Disconnected (13 page)

Chapter Twenty-four

She's sitting in the dayroom, the young girl with pasty hair. She's there all alone, just staring at the dizzy-patterned carpet. It's the only room with a TV. The huge windows again have the thick metal netting just outside the glass. She's sitting there all curled up in one of the chairs off in the corner. I try to look like I'm busy, sifting through the board games and puzzles on the other side of the room. But I am compelled to talk to her. She's young like I am; can't be any older then nineteen or twenty.

Amelia suddenly reappears in my mind
. Don't do it, Milly. Don't even bother with her. She couldn't care less about you. She couldn't care less about herself.

Amelia continues to bark away with all the doubts I would ever have at approaching someone. Don't do this, don't do that. I swear that all Amelia's good for is telling me all the things I don't want to hear.

I pull out one of the puzzle boxes and sit at the table. After I open the box and lay out all the pieces, I walk up to her and ask, “Would you like to help me with a puzzle?”

I realize this sounds totally lame, but I can't think of anything else to say to her.

“No thank you,” she mumbles, curling back into a ball and wrapping her arms around her legs.

“Yeah, I know it's pretty dumb anyway, sorry to bother you.”

And as I start to walk away she says, “It's not dumb, I just can't.”

Don't do this, Milly. She's crazier than you. Jesus Christ, she can't even do a puzzle.

I stare at her stealthily for a few minutes while I try to shift my thoughts away from Amelia's. I am interested in finding out why she feels as though she can't, so I take a seat alongside her and simply ask. What do I have to lose?

“It's not that I don't know how. I just can't concentrate on anything these days,” she says.

I look at her a little closer and realize if she just took a shower, combed her hair, and changed into decent clothes, she would actually be quite beautiful. Her soulful green eyes are soothing to look at and her skin is near flawless. I envy that kind of skin. If it wasn't for this acne and Amelia threatening me to pick, scrape, and cut it, maybe I would have beautiful skin too.

“I understand,” I tell her.

“Do you? Do you really?” She looks at me like it's a challenge—like what she's going through is worse than my situation.

“Well, I mean, I guess. I'm in here too, like you.”

“Ha, you have a point there,” she says with a smile. It's the first time she's sounded positive. And in a way it's infectious. I smile back.

“So what's your name again?” she turns to me and asks.

“It's Milly. Well Amelia Norris if you wanna get technical.”

She smiles again and clearly shows an interest.

“I'm Miranda, but they call me Randy for short.”

“Pretty name. You don't hear that too often.”

“Neither do you with Amelia. Reminds me of Amelia Earhart,” she says, loosening her arms around her legs and sitting up straight.

“Yeah, isn't she like that chick that flew around the world or something?”

“Something like that.”

We kid around about names for a while, saying names we like and names we don't. She tells me of a girl she knew that was named Emily—a name that sounded something close to Milly and Amelia. She mentions how she was bullied by her in high school. Which leads me to ask her how old she is.

“Nineteen, and you?”

“Eighteen last week.”

After I tell her how old I am, she tells me of her son, Christopher. I'm surprised she got pregnant at such a young age, which spurs on more conversation.

We talk for a good twenty minutes or so till the nurse interrupts us, saying that I've got a phone call waiting for me. At first I wonder who it is, but I quickly realize it's gotta be the one and only person that knows I'm in here.

The nurse says, “I'll transfer your call to one of the pay phones in the hall. Please take it there.”

Finally, after a week of being in the hospital, she calls.

***

“How are they treating you?” she says matter-of-factly.

“Okay. How's Grandpa George?” I cup the phone closer to my ear, trying to hear her every word, but it's hard with everyone walking through the halls.

Something, something “…so, don't worry about it,” she says. I couldn't hear the first part because the black older lady was screaming about her medication to one of the nurses. It doesn't help that Aunt Rachel is speaking so softly through the phone.

“What was that?” I ask. “Is he okay, then?”

“He's fine. I don't want you to worry, Milly,” she says again. “I just want you to concentrate on taking care of yourself. I'm really sorry I haven't come up to see you. But I'll try to visit you soon. And I'll call again tomorrow. I promise.” She sounds remorseful, but it occurs to me that her history in keeping promises isn't so good.

The nurse interrupts me again, telling me my time is up. I want desperately to say more. I want to know when the hell I am going to get out of here. I want to see my grandfather. But instead, I tell Aunt Rachel I have to get off the phone with her. She reassures me that everything's going to be better from now on, and for a moment I am relieved. Maybe she knows something I don't. Maybe things
will
be all right.

We say our good-byes and quickly hang up.

I take a seat at one of the tables in the kitchen area and think of how much I really know Aunt Rachel. Who is she really? The person who is so cold to me most of the time is so different from the person writing in her diary.

If I dig down deep enough, I can remember what my mother used to say about her.

After my Grandmother Adeline died, the family mostly split up. Rachel left, moving to some far-off place, I'm not sure exactly where. My mother left, too, having married my father, Frank, at a young age, and with me to take care of. I'm grateful they were so eager to raise me. But I always thought it was so cruel that both of them just up and left my grandfather all alone like that, when his wife had just died. How could they do that to him?

My mother always spoke with love and pride of her sister Rachel. She'd tell me how Aunt Rachel practically raised her because their mother was ill and how she loved to comb her long hair. But as adults they hardly ever talked.

I remember how my mother loved to buy the newest novel by talented writer and author Rachel Livingstone. Sometimes she tried to communicate with her, but Rachel was always distant—never attending family functions or anything like that. My mom said that was because Aunt Rachel and Grandpa George never got along, but she wouldn't tell me why. “You're just making excuses for her,” I remember my father saying. There was always something there that I could never understand.

My own memories are equally confusing. Every time Aunt Rachel was around Grandpa George, she'd look at him with disdain in her eyes. She never seemed to care about him at all. But he gave her the house and all its belongings. I just don't understand it. What had he ever done to her?

As I sit here, delving into the abyss of scattered memories, the lunch lady cuts into my thoughts, yelling to everyone that the food is here—like we're all just some kind of cattle waiting to be fed.

Again I am suddenly feeling sick to my stomach, not wanting to eat any of that slop they call food. I wonder if they serve better in jail. And then I think, in a way, I am in jail. Still trapped. I'm still not sure when I will get out. I just have to trust that Aunt Rachel will get me out of here soon. But there's something in the pit of my stomach, along with the sick feeling—a feeling of doubt. And that feeling of doubt I have is about what Aunt Rachel is hiding.

Chapter Twenty-five

After the five-thirty meeting, people all scurry into the dayroom and wait for their loved ones to come. Six o'clock is when we can have visitors, eighteen and older. As the time draws near, the door starts buzzing as they let in the visitors. It's really pathetic when your life comes down to waiting in a locked area for people who love you and then they have to leave shortly thereafter. You really don't appreciate things until it all comes crashing down on you like this.

Poor, Milly, expecting visitors. God, please, you're the one that's pathetic. You think anyone's gonna wanna see you? The pathetic lost being that has nothing in her life? No one? Not a soul. Let's face it, Milly, you're lost for good
.

Amelia talks up a storm to me about how we are not going to get anyone to come and see us. And I suppose she is right. There really is no one else except Aunt Rachel. But she did say she would come up and see me. So why can't I expect that?

I watch Gregg huddle up to the door as they buzz in the woman waiting for him on the other side. The nurses pat her down like cops, making sure she doesn't have anything that will harm anyone. First she empties out her pockets, putting her cell phone and keys in the basket and they ask her a few questions as she signs in.

The same type of procedure goes for the rest of the people waiting to come in. Naturally, after an hour or so, with little time left for visitation, I go back into my room and lie down. I start to nod off, when one of the nurses comes up to my door and tells me someone's here for me.

My heart races and I am nervous. Nervous to see her. I really don't know what to expect at this point so I try to settle my assumptions down.

This isn't going to go well. I can feel it, Milly. Just you wait and see, she's come here to tell you Grandpa George's dead. And she's going to tell you she can no longer help you. You're on your own, Milly. Even I can't help you now.

Over and over again, Amelia rags at me about how this visit is going to hurt me in some way—kill my thoughts so they will turn to dust. But I have a feeling she's wrong. Well,
hoping
is more like it.

When I get back to the dayroom, I am surprised I don't see Aunt Rachel. Maybe the one nurse has got the wrong patient. Maybe she meant to tell someone else they have a visitor and not me.

It isn't until I see a scraggly haired young man with his back turned to the windows that I realize who my visitor is. I can't believe my eyes. Is it? Could it possibly be? And then he turns around.

“Hey, Milly, these are for you.” He hands me a bouquet of flowers. “Yeah, wasn't sure if I could bring them or not. Some of them got a little crushed when the nurses were sifting through them, so I hope you don't mind that.”

Blake looks amazing. I want nothing more than to run up and hug him, but something inside me tells me to hold back, well someone, that is—Amelia, to be exact.

But I don't listen. I don't care to listen to her right now. She was wrong. Like she's always wrong. And in this moment I am so overjoyed I can hardly contain myself.

“But how? I mean…” I say, stumbling over my words.

“Yeah, guess I got some explaining to do,” he says with a smile. “Is there somewhere we could talk?”

“Umm…my room. We could go there if you want.” Suddenly the rushing feeling hits my face beyond containment. I can no longer hold in my excitement and I feel the urge to talk. And so I do.

I babble on and on about what's been going on. I can't believe I am speaking so freely to him. There's just something about him that puts me at ease—as if there was a green light that says go. So I go on and on some more.

After my five-minute babble, I am suddenly struck with sadness and start crying. “I'm…sorry,” I say to him. “It's just…” Sniffling in between words. “It's just that I'm so happy to see you. This is truly wonderful. How did you know I was here?”

He looks at me with surprise. And for a few seconds there is an odd silence. But as we get into my room, he tells me, “I can't believe you don't know.”

“Don't know what? Please tell me.”

“I'm the one who brought you in.”

A wave of confusion hits me. I remember sitting there in the darkened moonlight, surrounded by all the beauty of the garden. And yes, I even heard something rustling in the bushes. But I was so out of it, I couldn't tell who or what it was. I just always assumed Aunt Rachel found me and brought me here.

He goes on to tell me how worried he was with all that blood running down my arm. He says he tried to wake me while he called 9-1-1. He says to me that he waited for hours in the ER.

It's amazing to hear all this. Then something strikes me. “How did you get up here? I mean, visitors have to be eighteen, and I wasn't sure—”

He cuts me off before I can even say any more. “Listen, that's one of the things I need to tell you. I'm actually twenty. I live alone in the Hillshire Apartments a few miles away from your Aunt Rachel's.”

Suddenly confusion morphs into anger. “Why did you tell me you were still in school?” I don't know what to think. Amelia is laughing at me right now.
See, he's just a liar. Wanna get involved with that? He's just gonna bring you down.

“I had my reasons. I just didn't want to turn you away.”

I'm cold to him. I'm hurt and can't think of anything else to say. “You know, Blake, I don't get you. Why are you so interested in me anyway? I'm sure there are plenty of other people you can save.”

“I didn't want you to think I'm a deadbeat, okay? I dropped out of high school in my junior year and had to take a job after my father kicked me out. Please forgive me, Milly. Everything else that I told you was true.”

After hearing his outpouring, my urge to know the truth about my journal bubbles up inside of me, rising to my mouth. A chill spreads across my skin.

Blake looks at me, waiting to hear a response.

And just like that, as if I hadn't struggled to ask at all, I exhale the words, “Did you read my journal?”

“No. I would never do anything like that,” he says, looking surprised that I even asked. “I found it in my car and gave it to your aunt right away.”

Somehow I believe him. He looks at me with sincere eyes, almost ready to cry. I think of how dark his life is. He has mentioned his problems with his sister's passing followed by the onset of depression—about his brother too. His family's just as messed up as mine is, but in a different way. How could I turn my back on him now? He's just as lost as I am.

We stand in my room, near the windows, and he comes in closer, putting his hands around my waist. Suddenly it feels like butterflies have drifted all inside my body. From head to toe, the feeling is amazingly good. I can't say anything, but look in his eyes.

“Milly, I know this is early to say. And you don't have to say it back if you don't feel it. But ever since we've met, there's just something about you I can't stop thinking about. You make me feel important. Like I'm a somebody. I know all I got is that garden job, but it pays the rent. I promise myself and I'll promise to you too—to do better, to get my GED.”

“Blake, you don't have to promise me anything—”

“Just listen,” he says, cutting me off. “There's so much I want to share with you. I just can't handle being without you and seeing you suffer so alone like this.”

“But—“

“Please, Milly. What I am trying to tell you here is—”

“Blake, before you say anything, you should know I am so messed up it isn't even funny. I think something bad happened with my parents and until I figure it out—” I look down to the floor, trying not to cry. “I have nothing.”

He leans in close, raising his warms hands to lift up to my face. “You have me…and we can figure it out together.” He then moves in to kiss me on my cheek and whispers in my ear, “I'm in love with you….”