by Abbi Glines
“So, they can fix you...I mean, this?” she asked slowly sounding as if she was terrified.
“Yes, they can.” I told her reassuringly. But I knew they couldn’t heal me. I would never be fixed. I would just learn to go through the motions of living so those I loved didn’t worry about me.
“Have you told Leif?” Her voice had lost its earlier cheer and I hated that it was my fault.
“No, I called you first.”
With a ragged sigh she said, “I love you.” I felt tears spring into my eyes for the first time. I loved her too. “Call Leif and I’ll be there to visit ASAP.”
“Okay. See you soon. Bye.” I pressed end and then called Leif.
“Pagan.” He sounded as relieved as Miranda had.
“Hey you,” I said, needing to reassure him before I dealt him the same news I’d just given Miranda.
“You feeling better today? I hope so, Pagan, because I’m missing you like mad.” I smiled at the warmth his voice always caused.
“I have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Leif. I went to see a psychiatrist.”
“What is that? Are they giving you medicine to fix it?” His voice sounded panicked.
“It’s exactly what it sounds like. I’m having trouble functioning normally due to the trauma we all experienced. You all handled it normally. I didn’t. It could be a chemical imbalance; they’re not sure. But I’m going to be in a psychiatric center for a while. They’re supposed to be able to fix me here. I’m not going to be able to keep my phone but I can have visitors.”
Leif seemed to be taking a deep breath. “So I can come see you? How long will you be there?”
“Yes, you can, and I’m not sure yet.”
“I’m sorry this is happening to you, Pagan. I’m so sorry.” His voice sounded full of pain and guilt.
“Listen to me, Leif. I’m dealing with this because of things that are wrong with me. What we saw just triggered it. I’ll get better.” I needed to hear that lie as much as he did. After reassuring him several more times I hung up and left my phone on the passenger seat of the car. My overnight bag was all that was left in the back seat so I grabbed it and headed up the stairs to my new home, at least for now.
* * * *
The pale yellow room I’d been assigned contained one small round window overlooking the beach. I’d hugged my mother goodbye downstairs thirty minutes ago. I reminded myself I was doing this for her. It would help her deal with her fears of my being crazy. And being away from my bedroom, where so many memories of Dank existed, would help me find a way to live without him.
An older lady stood outside on the sand with a bag of what looked like sandwich bread, throwing it into the air while seagulls circled her head. Either she wasn’t a local and didn’t realize that was a really good way to get pooped on, or she was a psychiatric patient who was too mental to care about a little bird poop.
I turned away from the growing flurry of hungry birds and studied the small room at least half the size of a regular bedroom. Considering this place held twenty-five patients at one time, and ten nurses and two doctors, the rooms couldn’t be too big even if the house was a really large two-story. A single bed sat in the middle of the room with a small, round, white table holding a shell-covered lamp. One single oval mirror hung on the wall over a dresser with three drawers. A very small closet, only large enough to hang up fifteen items and hold three pairs of shoes, was on the opposite wall. I was only allowed one hour in my room during the day. I could use it all at one time or spread it out throughout the day. It was their way of keeping patients surrounded by other people. Seclusion bred depression was their rule of thumb around here.
I glanced over at the small alarm clock they’d left on the round table. I had used up ten of my minutes in my room. I needed to go walk around and be seen so I would have time left to come back later. I walked into the hallway and closed my door behind me. The small key they’d given me was in my pocket and I locked my door. Apparently, there was cause to worry about theft with some of the patients. You weren’t allowed to bring anything of value with you but those suffering from personality disorders would take anything and I needed my clothing. I’d only been allotted a small amount and I needed what I had.
A door opened up down the hallway and a girl with bushy, brown hair and large round glasses stared at me, and then quickly slammed her door shut. I heard the lock click behind her. She was easily startled and frightened. She must be someone truly suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD as they referred to it here. I stared at the other closed doors wondering if everyone on this hall had the same disorder. If so it was going to be loud at night with the screaming caused by nightmares.
I walked down the stairs to the main living area, or what they referred to as the Great Room. It was where the televisions played sitcoms and board games were set up on tables. There were no computers or internet available for patients. A nurse smiled at me brightly as she walked by with a basket full of snack foods.
“We’ll be eating our afternoon snack soon. Hang around in here and you can get something to eat and meet some of the other patients. We have several your age.” Meeting teenagers with psychiatric disorders wasn’t really appealing to me. But I didn’t say anything. Instead, I walked to the double glass doors leading out onto the front deck.
“You won’t be able to open them. They lock them. You know, for us crazies who may take a wild notion to see if we can fly. Although, I figure the sand isn’t going to kill us when we hit.” I turned around to see a young girl with bleached blond hair that I guessed was probably shoulder length. She had it pulled up in piggy tales on top of her head. She wore bright red lipstick, which stood out against her pale skin.
“Thanks.”
She shrugged. “No problem. If you want to go outside and enjoy the beach you can get a nurse to go with you. They like having an excuse to go outside.” I remembered the lady outside earlier feeding the birds. She’d been alone.
I didn’t really want to know who she was so I again nodded and said, “Thanks.” She tilted her thin face from side to side and acted as if she was examining something rather dramatically.
“You aren’t a mental, are you?” I hadn’t expected this strange girl to make such an accurate observation. After all, the doctors all believed I needed help. I shrugged, unsure how to respond.
“Well, they seem to think I am.”
She raised the dark eyebrows she’d left out of the bleaching. “They can be wrong. They have been before.” I wondered if she was referring to herself. I glanced over at the nurse who sat behind a desk working on a laptop. She didn’t seem to react to the accusation that they had people in here who didn’t belong. “Karen knows it’s true. She just won’t admit it. Will you Nurse Karen?” The blond was grinning at the nurse, who glanced up and rolled her eyes affectionately and went back to typing. “She knows it but she’s too busy on Twitter to admit it.”
The nurse reached over and patted the stack of papers she had beside her before glancing back up at the blond again. “I’m plugging in meds and test results.”
“Blah, blah, blah. Don’t let her fool you, she’s a Twitter whore. On it all the fucking time.”
The nurse shot her warning glance. “Language please. You’ll lose ten more minutes from your room time if you aren’t careful.”
The blond shrugged and stared back at me. “Like I said, they aren’t always right around here. I can see it in your eyes. You’re very sane. You don’t have the demons in your eyes most of the people here do.” She stood up and stretched, showing a very pale, flat stomach. She had a large black bar through her belly button. “I’m Gee, by the way.” She held out her hand for me to shake and I went to return it and she jerked her hand away. “Rule number one, don’t shake anyone’s hands. This place is full of mentals.”
I smiled. “I take it you aren’t one of them.”
She let out a cackle of laughter. “Oh no, I’m as screwed up as they come.” Sh
e sauntered away and slapped the papers the nurse was working on as she walked by. “Don’t Tweet too much, Karen, it’s bad for the eyes. Gotta pull back off that shit.”
“Ten minutes, Gee,” the nurse said without looking up.
Gee glanced back at me and winked. “They don’t like dirty words so if you have a shitty mouth you need to reign it in.”
“Twenty minutes, Gee,” the nurse said again, still focused on the screen. Gee cackled with laughter again and headed back toward the dining room.
The nurse glanced up at me. “Gee is definitely a special case. You’ll learn to ignore her. It’s snack time in the dining hall if you want to go get something to eat and meet some other patients.”
I smiled. “Thank you, but I’m not real hungry. Can I just stay here and watch the television?” Nurse Karen nodded and went back to her work. I curled up in a chair and stared blankly at the television screen feeling lonelier than ever before.
Chapter Sixteen
The dining hall was a large room with five long tables that sat ten people each. A cafeteria-style buffet was set up where nurses filled the patients’ plates. This was the only room with large windows. The entire south wall was primarily several large picture windows overlooking the beach. I thanked the nurse as she handed me the bright red tray filled with macaroni and cheese, which appeared very edible, grilled chicken strips, a Caesar salad, green beans, a large wheat roll, and a small slice of some sort of custard I already knew I wouldn’t be trying. The tables closest to the windows seemed to be the popular ones as they were already filling up and a few patients were bickering over specific locations. I decided to sit at one of the tables away from the windows. I didn’t want to have to deal with sitting in someone's coveted seat. I took a plastic cup full of iced tea and turned toward the back row of tables.
“You prolly wanna go get yerself some of that sugah. That tea ain’t got no sweet in it and it is just nasty without it.” A girl with stringy, brown hair and big, brown, round eyes stood frowning at the cup in my hand. Her front teeth seemed to stick out a little and her nose was covered in freckles. She reminded me of someone you might find on a farm somewhere.
“Oh, um, thanks but I don’t drink sugar in my iced tea,” I explained and she snarled her nose.
“Ya must be a Floridian then. Ain’t figerd out why you people carry on as if ya from up north. Ya’ll are more suthurn than we are in Mississippi and we know iced tea needs sugah.”
I struggled to understand her accent but I smiled and turned back toward the table I’d been heading for when I noticed it now had two other occupants: the girl with the brown, bushy hair who had slammed the door and locked herself inside after seeing me earlier, and Gee. I faltered and wondered if maybe I should go sit at another table when Gee shot me a challenging grin. I figured I’d better stick to my plan. Gee expected me to go somewhere else and I didn’t want her thinking she scared me. I was a little surprised she was sitting with the jumpy girl. Gee didn’t seem like the kind of person a fearful, nervous person would be drawn to.
“Ya aint thinkin uh sittin over with those two, are ya?” the farm girl asked me.
I shrugged. “I don’t see why not.”
She chuckled. “Cause Gee is a nut case, that’s why. Straight looney toons, I tell ya.” I bit back a smile at the fact this place was for the mentally disturbed. Wasn’t everyone a little looney toons?
“Um, thanks, but I’ve met Gee and she seems fine.” The girl beside me stared at me as if studying me carefully.
“You ain’t a Schizo, too, are ya? ‘Cause I need to know. I ain’t comfertable round no Schizo’s.” I glanced back at Gee and wondered if that was what she was. Did she have Schizophrenia?
I shook my head. “No, I’m PTSD.”
She beamed. “Oh, good I can deal with that. Ya’ll are easy to handle. Me, I’m Bipolar. Mama had me brought in cause I tried to knock myself off a while back.”
I stiffened, looking at this friendly person with the innocent farm girl appearance, wondering how someone like her could attempt to end her life. “Why?” I heard myself ask.
She shrugged. “Sometimes I get so sad that it jest sounds good.” She said this with all seriousness and I shivered. I never realized there were kids my age who appeared normal but dealt with so much internally. I sat my tray down across from the bushy brunette. “Nice to talk to ya,” the farm girl said, smiling.
“Not going to sit near me, Henrietta? Why, Henrietta, I do believe my feelings are hurt. I may feel the need to cry right here in front of the whole damn cafeteria,” Gee said, smiling at the retreating form of the farm girl.
“Leave her alone,” the bushy brunette hissed before sticking a spoon full of macaroni and cheese into her mouth.
Gee grinned back at the bushy brunette. “It’s so much fun to tease Henrietta. Sometimes I can even get her to say ‘I’ve had ‘nough uh yer smack talkin’. Now leave me uhlone Gee fer I tell on ya’.” Gee imitated Henrietta’s speech perfectly. The bushy brunette grinned and swallowed her mouthful of food.
“So you aren’t crazy? I’m Jess, sorry about earlier today but I’m not into meeting the new crazies who come. I’m crazy enough and I don’t need any more crazy around me. I spend too much time with Gee as it is.” Gee grinned and stuck out her tongue, which also had a bar in it but this one was silver. I stared, surprised by the appearance of her tongue and she cackled with laughter.
“Relax. Pagan. I don’t bite, at least, I don’t bite other people.” She laughed at her comment as did her partner. “I told Jess not to get all worked up over you. I’d seen you and there wasn’t anything wrong with you. But you’re interesting. We can’t seem to figure out what it is they seem to think you have.”
I moved the food around on my plate but nothing appealed to me.
“PTSD,” I supplied, glancing up at her.
“Ah, so they think you have had trauma and it screwed with you. What’s really wrong, since we know you’re not a crazy? What did you do to get sent here?” Jess asked before jamming another spoon full of macaroni and cheese into her mouth. I glanced back toward the nurses who had now started patrolling the aisles.
“That isn’t something I really want to discuss.” I picked up my roll, hoping if I started filling my mouth they would stop expecting me to talk.
Gee nodded and then nudged Jess in the side. “Look over at Roberta. She’s about to take out Kim for touching her plate. Ah, damn, there is Nurse Karen. She’s taking Roberta to get a new plate and wash her hands.” Gee grinned over at me. “Roberta is the best kind of mental case to mess with.”
“She is OCD,” Jess finished for her, grinning. Apparently poor Roberta’s problem was a point of entertainment. Gee flicked her tongue ring on her teeth.
“Funny shit,” she said, grinning.
“Ten minutes tomorrow, Gee,” Nurse Karen’s voice came from behind me.
Jess rolled her eyes. “Why do you do that when you know she can hear you?”
Gee shrugged. “’Cause I can. Or ‘cause I don’t like going to my room alone. You know the voices in my head get a little too loud when I’m alone.” Gee flashed a grin at me and took a bite of her custard pie.
* * * *
I was relieved to get into the bed. After dinner we had been sent to meeting rooms for ‘Discussion Time’, which meant they encouraged everyone to talk. I didn’t want to talk. I had nothing to say. It had grown so tiresome that I’d found myself watching out for wandering souls. After no sign of one for hours, I realized I hadn’t seen one since I stepped foot into the house. Apparently souls were scared of this place. I couldn’t blame them. I could hear the waves crashing outside and I hoped that was the only sound I heard tonight.
As if on cue, I heard a muffled scream. I cringed and buried myself under the covers. It wasn’t that they scared me, but I hurt for them. They truly dealt with things I didn’t understand. Another scream echoed down the hall. Someone had opened their door and set their terror loose. I gl
anced back at my door to make sure I’d locked it. A nurse was talking to the screamer and several doors opened and closed.
“I’m never going to be able to sleep,” I mumbled into the darkness. I got out of bed and walked over to the window to watch the moonlit waves crashing against the shoreline. The waves reminded me of the last night I’d spent with Dank. He’d saved me from the waves intent on taking my life. I’d been ready for it to happen until his arm had wrapped around me. Pain pierced my heart and I had to sit back down on the bed and hold my stomach tightly in order to hold myself together. Another scream came from a few rooms away. A hot tear trickled down my face. I was alone for the first time in my life. I laid down with my knees pulled up to my chest and my arms wrapped tightly around them. My eyelids grew heavy and the muffled screams began to be drowned away.
As I drifted into my dreams the music began to play. I fought to wake back up. The familiar music was my lullaby. The weariness from the day and my sense of loneliness seemed to disappear as the music played. The warmth of Dank’s voice filled my mind and I slept.
* * * *
“Already got a visitor and he’s yummy, yummy, lick your lips yummy,” Gee said, strutting into the library I was almost positive she never spent any time in. I glanced up from the worn leather copy of Pride and Prejudice I’d found among the shelves of books lining the walls.
“I have a visitor?” It had to be Leif. “Thank you.” I stood up and followed Gee back down to the Great Room where all visitations had to take place. Leif’s frown evaporated when he saw me coming toward him. A smile eased the worried line in his forehead.
“Pagan,” he said walking up and pulling me into a fierce hug. I held onto him tightly, trying hard not to cry.
“I’m so glad you came,” I whispered, hoping the emotion in my voice wasn’t obvious.
“I miss you, Pagan, so bad,” he said into my hair and we stood there holding onto each other until someone cleared their throat and I reluctantly pulled back. Nurse Karen was frowning and she shook her head.