by Calia Read
“Michael?” I say. He pulls his gaze away from the TV and looks at me. “It’s your turn,” I say and make my way to my room.
Since I hardly remember my brief time spent at DMH, I was terrified when Sam took me here days after my breakdown at Noah’s house. My only knowledge of psych wards came from movies like Girl, Interrupted. I’d walked into the main recreation room and stared at the people, wondering who would be the Lisa of the ward. Who would be the Janet? Or the Georgina?
Yet it was relatively quiet. There were two wards: one for the more severe patients and others that ranged from just needing medication adjustments to people wanting to commit suicide.
I see my psychotherapist, Kim, twice a week. Some days there is nothing that I have to say and I’m in and out of her office in just a few minutes. And then there are other days when I talk for a good hour. We talk about my anxiety and how I’ll thrive in the outside world.
There’s an order here that I find oddly comforting. People who would normally never speak to each other in the real world become your closest confidants. You’ll take their confessions and darkness to your grave and you know they’ll do the same for you.
I walk into my room and see my roommate sitting on her bed. Colored pencils are spread out in front of her as she dutifully colors.
Her name is Michelle and she’s been here for three days. I’ve had three roommates since I’ve been at Sacred Heart. One constantly wore long-sleeved shirts to cover up the cuts on her wrists. Another was a girl with PTSD who regularly screamed out at night. And the other was a pissed off woman in her thirties who was only at Sacred Heart because she had told her doctor that she was suicidal.
I’m not sure what Michelle is here for; she’s kind but very quiet. Keeps to herself during group therapy and only talks to me while we’re getting ready for bed. For all intents and purposes, she looks normal. But that’s the thing. We automatically assume that the strangers we see walking down the street have it all together when in reality they’re fighting a battle of their own.
She looks up from her page. “How was your visit with Dr. Clowds?” she asks.
“Good.” I flop down onto my bed. “He said that I might be able to leave in a few days.”
She nods and doesn’t say anything for a few minutes. I close my eyes and take a few deep breaths.
“Are you excited to get out of here?” she asks so quietly that at first I don’t hear her.
“I don’t know yet,” I confess. My eyes open, I stare at the ceiling. I still think about my mom constantly. So many times I’ve wanted to Google her name and see how many articles pop up about her death and Jackson’s involvement.
The knowledge that her death could’ve been prevented if I never brought Jackson into our lives eats at me constantly. Kim tells me that I can’t think that way. That I had no way of knowing what the future would hold. She tells me that I have to work through my guilt or I’ll never be able to move on with me life.
Have I come to terms with her death? Yes. But sometimes I think I’m still in shock. My grief is like a blindfold. Every day I take steps forward. Some days I walk without falling. Other times I trip and fall and the pain is so raw it feels like I’m finding out the news all over again.
Then there are moments when I feel a strange sort of empathy toward Jackson. I’ve only confessed this morbid feeling to Kim because saying the words aloud just feels fucked up. She’d asked me to explain. I was silent a few moments and then I said, “Because I think he was so blinded by his addiction and depression that all he wanted was a way to feel nothing. I think if he didn’t kill my mom it would’ve been someone else.”
“Can you relate to the pain he was going through?”
My reply was yes.
I was diagnosed with Bipolar One in my mid-twenties. For so long I thought I was simply struggling with depression and that it was normal to have incredible highs and alarming lows. I thought it was common to experience grandiose thoughts and reckless behavior. The turning point for me was when I’d been struggling through depression for close to a year before I realized something was wrong.
There’s a negative connotation attached to Bipolar. People instantly picture the two white masks: one smiling and the other sad. But it’s so much more complex than that. Some think you’re a loose cannon and you can’t be trusted. But mental illness is not a collective sum of bad days and moments. It’s a chemical imbalance that no one would choose to suffer with, any more than someone would choose diabetes.
You have to learn to live with it. And a lot of times that is a daunting, terrifying task.
“IT’S VISITING HOURS,” Cynthia says, turning off the TV in the recreation room. Some people holler at her because she’s standing directly in front of the TV.
“If you want to keep watching the game, go to the therapy room.”
The therapy room is where we have group therapy twice a day. Everyone on the ward comes together and we do activities that center around dealing with PTSD, anxiety, and addiction. You name it. Most times I’m a cynic when it comes to the therapy bullshit, but there have been a few times when I’ve applied the techniques or tools in dealing with my anxiety and found them incredibly useful.
I close my book and head to the nurse’s station. I lean against the wall and wait patiently for one of the nurses to bring out the bath cart. Each patient here has a toiletry box. It’s placed on a cart that’s brought out in the mornings and at night. This is my favorite time of the day. Sometimes I’ll spend up to forty-five minutes in the shower. I’ll let the scalding hot water beat against my skin until my it’s red. Until it feels like every emotion that the day’s therapy has drudged up is washed off of me.
A red-headed nurse named Carla pushes out the cart and stops it in the middle of the hall. I grab two towels on the first shelf and bend down to grab my toiletry box.
“Selah. You have a visitor.”
I frown because today isn’t Friday. That’s when Sam comes to visit me. She hasn’t missed a single Friday. She always comes with a gift. Typically books, or a toiletry item or a new shirt. While we’re talking she’ll hand over the gifts to the nurses; they make sure she hasn’t snuck in any contraband and when she leaves they hand it back over to me.
But today is Tuesday.
I drop the towels and walk back to the nurse’s station and see Noah there. This is the first time I’ve seen him since I’ve come here.
I think about him almost daily. About my last moments spent with him before I came here. Sometimes I feel anger toward him that he didn’t tell me sooner. During one of my sessions, Kim once suggested that I was placing most of my anger on Noah because I had no one else to direct it toward.
She had a valid point.
Other times I feel grateful that someone out there cared enough to try and untangle my story when I couldn’t.
Slowly, I walk over to where he’s waiting, using the time to figure out what I’m going to say to him. But I can’t think of anything that would lead to a light-hearted conversation.
There’s a nervous energy bouncing between us that has my heart racing. It doesn’t help that he came today without any warning. But it’s not like I can turn my back and walk back to my room, like this never happened.
“Let’s sit here,” I tell him, pointing to the table closest to the kitchenette. When I sit here, I have a perfectly angled view of the room, putting me at ease. I pull out the chair across from his and sit down. I lace my fingers together and place them on my lap to hide how much they’re shaking.
He sits down and rests his elbows on the table before he gives me a small smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes.
“Wow… this is a surprise,” I say.
“A bad or good surprise?”
“I’m not sure yet. Ask me after our visit.”
“Will do.”
There’s a small silence between the two of us. Honestly, I have no idea what to say. It’s not like this is a coffee date between two friends catching up. It’s two
people who were brought together by tragic circumstances, and no matter how much time goes by that will never change. I’ll always think about my mom when I see Noah.
“How have you been?” he asks.
I shrug and look down at my laced fingers. “I have good and bad days, but that’s to be expected with everything that’s happened.” I lift my gaze. “How are you?”
“I’m all right.”
“And Duke?” I ask with a hint of a smile.
“Still the worst guard dog in the history of dogs.”
“Well, it’s good to know that at least something has remained the same.”
Noah smiles broadly before his gaze wanders around the rec room. He takes in everything from the small kitchenette in the corner to the table against the wall with art projects drying on it. There’s a piano in the corner and one available computer. All social media is blocked, so we can only check our e-mail. Some patients are constantly on there, furiously clicking the refresher button as they wait for loved ones to write them back. I occasionally log on, but all I get is junk mail.
“So what do you do around here?” Noah asks.
“We keep busy: there’s art class, group therapy, and free time.”
“What do you do during free time?”
“Typically read.”
Noah smirks. “Why am I not surprised?”
I smile back, but it quickly fades because there’s no use in pretending things are normal between us. “Noah, why are you really here?”
His mouth opens and closes before he leans closer. He looks left and right before he speaks. “I just had to see for myself if you were okay. I’ve talked a few times to your sister.”
“So she’s the one who told you I was here?”
“She was,” he confirms.
“Why does that not shock me?” I mutter to myself.
“Don’t be mad at her. I saw her at the house and asked about you. I hadn’t heard anything and I was getting worried.”
My skin starts to tingle underneath Noah’s scrutiny. I take a shaking hand and tuck a lock of hair behind my ear.
“You know that if things were different. If—” he starts to say.
“Don’t,” I whisper. Noah has a pained expression on his face. “Please.”
I already know what he’s going say. In a perfect world, maybe we could be together. But I don’t ever see it happening.
“I don’t want to entertain the idea; that will just lead to disappointment,” I confess. “Right now, I take everything day by day. Moment by moment. Second by second. I go to bed thinking that it’s another day and I’ve made it.”
Noah doesn’t say a word.
We stare at each other while other patients and their visitors talk around us. I swallow, trying to ignore the pain in my chest. It feels like my heart is being smashed into thousands of pieces.
I watch Noah very carefully, taking in his appearance: his hair’s grown out a since I last saw him, he has thick stubble on his cheeks, peppered with silver. I fight the urge to place my hand against his cheek.
One of the biggest misconceptions about psych wards is that they’re lonely places. But we don’t want for company here. There are nurses and doctors constantly walking through the doors. In the four weeks that I’ve been here, I’ve seen patients form tight friendships with other patients.
But there’s a silence that settles deep into your bones. You become swept up in the monotony of each day and getting better, and when you look out the window you can feel the outside world just vibrating with life.
I feel that energy coming off of Noah right now. I want to smell his skin. See if the magic of life clings to him like I imagine.
“Visiting hours are over,” the night nurse calls out from the front of the room.
I can hear the commotion of patients peeking their heads out of the room, like people hiding in storm shelters, waiting for the severe weather to leave them in peace.
Slowly I stand from the chair, ignoring the way it squeaks against the floor. Noah stands up, his hands digging into his pockets. He grabs his car keys and stares at me for a moment before he moves in and wraps an arm around my shoulders, guiding me closer to him. My head rests perfectly against his chest and for a second my eyes close. My arms go around him. My fingers have a mind of their own and tightly curl around the back of his shirt.
Because he’s good.
Because he’s stable.
Because I know that we will never be.
Noah is the first to pull away.
“Thank you for coming,” I say.
He nods somberly. “I’m really glad I came.”
We stand there, both of us refusing to be the first one to leave.
He reaches his hand out and curls it around the back of my head, then leans in, pressing his forehead against mine.
One, two, three, four, five…
I count the seconds with a feeling of dread. With all of my strength I ignore the urge to beg Noah to take me with him. The words are on my tongue; I can feel them. I can hear them like they’re being whispered in my ear. Finally, I push back.
Noah’s eyes sweep over my face. He gives me a sad smile. “Take care of yourself.”
I nod. “You too.”
Then he walks away, leaving me with my misery.
“Med time!” David hollers behind the nurse’s station. Everyone lines up, single file. Some keep to themselves, others talk to the people in front or behind them. Typically I’m one of the last people to take my nighttime meds. Tonight I’m the second person in line.
When I step up to the counter, David hands me a cup with my name written on the side. I take all my pills at once and swallow them down with some water. I stick out my tongue for David to examine before I turn around and make my way to my room, hoping that I will immediately fall into a dreamless sleep.
HELLO.
You’ve heard me speak a few times over the course of the last few months but I don’t believe we’ve been formally introduced.
Throughout time people have described me in numerous ways:
A prison.
A tool.
A blank slate.
Fickle.
Powerful.
Dangerous.
But I’m not any one of those words; I’m all of them.
Sometimes we can’t live together but we certainly can’t live apart.
I’m your mind, Selah, and I remember what you refuse to.
Think of me as one big house. There’s the main room, or command central, where I reside and many small ones that split off from where I live. I keep everything in working order.
There are days when things become… overwhelming. For the most part, though, I’ve done a damn good job at keeping everything together. On good days, I can easily find my way through the whole house. I slip through the halls, open up doors one by one, enter every room. And on bad days, the doors lock. Whatever room I’m in, I know I’m going to be there for a while.
But even then, the door eventually opens.
When tragedy struck your life, your grief became so powerful and overwhelming that the whole house shut down. The doors locked. Lights turned off and it was deathly quiet. I was the only one alive. You went on autopilot, thanks to me. Yet it was terrifying because I couldn’t hear you. Couldn’t find you.
In all our years together that has never happened.
Of course, I still had the keys to each room. When I finally found you, you were stuck in what I like to call the grey room. It’s the room between sadness and complete madness. It isn’t necessarily dangerous there, but it warrants concern.
Oh, I wanted to join you. And some days I easily did. But I have one job to do. And that’s to keep you going.
I tried many keys to get you out. I tried the Sam key, thinking that if you talked to your sister, the one solid link to your mother, you might perk up. And you did, for only a brief moment. I wiggled the key in the lock, intent on getting you out. But the door would become jammed and
I was back at square one.
I suggested that you write. Yes, writing! You’ve always loved to escape into the busy, endless world of your imagination. Yet when you opened your laptop and pulled up one of your many unfinished manuscripts you would stare at the screen. You couldn’t string together a sentence if someone paid you to. Another dead end.
I recommended running. That didn’t pan out.
Then reading. But you could never focus on the story long enough.
Options were running out. I had to do something to mitigate your pain. Because if I didn’t do something, I was scared it would be impossible to pull you out. Somehow misery found its way into the room like a squatter, plopping its useless self on the floor and refusing to budge. It became your companion and best friend. No one was better than your misery.
And then I thought of it: the one key I hadn’t used. The key to where all your memories were stored. But when I opened this door it was like Pandora’s box. All of them hit me at once. For months I rifled through memory after memory. And not just any kind—the good ones. It seemed so foolproof. Why did I not think of it sooner?
Yet how was I supposed to know that every time you access a memory it’s constructed differently? Time becomes irrelevant. Minor details shift, such as the weather, day of the week, or what you were wearing. How was I supposed to know that you’d latch onto each memory so readily? That you’d sink into them so deeply that they became your reality?
Almost instantly I saw the error in my ways, yet I continued to hand you gift after gift after gift. I became so obsessed with you that I lost keys to doors that should always remain closed and forgot to open the doors to your happiness. It all became a fucking mess and for that I’m sorry.
But look at you. You came out on the other side alive. You’re better than before. At least I think you are. Though it’s hard to tell if that’s your own doing or the medication.
Either way, I’ve taken a small step back. Control of your life is now yours unless you ask for my help.
You grip the chair in front of you and watch as the last page flutters onto the tray. You grab it, enjoying the feel of fresh ink before you place it upside down on the stack in front of you. If it weren’t weird, you’d put the pages close to your nose and smell them. Instead, you flip over the manuscript and stare down at the title.