by Krystal Wade
“I just want to know. I promise I won’t tell him.”
Glancing back toward Underwood’s office, Nurse Judy said, “I don’t think you’re always in control of yourself. And if I were you, I’d stop asking questions, stop wondering, and do what’s expected of me. If something’s going on here, it’ll work itself out, Rose. Understood?”
Nurse Judy leaned in close and held Rose’s gaze, eyes unwavering, pleading to Rose’s better senses. She nodded, and the nurse relaxed a little, taking a deep breath and releasing the tension in her shoulders.
“And don’t forget it.” Judy slid an English text toward Rose. “Now work on this for a while. Questions at the end.”
Opening the book, Rose set to work. She knew she could trust Judy. Knew it. Rose knew that if she needed anything, she just had to tell the woman somehow, write a note, whisper a plea for help in her ear, cry, beg, take her in a back room and tell her everything. But she also knew Judy was afraid. She had children and tenure. Rose would have to be careful. She needed to tell Phillip without telling him all the details, see what he believed without putting Judy in danger.
Once finished with the next set of questions, their hour was up. Rose closed her textbooks, and Nurse Judy proclaimed there was no homework for the week, then they went off in separate directions.
Rose tried not to run through the halls as she searched for Phillip. She didn’t want the nurses or orderlies to think she was doing anything out of the ordinary, but the truth was she could barely contain her excitement. He could tell Nurse Judy the things happening to him and maybe after listening to both of their stories, she’d forget trying to be secretive and bring in police or tell Dr. Underwood. They just had to earn the nurse’s full trust, which Rose intended to do.
She found Phillip at their usual table, but before she could go to him, someone tapped her shoulder. Turning, she found Dr. Underwood looking down at her with a mocking smile, his hooded eyes alight with humor.
“I believe you forgot something.”
The meeting. Excitement sunk to her feet and drained into the hardwood floors. She glanced at Phillip, who rocked back and forth and muttered something into his lunch tray, which set her nerves on edge. Was he acting, or had they gotten to him? She didn’t have time to get close enough to tell.
“Come along, Miss Briar,” Dr. Underwood said, heading the other direction. “Only a few minutes today.”
The whole time she followed him down the hall, all she thought about was what she could tell Judy to make her realize Rose wasn’t crazy, or that her crazy behavior was because of things happening to her here, and whether Phillip was the new Phillip or the old one again, whether she would still be sane tomorrow or stuck in another trance. As she passed Mr. Gordon standing guard over the door, Rose had to will her feet to keep moving forward, not to run, not to escape. She didn’t want to be comatose again. She didn’t want to lose Phillip. She didn’t want to screw up and somehow get Nurse Judy fired.
Each breath came faster than the one before, and within seconds Rose was hunched over and hyperventilating in the middle of the hallway. Dr. Underwood hadn’t noticed yet, as he kept up his steady pace toward Hall A, but Rose didn’t know what to do, how she was supposed to get out of this. She wanted answers. Help. She wanted her mother and father, the safety of home.
“Deep breath in,” Nurse Judy whispered as she approached and placed a warm hand on Rose’s back. “Now let it out.”
Rose did as instructed, her lungs wheezing.
“Keep doing that,” Nurse Judy said, “And you’ll be able to get through anything. Now hurry along before he notices.”
Before rushing down the hall to follow the doctor, Rose glanced at Mr. Gordon. He and Judy were locked in some visual exchange. He smiled a little and nodded, and Judy turned her attention back to Rose. “Go. Hurry.”
“Thanks,” Rose said, then she took off as fast as she could, breathing in and letting it out, breathing in and letting it out.
Dr. Underwood didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary, or if he did, he remained silent as she entered. Rose took her seat in front of his desk, and he opened her chart. “How are you feeling today?”
Deep breath in. “I feel okay, all things considered.”
He raised one eyebrow and stared at her. “Would you mind elaborating?”
“I mean, aside from the whole nightmare that was real but not that made me draw on the wall . . . .”
The intensity of his stare became stronger, and Rose looked away, out the window. Somehow, someway, all the snow had melted in the few hours she’d been with Nurse Judy. The sun beat down on the damp earth, drying out the driveway and cars. Goosebumps rippled across Rose’s arms. Had another day passed without her knowledge?
“Anything else?”
She returned her attention to Dr. Underwood and found his expression hadn’t changed. She missed the man who smiled at her, who comforted her, and Rose wondered where he’d gone. “No. Well, yes. Have I done something to upset you?”
Dr. Underwood closed her file and approached the window, placing his hands on the ledge as he looked out onto the lawn. He sighed. “You came here, Rose, with a problem, or a few problems. Some of them you won’t admit to. Others you’ve shown improvements on. But it wasn’t until your parents arrived here that I began to wonder if our progress is really progress or if you’re just playing the role you think you’re supposed to be playing.”
Rose’s heart stopped and pain radiated through her chest. She could barely breathe, barely hold on. She was doing her best to be who he wanted her to be. Isn’t that what treatment is? Seeing your faults through other people’s eyes?
Before she could respond, he turned around and sat on the window ledge. “I know you’re upset right now, that I’ve threatened the balance you’re building, but I must know that you want to get better, that you believe there is something wrong with you.”
“I do. I promise.” She tucked her shaking hands between her legs, breathing in and letting it out.
“Why do you believe you’re here, Miss Briar?”
Swallowing hard, Rose thought about what she’d avoided saying for so long. She could say it now; admitting the one thing she did wrong wasn’t really a big deal. And maybe if she did admit the truth, if she were open and honest as Judy had requested, Dr. Underwood would notify Rose’s parents and let her go. “I stopped talking to my parents—for a long time. A year I went without speaking to them. It hurt my mom the most, but that was the point, to hurt her the way she hurt me. Or at least that’s what I thought I was doing.”
She waited for him to leave the window, to uncross his ankles and march to his desk and write in her chart what another layer of Rose Briar was all about. And from there maybe he’d call her parents and discharge her. But he didn’t do any of that. Instead, he laughed. Dr. Underwood laughed at Rose.
“Well, I’m glad you finally admitted as to why your parents put you here. But no, Rose, that’s not why I admitted you into this facility. If I accepted every patient who had a little disagreement with their parents, I’d be overrun with teenagers.” He laughed again. “My God, could you imagine the hormones I’d have to deal with?” Shaking his head, he went on, “The fact you’re so concerned about your silent treatment with your parents only shows how far off my treatment of your disorder is. And I didn’t realize it until you cried out for them to help you.”
Rose squeezed the arms of the chair, afraid because she had no idea what he meant, where this conversation was going, or how to calm him down. He was agitated at something, but what? What had she done? “They’re my parents.”
“Your parents who don’t understand you, who left you when you needed them most.” Dr. Underwood took a deep breath and parted with his perch, walking toward the bookshelf. He tipped back the book he always tipped back, looked at Rose, eyes narrowed, then marched behind his desk again. “You called out to them as if I hurt you. What are you hiding from me, Rose? What are you so afraid of t
hat would make you do such a thing?”
Tears stung the back of her eyes, but she refused to let go of her grip on the chair to wipe them away. Rose merely stared at him with her chin held high, wishing he would trust that she was getting better and release her into the real world again. She didn’t want to mention the nightmares that weren’t nightmares to him. She didn’t want her concerns to be brushed off. She just wanted to know what he thought was wrong so she could fix it and get out of here, but with the way he was acting, Rose didn’t think she’d find that information out easily, at least not from him.
Dr. Underwood picked up his purple stone and rubbed it between his index finger and thumb. Five minutes ticked by, then ten, where he stared at her, polishing that stone with his ritualistic rubbing, then he replaced the rock to its corner of the desk, took a deep breath and said, “Forgive me. It’s been a terrible day, and taking it out on you was a mistake.”
“It’s okay.” Not really.
“No it’s not.” He smiled, but only briefly. “There’s going to be a meteor shower tonight. You should join the others outside in about an hour.”
“Dr. Underwood?” Rose had to ask, she just had to; she felt like her entire world depended on the answer to her next question.
“Yes?”
“What do you think is wrong with me?”
Frowning, he met her eyes. There was a sadness there, like she’d let him down in some grandiose way. But what she’d done, Rose didn’t have a clue. “Everything, Rose. Everything, and I want to save you the way this place failed in saving others. I see improvements in some areas and deterioration in others. You will either be my greatest achievement or my biggest failure, Rose. And I hate failure.”
Rose snapped her mouth closed, nodded, and then headed for the door, trying to keep him from seeing her cry. A buzzer on Dr. Underwood’s phone beeped, followed by a woman announcing the Department of Health and Human Services was here to see him. Two men in black suits waited at the table in the corridor, and they stared at Rose as she walked past.
She wanted to run and find Phillip, tell him they needed to break into Underwood’s office tonight, that something had changed, but she also wanted to see how the doctor reacted to these men first, see if the report of rats was really what had him upset or if it was something else.
Rose ducked into her room and closed the door, then she peeked out the window and watched through blurred vision as they all shook hands. Dr. Underwood’s face was pale, his eyes a little wider than normal. Something was very wrong. If rats weren’t in the facility, then what was he worried about these men finding?
Gasping, she stumbled away from the door, a new thought striking her down hard.
Maybe Dr. Underwood doesn’t want them to find Hall HS.
Or the man living in his own filth.
Or Room 206, Briar.
What if Phillip was right and Nurse Judy was wrong and Dr. Underwood was behind the terrible things happening to them at night?
Rose flung open the door and ran from her room. She had to find Phillip.
15
“Let’s go in tonight.”
Rose discovered Phillip right where she’d left him, situated at the table in Hall F with a bunch of lunatics surrounding him. Everyone except Phillip wore shiny blue bowler coats with polished silver buttons and carried Styrofoam cups with plastic lids on them. Hot chocolate, Rose assumed, given what Underwood had said.
Phillip grinned up at her, and his mischievous smile nearly took her breath away. He truly was a beautiful, mysterious creature, all angelically handsome on the outside and dark and deadly on the inside. She liked that about him, that his cover contained images that didn’t correlate with everything going on in the book. “Want to eat before we go on Mission Impossible?”
She stood silent for a minute amidst the commotion, listening to the hoots and hollers of the other patients, and wondered at what point she started considering Phillip a friend instead of just that crazy guy who spouted off random things. They talked every chance they could get. Rose sought him out, and he always seemed to be waiting. Pinpointing the exact moment their friendship began eluded her abilities, but she guessed it didn’t matter. “You’ve seen that movie?”
“Only a million times in the common area.”
“And here I thought they only played cartoons, or Flip the Channel.” Rose ran through the food line and returned with a steaming plate full of meatloaf and potatoes.
Phillip shrugged as she sat next to him, then handed her a napkin she promptly put in her lap. “Those two have only been here a few months.”
“Kind of not fair, you know? Besides, that show is dumb. The mouse clearly has an advantage over the cat, what with all those holes in the wall.”
“Are you kidding? A house cat has the luxury of time. And meals. The mouse has to come out to survive.”
“He’d survive a lot better if he made his home in a barn or something.”
“True,” Phillip said, “But then what would the purpose of the show be?”
After bantering back and forth some more about how the introduction of the dog changed everything, Rose inhaled dinner, wondering why Phillip was putting off the search for more information. She didn’t mind stopping for food—in fact, she hadn’t realized how hungry she was—but the longer they wasted time talking about cartoons and stupid movies, the less likely she would be to go through with their crazy impossible mission. After finishing, she wiped her mouth and asked, “What are we stalling for?”
Eyes scanning around the room, Phillip grabbed the tray and stood. “Would you like more?”
“Not if it means we’ll put this off even longer.”
“Come on, then.” Phillip headed toward the tray bin near the door. “We need to get outside fast so as not to lose all the best seating.”
“Outside?” Rose raced to keep up. She didn’t want to go outside. That would only delay their quest for answers. Besides, the meteor shower would provide a perfect cover for them. The orderlies would all be busy keeping patients from escaping. They wouldn’t expect something to be going on in the doctor’s office. She leaned closer to Phillip and whispered, “What about breaking into Underwood’s office?”
Phillip kept moving down the hall. “What happened that made you want to go in quick?”
“Have you heard about the rats?”
He glanced sideways at her and smirked. “Maybe.”
“Dr. Underwood’s been questioning orderlies all day. He’s scared.”
“Likely doesn’t want anyone to find out what’s going on downstairs.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“Which is exactly why we should wait,” Phillip said, pausing after they passed through the doors. Patients were interspersed about the lawn, sitting on blankets, sipping on hot chocolate. “He’s nervous, jittery. And strange things have been happening all day long.”
“What kind of strange things?” Rose hadn’t noticed anything other than the orderlies being in her hall. Though, admittedly, she hadn’t been around any other part of the facility all day.
“The police who usually guard the prisoners were in and out of Hall HS more times than I could count.”
“If they went down there, then why isn’t Underwood in jail?”
“Maybe he paid them off?” Phillip narrowed his eyes, focusing on a box truck backing into the gate located along the side of the building, then said, “I’m not sure that’s it either. But let’s wait until after the meteor shower, when government employees, police, and whoever else might be interested aren’t poking around, then we’ll go in.”
“Okay.”
The truck stopped and the gate slid shut and was locked by a security guard. Rose lost interest and peered around the yard bustling with activity. The two squabbling women were stretching out a blanket under the oak tree. The older man who enjoyed sitting too close to Rose claimed the last spot at a crowded picnic table orderlies must have put in place sometime during the day. Mr.
Gordon pushed a woman in a rickety wheelchair to a patch of grass under the low-hanging branches, near where Nurse Judy stood next to a box of blankets. The patients sat and looked up into the clear sky, their faces eager, eyes wide and mouths open just a little. Rose imagined she must look that way too, but for a much different reason. She and Phillip pressed in with the others and spread a multi-colored afghan along the ground, then propped their backs against the tree. “Must be some event.”
Frowning, Phillip said, “Not very often we’re let out at night. People care more about the change in pace than what they’ll see in the sky.”
“Good. Because it’s the wrong time of day to watch a meteor shower.”
“We take what we can get around here.”
Mr. Gordon wheeled out another patient and then walked the perimeter, pointing at people and counting them as he passed. His keys bounced off his thigh and jangled in the still night air. Heavy bags rested under his bloodshot eyes, and he limped on his right leg.
“He looks exhausted.”
“He’s at the end of his twelve-hour shift. I imagine he is exhausted.” Phillip crossed his legs at the ankles, and his shoulder grazed hers as he arranged himself so that he was comfortable. Warmth traveled into Rose’s skin and set her nerves on fire. He was real and alive, and part of her grasped onto that as if it were the most important thing in the world. Phillip was about the only real thing Rose had.
She inhaled the fresh, cold air to try to calm down, but instead of relaxing, Rose sensed more of the world around her. The crunch of brittle grass beneath heavy soles. The murmur of excited asylum patients as they waited for their prize to rain down from above. Rose could draw this, a bunch of people sprinkled about a lawn, misery and depression and illness racking their bodies, all staring into the magnificent perfection of the heavens. She lay on her back and blinked at the millions of stars, imagining what was going on in all those other places scientists had yet to explore, when one of the patients stood and sang “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” at the top of her lungs, off key. The woman twirled in circles, and before long, the other patients were on their feet doing the same.