#hidden empathy

{redacted}: uh //looks at smudged writing on hand// olivia, what are you doing here— the hell happened to your face,,??

“got in another fight with one of those stuck of boys from my old boot camp, just a couple scratches that’s all.”

[camera pans down to ophelia’s legs. her usual gauze covering her legs is all bloody, and there’s multiple bruises on them.]

“oh, and btw, might want to put a red dot on that calendar over there. if [redacted] finds out i got in a fight and lied to her again, she’s gonna be pissed.”

[a shot of a calendar messily tacked onto the cabin wall is shown. there’s at least two red dots every week, and a key next to the calendar identifies the dots as “ophelia got into a fight”]

[redacted]: ah, i see. so, what am i supposed to do here again?

“oh right!”

[ophelia makes a motion with her fist colliding with a flat placed hand, signifying she remembered something. i wish i could explain this better...]

“there should be a first aid kit in the top drawer of the counselors desk.”

[[redacted] takes the kit from the desk and begins to help clean ophelia’s wounds. they observe that most of the wounds aren’t deep, they just need cleaning up so they won’t get infected.]

[redacted]: mind if i ask you a question?

“shoot.”

[redacted]: if you don’t want [redacted] to find out about your fights, how come she found out in the first place? i mean, couldn’t you lie and do it yourself?

“of course you would consider lying”, i muttered under my breath. “to be honest, that’s how it started out. but eventually when i would wake up and eat everyday, you could visibly see that i got into a fight.

“she eventually took away my first aid kit and keeps it in her desk to prevent me from lying to her. i’d say it’s working pretty well.” i finished.

[redacted]: have you ever considered it to be anoth-