Fake (A Pretty Pill)

by Criss Copp

  “What do you think you’re doing?” She asks.

  “Hanging with my nephew, aren’t I Reynolds.” I say goadingly.

  Ben shakes his head and looks at the floor.

  “What the hell?” Jade begins to growl.

  “He needs his ass cleaned up too. He smells like one of your farts Jade.”

  Now come on, it was totally worth it.

  “Get out of the car Silas.” Jade growls; I totally get Ben’s reference to a bear now.

  “Sure thing mama bear.” I say, hopping out with little Ben in my arms.

  Jade’s frantically jumping from the front seat and out of the door she’s just flung open for herself. If Ben wasn’t a real baby and just a doll; I’m certain she would’ve torn him from my arms immediately.

  “Give Ben to me.” she demands.

  “No.”

  “Give me my baby.” she begins to growl again.

  “Jade, grow up. You were the one who was dissing him for the last 9 months, let some of us non-dissers have a go.” I say, turning around and walking to the driver’s door.

  Oh shit, I’m so going to cop this later.

  “Ben, get your ass out here and calm your woman down. I’m waiting for her to be civil before she gets Ben back.”

  Needless to say, it takes 25 minutes for us to get going because Jade is so put out and hormonal. However, baby Ben gets his necessary clean up and Ben gets to place him back in his seat, because I goad Jade into letting him.

  I’d like to believe that I made my point to Jade too. She really needs to share the little fella.

  She’s already had him for nine months.

  ***

  “When do they expect him there?” Jade asks Ben.

  “Five.”

  “Can we take Ben home?” she asks.

  Little Ben hasn’t seen home yet, he’s been in LA at my place, which is Ben’s place; the place I trashed that had to be repaired and is now on the market.

  “Yeah, we can do that. Silas can get some more clothes together and have a shower if he wants there as well.” Ben suggests.

  I agree that it’s a fabulous idea. I’d like to see some normal again; even if it’s only for an hour or so.

  We pull into their driveway at around 3:40 pm. I’m forbidden to take Ben out of the car, so Jade is trying to grapple the unit as a whole out of the back seat. I’m helping by offering heartfelt clapping and laughter from the sidelines, since she refuses to let my hands otherwise near the contraption.

  Ben is pulling luggage out of the boot, and he’s otherwise occupied.

  And then there’s Jade and Ben’s neighbor, Leslie, trying to get both of their attention. Instead of standing around waiting to get into the boot and grab some of my stuff, I walk over to the woman I’ve met several times in the past to see what she wants.

  “Hello there young man, you’re Jade’s brother, aren’t you. I remember meeting you a couple of times. Do you remember me?”

  “Yes, what can I help with?”

  “So she had the baby?” she asks.

  “Yes, two weeks ago.”

  “A boy?”

  “Yes.” I smile.

  “Wonderful, wonderful news. This street was filled with children when I first moved here with my late husband, but all the parents just got older and the children all grew up and moved away.” She explains.

  I smile, looking briefly over to the others. I’m not quite ready for the outside world after all. I can feel my anxiety levels rise just talking to this sweet old lady.

  “Anyway, a package came via courier a week ago.” she says, bending down and collecting up a box from her feet. “I know they had a hold on their mail, but this was a courier delivery, so I signed for it and kept it safe.” she smiles.

  I reach across and grab up the box. I thank her and then turn in order to return to Ben, Jade and little Ben. I’m mere steps away from the vehicle when I realize what I’m looking at.

  It’s a package from Australia.

  I turn it over.

  I really wish I hadn’t done that.

  It’s from Shae.

  “Fuck, Ben; take that box from Silas, fucking take it off him now.” Jade begins softly and then is screaming, while holding little Ben in his baby seat basket.

  I must show an intense fear and pain across my face, because I’m completely paralyzed; staring at the box and then back at my family. The edge of my sight is a little blurred.

  Ben is trying to pry my fingers from the box, which is now shaking roughly in my hands.

  “Jesus; is it too much to ask for a fucking break?” Ben laments, looking at the box and seeing Shae’s handwritten name scrawled in the sender section.

  “Don’t swear in front of Ben.” I squeak at them both quietly before everything goes blank.

  ***

  I’ve woken this morning feeling like shit.

  My surroundings are nice, but I’m so angry about seeing that package from Shae yesterday, because it made me feel so unstable that I want to destroy the furniture. I look over at the clock and realize that I’ve slept in. Damn, I have a therapy session this morning. I drag my hands through my hair, pulling at the roots in an attempt to release some angst. I groan into the nothingness.

  This new place is like being in your own home. But all the safety features are obvious to me. They don’t want a suicide on their hands and who can blame them; but it’s funny that they’re better equipped than many of the acute facilities I normally see the inside of. And they’re a transitional facility.

  I get up and drag on some jeans and a t-shirt. I pull on some sneakers and head out to the nursing station; situated in the middle of the building.

  The moment I step out of my room, it no longer appears like a home and more like a hotel. However, the color schemes and ambience are still very nice. They even have art on the walls.

  I pass a young girl, who gives me a shy smile as she shuffles to a room three doors down from mine and merges inside it. Like all the facilities I’ve been in; this one is also non-gender specific. This girl, however, doesn’t even look old enough to be here, but she has to be at least 18 to be situated here.

  I walk up to the desk that looks a little like a concierge desk and announce myself to a male staff member behind it.

  “Hi, I’m Silas Tayte. I’m meant to have a morning therapy session at ten.” I explain.

  “Silas, how are you? I’m Ethan.” He says, reaching across the desktop and shaking my hand. “Your therapy session won’t be until this afternoon now. Jean, the psychiatrist, had a family emergency and had to leave. So, you now have a morning to yourself. Go to the dining room and grab a bite to eat if you like. Did you have your medications?” he asks.

  “I just took them.” I explain. Someone had left them on my bedside table in a little cup. I’m surprised they didn’t wake me up when they entered my room.

  “Oh, okay. We like our patients to have their morning medications before breakfast time, but whoever was on this morning must’ve felt you were too tired to wake you. I’ll chase that up, they’re protocols here and we’re supposed to witness you take your meds in order to sign them off.” he smiles; it’s forced, because it’s obvious he’s a bit pissed.

  I feel like there’s something a little off about this guy, but I suppose he’s okay. I think about grabbing something from the dining room and then I dismiss the idea and decide to eat the piece of fruit I have left in my bag from yesterday. I want to have a shower before going to the dining room for lunch.

  “Thanks.” I say, and meander back to my room.

  Fuck… this is going to be so boring. Where is everyone?

  It was already bad enough to have gotten through the months at Gateways. Now I have to get through another three months here? Well, here and then the residency program at another building. I have never had such a long stay in hospital. Admittedly, I made things worse by behaving badly at Gateways when I first got there.

  That young looking girl is comin
g back out of her room, and so I stop and go to say something; but she panics and begins to run fast; past me and up the hallway toward the nursing station.

  Well, she’s obviously in the right place then. Problem’s with other people much?

  I head into my room and close the door behind me. I walk to the bed and turn the bedside lamp on.

  Fuck, I’m so lonely.

  I remember what happened the last time I felt this lonely, and how that worked out. I don’t want to go there again.

  But it gives me an idea, so I go to my duffle bag that I’ve unceremoniously thrown into my closet, still intact and unpacked; and I rifle through it and find a single apple, which I then sit on the bed and eat. I throw the core into the basket bin beside the bed, and then I begin to undress; flinging my clothes onto the floor, since I only just pulled them on anyway and plan to get back into them. I walk into the ensuite bathroom naked, noting the white fluffy towels on the rack. I also note that my toiletries aren’t here yet, so I walk back into my bedroom and gather the toiletry bag out of my duffle bag, before returning to the bathroom and beginning my shower.

  I quickly wash my hair and body. I don’t think I’ll shave my face today; I think I like the scruff growing on my chin. I run a hand across it. I might even let the smattering of hair grow a little more; maybe it will make me feel like a different person perhaps. It’s not like it’s really thick. I can’t seem to grow a real beard or anything, but it gives me a more masculine appearance in any case.

  I realize something substantial in this moment; I haven’t really heard Logan for a while now. I’m aware that there is some sort of activity going on in the remote corners of my brain, but the medications are doing their predesigned job. I’m on less Seroquel than I was previously, and I think it has done the trick. I’m more likely to take my medications all of the time if I don’t feel washed out. Apparently, I was on dangerous levels of Seroquel for little or no beneficence. So I’m on the correct levels of my pills now.

  I allow the pounding water from the shower to cascade over my head and down my body, washing away my indecision and reminding what I had in mind before.

  I’m absently running a hand across myself now; the idea I had had was to jerk off in the shower, and feel an orgasm running through me. A feeling I haven’t had in a little while. It seems like a good idea in any case.

  I begin by thinking about a random, no named chick going down on me and I play it out in my head. A bit of dirty talk, a bit of innuendo and then her lips firmly placed across my cock, sucking down onto it.

  Unfortunately, I keep visualizing Shae’s face and her lips surrounding my cock, and as hard as I try to move away from the image, I can’t seem to get any satisfaction from the nameless, almost faceless slut I have pictured up against Shae. I’m so desperate to get off now that I’ve been playing with my cock that I just decide to let the thought develop. It doesn’t mean anything anyway; not anymore.

  But then of course it becomes a memory. A memory of our first time together here in The States when she finally joined me here and I had gone months without her.

  We were in the bedroom maybe two minutes before I was stripping her bare and telling Jade through the door to leave us alone for an hour.

  I remember the silky feeling of her pussy as I plunged inside her, frantically and desperately needing to claim her. In all honesty, it was closer to fucking at the time than to making love, which is how I normally liked to have sex with her, but she didn’t mind. She was horny too.

  The thought of me slamming my cock into her repeatedly does the trick though. My strangle hold on my penis and frantic friction of it has me coming all over the shower wall and my hips jerk forward with the release; I hear the brief lamenting cry release from my parted lips.

  However suddenly I feel sick, flat and stupid.

  I can’t believe I keep falling into this trap of reliving and wanking to memories of Shae.

  “Will I never learn?” I shout out.

  It makes me feel like shit to be thinking about her when I try to find a little pleasure. Surely I can move past this; surely there’s life beyond my time with her. I no longer want to kill myself over it, so why do I still seem to gravitate to thoughts of her? Is it because I have no other experience? Is it because I haven’t met another girl that I feel that way about yet?

  But these thoughts, coupled with the parcel yesterday sees me filled with a sudden and progressive rage.

  “Aaargh!” I holler out and begin to punch the shower walls. Over and over again, until I see the blood on the white pristine walls and notice my bleeding knuckles and their damage.

  “Fuck.” I scream, realizing instantly what I’ve probably just managed to achieve – a first class ticket to an acute setting mental health facility around here.

  I stand in the stream of water for a while and feel completely despondent. I have no idea how to fix this. The only good thing about all of this is the fact that I have finally recognised that I don’t feel suicidal afterwards, only angry. I must be moving on, I kind of feel like I am.

  But that Ethan guy didn’t look like the sort of guy that I could convince to bend the rules. I’m totally on my own here. I could strap my hands up like I do when I have a fight, but I’m not certain I’ll get away with that. Besides, I don’t even know where to get any bandages from.

  I turn the shower off and feel the stinging and throbbing of my knuckles as they pulse in response to the pounding I just gave them. I groan over my stupidity. Jade and Ben will be pissed.

  I reach across to the towel and tear it free from the rack, and then merely drape it around my hips, tucking it in and trying not to get too much blood on it, since that would be obvious. I walk over to the basin and look into the mirror, briefly taking myself in before settling my eyes down and staring at my hands.

  “Fuck.” I whisper.

  A quiet tap on my door has me on instant alert. I ignore it, because I don’t want someone coming in to see me. Let them think I’m somewhere else.

  No such luck. I hear the door open and I hear a trolley or something with wheels, bump over the little strip across the floor at the doorway, where the hall’s vinyl floors become my bedroom’s carpet. The door remains open; I haven’t heard it shut closed. I remain where I am, frozen to the spot and fearing discovery. The intruder walks toward the other side of the room and is about to go past the door of my bathroom, which is open; and I watch in the mirror as she suddenly stops and turns to look at me. I drop my eyes immediately and feel intense fear envelope me; tingling throughout my body and making me feel nauseas.

  I find myself crying. What the fuck? Why am I acting like a girl? This is so, so… fucked!

  But I don’t want to return to the hospital. I only just got out. I try to hold in the pain and fear of discovery; but it must be obvious to her that I’m upset and feeling immense fear; and so I chastise myself for being so transparent.

  I momentarily wonder what’s wrong and why she hasn’t approached me to ask me what happened. I’m fairly certain that any nurse in this facility would be trained to immediately respond to any patient that way.

  I risk looking at her in the mirror.

  She is fixedly standing there and staring at me. She’s in some sort of shock herself, so I stare back at her. I notice her slight build immediately. Shae was slight, but she was also short. This woman isn’t short, neither is she really tall. She’d be above average in height; I’d be able to kiss her on the top of her head if I wanted to without having to bend down.

  The thought is slightly confusing, yet I continue to stare because she isn’t in a hurry to move or to do anything.

  She’s very pretty, stunningly so.

  Her hair is brown; light brown, long and straight. I can see it pulled back into a ponytail with the length draped over her shoulder. Her eyes are dark. They must be the darkest eyes I’ve ever seen, because I feel like they’re sucking me in like black holes; hypnotizing me. I notice her breathing and suddenly I un
derstand her hesitancy; it isn’t me standing there in fear, it is her. She is petrified of me, and I can’t understand why.

  And then I see a duster in her hand. Not a nurse, she’s a cleaner. She doesn’t know anything about me or what I’m capable of. To her I might be extremely dangerous. I can be, certainly sometimes I am, but I’m not in this moment.

  The feeling of relief I experience in realizing she’s not a nurse is intense. I need to get her onside. She’s terrified alright, but she also hasn’t bolted yet.

  “Help me.” I plead softly, internally begging her to assist me.

  She hesitates, but only slightly, before putting the duster down outside the door and walking toward me. I have no idea what her reaction will be when she sees my knuckles. They’re pretty beat up, but they’re also fixable. Right now I’m surprised she’s moving; she must have a reservoir of courage behind the fear.

  I turn around to face her. She baulks, looking at my chest briefly before looking down at my hands. She scouts around the room and narrows in on the blood on the shower wall.

  “I’m not a nurse. I should go and get help.”

  “No, please.” I plead. I need her help to stop anyone discovering my stupidity. “They’ll send me back; I just couldn’t help it, I’m sorry.” I plead, looking at her with desperation.

  “I…” she begins to say something, and then changes her mind. I’m staring at her eyes now; I see the shift in her darkish, blue/grey eyes. They aren’t as dark as I had imagined at first. Perhaps her pupils had dilated right out when I stared at her before; that happens with fear. She reaches forward and grabs my hands and turns them over and then back up.

  “I used to be a medic.” she sighs, and I begin to thank the cosmos for finally sending me some good luck. “I’ll go and get some dressings and help clean you up. You won’t be able to hide the dressings though.” she warns.

  “I’ll wear a jumper.” I gush, becoming excited about the prospects of having someone on my side for once.