Be in the Real

by Denise Mathew

  “Good, I’m out of here,” Derrick said abruptly. Pauline gripped his arm, preventing him from getting very far away.

  “Don’t tell anyone about this Derrick or so help me I’ll shank you in the shower.”

  Derrick rolled his eyes in mock boredom, but it wasn’t enough to disguise that Pauline’s words had rattled him.

  “Lose my name, number and everything you know about me. I’m not a fucking hero and I don’t want to be one either…”

  He turned to leave. When he did, Kaila was sure that she had spotted her computer tucked under his armpit.

  “Hey, that’s my computer,” Kaila said, but Derrick had already slipped out. His hurried footsteps were audible as he moved away from the room.

  “What the hell is happening with you Kaila? Why are you fainting all the time? In all the time I’ve known you, you’ve never been someone who ever passed out, it’s just not your style…” Pauline said.

  She briefly laid a hand on Kaila’s shoulder. Kaila shrugged out of Pauline’s touch, pushing up on her elbows. She realized that Pauline expected an answer, but she was too tensed up at the possibility that Derrick had taken her computer to respond. Pauline took a few steps back and plunked down on her bed. Her hair was unkempt, her eyes swollen and red, tracks of mascara spidered down her cheeks. It was obvious to Kaila that she had been crying for quite a while.

  Kaila threw her legs over the edge of the bed in a flurry. She still felt disjointed and out of it, but the belief that Derrick had stolen her laptop was enough for her to ignore her human limitations. Now standing, she wobbled over to her dresser, tugging the drawer open. The emptiness that met her felt overwhelming; Derrick had stolen her laptop. Kaila barreled out the door and down the long hallway, hollering Derrick’s name at the top of her lungs.

  The loss she felt was immeasurable, as if someone had reached inside her and ripped out all her vital organs, leaving her hollow and dead, a zombie. And in that moment she knew she would kill Derrick for what he had done. She imagined her hands wrapped around his throat squeezing again, watching his eyes pop wide, his face mottle, only this time no one would stop her, and Derrick would cease to exist. A part of her would be sorry to see him go because she had been certain that he’d had secrets that might have shown her many things, secrets that could have unlocked even more secrets, like dominoes falling in succession.

  “I’m going to murder you Derrick.”

  Kaila’s voice bounced off the walls that surrounded her. She saw residents dart out of her path, making way for her as she pushed forward. Nothing would stop her this time. The book of life and death had turned a page and Derrick’s name was emblazoned in black ink. Kaila couldn’t see beyond the red mist of rage that propelled her forward, it took her a few minutes to feel the familiar hands grab her arms. And like a lab animal programed to hit a lever for a treat, Kaila went limp and waited for the inevitable pinch. As the drugs pulled her into oblivion, she conceded that Derrick had a reprieve, a stay of execution. But the White Room couldn’t hold her forever, and when they released her back into her world, Derrick would meet the fate that he deserved.

  CHAPTER 17

  Kaila didn’t know how long she spent in the White Room only that eventually they let her out to another room that wasn’t hers. There were doctors there in crisp lab coats that wanted her to talk, to pick her brain for information about things she refused to tell.

  A part of her knew that if she let them see inside her mind, at the jangle of thoughts that resided in the dark recesses of her brain, they would never let her out. So, like a person who had been frozen in suspended animation, she became a pill-taking automaton, who smiled even when she didn’t want to. She agreed to do what they urged, silently believing that they were all a bunch of fools. And they poked and prodded, scanned her brain with machines, as if they were searching for something.

  When they finally did see what they had been looking for, they told her that they had found something inside her head, they called it a tumor, Kaila called it Trillian. They had explained how this tumor was the cause for her blackouts and seizures. Both Kaila and Trillian knew what they did to tumors, cut them out, and for a little while Trillian was scared that they would slice her away.

  So when they had told Kaila that the tumor resided in a part of her brain that was near impossible to reach, Trillian was over the moon with relief. In truth, Kaila was pleased too, since she wasn’t sure if she wanted to go on living without Trillian. Still, the doctors said that there would be arrangements for other kinds of treatments, things that would shrink Trillian from the size of a clementine to a walnut; Kaila had refused their so-called help. But even she knew that eventually they would find a way to force her hand, until then she waited.

  CHAPTER 18

  Kaila hadn’t had any idea about when she would exit the Next Room as she called it, because it came after the White Room, until the day they told her that she could return to her habitat. With the routines of her day snatched from her grasp she had no gauge on exactly how much time had passed in her absence. The days bled into one another, like wet ink on a page, but she knew that this excursion had been by far her longest. She judged this by how much her hair had grown, about half an inch in her estimation. She had also counted three nail trims. She normally did her own nail clipping, but things were different in the Next Room. Lest she try to hurt herself or another with the baby-sized nail clippers that they used to clip her nails, the staff completed the task.

  There were other signs too, signs that the world was going on without her, signs that she was losing blocks of time that could never be replaced. She did everything in her will to ignore these signs, because acknowledging that she was locked away like an animal in a zoo was too painful.

  When they finally allowed Kaila to return to her room, she stopped several times along the way. The orderly in charge of her sighed at every pause. After an eternity of white and bland she needed to see color. It felt as though she had been pulled from a pit of too much white. When she gazed out onto the Wildwind property she noted that the tree buds had broken into petite leaves, bright green in their newness. Birds that wintered in the South had returned. Red-breasted robins, turquoise Indigo Buntings and crimson Cardinals pecked at the soggy ground in the early morning, searching for worms and wild flower seeds. Though she couldn’t smell the outside air in the confines of her prison, she imagined the earthy scent of it, mingled with sunshine and a clean that needed to be experienced to be understood.

  “Come on Kaila, time to go to your room.”

  The orderly who had been escorting her back to her room was unfamiliar. He had eyes that were so dark brown that they appeared black, and skin that was the color of a new potato. He was short and stocky and seemed more suited to being a lumberjack than working in Wildwind. His head was shaved bald, but a shadow of black on his scalp outlined where his hair would be if he allowed it to grow out. Kaila had no idea how old he was only that he was somewhere in between young and middle-aged.

  She was too enthralled in her view of the outside world to be swayed by his words.

  “Now…please.”

  Ignoring him for a few more minutes was acceptable, but she knew that any longer than that would have labeled her as uncooperative. It was the absolute last label she wanted when she was so soon out of the Next Room.

  She continued down the hall, appreciating how even the air outside the Next Room smelled different. It was familiar in its odor, blending cleaning products and the food that the cafeteria was serving for that day. Usually she would have known what would be on the menu for every day of the week, but her extended stay had left her out of sync with the regularity of Wildwind; she was determined to remedy that problem.

  When they approached her room, the knowledge that she would soon be back in her own space again made her pace quicken. In several long strides she had closed the distance between her and the tarnished knob of the paneled door. Kaila clutched the knob in her grasp, feeling the c
oolness against her palm. She turned the knob and the door swung wide with an audible squeak that was comforting in its familiarity. Unfortunately the squawking hinges was all that remained of what once was. And in all the new Kaila felt as if she were drowning, as if she couldn’t quite draw in a full lung of air, as if all that said that she had existed before that very moment had been deleted much like a file on a computer.

  The walls had been painted in a baby blue, the stench of new paint floated out on the air. Gone were the posters that had graced the walls, and despite the belief that she had hated the pictures of kittens and such, their absence made something unpleasant twist in her stomach. The room had been converted to a single bedroom, and all the furniture that had been hers for as far back as she could remember was gone. In its place was a single bed with a stiff looking yellow bedspread, pulled tight and wrinkleless. A tall dark wooden dresser with four drawers and a polished finish was wedged in a corner. A desk sat against the far wall, with a faux wood surface. A black cushioned leather office chair in the same burnished silver as the knobs on the dresser was pushed in beneath the desk. Kaila’s laptop sat at the center of the desk.

  She sprang forward and snatched the laptop off the desk, hugging it to her chest as if it were a cherished teddy bear. Kaila drew in a suck of air, fearful to release her hold on the one piece of yesterday that remained.

  Standing in the center of the room she felt a scream work up in her throat, like a bubble of gas that would soon burst free. She willed the shriek away, knowing that the doctors of Wildwind needed very little coercion to place her back into the White Room.

  “New management,” the orderly, who hadn’t bothered to tell Kaila his name, said in a low voice. She probably could have read his name tag, but it didn’t matter to her, nothing mattered to her but what was right in front of her. Kaila stared at him dumfounded. She was still not quite able to comprehend that everything that had once said that this room was her home, had been stripped away.

  “Pauline?” she said, still stunned.

  Her mind reached for something that would show her that not everything had changed, that there were more things that remained from the past.

  The orderly shrugged.

  “I don’t work in this wing, so I don’t know who that is.”

  His words floated past Kaila. Her brain felt like it might explode from the trauma of it all. Without another comment, the orderly turned on his heel and left. Kaila pressed her laptop closer to her chest, willing Trillian to come forward, to let Kaila know that she too hadn’t deserted her. When there was no response, even more panic lodged in Kaila’s chest. She wasn’t sure if she was going to win the battle with the scream that clawed to get out, the scream that would put her right back to where she had started.

  Then she was moving. Her legs felt like rubber, but still managed to support her as she jogged to the place where she was sure she would find something that looked like home.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

  Kaila repeated the mantra as she sped toward the cafeteria, as if her words might right everything that was wrong.

  The air in the cafeteria was scented by the one thing she recognized, pepperoni pizza. She paused, breathing in a long inhale. Kaila savored the aroma, not because it was her favorite food but because it was a touchstone that told her that today was Wednesday, pizza day.

  Kaila had never been in the habit of searching out Pauline, but now that everything was gone she needed to see Pauline’s crooked smile, her star-shaped scar, her glossy black hair.

  The cafeteria was decorated with pastel colored plastic Easter eggs, strung on white twig trees positioned at the center of the tables. Images of fluffy white bunnies with straw Easter baskets filled with colorful eggs on cardboard, were pasted to the walls of the cafeteria. The decorations didn’t tell her the exact day since Easter shifted dates every year, but it did at least tell her that Easter was coming soon or had just happened. Décor for all occasions was up for exactly two weeks on each side, Christmas was the only exception where the decorations stood in place for three weeks on each side of the holiday.

  Kaila’s breathing became slightly more regular when she recognized more than a few mainstay residents of Wildwind.

  She drew in a gulping breath when she laid eyes on the blue-black head of hair that cascaded down slim shoulders and finally fanned out at the base of her spine.

  “Pauline.”

  The name came out in a rush of air, very little sound accompanied it. Kaila ran in clomping steps toward her former roommate, an oasis in the bleakness of a desert. Kaila’s arms wrapped around Pauline, her cheek pressed onto her roommate’s silky hair. Pauline, clearly taken by surprise, tried to shake free of Kaila’s hold. Kaila refused to release her, sniffing the green apple shampoo that scented Pauline’s hair.

  “Pauline,” Kaila whispered against the back of Pauline’s head. She relaxed her grip.

  “Kaila?”

  At the sound of her name, Kaila regained her bearings. She pulled away from the impromptu hug. Before Pauline could shift her view, Kaila had slid into the black plastic chair opposite Pauline. Pauline’s blue eyes grew large.

  “It is you.”

  Pauline’s eyes filled with tears. Kaila felt something warm slide down her cheek. When she touched her face with the tips of her fingers she found that they were wet; she was crying too.

  “Don’t cry Kaila, I can’t take that shit. You’re not supposed to cry.”

  Pauline swiped at the tears with the sleeve of her long-sleeved red jersey, but more took their place.

  Kaila couldn’t describe the emotions that swept through her, leaving her feeling ripped wide where all her insides were out in the open for the whole world to see. She’d had her Blue days in the past, but had never felt the absolute melancholy that she did in that moment. This sadness felt so heavy, as if everything that made her smile in the world had been burned in a giant pyre like the ones the Vikings had used to burn their dead; she felt dead too.

  “Fuck Kaila it’s been two months, I’d given up hope that they were ever going to let you out of that fucking wing…”

  Pauline spoke through halting breaths, her words colored by intense sorrow.

  “And Janelle’s been gone a month already and I…”

  She broke off. Pauline buried her delicate face in her hands; her whole body shook with release. Kaila had watched people cry before, both real and virtual, but never before had it affected her like it did right then. Witnessing Pauline’s grief left Kaila feeling hopeless; death seemed better than life.

  Pauline jerked up her head, her watery eyes met Kaila’s.

  “I thought I wouldn’t get a chance to say goodbye.”

  “Goodbye?”

  Pauline nodded. “I’m out of here in a few days. I probably could have gone a lot sooner but I stalled. I made up shit, let them think that I was going to off myself as soon as I was out. But Dr. Whelan isn’t the type to buy bullshit for long and…”

  She cast her red-rimmed eyes around the cafeteria, searching for the words to say. When Pauline’s gaze found Kaila’s face again her expression was grim.

  “I have to leave Kaila. I need to try to make a life for myself. I can’t hide away in Wildwind forever and…”

  She dropped her eyes to her hands that were resting on the cafeteria table. Kaila noticed that Pauline had painted her fingernails the same color as the pink phlox that grew wild in the fields that surrounded Wildwind. She studied Pauline’s fingertips, counting the number of places where the paint had chipped, leaving miniature voids where natural nail bed poked through. A thought niggled at the back of her mind, something that threatened to steal away the happiness that she had felt when she had found Pauline. Kaila refused to allow the thought to take hold and instead shoved it back and away. Even though everything in her room had changed, Pauline was there with her. Pauline would always be there, it wasn’t like they needed to talk or do anything at all, just having he
r present and accounted for was enough.

  “Kaila, are you listening to me?”

  Kaila worked her fingers over a dent in the cafeteria table. A bit of the particleboard had been chiseled away by a spoon or maybe a fork, much like the polish on Pauline’s fingernails had been chipped away by…

  “Kaila, I’m leaving,” Pauline repeated, louder this time as if Kaila hadn’t heard.

  Kaila had heard; she hadn’t wanted to.

  If she accepted the words that Pauline had said, the weight of their meaning might send her back to the White Room then the Next Room. Maybe this time they would keep her forever. She would rather die than stay there forever.

  “I don’t want to leave you Kaila, I want to stay but I can’t. This life is an illusion, it’s not real it’s just a way for me to check out of the real world, my world. I have to live while I’m alive. I can’t always be wrapped in cotton, protected, like I am here…and I think I can do it this time. I think I can make a life…”

  Kaila didn’t hear Pauline’s words only the sound of her voice. All the syllables and sentences were twisted together into a jumble of nonsense that she couldn’t understand. She could do that when she wanted, allow all the words to slip by her, never connecting with the part of her that could comprehend the message that was being relayed.

  “Kaila, please say something.”

  Pauline’s hand snaked forward, snatching Kaila’s in a tight grip. Kaila’s eyes shot to Pauline’s in surprise. The spiders rustled, their legs wiggling, ready to attack.

  “I’m leaving Kaila.”

  Pauline’s words seemed to come from a megaphone, too loud, ringing through every bit of Kaila’s body. She tensed, drawing her hand away from Pauline’s touch. The voice that she had been ignoring, the one that she knew so well, but who had deserted her for too long, yelled to be heard. Trillian was screaming the words that Kaila didn’t want to hear, couldn’t bear to hear.