by Ava Conway
“But patients can’t—”
Her words were cut off as the elevator doors closed and we started going down to the second floor.
“What is it?” I asked.
Nesto took a deep breath. It was then that I realized he was shaking. “I’m worried about Flynn.”
“Me, too.” I didn’t know much about confinement, just rumors circulating among the staff and patients, but it was enough to have me deeply worried.
Nesto shook his head. “No. I mean, I’m not worried about confinement. It’s nothing that we all haven’t been through before. I’m worried about him.”
“How so?”
Nesto took a deep breath and met my gaze. “This is Victoria all over again.”
I thought back to Flynn’s file and how he had saved Victoria from a similar situation. A staff member had made unwanted advances. Flynn was trying to protect her, and in the process had gotten himself in trouble.
“When Victoria turned her back on him, some small part of him died inside. I joke with him about being a featherweight, and that’s mainly to get him riled up. To have him care about something. There’s nothing sadder than watching a fighter lose his fight.”
“I’ll set this right, Nesto, I promise.” I fumbled in my purse until I found Freckles. I pulled him out and stroked his soft fur.
“I’m not sure what you’re going to do, but I want to help.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think you can help me. If the staff sees you off the ward, you could get thrown into confinement, too.”
“But—”
“No buts.” I shook my head and handed him Freckles. “If for some reason this all goes bad, then I want you to give Flynn this when he gets back to the ward.”
“What’s this?”
“A stuffed bunny. Flynn will know what it means.” He’ll know how much it meant to me and know that I did everything I could to save him.
Nesto stared at it for a moment and frowned. “I don’t know.” He tried to give it back to me. “It would be better if you gave it to him.”
“No.” I pushed the bunny back toward him. “I don’t know what’s going to happen down there, or if I’m even going to be able to see him. I want—” My throat constricted as tears filled my eyes, making it difficult to speak. “I want to make sure he gets this. Please.”
Nesto looked up from the bunny and studied my face for a moment, considering. “All right.” He stuffed the bunny headfirst into his back jeans pocket. “But if things turn out okay, then you can give him the bunny yourself.”
“Deal.” The elevator doors opened, and I put my hand on Nesto’s chest before he could walk into the hall. “Stay here. I don’t want to get you in trouble.”
“But—”
“I mean it, Nesto. I could never forgive myself if you ended up in confinement, too.”
He looked as if he was about to protest but changed his mind. “Okay.” He took my hand and squeezed it. “Take care of him, Mia.”
“I’ll try.”
He nodded and let go. I hurried out of the elevator and into the hall. I wasn’t quite sure of the way to confinement, but there was only one possible direction I could go. I rushed down the hall, barely noticing how much grayer everything looked on this floor when compared to the long-term ward. Things seemed darker, more dreary. The same repeating prints lined the walls, but the floors looked more weathered, and the paint on the walls was peeling. I navigated a bucket positioned in the middle of the hall to catch raindrops and turned the corner.
Where were the signs in this place? As my heels clicked over the linoleum, I realized that this place didn’t need signs. It wasn’t open to the general public. The only people who came down here were staff members accustomed to these halls and patients who were being escorted. Uneasiness rippled down my spine as I turned first left, then right, following the dingy hallway to where Flynn was being held.
I was just starting to think that I was moving in circles when I heard voices ahead. I began to jog, hoping I wasn’t too late to save Flynn. Bursting into an open space, I saw a large reception desk with a sign reading CONFINEMENT overhead. Everett and Elias stood by the desk, talking to a nurse.
“Where is he?” I asked as I approached.
“Who?” the nurse asked.
“She’s looking for her boyfriend,” Everett said with a sneer. “The Irishman.”
“I’m sorry,” the nurse said. “Once a patient enters confinement, no one can see him until he is brought out again.”
“You don’t understand,” I said, leaning against the desk. “He doesn’t belong in there. It isn’t his fault.”
“Are you kidding me?” Everett said. “That guy attacked my best friend.”
“He was provoked,” I said.
“Fuck you, he was provoked.” Everett moved forward but Elias held him back.
“Easy now,” he said. “She’s just concerned.”
“Yeah, concerned because she loves him.”
“What?” I said as my heart thudded against my chest. “I don’t love him.” It was a bald-faced lie, but they didn’t need to know that.
“Oh, I know all about you, darling,” Everett said. “Fucking the patients when you think no one else is looking.” He jerked his arm away from Elias’s grasp. “Who else did you fuck, eh? Carter? Nesto?”
I made a show of dragging my gaze up and down his puny frame. “You’re sick,” I said as I put my hands on my hips.
“No, darling, you’re the sick one. Stop touching me, Elias,” he said.
“Well, stop threatening the intern,” Elias countered. I could tell that the normally easygoing Elias was starting to become annoyed.
I turned to the nurse and recognized her as the one Flynn slipped the pills to when we got off the floor. “You know Flynn,” I said, grabbing her arm. “He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
The nurse pulled her arm from my grasp. “I’m sorry, lady, but I saw Johnson’s face. The patient beat him senseless.”
“Without cause,” Everett added.
I turned toward the scrawny orderly. “Fuck you, Everett.”
He raised his brows but said nothing.
I looked from Everett, to Elias, to the nurse. All of them were supposedly my equals, but all of them were tragically flawed. Everett thought of patients as nothing more than animals. The nurse saw the patients as means to get her drugs. And Elias—well, Elias was so desperate for companionship that he didn’t see the tragedy going on right under his nose. His patients were screaming for help, and he just wanted to be their buddy. Those patients didn’t need a buddy to enable their behavior. They needed help.
Anger seeped into my chest as I shifted my gaze from one of the staff members to the other. “You don’t believe me,” I said.
“Mia, you’re still shaken up. It’s possible that you’re not remembering the incident correctly. Things happened so fast—”
“So you’re going to believe an orderly over me. Over one of your patients.” I shook my head in disgust. “I used to think that you cared, Elias. Now I see that you are like everyone else.” I took a step back from the staff members and glanced down the hall toward the confinement rooms.
“Johnson never did nothin’, ” Everett said. “If anything, you were the one at fault.”
“Excuse me?” I asked as I dragged my gaze back to Everett.
“You heard me,” he said. “You walk around here in those tight skirts, shaking your ass for everyone to see. Everyone knows that you flirt with the patients.” Everett crossed his arms and lifted his chin. “Johnson even said that he heard you fucking McKenna in your office.”
I made a disgusted noise, even though inside I was scared.
“Mia, is this true?” Elias asked.
I glanced from Everett to Elias and back again. I knew that answering the question would only get me in trouble, so instead I posed a question of my own.
“Do you make a habit of listening in to private conversations, Everett?” I asked
.
“Didn’t need to. Johnson told me everything I needed to know.”
“Oh, and so you believe what he said?” I shook my head as I saw his jaw stiffen. “You should know better than to believe someone who has gotten in trouble for being inappropriate with the patients time and again.”
It was only a guess, but the shock in Everett’s face confirmed my worst suspicions. I hadn’t been the first person Johnson had tried to take advantage of.
“Jesus, Everett, is this true?” Elias asked.
“It’s none of your business,” Everett said.
With the orderlies distracted, I saw my opportunity. I hurried between them, pushing them aside and moving quickly down the corridor.
“Hey!” Elias yelled after me. “You aren’t allowed down there!”
“Oh, yeah?” I called out over my shoulder. “Flynn’s my patient. I have a right to see him.”
“No, you don’t,” Everett said. “Not anymore.”
I heard footsteps behind me. My heartbeat quickened as I hurried my steps and peered into the small windows in each door. Most of the confinement rooms were empty. All I could see were bleached-white walls and shiny floors. Mattresses had been tossed in the corners of the room for sleeping and a large metal bucket for taking care of any bathroom needs. I wrinkled my nose as I remembered Lucy talking about her time in confinement. It looked horrible, and I couldn’t believe that anyone would allow another human being to live in such terrible conditions.
I was almost at the end of the hall when I spotted him. Flynn was alone in his room, his clothes exchanged for a simple white robe. He was sitting on top of his mattress and rocking back and forth.
I tried to open the door, but it was locked. “Flynn.”
He didn’t look up.
“Flynn, it’s me.” My voice rose as panic gripped my chest. “Flynn, I’ve come to get you out.”
He just sat there, rocking back and forth as if he were lost in his own little world.
Elias came up from behind and wrapped his arm around my waist. “Time to go, little one.”
“No.” I fought him and reached for the door. “I need to speak with him.” I had to let him know that I didn’t abandon him. He wasn’t alone.
“Forget it, kid,” Elias said. “Once they are locked down, they stay that way until Dr. Polanski lets them out.”
“No!” I screamed. “You don’t understand. I have to see him.” I wanted to touch him, to hold him one more time. “Flynn, please,” I cried and struggled to free myself from Elias’s grasp.
“Okay, Mia. That’s enough.” Elias turned my body so Everett wasn’t directly within my gaze. “I’m sorry, but hospital policy states that no one is to see a patient once they have been place in confinement.”
“No!” I fought and finally broke free of Elias’s grasp. I threw myself at the door and began pounding on the window. I had to reach Flynn. If nothing else, I had to let him know that I hadn’t forgotten him. I wasn’t like Victoria. I wouldn’t abandon him. Ever.
“Flynn!” I hit the window as hard as I could, but the damn thing wouldn’t give. Elias wrapped his arm around my waist and tried to pull me away. I doubled my efforts, pounding the glass until I bruised my fingers.
Flynn stopped rocking and glanced up at the door. I gasped as he met my gaze.
Gone was the blue fire, the life I was used to seeing. Instead of energy and purpose, I saw nothing but emptiness.
“Flynn!” I screamed as loudly as I could, hoping my voice could penetrate the thick door and the myriad of medications running through his bloodstream. “Don’t give up. You hear me? Don’t you dare give up on me!” Tears spilled over my cheeks, but I was barely aware of them. I had to get through to him. I had to make him understand.
Flynn stared at me through the window, as if I were someone familiar, but he couldn’t quite place me. He stood, walked over to the door and placed his hand palm-forward on the glass.
“Yes.” I broke free from Elias’s grasp and placed my hand on the glass, lining it up with Flynn’s. “I’m going to make this right, Flynn. I promise.”
Elias dragged me away from the door and placed me against the opposite wall. “What the hell are you doing?”
Anger welled up inside me at the injustice of it all. Flynn was innocent. I was innocent, and yet we were both being treated as if we were criminals. It was completely fucked up. Just like everything else in this place was fucked up.
I looked up into Elias’s face and realized, in that moment, how useless my life had been. I had been working to become a great doctor, one who helped patients overcome their fears and reenter society. Now I realized what a crock of shit that was. The patients weren’t the ones who were fucked up, the system was. Who thought it was a good idea to sedate patients to the point where they couldn’t communicate? Only in a mental institution could people be thought of as animals. Perhaps being a doctor wasn’t the glorious career I had imagined it would be.
Perhaps the problems were just within Newton Heights, perhaps not. Either way, in that moment something inside me shifted. No longer did I want to help people bury their problems. I wanted to shed light on the problems and fix them.
“Okay, Mia, if you aren’t going to talk to me, then maybe you’ll talk to Polanski.” He nodded toward the hall. “Why don’t we go back up onto the ward?”
I started to protest, then thought better of it. There was nothing more that I could do here. Anything I tried would only make things worse for Flynn.
After one last longing glance at Flynn through the window, I started walking toward the elevator.
“That bitch is crazy,” Everett said.
I pressed my lips together but said nothing. To confront him would only feed his beliefs, and I had to save my energy to fight a bigger fight upstairs.
I rounded the corner and out of earshot. Wiping the tears from my cheeks, I knew that I couldn’t let Flynn stay in confinement. He had pissed off Everett, and there was no doubt in my mind that Johnson’s best friend would be looking for revenge.
I found the elevator and pushed the button for the long-term-care ward. I needed to go back to my office. More important, I had to talk to Dr. Polanski. The only way to help Flynn now was to come clean about what had happened. I had to tell Dr. Polanski about how Johnson tried to rape me, and why.
That meant telling her about my relationship with Flynn. I knew what a confession would mean. Having a romantic relationship with patients was strictly forbidden. Yet I knew that I could no longer work in a place that treated innocent people the way they had treated Flynn. I was disgusted and appalled. If this was the way most mental hospitals treated their patients—by drugging them past all conscious thought—then I wanted no part of it.
I returned to my office and gathered my notes. Quickly, I stuffed everything into my briefcase except for Flynn’s file. I picked up the long, thick folder and ran my hand over the name.
There was still a way out. If I pretended nothing happened, I could still save my internship. Everything I had worked so hard for could be preserved.
I opened Flynn’s file and scanned the first few paragraphs. Words, I thought. These are just words. Yes, Flynn had difficulty controlling his anger, but a lot of people had the same problems. It didn’t mean that he had to be drugged out of his mind, or placed into a padded cell.
“Words,” Flynn had said. The file contained words that were filtered through the eyes and experiences of the writer. They weren’t real. I thought about all the time we had spent together. Of how caring he was on the roof, how he had saved me from Nesto on the first day. I thought of how determined he had looked while working out in the gym, and how smart he was.
Flynn deserved a second chance. He was a good guy with a good heart, and people like him deserved better in life. Our relationship might be doomed, but that didn’t mean that he had to be doomed with it.
I pressed my lips together as I realized that if I continued with this internship, I would be
no better than Johnson. I’d view the treatment of Flynn as nothing more than an inconvenience, and that was something I couldn’t allow.
Stuffing the folder under my arm, I took one last look around my office, then stepped into the hall. Confidence flowed through my veins as I made my way to Dr. Polanski’s office. What was happening to Flynn was wrong. I knew this in my heart. I owed it not only to him, but also to myself, to set things right.
And if that meant losing my internship, then so be it.
TWENTY
DR. POLANSKI had already gone home for the day. Her office was locked, and according to the nurse at the front desk, the good doctor had an appointment after work that she had to keep. Frustrated, I tried my best to get someone to let Flynn out of confinement, but I was just an intern and no one wanted to go against Dr. Polanski’s orders. Clearly, bending the rules to free an innocent man wasn’t high on anyone’s priority list.
Frustrated, I went home and had a restless night’s sleep. I kept thinking about Flynn, and the lies Johnson had told. To Johnson, it didn’t matter that Flynn got punished for his actions. Patients were animals and therefore weren’t spared a second thought. Because of Johnson’s selfishness, not only would Flynn be punished, but also his recovery would take a major setback. All of the strides he had made in the past few months would dissolve and he’d have to start over again.
Never mind the mental anguish this whole ordeal caused. Flynn already had feelings of inadequacy. According to Nesto, a situation like this could really do some damage. Flynn would blame himself, even though it wasn’t his fault. He’d interpret my silence as my agreement with Johnson in thinking that Flynn deserved the punishment he had gotten.
I tossed and turned all night as I thought about my internship and how long I had waited for such an opportunity. After tomorrow, it would most likely be gone, and I would be left adrift once again.
Back in college, Justin had called me a loser without purpose or direction. He was right. On the surface I might seem to have my act together, but inside I was a mess.