with artificial flavour and colouring.

She tucked a strand of turquoise blue hair behind her ear, the irony of the situation becoming unbearable.

She shoved an electric pink gumball into her mouth, chewing furiously and furrowing her eyebrows occasionally. The remains of her fingernails beat a tattoo on the worn pavement. The black nail polish adorning them was chipped, though I doubt she cared; she had more important things to deal with presently. She reached into the little brown bag settled between us and pulled another gumball out. Amused to no end I swatted her spider-like fingers away. She growled dangerously low in her throat and sneered at me. I challenged her with a smirk of my own. She looked mutinous.

She began to twitch now and I noticed her change in demeanor. She needed a hit and she needed it now. I threw her another gumball to ease her nerves. This one was lime green, just a touch lighter than the colour of her eyes.

‘You realize you can’t live on gum alone? It’s going to take a lot more than that.’

She nodded absentmindedly while fumbling with plastic surrounding her surprise inside. I don’t think she really heard me, but that was understandable. She’d been sober for a little under four days. The gum was to avert her attention from the cravings she was so obviously feeling. She closed her eyes and sighed contentedly- almost. I studied her for a moment and instantly knew why. She was stinging herself with the elastic bands I was allowed to give her. She was a cutter too.

She sat there, in satiated silence; her jaw line moving automatically every few seconds or so. I considered her for what seemed like the tenth time in an hour and a half time span. Lightly frowning I pulled out my clipboard and let my eyes wander down its contents. The logo of the rehabilitation centre was in the top right hand corner.

Patient # - 1781
Underneath it I wrote her name, even though it wasn’t asked for. It seemed less detached that way; a lot less cold and calculating.
Patient Name - Jessicka Langdon.
I put a gentle line through Jessicka and replaced it with Jessi. She hated her real name, and I had never actually gotten around to asking her why. I filled in the necessary slots.
Period of Stay – Four days.
Conditions of Admission – Drug addiction/ Self mutilation/ Alleged promiscuity.
I underlined the alleged furiously. She had said she wasn’t and she was more or less sedate at the time. I believed it; I believed her. I scanned the remains of the sheet, ticking the little white boxes and ignoring the irrelevant. I stopped at the very end of the paper; my eyes raking the one worded field requirements.
Observations –

I looked back up at her. She was still sitting cross legged on the sidewalk adjacent to me. Her knee still poked out of the hole in her jeans and her eyes were still closed. She was twiddling a long rubbery line of gum around her slender fingers. I noticed just how far down she had bitten her fingernails; they were well past the quick. I winced as I saw the crusted blood; dark burgundy and unnoticed. Unfamiliar.

I reached deep into my front pocket and pulled out a half empty pack of Camels. Fishing around for the ordinary black Bic lighter I always had with me, and lighting up, I put the slim release between my lips and breathed deep.

Jessi stared at me warily through the corner of her eye. Then, out of nowhere, the corner of her lips began to quiver and curl upwards. ‘To each his own’, her eyes seemed to say. I inadvertently set my gaze upon the bruising on her upper arms, the marks the needle had left behind. I winced again, scowling and blew a puff of smoke outwards while feeling my temper rise. Sure, I enjoyed the occasional smoke but I was nothing like her. Nothing. I am not a druggie.

I reattached my pen to my hand, feeling slightly ashamed for thinking along those lines and mulled over what to write. Clacking the pen against my teeth, I willed myself to risk a glance at my subject. She was peering at me intently and I knew instantaneously what to put.

I didn’t write how pretty I thought she looked, sitting there, in a band t-shirt with faded lettering. Or how the sun seemed to illuminate her dark brown hair, or how her one streak of turquoise was still tucked neatly behind her completely pierced ear. Nor did I mention how I felt when she shook her bangs out of her face and I saw her eyes, decked out in more eyeliner than most women wore in a week. I didn’t write how those very same eyes of hers seemed to sparkle mischievously when they weren’t staring pointedly at the ground or at her worn converse.

Instead I wrote,
‘Jessi seems to be quite astute for a seventeen year old in her position. Though very clear minded, she is an intensely troubled young woman, and I have found her conversational skills to be quite disturbing. She is showing absolutely no response to the severance therapy. I recommend she remain in your custody for a further prolonged period of time.’

It was essentially all lies, I knew and admitted it, even if only to myself. Who would suspect a thirty-one year old social security worker to ‘bend the truth’. Apparently nobody.

A few months later she was released from the facility. A drug test had confirmed that she was pregnant. She was accused of being a whore and a detriment to society. As a result she was dropped from the rehabilitation program and left to her own defenses.

I never wrote that the child was mine.