Love, Always by Yessi Smith

emails from my blog subscribers as Hayley squirts water at me from a water gun Adam brought us from his recent stop in New Orleans. I don’t know why he’d choose a water gun as a souvenir, but that’s Adam.
    And I’m seriously starting to reconsider Hayley’s and my great idea of rooming together as I feel the back of my yoga pants grow wetter and wetter. It only took us a little over a month to convince our jailers we’d behave. Water gun aside, I like rooming with Hayley. She’s like this endless supply of ridiculousness that I feel I’ve been starving for my whole life. She’s fun, spontaneous and completely absurd.
    I’m not sure what the nurses think of us, but they leave us to our own devices. At least, they usually do. They did put a stop to our dueling match. Apparently wheelchairs should not be ridden as horses any more than bottled water should be used as swords.
    “Get off the computer. I’m bored,” Hayley complains from her bed.
    “Go do something then,” I tell her as I finish my reply to a Gianna who has been considering seeing a therapist to help with her anxiety.
    When I started writing my blog a little over a month ago, I didn’t think anyone would read it. I wrote because writing once brought me peace, and I needed that peace more than I needed my next breath of air. The fact that my words and my experiences are reaching people is just an added bonus. I go through my messages daily, devoting an hour a day to responding before I write my next post. Sometimes I post about my day or my feelings, which seems narcissistic and self-helping, so other days I devote a few posts addressing recurring issues I am messaged about. Either post is narcissistic and self-helping, because I enjoy writing. I love the very idea that what I write is being read by thousands. Really, thousands. That’s how many people follow my blog.
    My timer goes off, warning me that I only have twenty minutes left until my hour is up, so I push send and open my last email for the day. My mouth drops when I read it, so I read it again.
    “What? What is it?” Hayley leaves her bed and joins me on mine. I give her the laptop and let her read.
    I wonder if it’s real. Can someone actually want to pay me to blog about my experience? Why would someone want to pay me for something I’m already doing for free? It doesn’t make any sense, but nothing in my life has ever really made any sense.
    Hayley closes my laptop before giving it back to me. “So?”
    “So what?” I ask.
    “Don’t be a shit. Are you gonna do it?”
    “It doesn’t sound legit.”
    “I agree.” She nods. “But I’m willing to pay you loads of money if you leave your cyber buddies for the day and spend some time with your real life, in the flesh friend.”
    “Wait, why do you agree?”
    “Because I need your attention today.”
    “You’ll get my attention when you give me a decent answer,” I counter.
    “I should have made friends with Samantha,” she moans as she throws herself on my pillow dramatically.
    “You’re stuck with me.” I poke her and she gives me a one fingered salute. “Why do you agree?”
    “Think about it, Dee. When does anything good ever happen to you?” she asks and runs out the room before I can slap her.
    A lot of help she was! I forward the email to Adam, knowing he’ll take it more seriously. Dr. Rios has been reminding me that I can’t live in the hospital forever, and that when I get out I need to do something with my life. I need a purpose. Being a good mom is one purpose, but what am I going to do when I’m not being a mom? Writing might be a good idea. It’d beat every other alternative Dr. Rios has offered.
    I could be a writer. Why not?
    I close my laptop and run out of my room with my water gun so I can chase down Hayley. I find her flirting with one of the new male patients, so I hide behind a chair and point my gun at her crotch. I squirt her several times before she notices and jumps on me. We