by Meli Raine
That’s okay.
She will.
“We’ve invited Drew to sit in for this briefing,” Harry explains. Silas is outside, on duty still. He refuses to leave until this meeting is over, then he’s coming back to my place to hang out. His directive, not mine. I shift in my seat, my ribs aching. The internal damage that was done to my spleen looks like it’s healing. I won’t need surgery.
“We’re at a crossroads,” Dr. Higgs explains, a folder in front of him. “Lindsay’s medical progress is solid. The gunshot wound tore through the typical tissue and tendons, but she was lucky. It didn’t hit bone, just soft tissue. She should be ready to be discharged in a couple of days.”
“We can take her home?” Monica asks, smiling. It’s a fake smile.
“Yes. But her psychological state...” Dr. Higgs looks at Dr. Belzan, who takes over.
“We know she experienced severe trauma. We’ve sent therapists to work with her. We’re prepared for a psychiatric evaluation next. She refuses to speak.”
“Are you sure she can?” Harry asks.
“Yes. She’s told us so.”
“That sounds circular. How could she tell you if she refuses to speak?”
“I asked her if she could, and she nodded yes,” Dr. Belzan explains.
“Then why is she refusing to talk?”
“We don’t know. Her interactivity is low. She’s choosing to reduce her contact with humans as much as possible.”
Dr. Belzan puts her hand on Dr. Higgs’s elbow and whispers something. He nods.
“Actually, she did speak last night. One word. One of our nurse’s aides was in the room after she woke up from a nightmare,” Dr. Higgs says.
Monica’s eyes goes wide and she asks with excitement, “What did she say?”
“The aide thinks she said the name ‘Drew.’” Dr. Belzan looks at me.
My heart starts doing a dance in my chest, a flood of relief and warmth flowing through me.
Attagirl.
She’s coming back to me.
“That’s it?” Harry asks, his face carefully neutral. “Is the aide sure?”
Dr. Higgs shakes his head. “No. He’s fifty-fifty on it. She was a mess when she woke up, but she opened her mouth and she tried to say something.”
“Silas Gentian heard it,” I interrupt.
Harry just nods.
“Has she spoken since?” Monica asks.
“No.” Dr. Belzan clearly doesn’t want to say that word, but she has no choice.
“Is this something we need to worry about? She was only home for a week or so after spending four years at a...at the Island,” Monica whispers, eyes wide. She and Harry exchange a look that makes it clear they’ve already talked about the issue.
I harden inside.
I know what comes next.
“Are you thinking about sending her back?” Dr. Belzan asks.
Perceptive.
“We want what’s best for Lindsay,” Harry announces.
They want what’s best for his presidential campaign.
I shuffle in my seat and face Monica square on. “For God’s sake, you said it yourself, Monica – she’d only been home for about a week before those bastards kidnapped her, degraded her, abused her – on national television -- and worse. She was party to a murder in front of an audience of millions. We damn near lost her. Give her time to heal. At home,” I say pointedly.
“I told you we shouldn’t have him here,” Monica says, not even bothering to lower her voice.
“So I was the savior a few days ago and now I’m a gadfly?”
“You’ve always been a gadfly, Drew,” she responds flatly.
“You’re looking for any excuse to send her back. You can’t, you know.”
“If she’s not competent, we’re her next of kin. We absolutely can.”
I look at Dr. Belzan. “Is she incompetent?”
She shakes her head. “I see no signs of legal incompetence. She’s capable of self care. She’s just choosing not to speak.”
“That’s a sign of mental illness in and of itself. Who would choose not to talk when they can?” Monica insists.
“Someone who is extremely traumatized.”
“If she’s that traumatized, she needs intensive psychiatric help! The kind we can’t give her!”
“You mean the kind you won’t give her, because you’ve placed Harry’s ambitions above your own daughter’s well being,” I snap.
I expect to be slapped. Maybe I deserve it. Instead, Monica stands and walks out of the room. She looks back at Harry. It’s clear she expects him to follow.
He doesn’t.
She slams the door as she exits.
“You’re right, Drew, but do you have to be so damn blunt about it? She’s a grieving mother,” Harry grouses. His normally commanding presence is being ground down by exhaustion.
And probably by spending so much time with Monica.
“Grieving? Is that the term your PR folks have decided polls best?”
His look hardens.
But he doesn’t argue.
Throughout the exchanges, the doctors stay quiet. They’re clearly uncomfortable.
I’m done with feeling anything.
I’m done with allowing Lindsay to be treated like a thing. A pawn. They’d be horrified by the analogy, but what Monica and Harry are doing is no different than what Nolan Corning did.
The degree of abusiveness is the only difference. It’s a big one, sure.
The general principle is the same: they’re all using Lindsay without any regard for her wishes.
I am the keeper of her volition.
If she has any.
I’m assuming she still does, no matter how buried it is.
I’d better be right.
My entire life hangs on the assumption that I’m right.
Which means I’m damn invested.
“Drew, we’re all on the same side,” Harry says with a sigh.
“I don’t think that’s true. I’m on Lindsay’s side and you’re on the Oval Office’s side.”
“I’m not having this argument with you.” The look he gives me adds the word again, though he won’t say it in front of the doctors. “We’re her parents. We’re her next of kin.” He looks at Higgs, then Belzan. “At what point do we determine our next step?”
“She’ll be healed enough to go home in three days or so. I’d say a psych eval in two days, and we go from there,” Dr. Higgs replies. “If she does need long-term inpatient psych care, they need to have physical therapy and occupational therapy rehab facilities.”
Harry gives him a sour look. “Lindsay will have everything she needs.”
“We’re not there yet,” Dr. Belzan objects. “She’s getting better day by day.”
“But still not speaking. Not engaging in direct eye contact,” Harry confirms.
“No.” Dr. Belzan’s shoulders drop as she says the word.
Harry stands. “Right.” He gives me a firm glare. “For now, you can have access to her. Don’t engage Monica again on this, Drew. It’s not black and white.”
I bite my tongue. I’ve said what I need to say. My jaw feels like I’m biting a piece of coal hard enough to form a diamond.
I jolt.
Diamond.
I give him a conciliatory smile, relief flooding through me. “Right. You’re right, Harry. It’s not black and white, and I promise to be more tactful with Monica.”
Surprise spreads through his features, his body language suddenly friendlier. “Glad you’re coming around to see that. We all want what’s best for Lindsay.”
A memory from four years ago, one I’ve tucked away in a locked box for too long, surfaces. My coat that night, left in my car as we went to the party.
The tiny velvet box in my breast pocket.
My sister, giving me that box when I was discharged from the hospital. Calling Harry to find out Lindsay had been shipped off to the Island while I had been hospitalized.
Funny.
The color of the velvet is gray.
A plan forms, the pieces falling into place like teeth on a series of gears, lining up perfectly. “Right, Harry. There’s always room for shades of gray,” I declare with a smile.
We thank the doctors and walk out together, Harry splitting off before I go in to see Lindsay. As I watch his form swallowed by an elevator, I press my back against the painted cinderblock wall, breathing slowly, letting memory be my mistress for a few fabulous moments. Playful and sweet, I can become a different me when memory takes over.
Lindsay doesn’t know this.
That night four years ago, I was weeks away from graduating from West Point. I was also hours away from proposing to her.
The stakes are higher now.
All my reasons for proposing are still there. If anything, I have more now. The young girl I knew then, nineteen and sheltered, has emerged a fierce woman, headstrong and brave. I’ll be honored if she’ll have me.
Before I ask, I have to see how close she is. I can’t bridge the gap between us, but if she needs an outstretched hand, I am here.
I’ve always been here.
And if she’ll have me, I always will.
Lindsay
I know they’re talking about me.
I know what Mom and Daddy want to do. And I won’t go. My throat starts beating hard, blood racing through me, chattering like it is saying all the words I’m not.
I also know Drew will come to visit again. Every time he’s here, the thin membrane between me and the world stretches a little more. I need him here. I wish he could just be with me all the time, his steady presence like an anchor.
Saying that is impossible, of course. The minute I say a single word, the dam breaks. Already, I feel like every finger, every toe, every elbow, every part of me that can be used is holding back leaks in the dam of emotion inside me.
Saying a word would be a sonic boom.
And the rush of water will drown me.
Tap tap tap.
I slow my breathing and turn my body slightly away from the door, knowing it’s Drew. I saw him go into the conference room with Daddy and Mom and the doctors. They’re all worried about me. My shoulder is healing nicely, but the nightmares won’t leave.
And then there’s the fact that I’ve disappointed Drew.
I haven’t been there for him. I know how hard this has been for him. Stellan, John and Blaine released the video of their attack on Drew just as he was detained, when they kidnapped me. I know because a nurse’s aide left the television on in my room and I changed the channel. Three hours of cable news and eventually you see everything.
They can’t put me on a news blackout here. Daddy and Mom tried, I’m sure, but Dr. Belzan stepped in.
I’m sorry, I think, as Drew slowly walks into the room. He’s breathing fast, the sound raspy and full. It’s an emotional sound, and for some reason my skin goes hot, then cold. I’m clammy under the sheet and blanket, like I have the chills.
“Lindsay.” He crosses the room quickly, his hard-soled shoes going clack-clack-clack in three steps, the scrape of chair legs against the tile, and then --
Oh, sweet God.
He takes my hand in his.
Other than medical personnel working on me, and a single hug from Mom and Daddy the first day I woke up, no one has touched me. All Drew does is hold his flat palm under mine. His hands are rough, hot, and dry like thick parchment paper. He places my hand, palm down, on his.
And then he waits.
Doesn’t say a word.
All the words are, of course, crammed into my body, blood screaming, skin singing, bones vibrating, every part working in concert like a symphony.
And my heart is the big bass drum.
I can’t live like this.
“It’s been eight days, Lindsay,” he finally says, his voice measured, his words respectful and soft. “Eight days since I failed you.”
I frown. No. No, you didn’t.
My breath quickens, the sound like wildfire ripping across a drought-ravaged plain. Over and over, seconds tick by, the sound amplified in my ears as if it accumulates.
And still, Drew waits.
“I know where you are, baby. I know how close you are to reaching out. I know you asked for me last night.”
I sigh. I freeze.
“You don’t have to say a word. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, Lindsay. I’m here when you’re ready. But I have to tell you that your parents don’t see it the same way. They’re talking about sending you back to the Island.”
I start to shake. I’m not surprised. It occurred to me, but hearing Drew say it makes it real.
“I’m not here to talk about that, though. I won’t push. They might, but I won’t. I am just going to sit here and when you want me, squeeze my hand. If you want me to go, push it off. That’s it. A simple choice. All yours.”
I open my eyes to slits, just enough to look down at my outstretched body. I feel so naked, so cold. I’m not, though. I’m warm and covered, cared for and whole.
I know I am.
But I don’t feel like I am.
That’s the problem.
They say madness is a state where you’re disconnected from reality. Where the mind makes you see what isn’t there.
I don’t see anything unreal.
My problem is the opposite.
I can’t actually see what’s really there. Can’t feel it. I’ve lost my emotional imagination. The colorful internal landscape of hope and dreams, of imagined realities in the future, of goals and aspirations and smiles and forward thinking is just...gone.
Like me.
I’m not here.
How can I reach for Drew if I’m not here?
Drew leans over me. He’s trying to get me to open my eyes. I want to. I even will them open, but they stay shut, the impulse to open slamming against my skin, building up like a muscle spasm, releasing with a sigh. I have two selves warring inside me. Maybe more.
“Let me tell you a story.” As he speaks, his warm breath fills the space between us. I smell coffee and mint. My tongue goes wet, memory a two-faced friend, as I find myself tasting him.
If I lay here and don’t move, he’ll go away. He has to.
But if I move, if I just reach out enough, if I confess I don’t know what to do next, how to breathe next, how to be in whatever “next” is, then...what?
What will he do?
What will I do?
“Four years ago,” he says in a voice that makes it clear this is the beginning of a longish tale, “I woke up in a hospital room. My mom was asleep on the chair across from my bed. It was nighttime, and I had all these tubes in me. No broken bones. Just bruises and torn...well, I was torn up.” His voice drops on the last words.
He doesn’t elaborate.
Doesn’t need to.
“I was drugged up and dehydrated, and I panicked. Where were you? I needed to get back to you. My memory flooded, like a tsunami rushing in, like a wave of adrenaline I rode without a surfboard. It crashed into me, drowning me, and I started ripping out needles and sensors, even as the room spun.” He lets out a huff of air. “In my mind, I was trying to get to you. Find you. Save you.”
I hold my breath.
“Mom screamed for help and they pinned me down, shot me full of something that knocked me out. I guess I kept screaming your name. No one knew what had happened at that point – at least, my parents didn’t know. The video of your – of what they did to you -- showed up later.” He shifts in his chair, his hand moving slightly.
I don’t squeeze.
“My sister told me you’d been sent to a ‘meditation center’ to recover, but I knew that was bullshit. They put you in a mental institution. Your dad sent a letter explaining that I was to have no contact with you, and if I tried, the threat was clear. Harry didn’t even have to say it. He told me explicitly not to reply back, and to give my statement to investigators. I did. Nev
er heard back.”
He makes a sound that echoes with helplessness. It’s so unlike him I almost open my eyes to make sure this is really Drew.
“And then I entered an emotional black hole.”
I let out a big breath. Black hole. I have one of those where my soul used to be.
“It was like there was this invisible shield between the world and me. One I couldn’t breach. One no one could see, but I felt it nonstop. At first, I thought it protected me.”
Oh.
“I could numb out. My body healed pretty fast, Lindsay, but my heart never did. It didn’t really start to heal until that day I picked you up at the Island and got you on that chopper. All that time, it was just dormant, the last part of me behind that invisible shield.”
Oh.
“I hardened myself. Became a revenge machine. Developed every tactical skill I could think of. Volunteered for diplomatic missions. Saved Harry after his helicopter crash in Lagos. Learned to be a sniper. Learned how to kill. More important – learned how to protect. And for four years, I told myself it was all for you, Lindsay.” He sighs. “You.”
Suddenly, his warm, reassuring palm is gone. Panic flutters in my chest like a butterfly. Wait! I want to scream. I wasn’t ready. Give me time. I’m so close! I just need more time, I want to plead. I even part my lips, ready to say something.
Drew stands and starts to pace. I know this because I’ve opened my eyes and I watch him, trying to calm my body down, trying to make my ribs stop ringing.
“All those years, I was wrong.”
He halts in front of me, bending slowly to eye level, his gun holster revealed, his shirt uneven across his ribs. Bandages. I realize the lumpy look comes from bandages. How badly was he hurt?
His hand covers mine again, and this time, he does squeeze.
“I wasn’t preparing to protect you.”
Our eyes lock.
“I was protecting me.”
The longer he lets me just look at him, our breathing in sync, his hand holding mine, the closer I can get to him. The darkness within doesn’t seem so vast. It gets smaller as I inhale, then exhale, the enormity shrinking just through the balm of time.
“I was protecting the ‘me’ in the past that I couldn’t protect then,” he elaborates. I look at his mouth, the curve of his nose, how intense his eyes get when he speaks with passion. With compassion.