by Krystal Wade
“I understand you don’t want to look at me. Most patients usually blame their doctors for being in here, rather than accepting they have an illness—”
“I don’t blame you. And I’m not sick.” Rose met his eyes again, and there was a sparkle in them, like he’d won and had wanted Rose to say that, and she did exactly as expected. Just how a typical mental patient would respond, he’d assume. Denial, as Nurse Judy labeled it the night before.
“Of course not.” Dr. Underwood steepled his fingers, elbows propped up on his desk. “Of course not. I think I’ll not press you anymore today. You’re tired. Insomnia, nightmares, and depression all go hand in hand. I believe if we can improve your rest, we’ll see significant improvements in your attitude.”
Rose squeezed the arms of the chair, digging her nails into the wood until they felt as if they would break off if she applied any more pressure. “I’m not depressed.”
“You’re not ready to go yet, then?” Dr. Underwood chuckled and scribbled something down in her chart. The room remained silent except for the movement of his pen on paper, the crows in the lawn, and the ticking of the clock.
Tick, tick, tick, tick. She heard him swallow. Saw his face melt off and puddle on the desk. Tock, tock, tock, tock.
Rose squeezed harder and broke the nail off her index finger. Blood drained from her cheeks as her anger brought a wave of nausea over her again. She was not depressed. She was not crazy. Her mother pushed her down this path, always assuming she would end up this way. This was her mother’s fault.
Dr. Underwood finished writing and set down his pen, then stared at Rose in that calculating, analytical way doctors always do. “Okay, Miss Briar. I apologize for pushing you when you’re not ready. I’ll make you a deal. If you promise to show up to our session tomorrow morning in a more . . . agreeable disposition, I’ll make sure Nurse Judy picks up some supplies for the free area in our corridor. Would that be all right? That way if you have the urge to draw something, you can.”
“What?”
“You heard me. I’ll buy you some supplies so if you ever again have the inclination to draw something, you can do so freely.”
Drawing would be the last thing her mother would want her doing inside this place. The woman wanted to rid Rose of art, of free-thinking, of creativity and freedom period. And she’d done a damn fine job of it so far. What would she say to Dr. Underwood if she knew he’d bought charcoals and paper and paints? She’d hate it. There’s a reason Rose liked Dr. Underwood. He was perceptive, understanding. Maybe he saw how prim and proper Leah Briar was on that first day while filling out forms and felt sorry for Rose.
One thing was certain: He was throwing Rose a bone, offering something she loved and desired for a promise to talk. She might not be able to draw anymore, but she would talk, and she would take the supplies and hope her mother found out and was furious.
And so Rose nodded, and then quickly added, “Okay. Thank you.”
“Just let me know your favorite items, and I’ll take care of the rest.”
She left his office grinning.
7
Now that Rose had art supplies to look forward to, she almost couldn’t wait for her next meeting with Dr. Underwood, but for now she had to choose where to go for exercise. The equipment her parents provided was downstairs and in a private room, and the idea of being in the bowels of an asylum, alone, and on a treadmill sent shivers along her spine. So Rose opted for the outdoors. Maybe she could corner Phillip and get him talking again.
“Excuse me,” Betty called from the nurse’s station before Rose could make it down the stairs. “Miss Briar, I have something for you.”
Rose changed directions and approached the window. Several other women occupied the little room protected by glass. Vicki, the night nurse who’d rescued Rose from the bathroom floor her first night, stood at a shelf a few steps from the desk, packing pills into containers. Two others sorted medicines into cups on rolling tables.
“Have I missed something?” Rose asked, shuddering.
Betty swatted her hand in front of her long face and said, “No. Not exactly. Dr. Underwood just called in an additional medication for you. He said you need to take it immediately.”
More medication? Rose hated the thought. Her stomach could barely contain the current concoction this place had her on, but refusal wasn’t an option. So Rose took the pills and swallowed them down. This time without any water.
Betty smiled, looking at Rose as if she were a celebrity, all bright-eyed and a little envious. So odd to have someone view her that way in a place such as this.
“Anything else?” Rose asked.
“You’re such a great patient.” At this utterance of preposterous words by Betty, Nurse Vicki turned from the gray shelf where she worked and sneered. The look made Rose take a step back, especially when she noticed the particular container the woman had in her hands: Briar, Rose.
“Your parents will be so thrilled, Miss Briar,” Betty went on, as if her coworker wasn’t killing a patient with her eyes. “Did you hear me?”
“Thrilled. Yes. Right. Sorry.” Exactly what Rose wanted, her parents thrilled that she was such a good little girl and taking her meds without complaints. Before Stern Nurse could freak her out anymore, Rose trotted downstairs and met Mr. Gordon near the door.
“No running?” he asked, barricading the exit as usual. He uncrossed his arms and placed one of his hands on the push bar.
“No running,” Rose said, squeezing her way past his thick arm.
“Thank you.” His smile said he meant those words.
Once outside, she took a deep breath and stretched. The outdoors always had this effect on Rose, calming and invigorating at the same time. But today no urge to replicate the sky took hold of her. The sun that shone so brightly this morning now hid behind a thick swath of gray clouds that hung low over the trees and filled the forest with dense fog. Even the birds weren’t singing, and the bugs were quiet. The smell of mildew and wet earth was pungent and nauseating, and Rose knew a cold storm was moving in.
Shivering, she rubbed her hands along her arms as she scanned the lawn for Phillip. Rose spotted him where they’d sat yesterday. He was alone and rocking, probably counting his bruises, and she jogged out to him and took a seat on the grass.
“One, one, one.”
“Why do you do that?”
Phillip glanced up at her, his eyes slightly panicked, and then his gaze roamed all over her and finally stopped on her wrist, his expression hardening. He touched the pink skin there, still a little sore from the restraints, and ran his finger around the wound. “You’re hurt.”
“Apparently I had a nightmare and they had to restrain me last night.” Rose pulled away from his touch, dropping her hands into her lap. Unsure how to react to his confusing display of concern mixed with anger, she covered the skin with her other hand.
“No,” he said with finality.
“No what?”
Rocking back and forth again, he muttered, “No,” then, “Not nightmares. Abuse. Tricks. They’ll take her too.”
“Why do you do that? Come on, please, I need you to talk to me. I need you to be sane. Why are you different today than yesterday? Why are you in there sometimes and not others? Please, Phi—Greg. Please.”
Phillip merely stared at her, his expression blank or stoic she couldn’t be sure. How could Rose ask an insane person to stop being insane?
“I’m sorry. Just go back to being you.” Rose stood. “I’ll go.”
“No.” His fists were clenched so tight the skin turned white and pasty. “The meds.”
“The medicines make you this way?” She returned to sitting near a large tree root stretching along the earth and dragged her finger through the deep grooves worn by time and weather while watching him.
He held her gaze and nodded like it was difficult to move, to say what he really wanted, to do what he really wanted. Like his body and mind were operating on two differen
t wavelengths. Again she was reminded of the drawing she’d like to make of him, standing paces behind the girl, always watching, always silent. She would use charcoals and, if she could, draw him in reverse, the only light coming from him.
“Sorry. Have you talked to Dr. Underwood about it?”
Phillip didn’t respond, and the way he stared back at her made her shift uncomfortably. He didn’t have to touch her to make her aware of herself, of all her flaws and imperfections. His eyes did enough touching of their own, making her realize how she must look to him, this girl with stringy, unkempt hair, no makeup, baggy white scrubs.
“Why are you here?” she asked instead, hoping the next thing she said wouldn’t send him back into fits of counting.
“Mom.” Phillip rocked harder, exactly what Rose had hoped to avoid, muttering, “Why her? Why would they take her from me? Why the wrists?”
Sitting up straighter, Rose inched a little closer to him even though he frightened her, even though she had no idea what he was rambling on about. She needed a connection with someone, and Phillip was about the closest thing The Shepperd Institute had to offer. “I’m here because of my mom, too. Mine’s a horrible wench who hates everything about me.”
“Mine’s dead,” he said, his voice impassive and his motion stopping for just a second before he went back to muttering crazy, unintelligible sentences. “The screams. God the screams. But no bruises. No bruises. Why did they take her from me?”
“Oh.” Every word Rose spoke seemed wrong or childish or like it upset him in some deep-rooted way. “What happened?”
His gaze drifted off into the forest, and he swallowed several times, his cheeks turning bright red. Part of Rose didn’t want to press any further. Phillip plus asylum plus dead mom probably equaled murder. In fact, she should probably not ask anyone else why they were here.
After a few minutes of awkward silence, Phillip turned back to her and wore an expression like she hadn’t asked him anything at all. Rose knew that look well, it was one she used when holed up in her room while trying to avoid confrontation with her parents: Phillip was in pain. His face was too blank, the stoicism too forced. But the subtle clues gave him away, the lack of color in his lips, the lack of sparkle in his eyes. “Suicide.”
If his mom committed suicide, then why was Phillip in here? What did he have to do with it? Or could he not get over it? Could he not process his grief? “That’s terrible, Phillip. You guys must have been close.”
“Greg.”
“Greg, I’m really sorry.” Nothing was coming out right today. Nothing at all. She couldn’t even care enough to get his name right when he was being so honest, so vulnerable. If someone had done that to Rose, she would have walked away, given them the finger, anything other than offer the small, sad smile like the one he had on his face. “Really.”
He shrugged, picking stalks of grass and dropping them into a pile by his black-socked feet. “She left me in the woods. I was five. Dad wasn’t with us. He never wanted to be with me again. No one ever stays. No one does. Not even her.”
Rose’s heart sank to her already upset belly and stirred up even more restless feelings, but the more she asked, the more he seemed to open up, the more he seemed to come out of the trance of the medications and string more than one or two words together. She wanted to hear more. Phillip spoke earnestly, like he had nothing to hide and nothing to fear. “So he dumped you in here?”
Phillip shook his head. “Adopted. They dumped me in here. They left me. Except on Wednesdays. No, even Wednesdays. They all left me. Even her.”
“So you’ve been here since you were five?” she asked while he repeated the word Wednesday five times under his breath.
“Sixteen.” The rocking started again. “And I still hear the screams. Every time I close my eyes, I see her and imagine her jumping, because they want me to remember. They want me to be afraid. They want to keep me here. They want me to be alone.”
Hot tears stung the back of Rose’s eyes. Phillip was messed up, bad, and he couldn’t trust anyone. He couldn’t even trust his own mind, his own, crazy, riddled mind that seemed to get stuck like a record with a scratch on it. Even now he muttered something that sounded like “she’s like me,” but his words were so quiet Rose couldn’t tell for sure.
“What happened?” she asked. “To your mom, I mean.”
He looked at her like a person looks at the stray animal he just caught that had been getting into the trash: like he couldn’t quite figure her out, what she was, why she was here, and what to do with her. Rose realized she’d gone too far. Phillip no more wanted to talk about why he was here than she did, especially to someone he barely knew. Everyone has secrets.
“They did this.” Phillip pointed at her wrists and then his bruise. “And this. Are you like me?”
“No, Phillip. I’m not like you. I don’t think. No one did this to me. And what you said last night . . . Why should I be afraid to sleep?”
Phillip tensed and looked at something behind Rose.
“I don’t mean to interrupt your private time,” a woman said.
Rose glanced over her shoulder, and her gaze traveled up a woman with long blond hair tied back into a sleek ponytail. She wore black slacks and a matching blazer with a white button-up beneath and had a thick notepad tucked under her arm. “Who are you?”
“Eliza,” Phillip said with an air of relief at the same time the woman smiled and held out her hand.
“Eliza Cochrane,” she said.
Rose looked from Eliza to Phillip and then back again, not shaking her hand.
“If you are who I believe you are, then I’m here to administer a baseline test for your studies,” Eliza said, smiling at Rose, though the woman’s attention was anywhere but. She scanned all the patients and orderlies out in the yard. Even the building drew her attention away from the people sitting in front of her. “You don’t look yourself today. Everything okay?”
Rose assumed the woman had addressed Phillip since she knew she’d never met her before, but his only response was to mutter something about the day of the week being wrong.
“O-kay.” The woman frowned and finally made eye contact with Rose. “You ready to get started, Rose?”
“But I’m not supposed to have visitors during my first week,” Rose said, not sure how else to respond. She definitely didn’t feel up for testing today, and she didn’t want Dr. Underwood to get upset with her for not following the rules. Rose jumped up and teetered back and forth on the heels of her feet. Rocking like the woman strapped to the wheelchair in the hall the other day. How many days ago was that? Had Rose been here longer than two days? There weren’t any calendars on the walls, no new newspaper deliveries, no access to the outside world at all because the TV always showed cartoons, not the news channels.
No. Wait. Four. This was her fourth day here. Maybe Rose could find a way to mark the wall in her room after Dr. Underwood gave her the art supplies he’d promised. She could sneak in a pencil and hide the ticks behind the bed post.
A light touch on her wrist startled Rose out of her tumbling thoughts. It was Phillip. He stood close, all warm and protective, hovering, and she realized his hands weren’t trembling. She also noticed for the first time how tall he was, towering above her five-foot-eight frame by at least five inches, all concerned and strong and one fully functioning mind away from being the perfect guy.
“You in there?” he asked, waving his palm in front of her eyes.
Stuck in here. “I don’t know what’s going on with me. Sometimes I feel fine. Others I just think about something and it’s like all my thoughts tumble after that thought, and they circle back and around and around. I’ve even been daydreaming in Dr. Underwood’s office, which he seems to hate.”
Rose had no idea why she was blurting her thoughts to Phillip, maybe because he poured his heart out to her. But she doubted he’d care—or remember. Not like he even acknowledged what she’d said as he only seemed interested in sta
ring at her wrist. Phillip had his own problems.
“That sounds terrible. I’m sorry I’ve upset you.” Eliza took a step away, reminding Rose of the woman’s presence. “I just wanted to introduce myself before I popped in to visit with Dr. Underwood.”
Some dark emotion flickered across Phillip’s face as he took hold of Rose’s arm and turned to Eliza, shaking slightly, as if he were afraid. “Don’t make it hard. Everyone always makes it hard. She’s like me. They’ll hurt her. They’ll take everyone from her.”
If Eliza responded, Rose didn’t hear. Everything sounded staticky, like someone crinkled plastic bags right next to her ears. She couldn’t quite make out anything other than muffled bass, but she knew Phillip was on Crazy Repeat now.
Eliza touched Rose’s shoulder, the woman’s hand cold where Rose’s skin was hot, and said, “You don’t look so well.”
Salty fluids rushed up Rose’s esophagus. “I don’t feel so well.”
“Walk.” Phillip guided Rose around the perimeter, taking each step slowly, warning her with a single grunt before she stepped in a hole or on a fallen branch, Eliza calling after that she could have a nurse come out to help. But they kept walking, away from the woman, and the cool air smacked Rose’s skin and made the intensity of the cold sweat that much worse, but movement helped. A little. And having someone with her, someone propping her up, felt nice. Rose missed her friends. She also missed sneaking out and kissing Josh.
He’d crawl up to her window and tap on the glass so as not to be overheard by Rose’s parents, and she’d tiptoe to it and beam when she saw him smiling at her. Every time he’d curl that finger back, drawing her to him like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat.
“Come on,” he’d say with a hint of mischief. “I know the perfect spot.”
Rose would throw on her jeans, sweater, and some boots and climb down the side of the house with Josh. Then they’d ride out to the Roaring Fork Motor trail and hike out to Rainbow Falls, even though they weren’t supposed to be out there that late. There, they’d hold hands and make out until their mouths were sore and their skin was red and they were worried her parents might be up soon.