by Jenn Hype
“Um, actually, I don’t have anything. I’m kind of starting from scratch, so I have to go buy pretty much everything at some point this weekend.”
That’s weird, right? Having absolutely nothing to my name, but enough money in the bank to furnish a mansion? I might be concerned about her reaction if I hadn’t already told her my whole damn story. She didn’t balk once the whole time I told it though, so when she squeals and jumps up and down while clapping her hands, I’m not at all shocked.
“Oh my gosh! Really?!” Keegan jumps up so quickly that she knocks her plate onto the floor, sending pizza flying in every which direction. Instinct – or habit? – has me on my feet and cleaning up the mess before the last pepperoni hits the floor.
“Oh stop that, I’ll get that later. There’s no time, we have to get going.”
Apparently I’m a ‘we’ now. Walked out of Mayford leaving behind my only friend just earlier today, not realizing someone was waiting to strong-arm me into being a part of her ‘we.’ Keegan’s already moving around her apartment in a flurry, putting on her shoes and grabbing her purse. I, however, continue to just sit there, staring after her and trying to figure out what in the hell is going on. When Keegan finally notices that I haven’t moved from my spot, she rolls her eyes and walks over to me, grabbing my hand and pulling me to my feet.
“What are you doing just sitting there? We have to go!”
“W-where are we going?” I stutter out, still being pulled by Keegan out of her apartment and down the stairs. We only live on the second floor so the elevator isn’t necessary.
“Shopping, silly!” Keegan is already flagging down a taxi before I can even register what she’s talking about. I’ve only known her an hour, and in that hour she’s basically railroaded my life already. She didn’t invite me to her apartment for pizza, or even ask me if I already had plans. She just told me what we were doing and dragged my ass over to her place, and I have been so stunned and thrown off since she first knocked me over that I haven’t been able to figure out if I even want to be around her.
Pretty sure I do, though.
Sure, I could try and pretend to be all independent and just dandy on my own, but the truth is I’m really grateful that she seems to have adopted me. Like a lost puppy. Since waking up in Mayford, I’ve been fighting every damn day to figure out my place in this world, and I may not have a clue what I’m doing, but I’ve been adamant about needing to do it on my own. It’s why I wouldn’t let Mark help me, and why I insisted on working.
So fumbling through my days until I figure things out isn’t really a plan, but it was my non-plan all the same. Keegan, however, has managed to completely blow my plan to bits in the matter of minutes since meeting her. Part of me wants to be annoyed, but a much bigger part of me is grateful. She’s so confident and charismatic that I find myself just doing whatever she says - like a little lap dog. Again with the dog analogy. I think I need to come up with one that is less insulting.
From what little I know of myself already, I can tell Keegan and I have very similar personalities. The main difference being she has the confidence to really let her true self show, whereas I’m too busy being unsure about everything thanks to all the pieces missing now that it tends to take my self-esteem down a few notches.
The day passes by as quickly as the first hour with Keegan did, and turns out that Keegan is not only hospitable, but she’s also extremely thoughtful. I half expected her to railroad me the entire shopping trip, making all my decisions for me, but I totally underestimated her. She had to prompt me with questions about what I liked or my preferences, but she always made sure I felt like the decisions were mine – even if they really weren’t. How was I supposed to be all decisive and confident when I have no freaking clue what I even like?
She never came out and asked what I could afford, but I could tell she was gauging my reactions to things to try and figure it out. The life insurance money was the only part of my story I left out. I might trust her already, but that’s one detail I would prefer to keep to myself until I know if that trust is truly justified.
Another surprise from Keegan is her ability to bring calm and peace to the atmosphere, which is a direct contradiction to the overwhelmingly energetic person I spent the first couple hours getting to know. Her innate ability to read my thoughts and quickly de-stress a situation made it a lot easier for me to enjoy our shopping excursion.
Thank God our building has amazing water pressure. The hot water beating down on me is doing wonders on my aching muscles. We didn’t even get back until after dark, and my legs, back, arms and pretty much every part of my body are in agony. Who knew a massive shopping spree was such a workout?
At least my energy wasn’t wasted, since I bought just about one of everything in that damn mall. In just a few days my apartment will be fully furnished, useless appliances and all. Don’t know what I would have done if Keegan hadn’t insisted I buy myself that coffee pot that you can control remotely from your phone. You know, for the days when you’re too lazy to get out of bed to push the button on the coffee maker yourself. Considering it didn’t come with a barista who will actually bring it to me and I’ll have to get up to pour it in a cup anyway, seems silly to control it from the next room.
Funny how Keegan was programming her phone to control the coffee machine before I’d even downloaded the app. Maybe if I give her a key she’ll bring me my coffee in bed, eliminating that whole barista issue.
Scrubbing my face down with the fancy, and extremely overpriced new soap I bought, I can’t help but laugh thinking back on how excited Keegan got about everything. Like a kid in a freaking candy store, she would dart around from one thing to the next. Once she realized money wasn’t an issue, it was no-holds-barred for her. If I nixed a suggestion, she would just shrug and move on to the next crazy thing that caught her eye.
The only frustrating part of the whole extravaganza was feeling like I was sitting on the edge of familiarity, but not being able to fully remember anything. Like with my phone, I would see something and sense a vague familiarity. I could tell you how it worked and what it was for, but couldn’t actually picture myself using it. Maddening.
All of the big items won’t be delivered until Tuesday, so I’m sleeping on a pile in the middle of my bedroom floor until then. Keegan offered her couch, but I’m ready for some time alone, so I politely declined. She looked like she wanted to press the issue but thought better of it.
After stepping out of the shower and drying off with one of my new fluffy towels, I take in all the scattered cosmetics lining my vanity. Picking up a canister of the face cream and giving it a sniff, I reluctantly start lathering my skin with the potent smelling concoction. The trip to Sephora was an adventure. Keegan was like a kid in a candy store, flitting around the store, filling a canvas shopping bag with what was probably at least one of everything in the store while one of the workers gave me a tutorial on how to use said eyelash curler. I nodded and listened politely, and even though I bought the damn thing, I will not be using it. It looks more like a torture device than a beauty tool.
Slipping on my new cotton nightgown from Victoria’s Secret, I wince, remembering how humiliating that particular part was. Keegan was quick to ease my discomfort by joking around and distracting me with conversation, but it was still a tad awkward.
The clothing part...ughhhh...that was the worst. It wasn’t the same as picking out a couch. Two hours at the mall made it glaringly obvious that clothing choices mattered a lot more than room decor.
One look at the vast sea of clothing had me wanting to puke all over the tile flooring right there in front of the jewelry counter. So many different styles and colors to choose from. How the hell does anyone make a decision? Keegan once again jumped to my rescue by grabbing item after item off the racks and shoving them at me. I’m not even sure if she really looked at anything she picked up, but not even ten minutes later my arms were so full I was about to topple over.
&nb
sp; It took hours to try on every piece of clothing, but I ended up buying almost all of them. Turns out Keegan has really great fashion sense, and maybe even I do too, because I passed some kind of test when I started drooling over a pair of hot pink Jimmy Choo’s. From there, my confidence had risen and Keegan started following my lead instead. Yay me.
The amount of money I shelled out today is sickening, and along with a dozen bags of crap – with plenty more on the way - I also came home with a gut full of guilt. Mark has been telling me I shouldn’t feel bad about spending the money I was left from Shaun, that he would want me to be happy, but I don’t know how he could possibly know that. Mark knows as much about Shaun as I do, which is nothing. Even with all the personal facts Mark has been able to fill in for me, Shaun was not included among them. They’d never met.
Keegan didn’t have any guilt eating away at her, however, so she had a blast swiping my charge card everywhere we went. It was a cheap shortcut, but with Keegan making most of the decisions it felt like she really was spending the money and not me, which helped alleviate some of my guilt. Another thing that helped ease my guilt was buying the expensive bottle of perfume I’d seen Keegan eyeing dreamily when she thought I wasn’t looking. To me, it was the least I could do to repay her for not only helping me, but for going out of her way to make me feel comfortable the entire time. She shrieked and hugged me so tight I couldn’t breathe when I gave it to her, reluctantly accepting after trying to insist it was too expensive.
All in all, I’d say my first day on my own – sort of – was a pretty awesome day. So awesome, in fact, that I pass out from exhaustion, forgetting to take my sleeping pills.
~
Even as an employee, I don’t get access to every part of Mayford. Found that out the hard way when I went looking for a patient I hadn’t seen for a few days. Mayra was one of my favorites, and I truly felt she didn’t belong at Mayford, but she didn’t have any family to care for her. She was placed at Mayford by the state, though I didn’t know exactly why. That part of her file was restricted, even from staff. A month before she was about to turn eighteen and could make the decision for herself whether or not to continue staying at Mayford, I talked to Shaun and we decided we wanted to help her get on her feet if that’s what she wanted to do. Problem was, I couldn’t find her.
For the most part, all the staff at Mayford kept to themselves. The few friends I had there didn’t know anything about Mayra or where she’d gone. After the fifth day of not seeing her anywhere, I decided to go looking. Maybe they had transferred her to a different wing or something. Whatever the reason for her absence, I was worried and needed to know.
Mayford is pretty massive. They’ve added on to the original structure several times throughout the years, and several of the older sections have been abandoned. The staff is always told that those areas are restricted, mostly for health and hazardous reasons. I never understood why they would just let parts of the building go. Why keep adding on instead of renovating?
After trekking across the entire campus and not spotting Mayra, I was more determined than ever to figure out where the heck she’d gone. Maybe she’d wandered into one of the restricted areas and got hurt? The more I thought about it, the more worried I became, and soon I was on my way what I thought was an abandoned extension of the west wing.
Normally there is a guard on post here, but he must have been called away for something because he was nowhere in sight. One glance down the creepy hallway and I almost turned around and went back, but then I heard someone calling out.
At first I thought I was imagining it, thinking it seriously strange that any person – even the patients – would wander down the dark, narrow hallway. Only one flickering fluorescent light was working in the drop ceiling, but it was enough to be able to see where I was going. The linoleum flooring was peeling with huge pieces of it missing, as if someone had started to tear up the flooring and then stopped halfway. The ceiling looked like it was literally about to cave in, and had probably suffered some sort of water damage.
The paint on the walls was chipping, a faint line of a different color paint running across the middle of the walls, like a banister or railing had been torn off, leaving behind exposed pieces of drywall. The voice calling out had stopped, and I again considered just getting the hell out of the creepy hallway. Swallowing thickly, I took one more tentative step forward, my head jerking up when I heard another faint cry echo through the long hallway.
I definitely wasn’t imagining it, and whoever it was sounded like they were in pain, and before I knew what was happening, I was running in a full-out sprint.
“You can’t be in here,” a booming voice says at the same time that someone grabs my wrists and yanks me backwards.
“Let me go, someone needs help.” I struggle against the guard’s hold, which is entirely useless. Mayford hires guys big enough to be in the WWE. No way in hell someone as tiny as me could escape one of them.
“Yeah, sure lady. Let’s get you back to your room and I’ll have the nurses bring you some of your crazy pills. Apparently you missed yours this morning.”
Asshole.
“Quit being a dick, I clearly work here,” I bite out as I show him the ID hanging from my lanyard. “You can also get your giant paws off of me. You’re going to leave bruises.”
The jerk didn’t loosen his grip on my wrist and continued to drag me in silence until we reached Director Mayford’s office, where he shoved me so hard my butt hit the hard corner of a wooden chair, sending a sharp pain down my thigh.
“Boss’ll be in here in a minute. Little advice, free of charge – don’t try and sneak off again. Got cameras everywhere. Boss doesn’t take too kindly to people sticking their nose where it don’t belong.”
The devil herself walks in right after he finishes giving me his ‘advice.’ The monstrous man who was just trying to intimidate me is now cowering because a five-foot-nothing middle-aged woman just walked in the door.
Wuss.
“So, Brailey,” she-devil said with a saccharine smile, clasping her hands together on the top of her desk. “I hear you were trying to go on a little adventure.”
“You make it sound like I set out with the intent to cause trouble. I was looking for a patient who I haven’t seen in several days, I was worried. I didn’t intend to enter a restricted area, but I heard someone calling out like they were in pain. Not really my fault that your guard wasn’t at his post.”
Her smile slipped just a little.
I had no business talking to her like that. I couldn’t afford to lose my job, but I never did take too kindly to people trying to bully me. I’d only met the director a handful of times, and each time I left with a bad taste in my mouth. Something was just off about that woman. Never could put my finger on it, but my intuition about those things was rarely wrong.
“Oh? And which patient is that?”
I could have sworn she already knew the answer to that question. Wouldn’t surprise me really. The woman had eyes and ears all over Mayford.
“Mayra Haines. She’s been a patient in my assigned wing for over a year now, and suddenly she’s gone. Her file gave no information as to where I could find her and no one else has seen her.”
Her fake smile fell completely, her lips thinning into a line. With narrowed, angry eyes, she stared me down as she stood from her chair, placing her palms flat on her desk and leaning over to put her face closer to mine. Her big-ass desk was massive, so she was still a good distance away, but her body language got the point across all the same.
“This is your only warning, Brailey. I do not appreciate your show of distrust for our staff and your obvious lack of respect for me. Do you think I would have just lost a patient? That someone could just disappear and I would not know? It would be foolish of you to make such assumptions. Not a thing goes on at Mayford that I don’t know about, and when something is your concern, I will tell you. Until then, do the job we hired you to do. In case you forgot, w
e hired you for your nursing degree, not your investigative skills.
“Along with a warning, I’m giving you one day of unpaid suspension, which you will serve tomorrow. Go home, Brailey, and don’t come back unless you plan on accepting your place here at Mayford.”
Dismissed.
Yeah, okay, I could see why people would find her intimidating, but I was raised in foster care. After some of the crap I saw and dealt with growing up, Director Mayford was about as scary as a baby bunny in comparison.
I would take my stupid day off, and I would return, but it wouldn’t be to follow orders. The she-devil was hiding something, and I was going to figure out what it was.
Chapter Three
My back is aching from sleeping on the hard floor, though it probably doesn’t count as sleeping really since I spent most of the night tossing and turning, restless from dreaming. I seriously need to remember to take my sleeping pills next time I go to bed. Was that dream a memory or simply just a dream? It certainly felt real.
I arch my back, hearing a few pops along my spine when I stretch my arms high above my head. The bags from our shopping trip are scattered all across my empty bedroom. There are so many things I forgot to buy – like hangers. I might have to borrow a few from Keegan or initiate another outing for supplies, otherwise I’m going to show up on my first day looking like a wrinkled mess.
My phone buzzes, and of course the only person it could be is Mark. Honestly, I’m not really in the right frame of mind to talk to him right now. Our lives are moving in separate directions now, and I don’t know where he fits in. Hell, I don’t know where I even fit in, so how can I expect him to want to remain a part of it? Despite the amount of reassuring he’s done, I still feel like I’m putting him through unnecessary pain. Somehow, him not pressing the issue of our past relationship only amplifies my guilt, and it’s that guilt that keeps me from reaching out to him like I really want to.