by Jill Cooper
Lara laughs lightly. “Well, everything is always wrong to a fifteen-year-old. Why don’t you tell me what it is and I can help you?”
“I need you to pick me up. Prove to me you’re real.”
She sighs. “Molly, you’re scaring me. If you’re having another psychotic break…”
“Another?” My brow furrows together and suddenly I’m not in school anymore. I’m on a bed and thrashing my limbs back and forth.
“Help! Someone help me!” I scream as three orderlies pin me down. They reach for the restraints to tether my arms and legs back to the bed. In the background, the machines beep and sound off as my heart races. My back arches and I call out as someone presses my head back down onto the mattress.
“I’m not crazy! I’m not crazy!”
“It wasn’t this hard with Lara.” One British man says to an identical man beside him. “Molly keeps breaking free. She needs more medication than her sister.”
“That’s because Molly is stronger and more gifted than Lara. Lara’s was a curse that had to be unlocked through trial and error and experimentation. Molly’s was brought on by puberty, just as her brother’s. If we’re to be as strong as she is, we must control her. Sedate her again.”
Mike? Did they have Mike too? I toss my head as a needle slides into the base of my skull and the pain sends me reeling back into the high school lobby.
I grab the payphone and eke out a trembling cry. “I think I’m going crazy,” I whisper into the phone and grip my hair. Tears obscure my vision. “Please help me, Lara.”
Lara’s playful tone turns serious. “I’ll be right there. Don’t move. Don’t talk to anyone. Keep this between us.”
****
When Lara walks into the school I’m surprised by her appearance. Her hair is longer than I remember and her belly—how come no one had told me she was pregnant? She’s not just pregnant, she’s full and round as if the baby might be born any moment. I stare at her blossoming middle as she strokes my hair back and touches my forehead as if to check me for fever.
“Are you all right? Should I take you home?”
I nod. “I wouldn’t have called you if I knew you were pregnant. You must be tired or something.”
Lara makes a face at me and sticks out her tongue. “Funny, ha ha. You know I’m pregnant. You were at the baby shower just two nights ago. Remember? You threw an everything pink party for me and baby James?” She strokes her belly and I see what she’s talking about as the memory surges to the front of my brain.
The interior of Mom’s house is done up in pink ribbons and balloons. Lara wears a white dress with a pink sash tied around her waist. I’m there in a pink chiffon dress, handing her presents as Donovan kisses her cheek. Forever and in love, the two of them—just the way I’ve always wanted it.
I dreamed of being an aunty to a baby girl.
“I remember. I’m…” My brow creases as the worry creeps on. “I keep getting these memory flashes. I don’t know what’s going on with me,” I whisper. “It feels like something is coming for me, Lara. I don’t know what to do.”
“What do you see?”
I close my eyes and drift away. “There’s shadow. Fog. A face I can’t quite see.”
Lara nods, her lip drawn into a thin line. “I know what can help you, but you’re going to have to trust me.”
****
There’s no one I trust more in the world than Lara.
Back at the house I put on the tea kettle and Lara goes through the kitchen cabinets, looking for something. “Will Mom be back soon?”
I shake my head. “Not until tonight.” I sit at the table.
Lara’s holding a prescription bottle and she slides three blue pills along the tabletop. I stare at them. So, medicating me is the answer?
“I don’t want to take pills.” I hold my hands up and start to rise from the table. Lara pushes me back down.
“These are your pills. You haven’t been taking them. Mom worried you weren’t and if you don’t, these episodes are just going to keep happening.” Lara lowers herself down onto a chair and sits in a way that I can’t forget how pregnant she is. Almost like she wants me to see, wants me to remember.
I stare at the pills. “Episodes?”
“Don’t make me say it, Moll,” Lara whispers. “You were admitted…to the hospital. Don’t tell me you don’t remember that either.”
A hospital? Like the one I keep seeing in my head? “I saw something. I was in a hospital and people kept pushing me down onto the bed. I was scared, helpless.”
Lara nods. “You were a danger to yourself and to others. I know you wouldn’t do anything on purpose to hurt Mom or Jax. But you weren’t in your right mind.”
My eyes widen. “I didn’t hurt them! I saw them this morning!” I back up from the table and knock the chair over.
“You just thought you saw them. Isn’t that true?”
“No!” I shake my head and squeeze my eyes shut. I remember back to that morning and through the fog, Jax’s face morphs until he’s not himself anymore.
“Don’t forget your backpack,” John Crane says with a wink. In front of me there’s a plate of half-eaten toast and bacon.
But he hadn’t been the one who had handed me my backpack! It had been Mom. Jax had been there, too. John wouldn’t be there if Mom wasn’t.
“Oh, Molly,” Lara whispers. “I see how torn up you are. How upset you are. Just take these pills and things will be fine. I promise you. Once you start taking these pills, everything will be right again. I promise you.”
“No!” I turn around and shake my head. The kitchen fades and I’m back in the hospital. An orderly in a white coat places three blue pills in my hand.
“Take the pills, Molly,” he whispers. “It’s the only way to get better. You want this all to fade away for good, don’t you?” He closes my fingers up tight around the pills.
I shake my head. “It’s not real! It’s not real!”
When I open them, I’m sitting back in the kitchen. Lara places the three pills into my hand. “I hate seeing you like this. Please, take the pills. Don’t let this happen to you, okay? We need you better.”
I stare at the pills and I hear a British voice say, “Taking the pills on her own is the first step to accepting this new life. She must take the pills.”
I want the voice to go away. I want everything to just go away.
I toss the pills down my throat and accept the glass of water from Lara. She’s beaming with pride as she hugs me. “I knew you could do it. I just knew you could.”
“Can I stay here now? Can I stay here with you, please?” I squeeze my eyes tight and cling to Lara.
“I’ll keep you safe as long as I can. I promise.” Lara kisses my cheeks and holds my face against hers. “But you need help. I’m sorry, Molly.”
What did she mean?
The front door slams and I jolt, looking for a way out. “What did you do?”
Lara steps away and won’t look at me as three orderlies enter the room. “Ms. Montgomery, it’s time to come with us.”
I back away, glancing at the window behind the sink. If I could get there in time, I could escape through it. Where would I go, though? Who could help me if Lara won’t?
She grabs my arm. “I know what you’re thinking. I thought the same thing once, but they were able to fix me. Let them fix you, too.”
What is she—I’m taken aback by the fact Lara isn’t pregnant. Wasn’t she pregnant just a few short moments ago?
“What’s the matter?” Lara asks with a tilt of her head, offering me a sad scowl. “You’ll be okay, I promise. I won’t leave you, Molly.”
The orderlies grab my arm and take me away. “Lara, help!” I grab onto the kitchen chair and pull it backward as the orderlies drag me. “Lara please!”
She follows after us with slow steps. “Don’t hurt her! She doesn’t mean what she does and says. Don’t hurt her!”
The walk outside happens fast. In a ma
tter of moments, I’m strapped down to a gurney in the back of an ambulance. Sirens wail as the EMTs take my vitals and one of them, handsome and with a strong jaw, smiles down at me.
“You’ll be okay, Moll.”
“Mike?” I whisper, but how can it be? He’s too old to be Mike, but he sounds like him and even looks what I assume Mike would look like one day. He has Dad’s chin and Mom’s passionate eyes.
I cringe as something pierces my skin. The EMT pulls out a needle and gives me a smile. “You’ll be quite calm now,” he says in a sudden British voice, “open to suggestion and you’ll answer any question we might ask you.”
“Tell us more about the Bridge,” the handsome young man asks. “Tell us about all the possible decisions and what might happen next?”
Unable to keep my eyes open, I talk, but am unsure what I say. I can sense the movement from the ambulance. Then above me there’s a rush of stars—no lights—as I’m transferred into a bedroom. It’s calm, the lighting is muted, but the walls are so sterile.
“She’ll be okay,” a woman’s voice says as I’m transferred to a bed. She puts the guardrails up so I won’t hurt myself. “She’ll sleep this off until morning.”
The hospital door slams shut and locks automatically. The alarm above the door buzzes and the light changes red. All the long while the hands on the clock spin counterclockwise.
Who knows what the morning will bring?
Chapter Thirty: Cassidy Winters
“Cassidy, do you want to share with the group?” Dr. Patricia James asks and taps her clipboard.
I snort and gaze around the semi-circle ‘group’ I am sitting with in the psyche ward’s group room. Bunch of losers who couldn’t make eye contact, or dress themselves, or brush their hair. No way, did I want to say anything to them. I make my feelings clear by crossing my arms and my ankles, then looking past the nurses’ station.
Yummy pills, that’s where they kept all the yummy pills. I licked my lips and counted the minutes until the next handout. Two hours, five minutes and thirty-one seconds—not that I was counting.
“How can she stay part of the group if she never contributes?” a woman whines and I think I may like to punch her so hard, her face may fall off. Maybe it isn’t possible, but it’ll be fun to find out.
“Now, now, Miranda there’s no reason to be hostile. Cassidy just isn’t as far along in her therapy as you are.”
“I lost a daughter. I don’t see what she’s gone through that was as bad as all that.”
“I lost everything!” I blurt it out as Miranda rolls her eyes at me. She’s a washed up middle-aged woman with a pill problem. “I was kidnapped as a kid. My family didn’t want me back. I have nothing. No friends, no family. I don’t belong anywhere. You get me? No one wants me anywhere.”
The truth of my words rocks me and inside I’m hollow. There’s nothing in me that anyone cares about. There’s nothing about me anyone pines for, remembers. The pain is so real, why haven’t I ever felt it before? Just acknowledging it threatens to send my insides collapsing within me.
“And you are…how would you describe your feelings, Cassidy?”
“I’m angry.” I don’t shout it, but my words simmer with rage. “I’m angry at my family for letting me go. I’m angry at my kidnapper for stealing me from a life I should’ve had. I hate Lara Crane Montgomery for being the reason why it happened! And if I ever see her again, we’ll see what kind of temper problem I really have.”
The doctor jots something down on her pad and Miranda snorts. “Who the hell is that?”
“Someone I made up.” I chew on my fingernail and then spit it out. “Someone I can be angry at and focus my rage so I don’t end up killing anyone else. So, say the doctors,” I use air quotes, “who are trying to save me from myself.”
“Have you really tried to kill someone?” a man asks, bending his knees so he can lean forward.
“Not try. Have.” I toss my head defiantly, strangely. “I killed more than once. I was trained to, but they never stay dead. Instead they keep coming back and I have to keep doing it over and over again. She’s next.” I smirk at Patricia.
Patricia glances at her watch. “Group is over for today, but I thank each of you for participating. Cassidy, good work sharing with the group. I’m impressed with the progress you’ve made today.”
I roll my eyes as everyone starts to leave. Rising from my seat, I head from the room and toward the common room. As I turn past the nurses’ station, a male doctor stands in a white jacket, staring at me. He wanders away, clearing a path for me to see the clock.
“Not even the clocks work around here. The damn thing is spinning backward,” I shout it out to no one in particular and everyone collectively ignores me. It figures, right? Just another part of my life that isn’t important enough to anyone.
I grab a magazine as I enter the common room. There are a couple of girls playing checkers, some young men—who I’d rather avoid—watching television, and four mismatched sofas over by the fireplace. The worn green one off to the side is my favorite and three people lounge on it as though they own it.
My eyes narrow to a nasty glare just as a nurse comes up. “Time to take your medicine, Cassidy,” the nurse says as she holds out the tray.
“That two hours went by fast, man.” I take the small white cup and slam the pills into the back of my throat, then chug some cold water. The cool liquid tastes good, almost minty.
“Get somewhere comfortable while those work. You’re going to be no good to anyone in fifteen minutes.” The nurse shakes her head at me like I’m some sort of on-the-street junkie. I’d shout at her, defend myself, but something about what she says sounds familiar.
I have fifteen minutes.
Where had I heard that before? Who said that before? My skin crawls and tingles. I figure it must be the medicine doing its magic. Damn, that was fast.
****
I sit at the chess board—I don’t even know whyI can’t play chess—and stare at the pieces. The pieces seem to multiply, duplicate, and sway in my vision. The drugs they’ve given me are stronger than ever to control my outbursts, or so they say. Maybe they’re just trying to keep me quiet.
It’s working, that’s for sure.
“Hey, watch it!” a girl screams and sits across from me at the table. “Creeper!” She shouts at some male patient. She fixes her blue hoodie before gazing not at me but the chess board. She bites her lip as she moves a pawn, her long brown curly hair covering her face, but I can make out her nose and her high cheek bones.
She has freckles and when she gazes at me I see sparkling blue eyes. A teen, great, but I feel like I’ve seen her before. “Your move, hot shot.”
I raise an eyebrow and lean back in my chair. “You talk tough for a kid.”
“I’m fifteen,” she says proudly, “not a kid.”
“My mistake. You have all the answers, right?” I move a pawn across the board.
We play back and forth in silence for a while. I move my rook. Funny, I didn’t realize I knew how to play chess, but a strategy forms in my mind. “What’s your name?”
“Molly. Molly Montgomery.”
I freeze with the white knight in my hand. “Montgomery?” My voice cracks.
Molly nods, disinterested in whatever I have to say, but it can’t be a coincidence that her name is the same as the one I made up for Lara Crane. “It’s a mouthful, I know.”
“Is this some kind of joke?” I snarl at her and then toss the chess piece at her head. “It’s not nice to make fun of someone’s delusions, you know. We all have them. That’s why we’re here!”
Molly doesn’t duck but instead holds out her hands as the piece lunges for her. Somehow it bounces off of her hand and right back at me. It spins, taking out all the pieces on the board and ruins our game. I stand up, fan my hands and shriek in frustration. When I push my hands out, the pieces pause in mid-air.
They spin counterclockwise, then reverse, floating up in
the air as though there’s no gravity in the room. Molly’s eyes widen and then at the same time we both rise from our seats. Gazing around, everyone else is frozen in time and slowly reversing, too.
“How’d you do that?” Molly asks with a shaking breath, but instead of fear, she seems exhilarated.
“I don’t know. How come you aren’t effected?”
She shrugs and points her finger at me. “You aren’t either. Maybe we should figure out why. What’s your name?”
“Cassidy—.”
“Winters,” Molly answers for me, her eyes widening. “I know you, even if I shouldn’t. I don’t know how I do.”
I nod. “But you just do.”
“Guess we should figure this out, but we can’t let them know.” Molly gazes over at the staff.
“Why?”
“I just know we shouldn’t. It’ll be dangerous. Too dangerous, for all of us. Even the ones of us who aren’t here.”
She talks like a space cadet but I have a feeling I should listen to her. Slowly, we lower ourselves back into our seats. We gaze at the chess board and with a rotation of my hand, the pieces fall back onto the board in time. Nothing is out of place, not even a strand of Molly’s curly hair. She grips the side of the table and I do the same. One by one everything in the room—the music, the people, the television—snaps back into place and it’s as if nothing ever happened.
Except Molly and I exchange smiles. Whatever that was, we can control it. Whatever that was, it might just be the key we’re looking for to getting out of here.
*****
Hours later, I pace back and forth in my doctor’s office. I’ve come off the high from my medicine and have convinced myself that what had happened with Molly had been a drug-induced hallucination. But I wait for my doctor to come into the room and confirm that I’m not losing my mind. I pull on the sleeve of my torn blue hoodie and feel the exact opposite.
My skin is crawling as though it has a mind of its own. All I can think about is my next dose of medicine. It’s all I want and everything else be damned, but what I’d done with Molly, if I can find a way to do that again…