by Emma Scott
But it did matter. Those years were a long, endless reel of sameness. Wake up, eat, watch The Office, take a walk, draw pyramids, scream for help, eat, go to sleep, wash, rinse, repeat. In five-minute increments. Until Jimmy heard my cries and added music and color to my monotone, monochrome existence.
Now I had a real life in all its beautiful, painful, amazing glory, and they wanted to keep me in prison. Seconds ticked away. I could practically count them with the beat of my heart.
Dr. Chen finished her exam and Delia stood up.
“I need to run an errand in Roanoke. I’ll be back later.” She gave me a stiff hug. “Be good.”
“No promises.”
I sat in the quiet of my room. It wasn’t as vast and empty as the horrible silence of the amnesia, but it wasn’t living.
I took my cracked cell phone out of the top drawer of the new dresser they’d given me—taking a peak under a stack of new, lacy underwear that my wallet was still there—and scrolled through iTunes. I put on “Tidal Wave” by a new band who’d come up in the last two years while I dressed in a pair of those new lacy panties, jean shorts, and a pink T-shirt.
I took my phone with me as I headed downstairs. It was technically breakfast time but screw my routine. I needed to paint.
The rec room was deserted, only the empty canvas waiting for me. I squeezed paint dollops onto my palette and reached for a brush. No, a brush wasn’t going to be loud enough.
I put the canvas on the tarp on the floor, and using my hands, scooped a handful of purple acrylic paint. I let a stream of drops fall, like tears, then kneeled and swept my hand over the canvas.
For the next twenty minutes, I attacked the canvas with different colors, using drips, or swipes, or handprints. Letting the paint speak for me. A Jackson Pollock-like mess of pure emotion. I cranked my music up higher, let the paint flow as it would, an extension of me.
Purple that wept for my parents.
A snake of black that might suffocate me back into amnesia.
Yellow for the hope that it wouldn’t ever again.
And swirls of paint, a riot of color for all that I felt inside me. For Delia and Rita. And for Jimmy. For freedom on the other side of these walls and a life I might have with him if we were brave enough to explore all that lay between us.
He is so much more than he knows.
I sat back on my heels, paint smearing my clothes and my palms covered in yellow. I wiped a sweaty lock of hair off my forehead with the back of my hand and studied what I’d done.
It was a pretty, messy, chaotic painting, reflecting all that was inside me… and going nowhere.
I should have painted another pyramid.
A tomb.
Chapter 24
Jim
My shift started with a spill of maple syrup in the dining room. Minor catastrophes continued through lunch and I was kept busy for hours. My thoughts were on Thea every other minute.
“She’s in the rec room,” Rita said as she rushed by me in the hallway, as if reading my mind. “Can you check on her?”
Thank you, Rita.
“Sure.”
In the rec room, Thea crouched over a canvas, drizzling yellow paint on it with her hands. She worked feverishly, as if someone were timing her. It was a beautiful mess of big bold splashes of color, spilling over the sides of the canvas and onto the floor.
Her gaze flicked to me as I approached, then back to the paint. Sweat glistened on her chest and made her little necklace with the pale green stone stick to her skin.
“No more painter’s block,” she said.
“I can see that.”
“This is what I feel, Jimmy,” she said, swiping her hands, covered with yellow paint, across the top. “And this little canvas is the sanitarium. It can’t contain me.”
She gave her painting a final swipe, then rose to her feet. We stood, side by side, over it.
“Have you ever been to New York City?” she asked.
“No.”
“Me neither. I always wanted to, ever since I was a kid. I want to see the lights of Times Square. I want to go to the top of the Empire State Building and see how the world looks from up there. I want to walk in Central Park and eat a hot dog from a street vendor. I want all that and I don’t want to wait.”
“Thea…”
She turned to face me. “I wanted this before the accident. That’s always been my vision of life. But I was put on pause for two years and the vision kept growing. Outgrowing me. The life I’d had while I was away has been building up, and I’m going to burst if I don’t live it.”
“I want it for you, too.”
“You do?”
“But I think you should wait a little longer and see—”
“Is that what you’re doing?” she asked softly. “Waiting to go back to school to be a speech therapist? Until when? Do you know what happens while you wait? Nothing. And then next thing you know, years have gone by. I can’t do nothing anymore. I can’t.”
I lifted my chin. “What are you saying?”
“I’m not going to stay here. I’ll walk out the front door and hitchhike to New York if I have to.”
I thought of her, young and beautiful, walking along the road in her short-shorts with her thumb out for any asshole to pick up. A Brett-type who seemed friendly as hell on the surface, but underneath…
“What’s that look for?” she asked, the backs of her hands on her hips.
“I don’t like the thought of you hitchhiking.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah, it is.”
“And what will you do about it? Tell my sister?”
“Maybe.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Liar.”
We stared each other down, emotions broiling in both of us. Her cheeks were flushed, and my hands itched to grab her and kiss that brassy mouth of hers. Both of us daring the other to say what was behind our heated words.
I care about you.
Prove it.
I blinked first. “Fine,” I said. “I wouldn’t tell her. But I don’t want you to get hurt.”
Thea’s arms dropped and her voice softened.
“And I don’t want to waste away in a box. Blue Ridge is bigger than the little prison I was trapped in for two years, but it’s still a prison.” She stepped closer to me. “An invisible clock is hanging over my head and the minutes keep ticking away. I lost two years. Now every second I’m not out there, doing what makes me happy, is just more time lost.”
She moved closer. I could feel the warmth of her skin and the scent of her perfume—something flowery and light—mixed with the harsher scent of acrylic yellow paint all over her hands.
“I want to live, Jimmy. Don’t you?”
“I don’t know what that means,” I said, my own autopilot existence feeling like a prison too; one I’d made for myself.
“Really live,” Thea said. “Not just exist.”
I nodded.
“You should have it, Jimmy.” She tilted her head up. “Go out in the world and…” Her hand came up between us, on my chest, over my heart. “…take what you want.”
Her breath caught as my arm slipped around her waist, pressing her to me. Taking her to me. My head bent down to hers, drawn by an invisible force I couldn’t stop. The tiniest smile tugged at her lips until they parted, ready for my kiss. My eyes drank in every detail of her exquisite face, while my other hand slid into her hair that was softer than it’d been in my fevered imaginings. I made a fist, pulling gently, eliciting a little gasp from her. Her lips parted wider, inviting me in.
I never wanted anything in my life like I wanted Thea…
“Yes, Jimmy,” she whispered.
Take what I want…
Inhale. Like a diver ready to submerge into her depths. Exhale.
Our lips touched.
“What the hell is going on?”
The air shattered at the intrusion. Our bodies jerked apart, my heart thumping.
“Jesus, De
lia,” Thea said breathlessly. “None of your business, is what’s going on.” Her eyes were still locked on mine. “Jimmy, don’t,” she said, when I started to pull away.
But I let her go, my hands instantly feeling empty and cold without her skin and hair and vibrant life pulsing beneath them.
Not here, I wanted to tell her. I don’t want this here.
“It’s n-n-not… professional,” I managed.
“For once I agree with him,” Delia said, glaring at me. “He could lose his job for inappropriately touching a resident.”
Thea clenched her jaw. “Delia, I love you, but you’re crossing the line. Every line. I can’t even look at you right now.” She turned to me, almost pleading, her voice a whisper. “Don’t give up on me, Jimmy. Please.”
She ran out of the room, and Delia and I were left alone. She slowly turned to face me, her expression stony.
“My sister is impulsive and emotional after being woken a few days ago from what was essentially a two-year coma,” she said, speaking slowly, her voice low and hard. “If you think she knows what she wants under these circumstances, then by all means, put your hands on her again.”
“Ms. Hughes…”
“This was your first and last warning,” she said. “Emphasis on last.”
She strode out, leaving me alone with Thea’s painting. Not word chains but another kind of cry for help.
I finished my shift and left the sanitarium that night without changing or talking to anyone and rode my motorcycle at unsafe speeds down the winding road from Blue Ridge. I leaned into the turns, feeling the thrill of the danger coursing through me. Trying to recreate the potent feeling of Thea in my arms, her gorgeous face turned up, waiting and ready—wanting—me to kiss her.
At home, in my small, dark house, I went to the bathroom to splash cold water on my face. Then stared at the dripping reflection in the mirror.
I was still wearing my uniform—plain white shirt and pants. But now the white was slashed with yellow along the right side of my waist, where Thea touched me. And in the middle of my chest—Thea’s handprint in stark yellow, small and delicate, fingers splayed like a star over my heart.
Chapter 25
Thea
“Dr. Chen said a month, minimum. Maybe two,” I said when Rita came to bring me my morning dose of Hazarin.
“The procedure is so new, they’re scared if they declare victory and something happens, they’ll lose face,” she said. “Or worse, funding. The patients in Sydney are in lockdown too.”
“It’s not right,” I said. “Giving us the awareness of our freedom and then keeping it from us.”
“I don’t like it either.”
“Then help me bust out of this joint, Rita.”
A short silence descended. She knew what I meant. Give me the Hazarin.
“You know I can’t do that,” she said.
“I know,” I sighed. “I don’t want you to lose your job.” I took the one pill she’d brought with her from the locked medicine room and downed it with water.
“Try to make the best of it,” she said. “In a few weeks, you’ll be free to go.”
“And if the medicine stops working before then? What will I have to show for it?”
“I wish I knew how to answer that,” she said.
She left and I stared at the ceiling. The walls. The tiny window. Suddenly it was hard to breathe. I needed to be outside, even if that outside had fences too.
It was early yet; a little after seven. The heat and humidity hadn’t yet taken hold. Morning light slanted silvery and gold over the grass. I walked the circumference of the grounds along the fence and came to the side that fronted the parking lot. The rev of a motorcycle’s engine sounded, and I watched a man ride up.
He wore jeans, a black leather jacket, and boots. He maneuvered the bike with a casual sexiness that glued my eyes to him. I knew who it was even before he took off his helmet.
“A motorcycle, Jimmy?” I murmured. Heat flushed through me when he removed his helmet and ran his fingers through his dark hair. “Not fair. Not fair at all.”
He plays guitar, sings like Eddie Vedder, and rides a motorcycle. A girl’s ovaries can only handle so much.
“Hey,” I called from my side of the fence, stopping him in his tracks on his way to the front of Blue Ridge. “What is that? A Harley?”
“It is,” he said, striding over. “How’d you know?”
“Lucky guess.” I watched him approach the chain-link fence.
“You’re up early,” he said. “Feeling better?”
“I feel great. Stir-crazy but great. And I’ve never seen you out of uniform in real life. You look so different. I’d never have known…”
That you were all this, Jimmy.
“I guess that’s the point of the uniform,” he said. “Keeps the focus on the work.”
I nodded. “Delia put me in a uniform too. All those boring clothes. This is the real me.” I coughed, suddenly shy again, the way only Jimmy could make me.
I expected his eyes to rake me up and down—I wanted them to. The desire to feel desirable to him came over me again like it had in the mall. To be pretty for him. But his dark brown eyes never left my face. They held mine with an intensity that stole my breath.
“I like the real you, Thea,” he said. “I always have. Doesn’t matter what you’re wearing.”
My fingers on the chain-link squeezed as another flush of heat swept through me.
“You keep saying things like that, Jimmy and I’ll…” I sighed. “Nothing, actually. I can’t do anything from behind this fence. Quite the metaphor.”
I gave the fence a shake. It rattled, and Jimmy flinched from the sound.
“Oh, I’m sorry—”
“It’s n-n-nothing,” he said. “Bad memories. I got thrown against a lot of chain-link fences in high school. The sound of it stuck with me, I guess.”
“Then I hate this fence even more,” I said, wanting to touch him softly. To soothe away the hard memories. “I hate that I’m on this side and you’re on that side. You’re free and I’m trapped in here. I’m awake and alive and in the exact same place I’ve been for two years.”
“I know,” he said.
“Well?”
He glanced around. “Watch out,” he said, then tossed his motorcycle helmet over to my side. It landed a few feet from me. Jimmy scaled the eight-foot fence, kicked his boots on the top, then dropped easily down on my side. I could smell his cologne and the leather of his jacket
“Better?” he asked.
“Not really. I’d rather you’d have lowered a rope made out of sheets tied together and hauled me out on that side. Neither of us belongs here.”
He squinted, his gaze taking in the grounds and the sunlight spilling over the grass.
“I’m late for work.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “You want to go for a walk later?”
I cocked my head. “Is that the Blue Ridge Sanitarium version of a date?”
Unfazed, he shook his head. “Dating isn’t allowed.”
“Do you always play by the rules?”
His mouth was grim. “When your safety is on the line? Yeah, I do.”
“What does my safety have to do with you and me on a date?” I gave him a flirty smile. “Are you dangerous?”
I already knew the answer to that. To anyone who would hurt me, Jimmy was dangerous. But not to me. Never to me.
“They want to keep an eye on you a little longer.”
My smile collapsed. “And I should be reasonable and just go along with it, but I feel like I’m squandering this gift I’ve been given every second I’m in here.”
“I know, but it was hard for us too,” he said. “Hard for Delia, I mean. Seeing you trapped in that five-minute loop. The absence seizures.”
“But everything’s different now. I’m here. I’m awake.”
He looked about to say something, then changed his mind.
“She got to you, didn’t she?” I
asked. “What did she say?”
“She told me I shouldn’t take advantage of you. And she’s right. It’s not professional. It’s…”
“Wrong? Because I’m a mental patient who can’t make decisions for herself? And let me guess, she threatened to have you fired.”
He nodded.
The fight started to ebb out of me. “Honestly, part of me wants you to get fired. So you’ll go back to school and follow your dreams. You’re not trapped here, Jimmy. You can leave at any time.”
He shook his head. “Someone has to watch out for you.”
Another flush of warmth surged through me. “I don’t need protection anymore.”
“I know,” he said. “But for so long it’s what I’ve been d-d-doing…” He broke off, carved his hand through his hair and took a step away from me. “Goddamn, this f-f-fucking stutter…”
I pulled him back to me. “You only stutter when something is important to you.”
Jimmy nodded, his brown eyes darkening. “You’re important to me.”
He stepped closer and I felt the pull between us, inevitable and potent. My body trembled now, wanting his touch so badly. I’d been so cavalier about being held by him a few days ago, but things between us felt deeper. More. Touching him now would be different.
It would be everything…
“You’ve been important to me for a long time,” I said. “I’ve always felt close to you, Jimmy. No… connected. Do you feel it too?”
“Yeah, I do.” His hand came up and his thumb brushed my chin and then slid along my cheek. “I shouldn’t be doing this.”
“I want you to. So badly.” My eyes fell shut at the sensation and I pressed my cheek into his hand. “In my Cleopatra story, you were my Antony.”
“God, Thea.” His voice hoarse with need and raw emotion.
I opened my eyes and he was right there, breathing my breath as I inhaled his. I could feel his body along every part of mine, a vibration running along the length of me. My cheek where he touched me, down my neck, down to the tips of my breasts that ached and hardened. My hand came up to hold his wrist, and I tilted my chin up to him.