Beautiful Nightmares (The Asylum Trilogy)

by Lauren Hammond

  “Where is he?” I cry choking on a sob stuck in my throat. “Where is my Elijah?”

  “Hush, now.” The young woman has a slick yet soothing voice. “You don’t need to worry about such things, Adelaide. You need your rest.” She eases me back into a lying down position and smoothes my hair back away from my face.

  “Just tell me where he went,” I plead. “Please.”

  “Can’t you please tell me where he went?” I ask a hint of hopefulness in my voice.

  “No,” she says flatly, pulling the sheets up over my chest.

  “Why not?” I don’t understand this cruelty. This woman has to know where he is. She just has to. And how could she keep his whereabouts from me? Can’t she see his absence is tearing me apart?

  “Because I don’t know.”

  She’s lying. I know she’s lying. “He didn’t leave word?”

  “No Adelaide. He did not.”

  Now I know she’s embellishing the truth. My Elijah would never go somewhere without leaving word. “I don’t understand,” I mumble.

  “Adelaide.” The woman’s voice is stern. “Stop worrying and rest.” She puts her back to me and walks to the door.

  I slink down into my sheets as she pulls the door closed. I wait for sleep to come, but it doesn’t so I listen to the soft blend of voices coming from right outside my door.

  “I can’t do this anymore.” It’s the woman who was in my room. Her voice has taken on an emotional tone. “I can’t be her nurse anymore. Every time I hear her call his name it breaks my heart.”

  “You can’t just quit being a nurse to the patients you’ve been assigned to,” another woman with a deeper voice chimes in. “You were warned not to get attached to the patients during clinicals.”

  “Well, I can’t help it okay!” my nurse snaps. “Her life has been so tragic. So sad and brutal. A person has to have ice in their veins to not feel for someone who has been through so much. One of these days, I’m going to tell her the truth.”

  “You can’t!” nurse two cries out. “Have you lost your mind? You know what will happen if you do! We’ve been warned! We can’t tell her anything!”

  “I don’t care.”

  “If you value your job at all, you will.”

  There’s a brief moment of silence.

  My nurse speaks up. “So let them fire me then. Let them fire me for wanting to not keep one patient in the dark.”

  “It’s not a good idea, Maggie.”

  “I disagree, Rhea. That poor woman has suffered long enough. I’ve listened to her cries. Comforted her when she’s had nightmares about her past. Watched her hopeful eyes while she watches the visitors come and go and watched her sink into a deep depression when he never shows up.”

  “Maggie, you can’t.”

  “I can and I will. Someone needs to tell her, Rhea. Someone needs to tell her that her Elijah never comes and isn’t here because he’s dead.”

  Chapter Twenty One

  ~After~

  Weeks pass.

  Weeks pass, and I don’t think I’ve ever felt emptier than I have lately.

  I feel like a shell of a person.

  A waste of space.

  All of my days have passed by so quickly that my time is starting to feel like a blur. And on another note, I no longer care. I have days where I wonder if this is normal. Or common for that much. I have days where I can be in a room surrounded by people and feel so alone. Then I wonder if that feeling will ever go away.

  Probably not.

  I guess that’s what happens when you find out that everything you’ve ever believed in has been a lie.

  Dr. Swell hasn’t even noticed that my file is missing. And if she has, she hasn’t mentioned anything during our sessions. I don’t think she cares anyway.

  During the day, I seem to feel okay. But it’s not until night, when I’m lying in my dark cell, alone with my thoughts that my mind really starts to wander. And when I think about Elijah, and my daughter that’s when the pain starts searing through me. That’s when my limbs start twitching. And when my heart starts pounding. That’s when I usually wind up sobbing so hard that I’m gasping for air, unable to control myself.

  I’ve been telling myself for the last week that dying would be easier than living in hell on earth.

  I can remember a time in my life when the only thing I ever wanted was the Grim Reaper’s kiss. I can remember a time where I would have gladly tilted my head to the side just to feel his icy breath on my neck.

  I feel that way again now.

  I always used to think that dying was too easy.

  Too quick.

  Too cowardly.

  I always used to think that living was the greatest triumph of a person’s life because if you can make it through life without becoming damaged then you’ve succeeded. I didn’t have a shot in hell at attempting a beautiful life.

  My mother died.

  My father was an abusive drunk who hung himself in prison. I could have sworn I saw him once after the fact, but I was wrong.

  I practically raised myself.

  I thought that Damien was the only good thing I ever had, but apparently that was a lie too. It stated in my file that he was a part of me and I know it’s true. He told me so himself.

  He really was the best kind of illusion after all.

  And Elijah…

  Thinking of Dr. Watson committing suicide makes me sick to my stomach. Reading his obituary made me want to curl up into a ball and cry harder than I’ve ever cried before. And on top of that, we had a daughter together. She was taken from me. And a gnawing worry feeds on my brain because I don’t know whether she’s dead or alive.

  I feel so conflicted.

  And sad.

  I have nothing.

  I have nothing, but twisted thoughts, a screwed up past and no purpose for my future. I’ll never get out of Oak Hill and there’s no light at the end of my tunnel.

  I close my eyes and let out a sigh that seeps despair and feel like ending my life is my only option.

  I’m sitting on my bed while I rip pieces of my sheet apart. I knot them together and it doesn’t take me very long. I stare at the long, braided piece of sheet, stretched out along my cot and cover it with my thin blanket.

  I tell myself that tonight will be the night.

  Tonight I will be free.

  Tonight, I will leave the Oak Hill institution once and for all.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  ~Before~

  “You bitch!” I scream wildly and launch myself at my nurse. “You’re lying. You’re lying!” I sound like a lunatic. Like my own personal brand of crazy. My voice is high and shrill and is a mixture of rage and fear.

  The nurse cowers below me, her hands in the air, blocking me as I try to wrap my fingers around her neck. “I will kill you, you liar!” I’m still shouting and I’m not sure where all of my composure has gone. “Tell me where you put it! Where is my baby?”

  They told me I was pregnant.

  Then they told me that I lost it. That I lost my baby.

  It was at that exact moment that I swear I lost my mind. Because I knew it was his. I knew the child that was growing in my womb had to be Damien’s. He’s the only boy I’ve ever been with in that way. On top of that, he’s the only boy I’ve ever really loved.

  Then, there’s the man in my dreams, but still.

  A dream is just a dream.

  It is not reality.

  I can’t see anything but red. I am so so angry. I am so very, very confused. The logical part of my mind is a light-switch that has been turned off and all I can think about is Damien and our baby and the chance of a lifetime for me to finally be happy.

  I am screaming, sobbing, and shaking.

  I’ve been hysterical since the moment they told me I lost his baby.

  Two burly male nurses in matching periwinkle scrubs burst through the door, tackling me just before I strangle the life out of my nurse. She coughs. Touches her thr
oat. I don’t see anymore because at that point, I’ve already been injected with a sedative and am well on my way to lullaby land.

  The two male nurses lift me up as the drug takes effect and lie me down on my bed.

  I say his name, “Damien.”

  Wrap my arms around my stomach.

  I wonder where he is and why he isn’t here.

  “My baby.” I cry to myself. “My baby.”

  Hours later, a nurse comes into my room to check my vitals and I’m tucked in a ball in my hospital bed. The nurse is tall, thin in a waifish way, with salt and pepper hair and a pixie cut. “Sit up dear,” she says in a soft yet kind voice. Her eyes are kind too. Big and brown. Like a puppy’s.

  I do as she says and then she places two long fingers on my wrist, checking my pulse. “Is he out there?” I ask a hint of hopefulness in my tone.

  “Is who out there, dear?”

  “Damien.”

  “Damien?”

  “Yes,” I say with force. “Damien Allen. I told the last nurse to phone him. He should be here.” My emotions are twisted. I’m restless. Part of me wants to get out of this bed and go looking for him.

  “No dear,” the nurse says. “There’s no one here by that name.”

  The nurse backs away from me and I lie back down. “Well can you try to phone him again? I know he’ll want to know that I’m okay.”

  She walks to the door and pries it open the slightest bit. “I’ll leave word, dear. You just get some rest, okay.”

  I nod, but know that resting is probably the last thing on my mind.

  Thoughts and memories keep bouncing around inside of my head. I keep trying to remember the last time I saw Damien.

  I can’t remember where.

  I can’t remember when.

  I keep getting this vision of him throwing back my pale yellow curtains and standing by my bedroom window with a smirk and a gleam in his blue blue eyes, but other than that nothing else.

  In my mind I hear a bang and another bang.

  I want to turn off my mind so I can focus, but I can’t.

  I hear another bang, bang, bang!

  Then yelling.

  Followed by crying and screaming.

  I hear voices outside my door.

  They are a blend of male and female voices and I’m struggling to figure out which voice belongs to each person. I know the nurse with salt and pepper hair is speaking. Her voice is the only one I recognize.

  We have to send her somewhere, she says.

  Somewhere where she can get the help that she needs, she says.

  This isn’t the right place for her.

  I know of a place not too far.

  She’ll receive all the help she needs.

  I slide down into my bed and my heart sinks into the pit of my stomach. I feel like I don’t belong anywhere.

  I feel like I am a lost cause and that no one can help me.

  I huff in frustration and I decide that the best and only way for me to figure everything out is by resting, clearing my head, and praying to God that my memory returns by the morning.

  Chapter Twenty Three

  20 Years Later

  Sometimes I can feel the quiet.

  I mean really feel it.

  Sometimes I can feel it expand inside of me and send miniscule tremors throughout my body before they wind up quaking in my bones.

  The feeling is an overwhelming mixture of calm and ease and over the last fifteen years, I’ve learned to love it. I’ve learned to adore simplicity because sometimes, the little things in life are all a person has.

  The little things…

  They’re all I have left.

  I’m in the rec room, in a chair seated in front of the long, rectangle window. My reflection stares back at me through the double panes of glass and for the first time in a long time, I take notice in my appearance. Streaks of gray are weaved through my ebony hair. My cheeks are sunken in. There are dark circles under my eyes. And shallow canals of wrinkles imbedded my forehead. I continue gawking at my reflection for a minute and then I’m reminded of why I don’t care to look at myself anymore.

  I tear my gaze away from my sordid imagine and what’s behind the glass.

  Lush green trees.

  Wildflowers.

  Rolling acres of trimmed grass.

  I can’t focus on all the beautiful things that are living when I feel like I belong with the dead.

  I tried to die once and when I say “tried” I should say I failed because the staff found me before I could die completely.

  They saved me.

  They pulled me down from the rafters and removed the homemade hospital gown noose I had made from around my neck and brought me back to life.

  And I hate them for it.

  At one point, all I ever wanted to be saved and now I find it so strange that I ever hoped that that dream would come true. I also think it’s crazy that I thought that I’d make it out of Oak Hill when in reality that thought was a fantasy. This place is a blood-thirsty leech that feeds and feeds and feeds on you until you’re bled dry.

  The funny thing is, I’ve been bled dry for years and I’m still here.

  “Adelaide.” I hear a woman call my name, but I don’t answer her call. I stopped giving the staff members any social interaction years ago. Now, I only respond with grunts, sighs, or a nod of the head. The only time they seek me out is to give me my meds or escort me somewhere. I figure what’s the point in talking when there’s nothing left to say. Then my name is called a second time, “Adelaide.”

  I glance over my shoulder and see two women walking toward me. One, a nurse, with short spiky black hair and a svelte physique and the other is a young woman who can’t be older than her early twenties. Keeping my eyes locked with the nurse’s, I sit up in my chair and pull my crème, knitted shawl tightly around my shoulders. I don’t respond until they are right next to me and even then, the only thing I say is, “Uh.”

  The nurse’s thin lips quirk up into a tight smile and I notice that one of her front teeth is slightly crooked. “Adelaide,” she ushers the woman next to her toward me with her hand, “you have a visitor.” The nurse’s voice is full of joy and hope and I almost want to slap her.

  I’ve been at Oakhill over twenty years and I’ve never once had a visitor and the fact that someone is telling me that I have one now almost seems like a cruel prank. I want to open my mouth and say something audible, but for a moment I forget how to speak. The nurse glances from me to the woman beside her then back at me again. “Well,” she says. “I’ll leave you two alone.” She leans in and whispers something into the woman’s ear that I can’t make out, but I watch the woman nod in the nurse’s direction as she turns to walk away.

  A nervous feeling bubbles in the pit of my stomach and part of me wants to get up and leave the room. But there is another part of me that is mildly curious and wants to know who this strange woman is. Could she be a police officer? A new doctor?

  I study her as she walks across the room and grabs a chair and I continue watching her as she slides the chair across the floor. She has long, willowy limbs. A petite waist. She’s probably around 5’5 in height. Her skin is pale and her face is heart-shaped. Her hair falls in golden ringlets down her back and when she walks, she walks with such grace that it’s like she’s walking on air.

  “There,” she says in a soft feminine voice as she puts her chair next to me and sits down. I stare down at her legs and observe the way she crosses one over-top of the other. Then she asks, “How are you, today?”

  I don’t make eye contact and my gaze has centered on the floor. Tan speckles on the crème tile blur in my peripheral vision and all I can do is shrug.

  “Adelaide, could you look at me, please?” I nod because I know from the assertiveness in this woman’s tone that she isn’t going to buy into my silent treatment kind of behavior.

  I make eye contact and suddenly I can’t breathe.

  Tears well up in my eyes and I bl
ink several times while they rain down my cheeks.

  The nervous feeling in my stomach subsides.

  My fingers start trembling.

  My nerves are shot.

  I realize that I’m looking into my own eyes.

  A set of violet eyes.

  So beautiful and so rare that I know this woman can only be one person. “Willow?” My voice cracks and rasps because I can’t remember the last time I’ve spoken to a soul. I clear my throat and repeat myself. “Willow?”

  A soft smile pulls on her lips. “Yes, Adelaide. I’m your daughter.”