by Ellie Danes
“Kate,” she said.
“No,” I stopped her. I didn’t need to listen to a half-assed excuse. “Talk. Right now.”
Finally, she opened up. She cried a little, but that didn’t stop her. She talked to me about everything she’d been hiding from me for a long time. She said for a while, she took the medicine. For a while, she tried to do what everyone wanted her to do. But she said one day, she felt like she was a robot — being controlled by everyone and everything, including the medicine she was taking.
When I asked if she was taking her medicine, she told me the truth. She told me that she wasn’t. Not that I was surprised. She probably wouldn’t have pulled this sort of stunt if she had been. But she did say that she would swallow the pills — and she’d done that every day for a long while. She’d hoped every time that she’d start to feel better. But she never did. Not completely.
She said it was true that after taking them, she hadn’t felt sad, necessarily, but she didn’t really feel anything. She’d even eat loads and loads of food and make herself throw up just to feel, but it hadn’t worked, either. She tried to go to school and act like none of it was happening, but because she was finally in a “good school,” there was someone always there “breathing down her neck” as she so beautifully put it. I chose to look at it as someone constantly monitoring her, trying to assess and manage her needs.
But she clearly didn’t like people checking up on her. She said there was always someone asking, “Are you all right?” or “How are you feeling?” I guessed I could understand where she was coming from. I wouldn’t like to feel constantly monitored either.
She told me with all of their “checking in” all the time, it made it impossible to forget how fucked up she felt. How fucked up she had to have been to make Mom leave — to drive her all the way across the country.
She said she hated the struggle she put on everyone. How much money she cost me, how much resentment Dad felt toward her. She said she saw all of our faces — every single day — and wondered what the point was. Everyone was always so worried — or angry. She thought we were all mixed up with emotion, and none of the emotions was happiness.
She said she was sick of making everyone miserable. Especially herself.
I shed one more quick tear and wiped it away. My voice was hoarse, but I didn’t care — I had to say something. “I don’t ever want you to feel like that.”
She shrugged. I watched as she took her hand and ran her fingers over her bandages.
“I just felt like this was the easiest way to get rid of the feelings,” she said.
“And since when do we do the easy thing?” I was full of compassion and love for her, but she’d fucking scared me to death, and I was mad, too. “Do you think anything I do is easy?”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Kate.”
“I just want you to know that you’re not a burden, and I never want you to think that you are. I worry about you because I love you, and I would worry even if you weren’t depressed — and even if you didn’t have a single issue or problem.”
She looked
defeated, and my heart felt heavy for her.
It was hard biting my tongue. It was hard not doing what I wanted to do. I wanted to go up to her and shake the shit out of her. I wanted to scream in her face. I wanted to yell loud enough that she’d finally, finally hear me and be well—even though mental illness didn’t work like that. I wanted to try and make her understand that I wasn’t the one who didn’t understand — she was.
She nodded, so faintly that I barely noticed. Her tears continued to fall in steady drips. I wiped them away.
“I’m sorry, Kate,” she whispered. It was like she was crumbling, right there, and I was there to witness it. I held her close to me as she sobbed. “I’m so sorry…”
I held her while she sobbed. I comforted her, soothed her, and held her close to me as she cried. And cried. And cried so hard that she cried herself to sleep again. I gently laid her head back down and kissed her forehead before leaving the tiny room.
I needed to walk around, get out of the tiny room. I needed my own space without my little sister in it. Just for a second. As soon as I walked out of the cubicle, I was surrounded by white. The hospital walls were bright white in color. And so were the floors. All white. All over.
I stared at the fork in the hall: a waiting room on one side and a check-in desk to the right. I craned my neck to look around, hoping my dad would be at the large check-in desk. But he wasn’t, of course.
I sighed. I hoped more than anything that he’d walk through the doors soon that he’d put everything behind him when it came to Claire, and he’d just be her father for a day.
But somehow, I wasn’t as hopeful as I should have been. I walked toward the waiting room. It looked comfortable enough, at least. There were a lot of chairs — and plenty still open. My legs shook as I walked toward a seat, and my eyes felt dead. It had been the longest day in the history of long days. I was tired. Emotionally and physically.
I looked over to what I assumed to be a mother and son. The mom, beautiful, thin, young — and absolutely drained-looking — was reading a magazine, every now and then glancing over the pages to her little boy, who played on the floor with a pile of blocks. He was talking, the best that he could for his age, about “aminals” and how he wanted to go to the zoo.
I couldn’t help but smile and wonder why they were here. I couldn’t help but wonder why everyone was here.
I could only hope that all of their loved ones were safe and sound and that they were as fortunate as I was. Terrible as this hospital visit was, at least Claire was okay for the moment, and her injury would heal.
I looked over to couples who held each other close. Parents and children — of all ages. They were all just people. Some old. Some young. But all here in this waiting room — all worried. A group of strangers with nothing in the world in common, except for the fact that their worlds were shaken that day by concern for the well-being of a loved one.
I noticed that no one was really talking — except for the one little boy playing on the floor. The quiet in the room felt almost ominous, as everyone seemed filled with worry and dread.
I stood directly in the center as my gaze fell over everyone. I sighed, and just as I was about to shake myself away and find a seat, my gaze fell on a young man. He couldn’t have been older than his mid-twenties, and he was with a woman. He held her close as she snuggled into his chest from the seat just beside his. He held her hand over his lap and rubbed small, slow circles over the back of it. In the midst of all their turmoil, they were experiencing comfort and love.
I took a deep breath and sat down. Relief seemed to come as soon as my ass touched the seat. I had really needed to be out of Claire’s room. I needed to stop looking how pitiful she was for a second. I needed to stop hearing how incredibly depressed she was.
And I really needed, for just a second, to stop feeling like a huge fucking failure of a sister. My eyes pointed upward to the ceiling in sadness. I wondered how my mom could live with just not knowing about all of this, how she could sleep at night knowing that her teenage daughter had problems, and she wanted no part of them.
I knew how upset I was that I had failed Claire, and I was just her sister. I wondered why Mom felt nothing about failing Claire. Mom knew that she was Claire’s mother, that she was the one person who was supposed to stick around through it all.
I was starting to get angry. But it was an ancient anger, and it wouldn’t help. She was gone. Long gone. It had been years. It was hard for me not to hate her in that moment.
My phone buzzed inside my pocket. I took a deep breath and groaned before retrieving it. The display was lit up with my brother’s face. He must have gotten my message.
“How is she?” he asked in a panic before I even got the chance to say anything.
“Well, she’s alive,” I answered. I wasn’t going to say she was fine. Truth was, she wasn’t fine. I walked out of the wait
ing room to stand in the hall, giving us some more privacy for our conversation.
“Are you okay? How the hell could this happen? What the hell was she thinking?” The questions kept coming, and they were coming at a rate that I really wasn’t ready to deal with. Especially the last one. She was fucking depressed and off her meds.
He finally spoke again. "What happened to our sister?"
I could tell that he had been crying — and he was trying everything in his power not to cry now. His voice quaked and shook with every word he spoke. “Why is she so fucked up?”
He sounded concerned. And I knew that he was. He was her brother, after all. But sometimes, it felt like he was too busy following in our father’s footsteps to really care.
“She’s not fucked up.”
“She is!” he said, angrily. “She wouldn’t have done what she did if she wasn’t!”
“She’s off her meds!” I snapped back.
Yes, he was worried and upset — but damn it, so was I. And Claire didn’t need another person telling her something was wrong with her.
“Look,” I said after he went quiet. “She’s going to be fine.”
“Should I come? I want to make sure she’s going to be okay.”
“Not unless you can be kind and keep your mouth shut,” I answered firmly.
He sighed. “I probably can’t do that.”
“I didn’t think so.” The last thing Claire needed was everyone in the family being there and interrogating her about why she’d hurt herself. Besides, my brother wasn’t always the gentlest of people. He was an amazing person — caring, kind, genuine even — but sometimes that kindness was overshadowed by his ability to care. Because when he cared, he really cared. That meant that whenever anything bad happened, he was on edge — and sometimes the way he dealt with that edginess was by lashing out.
“I’m on top of everything,” I reassured him. “Besides, I think Dad is coming. I left a message for him.”
“Well,” he said. “Please let me know if you need anything.”
“I will.”
“Take care, Kate,” he said. “I love you. Tell Claire I love her.”
“Love you, too. Talk soon.” I hit the end call button and buried the phone back in my coat pocket. I knew I should get back. I wanted to be there when she woke up.
I stood up and walked back down the hall toward the emergency cubicles, and pushed Claire’s curtain to the side when I reached it.
She was still asleep, which was good; at least she hadn’t woken up alone. I walked over to the chair just beside the bed and sat in it. I didn’t grab her hand again; instead, I nuzzled into the arm of the chair and tried to drift off myself.
Try being the key word. All around us, there were sounds of machines beeping. Low, long beeps. Short, high-pitched beeps. There were machines whirring. There were the tapping sounds of nurses typing information into their computers. People were walking around, rushing from one place to the next, their rubbery soles squeaking on the clean floors. It was enough to drive anyone insane, and I had no idea how Claire had even begun to sleep through it, even after having lost a shit load of blood.
A man’s scream echoed from nearby, and I jumped up.
Claire jumped, too. “Jesus. I’m going to have a fucking heart attack in here.”
“Watch your language,” I said, reaching out to grab her hand.
“You can’t be all strict parental on me, and then hold my hand all lovingly,” she said. “You gotta either be a hard ass or a hippy all-is-love type. Can’t be contradictory, sis.”
I rolled my eyes. “Shut up, and be glad that I’m not smothering you in your sleep.”
“Is Dad coming?” she asked.
I sighed. It was an excellent question. He still hadn’t shown up, and I’d left a message ages ago. But instead of depressing her further, I smiled and nodded. “I think so.”
She glanced down at her sheets. “Does he hate me?”
“No!” I shouted. Dad was an asshole sometimes, but he loved her. I knew that he did. He just had a shitty way of showing it. “Don’t ever think that—”
My phone vibrated in my pocket. I grabbed it and glanced at the screen—and speak of the devil.
“Dad,” I answered quickly. I had been waiting to hear from him for a while. I wondered if my brother had told him to call, or if he really had been that busy and just didn’t know until now.
“I can’t make it,” he said. “I have a lot of work to do, and we can’t coddle and encourage this sort of stupid behavior.”
I stiffened when he said that, but instead of ripping into him, I said, “Fine.”
I was tired of fighting. If he didn’t want to be there, he didn’t have to be. But I really had to wonder what the hell his problem was. This was his baby girl — and he always bitched about how his family wasn’t what he wanted it to be, how it didn’t live up to his expectations. His actions showed me that he didn’t deserve any better.
Hell, as far as I was concerned, he didn’t deserve the family he had.
I felt broken. And when I glanced over at Claire, I could tell that she knew — just by looking at my face — that Daddy Dearest was going to be a no-show.
Someone yanked open Claire’s curtain.
“I’ve got to go,” I said to Dad, and ended the call.
The doctor stood before us, clipboard in hand. “Hey guys,” she said as soon as she came in. I watched and listened as she began talking to Claire.
Claire nodded as the doctor explained what was coming next. Honestly, Claire looked worried. Scared, even. I knew that I’d hear bitching every step of the way, but I was in it. And she was going to be in it too — even if I had to drag her, kicking and screaming, into the therapist’s office every single day.
“Kate, I’d like to have a word with Claire alone, if that’s okay?” the doctor said.
I nodded, and took a final glance over at Claire and flashed a half smile her way. “I’m going to go in search of a good ol’ crappy hospital cup of coffee,” I said.
“Good luck with that,” the doctor said with a laugh. “If you find a ‘good ol’ anything in this place, be sure to let me know.”
I smirked and continued on, perking my ears to listen as I walked toward the curtain.
“Your sister has made an appointment with a health-care professional, so we’re going to release you to her.”
I turned back around, a fistful of the curtain’s fabric in my hand. I caught a glimpse of the doctor nodding gently to herself as she jotted a small note down on her pad.
I closed the curtain and sighed.
It was going to be a long road, and it was going to be a tough one.
I just hoped we could get Claire the help that she needed and deserved.
Chapter 18
Ian
I couldn’t work, not with something so serious weighing on my mind. I had sat at my desk after talking to Kate on the phone, and I’d just stared at the screensaver of my laptop. For a whole fucking forty-five minutes. The whole time, I was going back and forth on what I should do.
“Fuck it.”
I grabbed my stuff, got in my car, and drove. Finally, I was there, in the halls of Mount Sinai. And I was wandering through every single corridor that I came across. I could’ve asked where Claire was, but I didn’t know her last name. Besides, I didn’t want to see Claire—I didn’t even know her. I wanted to see Kate.
My feet pounded in a nervous sort of panic, and I couldn’t tell where the fuck I was going.
I had no idea if I was even going in the right direction, or if I had crossed through the same zone twenty times. But I was searching for the emergency department.
I was searching for Kate, and the place was like a fucking maze.
“Dammit,” I growled as I turned a corner. I was getting pissed. I turned another corner, my feet still pounding in a panic. “Goddammit!” I said as I looped my body around the next corner. And then all I saw was a bouncing cloud of red befor
e I felt the wind knocked out of me.
I gasped for breath, and my eyes shot open in shock. I had just run smack dab into someone, and that someone was Kate.
I finally caught my breath, and as soon as I did, she stood up tall on her tiptoes and threw her arms around me and flung her body against mine. I could tell by her uneven breathing that she was fighting back tears. I inhaled deeply, relishing the clean scent of her hair.
This was the first time that I had seen her so vulnerable. Sure, I had caught her right after a fight with her dad — but that had been nothing like this. This was different — completely different. I was touched that she felt comfortable enough with me to let me see it, and to let me hold her while she was going through it.
She pulled away and wiped at her red, puffy eyes. I could guess that she was trying to hide the fact that she’d been crying. I smiled at her and tipped her chin up with my index finger and thumb.
We hadn’t spoken any words, and I wasn’t sure words were really necessary. I was there for obvious reasons, and she was apparently happy to see me. There were no words that would explain it any more than I already knew.
“I’m so glad you came,” she whispered.
I couldn’t believe it. All this had happened — her day had been a total piece of shit, and she looked as beautiful as ever. She was wearing an oversized sweater, and everything on her — her face, her clothes, her make-up —looked absolutely gorgeous. She was almost flawless. The only things that stood out — the only things that would indicate the shitty day she was having—were her red, puffy eyes, and slightly frizzed hair.
But even despite that, she looked unbelievable.
“How’s Claire?” I asked, remembering why we were here.
“She’s okay. She’ll be fine, but right now, she’s just tired and sad.”
“Understandable. Have you eaten?”
“No, but I just want to be with you for a minute, if that’s okay?”
It was more than okay. We sat down in the waiting room, in one of the large, two-person chairs just against the wall. I draped my arm around her shoulders.
She leaned her body into me, pulling her head in, resting it against my chest, and then we fell into a surprisingly comfortable silence.