I can still feel myself being carried off the bus. Down a few steps. Then up a few more steps. And just before we walk through a set of what seems to be a set of double doors, the man who was breathing down my neck whispers in a chilling voice, “I don't know where he is, love.” Goosebumps rise on my skin and the hair on my arms stand at attention. “But I can tell you this; where ever he is, I can promise you, you won't find him here.”
Chapter Three
~After~
The sounds of night fill the air creating a haunting melody that overwhelms me and soothes me at the same time. I stare up into the vast navy colored sky that is swirled with sporadic bursts of stars and let out a deep breath. The full moon is bright, peaking through the wiry branches covered with darkened green leaves, and I think the man in the moon winks at me.
It's like he's telling me not to worry.
That I will be safe and free.
Eventually.
I stopped running. Even though I told myself I wouldn't, I stopped, but only because the orderly chasing me was mere inches away from tackling me. His footsteps are an added sound to the crickets and whooshing wind. He paces back and forth below me and I have a clear view of the shaggy mop of brown a top his head. I stifle a giggle when I watch him scratch his head. He's puzzled. I've outsmarted him, thank God.
Upon my entrance to the forest, I zig-zagged through a bevy of tall oak trees and threw him off my trail for a moment. Then I scaled the first one I saw before he had me in his sights.
“Adelaide, love!” He calls out. “I know you're out here!” His accent rings out in the air and echoes on the wind. It's the same orderly who carried me off the bus when I arrived at Oakhill. “I will find you, love! It's only a matter of time!”
I'm glad he thinks so. I know different. But still, I take precautions to ensure he doesn't spot me in the tree I'm perched in. I wait until the crickets hit a crescendo before twisting around to the opposite side of the tree trunk. Then I place my back flat against the unruly bark and wince when I feel the ridges poke my skin. I'm still wearing my hospital gown and mentally curse at myself for forgetting the bag that Aurora packed. Hunching forward, I position myself in between a fork in the branches, propping my legs up on each fat limb.
Even though Aurora and I planned this escape together she planned everything out more than I did. She thought of all the things we'd need. Clothing. Shoes. Food. Money. All I did was map out our route and locate the one window in the entire asylum that didn't have bars on it. Uneasiness and hurt sweeps through my stomach when I think of me being out here, free, while Aurora is back at Oakhill probably being electrocuted.
After the fire she started is put out of course.
But she wanted this for me. She said it. She told me to run. I have to keep telling myself that. I have to keep telling myself that she wouldn't have told me to run if she wanted me to stay behind, right? Reassuringly I keep thinking of that moment over and over again, where Aurora was shouting at me and pleading with her eyes. It's the only way I can continue on this journey without guilt devouring me and using my bones as a tooth-pick.
“Bollocks,” says the orderly below as he lets out a frustrated sigh. I glance over my shoulder and watch him as he stares out into the darkness. “Those bloody bastards have me out here chasing a God damn, loon.” He pivots on his heel. “They can kiss my arse.”
My eyes follow him as he wanders down the well-beaten forest path back in the direction of the asylum and I sigh with relief when he disappears from my view all-together. I slide down the trunk of the tree and position myself in between one of the thick branches. My feet dangle in between the opening and I look up as a forceful gust of wind tosses around the wiry branches littered with small leaves.
This reminds me of Damien.
It reminds me of the days we spent lying under the willow tree in my back yard. The wind would blow and tousle the branches, while the white buds on the tips would look like tiny pieces of cotton against the backdrop of the powdery blue sky. I closed my eyes as the coolness sent an enticing shiver up my spine and moaned when warmth replaced that shiver with a burning desire when Damien's hand climbed up my inner thigh. “I love the way the wind feels on my skin,” I told him.
He leaned in close and the heat from his lips scorched my lower earlobe. “Just the wind?” he asked, a teasing tone to his voice.
I clamped my fingers around his wrist and smiled. “And you too, silly.” He beamed. Then our tongues became tangled and our minds became hazy.
Pain. A deep stabbing pain throbs in my heart and I have to clutch my chest to keep the pain from spreading. I don't know why I like to torture myself with those beautiful memories. I gasp out and hunch over as tears rain down my cheeks and dampen the bark on the tree branch. In the future, I know that I'll be able to revisit those memories and smile. I'll be able to remember that Damien and I loved each other hopelessly and lived in our own little world, even if only for a short time. But right now, even after months, the wound inside my heart hasn't fully healed.
It's still fresh.
Still too raw.
I avert my attention to the empty path to keep myself from thinking about the boy I loved. The boy who I only see when I'm high off my meds and hallucinating. I push the image of him that's flashing through my head into the part of my mind that belongs to him. I restart my brain, centering it around the task at hand.
My escape.
Chapter Four
~Before~
Damien always used to watch me sleep. I don't know how, but I'd always be able to tell.
This is how I know there's someone watching me now.
Bravely I lift my right eyelid, peeking at a pair of wide brown eyes through the slit. Just below the eyes is a small, sloped nose, freckles trailing down from the bridge to the tip. Opening both eyes, I sit up as the girl who was watching me stumbles backward into her own cot.
“Hello,” I say and tilt my head to the side. “I'm Adelaide.”
The girl takes a seat on her cot. “Aurora.” Her voice is meek and squeaky. Like a mouse. Aurora scoots to the farthest edge of her cot and pulls her knees to her chest. What's wrong with this girl?
She seems terrified.
Of me.
“You must be my new roommate,” she says, a nervous quiver vibrates in her vocal chords.
I look around the small room, with bland tan colored walls, and take inventory in how there is double of everything. “I guess I am.”
I can't remember them bringing me in here, but they probably did it after they gave me a shot of some kind of mind erasing drug. Because if they brought me in here without shooting me up with a drug I'd remember it.
“So what's wrong with you?” my new roommate inquires.
I laugh at that. “Lots of things.” I hang my feet over the side of my cot. “What's wrong with you?”
“I don't like to talk about it.”
“I understand,” I say. I assume that if I room with this girl long enough, she'll open up eventually. Also I know there are plenty of things I prefer not to talk about.
Aurora relaxes her shoulders and regards me in an odd way. She's wary yet calm. “My last roommate was schizophrenic,” she informs me.
Out of all the issues I have I am thankful schizophrenia is not one of them. “I'm not.”
Aurora narrows her wide eyes. “That's what my last roommate said.” She holds out her left arm, palm up. “Then she bit me.” I lean toward her and squint. Two curved, raised pinkish colored scars decorate a portion of her forearm. One looks like a smile. The other looks like a frown.
I sit back. “I promise you, Aurora. I'm not schizophrenic.” I tuck my legs underneath my butt, keeping my eyes on her. She doesn't look reassured.
There's an awkward moment of silence between us where each of us observes one another. The girl on the cot across from me is small. Almost like a pixie. Petite with pale, freckled skin and mop of unruly red curls on top of her head. She looks young. Way too
young to be in a place like this. I break the quiet between us when I ask, “How old are you?”
She drops her gaze away from mine and begins writing words on the wall with her finger. “Twenty.”
“Twenty?” I'm shocked. She doesn't look a day over thirteen.
“I know. I know,” she says. She's still writing on the wall and I stare at her for a second, then give up on trying to figure out what she's writing. “People always tell me I don't look my age.”
“That's a good thing though.” I imagine when Aurora is fifty she'll look forty or possibly thirty five. I bet some women would kill for those kinds of genes.
She stops writing and glances at me from over her shoulder, a wild look in her deep brown eyes. “Is it?”
The nature of her question perplexes me so I shrug and change the subject. “How many roommates have you had?”
Her attention shifts from the wall to her hair and she tugs on the end of a few strands, picking at split ends. “Twelve.”
“Twelve?” I gasp out and my mouth falls open. “How long have you been here?”
She sighs. “Two and a half years.”
My heart breaks for her when she tells me this. I can't even fathom spending another day here let alone two years. This brings me to my next question. “Why?”
“Why, what?”
“Why are you still here? Shouldn't you be out by now?”
“No.” Her light voice shifts to a lower, darker one. “The staff doesn't think that they've fixed me yet.”
“Fixed you.” It bothers me that when the staff talks about fixing people, it reminds me of repairing a broken kitchen appliance.
“Yes,” she says. “Because they don't think I've found my mind yet.”
“I see.” I scoot all the way back on my cot until my back is flat against the wall. A shiver travels down my spine as the cold plaster seeps through the flimsy fabric of my hospital gown.
Aurora abandons her hair picking and hops up from her cot. Her abrupt action startles me and I clutch my chest to stifle my racing heart. She paces back and forth in front of me and watching her is making me dizzy. I close my eyes for a second and when I open them she's inches away from me.
Geez.
This girl is beyond strange.
She bites her bottom lip, tilts her head to the side, and a puzzled look spreads across her face. “What did they tell you when they brought you here?”
“That this place was going to help me get better,” I tell her. I don't mention why I was sent here in the first place.
I don't know what kind of reaction I expected from her, but it’s not laughter. Howling laughter. The kind of laughter where you have to clutch your side because you're laughing so hard that you can't breathe. “They're a bunch of liars,” she hoots out and slaps her right thigh. “To think that they're still giving people that line.”
“You mean they don't help people here?” I've never been more confused in my entire life. I don't understand why the police and the staff would insist that they're here to help if they weren't.
Aurora's laughter dies down. “No they don't help people here.” Her breathing steadies and she plops down on my cot next to me. “They separate us from society and try to pacify us.”
“I still don't understand.” I fold my hands in my lap and start playing with my fingers.
“To most of society being crazy is like a virus. If we're out and about in public people think they can catch the craziness from us or something. It's much easier for them to separate us and forget we ever existed. Almost like being quarantined. I used to see a psychiatrist before I was brought here. I remember the way my mother's friends used to gossip about it. They wouldn't let me play with their children. It's kind of like women who are divorced nowadays. Other women don't talk to them. They're usually shunned.”
A dull ache throbs in my side and I clench my fists. “It’s like we're tossed out trash.”
Aurora smiles. “That's a great analogy, Adelaide.” She stretches her short legs out and crosses her ankles. “Even if we do get out, I don't think we'll ever have a normal life though. We'll always be the one people whisper about when we walk by. In their eyes, we'll always be lunatics.”
“I don't think of it that way,” I tell her. “If I ever do get out of here, I'm going to start over in a place where no one knows me.”
Aurora giggles. “Maybe I'll join you.” Aurora's back is now flat against the wall and we sit close, our shoulders touching. “It's a nice dream to have.”
A dream?
A dream?
Getting out of Oakhill is not and will never be a dream to me. I make a promise to myself in that moment, telling myself that I will get out of this place. I'll start a new life. I'll have a future. I'll do some of things I've always wanted to do like; swim in the ocean, ride a horse, learn how to drive a car, and see a movie.
I will get out of Oakhill.
I will.
No matter what it takes.
~ ~ ~
For the longest time, I fight off sleep.
I stare up at the ceiling, wondering what would have happened if things turned out differently for me and Damien. I wonder what would have happened if I would have died in place of him. There's a huge part of me that wishes I would have.
I think about it every minute.
Of every hour.
Of every day.
Damien and I had such different lives. He had hope. He had a future. A family who loved him. Me, I had nothing. And I know if I would have died in his stead there would be no one to miss me when I was gone.
And Damien, well, I know there are a lot of people who have been missing him. I can't speak for his family, but I've convinced myself that I miss him more than any of them. What hurts more than anything is me, thinking of the life we could have had. Thinking of the loving smiles we'll never flash at one another. The warm embraces we'll never share. The fact that our lips will never ever touch again.
The thoughts of the life we could have had is too much to bear, and as a deep plunging pain stabs my heart, I roll over on my cot. I curl my body into the fetal position. Then I cry myself to sleep.
Just when I think my nightmare from earlier is over, I realize that it's only just beginning.
I stand in my old bedroom.
The window is open. My pale yellow curtains dance against the cool breeze. My eyes avert to the spot on the floor where Damien died. The dried blood on the oak floor is a constant reminder of the boy I loved.
The boy I lost.
The boy who gave up everything including his life, for me.
I'm frozen in my spot, staring at the blood stain on the floor that is now brown in color, rusted like a muffler on an old car. Numerous questions run through my mind as pain pierces my heart and tears prick my eyes. Why didn't the police clean this up? Why did I come back here? Why do I feel like I'm reliving Damien's death over and over again in my own personal version of hell?
A gust of air leaves my lungs and I hit my knees. My chest vibrates with the sobs that are stuck in my throat, and the nausea slaps against my stomach lining in waves. Throwing my hands over my mouth, I hunch over in front of the brown stain. I think I'm going to be sick.
Before I can control myself I'm screaming. I'm pounding my fists into the last part of Damien I'll ever see. The last part of him I'll ever touch. After a while I just lie there, my cheek against Damien's dried blood and the cold wood floor. Numbness spreads through me like a virus, and I can't bring myself to move from the floor. I can't bring myself to even blink.
Sunlight peeks in through my window. Something gleams in my peripheral vision and I glance under my bed. My locket sparkles as the bright light bounces off its surface. I don't remember it falling off. I don't remember being without it. On top of my grief of losing Damien, I'm angry with myself for forgetting the last and only gift he'd ever given me. I snatch it from underneath my bed and clasp it around my neck.
Then my nightmare shifts.
; Twists.
Contorts.
I'm standing in front of the small one story house. The white paint on the siding is chipped off in spots, a few windows have cracks in them, and the black shutters dangle from their hinges. There's an empty can of gasoline at my feet, a book of matches in my right pocket. I rub the book of matches with the tips of my trembling fingers, nervous about what I'm going to do. But I tell myself I have to do this.
I have to. I have to. I have to.
There will be too much agony if this house stays standing. Too many bad memories. Too much pain.
Neither Mommy’s or Damien’s death will be avenged.
Daddy living the remainder of his life in a prison cell isn't enough. No. This is the only way. I remove the book of matches from my pocket, pluck one from the bunch, and then I strike it. The only way to bring any kind of peace to my mind, and to somehow deal with the death of my mother and love, is to burn this God damned house.
Yes, I hiss in my mind.
And I swear I hear Damien behind me whispering, “Do it, Addy. Do it.”
Then before I can stop myself, I drop the lit match onto the ground, my eyes zoomed in on the trail of gasoline I left as it goes up in a mixture of orange and yellow flames. The newly lit flames whirl before me snapping, crackling, and hissing. Then I take a few steps back and lift my head as the house full death and misery burns to the fucking ground.
I wake up screaming, but suddenly my screams are stifled.
Where is Aurora? Did I wake her?
My eyes flit around the room, but there are white spots clouding my vision.
There are beads of sweat dripping down my forehead and I struggle to breathe. It feels like someone's hands are wrapped around my throat. It feels like the person choking me is determined. They won't rest until my eyes roll back into my head and they've crushed my windpipe.
Then I realize I am strangling myself.
I refuse to let go. I refuse to let go because death will be sweet. Death will be beautiful. I'll get to see Mommy, and Damien, and Daddy will be left to rot on earth alone.
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