Her (46 page)

I spoke up, “I haven’t had a family session yet, but I will tomorrow. So...”

“What do you expect to accomplish?” Dr. Bent inquired.

I shrugged and replied, “I don’t know. I guess it could go either way.” That was not a good way to respond, I thought, only after I had said it.

“Why do you say that?” Dr. Bent really liked to press on an issue.

Hell, I’d dug myself in the hole. Time to try and climb back out. “I didn’t mean it like that,” I tried to clean up. “What I mean is, I could try to do better and help my family see that I am making an effort to try to get better. I want to show them that I can continue to keep getting better. Then, they can accept it and help me by supporting me, or I could show them that this time here has done nothing for me by being negative and not really trying. Nevertheless, of course, my time here has been very good. I can say that I do feel different in my attitude towards my life. I actually want to do better.”

“That is absolutely wonderful, Kristen,” she said.

Relief rushed through me. I saved myself.

“I’m very glad that you feel the progress that you have made. I must say that you have come a long way since you first came in here. I’m proud of you.” Her smile was so convincing.

I smiled back, but hoped that my smile could have been just as convincing as hers could.

The main unit was almost empty after visiting hours. I didn’t have any visitors, nor did Mena. She sat at the table in the living room, alone, staring at a blank screen on the television. The television was not on, and she was not indulging in any other kind of entertainment. She was just sitting and staring like she was almost catatonic. I began to worry, so I started walking towards her, but a voice called out to me before I could get close enough to grab her attention.

A gentle hand squeezed my shoulder. I turned around. It was Geoffrey. I hadn’t expected it to be him. I calmly and almost unnoticeably pulled my long sleeve down over my arm to make sure it was down far enough so that he wouldn’t see my fresh cuts. He didn’t notice, because he smiled as if happy to see me. I returned the smile. He had one of those jolly smiles that made you want to smile back, even if you were in a bad mood.

“Come over here with me, Kristen. Let’s talk.” He sat down at one of the tables on the main unit. I joined him.

My heart started beating a little faster when we sat down, because he looked me in the eyes immediately, and the smile disappeared from his face. He seemed serious. I hadn’t seen him serious since that night with Rocky. I wondered what this could be about.

“How are you holding up?” he asked.

“I’m okay,” I said.

“I mean, with everything that’s happened in here the last few weeks you’ve been here. It’s been a lot for you. First with Rocky, and then with Janine. How are you really doing?”

“I guess I’m just like everyone else,” I told him.

“Hmm,” he said.

It was that “hmm” the way Jack used to say. It made my heart jump.

“Why?” I asked. “Is there something I should be feeling?”

“No,” he said. “Your feelings are yours. I can’t tell you how to feel. It’s just that, if there is something more that you are feeling, and you may be too embarrassed or too ashamed to say, I want to let you know that it’s all right.”

“Thanks, Geoffrey. I know.”

“Because I know when I saw Janine, I got a little scared. I mean, it really frightened me to see that. I hadn’t known Janine that long, but I did get to know her through the Group Therapy sessions I sat in on, and whenever we’d pass each other on the unit. I guess I figured, since you were her roommate and you were around her a lot more than me, that it would be a little hard on you too.”

I sighed. He was right. “I was scared,” I admitted. “When I saw her down on the floor and sick the way she was, it felt like I wasn’t even seeing the Janine that I remembered. It had been like that for a while since Dr. Cuvo left. She had just been so different. It hurt to see her so down, because the Janine that I remember is the one that I really admired. She was so pretty and nice. She was funny. She helped me feel more like I fit in here with everyone. But then she just started to drift away.”

Geoffrey looked me in the eyes as I spoke, and that old feeling of discomfort filled me. I wanted to ask him to stop staring at me, but then I realized that he wasn’t staring at me. He was really listening to me. It seemed like he actually cared because he empathized with me.

“I miss Janine,” I said. I felt tears begin to well up. He opened his mouth to speak, but I continued, “I miss Dr. Cuvo. I miss Daniel and Rocky. I didn’t even really know Rocky.”

“I know, Kristen,” Geoffrey said sincerely. “I miss them, too. It’s amazing how, when we make a choice and do something to ourselves. It affects everyone else around us, whether it’s positive or negative. Daniel made progress well enough for him to get out of here. So he made it out without needing extended care. We all miss him. Dr. Cuvo’s resignation affected his patients. Janine’s actions affected you and everyone who was trying to help her. You didn’t even know Rocky, and his choice and actions have affected not only you, but also everyone else. Even Dr. Pelchat has to find a way to cope with all of this.”

“Wow,” I said as I wiped my eyes with my sleeve. “How?”

“We know that we can influence a change and do our best to help you, but we can’t make you change. It lies within you. You are the one who has to put forth the effort to get better. It gets hard, especially when you get out of the comforting walls of Bent Creek. You won’t have your doctor coming to visit you every day. You won’t have Ms. Mosley or me there to scream at you in the morning and motivate you to get on with your life every day. You have to begin to see and do for yourself as you receive treatment and continue therapy while you’re out there. Just take the advice from your doctor and us: take your medicine, and maintain yourself. That’s very important. No matter what you go through, you have to remember that you must always maintain who you are. If you can maintain and not let yourself get lost in the troubles, then you will become a survivor.”

Everything he said sank deep inside of me. I wanted to maintain a stable mind so that, when I got out of Bent Creek, I would be able to survive.

“You are so right,” I responded. “Thank you, Geoffrey.”

“Sure thing,” he said with a big smile.

I couldn’t help but smile back.

“Don’t hold things inside like that,” he said. “If you want to say something, say it. Especially when someone shows concern and gives you a chance to express yourself.”

“Okay,” I said.

CHAPTER 48

I blinked once after I got up from the table with Tai to get ready for dinner, and time seemed to skip with that one blink. I was lying in bed with a full stomach. I was all cleaned up and in my pajamas. How had night come so fast? I rolled over on the bed and found my silver butterfly pendant outside of the pillowcase. I gently tucked it back in. Mr. Sharp winked at me as the luster on the wings shined.

I heard Mena enter the room. She came out of the bathroom wearing an open robe. Her long hair fell down her back and over her shoulders. She only had on panties underneath that robe, and I could see everything else. She walked over to her bed and sat down. She started to put lotion on, but before she could rub it on herself, she caught me looking at her. I quickly looked back down at my pillow. I heard her chuckle.

“It sucks,” she said in a calm voice. “We can’t have our own bathrobe belts.” Even though I wasn’t looking at her, I could tell she was smiling.

I slowly looked back up. She wasn’t looking at me anymore, but I was certainly looking at her. She had taken her robe completely off. She gently rubbed the lotion on her body. Her long black locks were curly from the water in the shower, and she let them hang down her back and drape her shoulders. Her beautiful skin was like caramel. She didn’t look like Mena, but it was her. I made myself turn away. I played with my pendant while it was inside of the pillowcase to keep myself occupied.

“Okay,” she said, “I’m dressed. You can look up now. Not that I had stopped you from looking.”

I ignored her and stayed turned away. When I heard the bed creak, I turned towards her because I knew she’d be under the sheets and the thin, white blanket. She was telling the truth; she was completely dressed and her hair was pulled back in her usual ponytail. Her ponytails were always so tight that she looked like she'd had a face lift. This made her look even meaner. Now she looked like Mena again. I was strangely comforted by this.

“Why are you grinning?” she asked me.

“No reason,” I said, and then I stopped smiling.

“Good night,” she said as she tried to snuggle under the thin, white blanket.

I felt bad for her. No one had come to visit her, so she couldn’t even ask for a thicker blanket. The nights were so cold in the hospital, no matter how warm it got outside. It seemed like they cranked the AC up higher at nighttime. Poor Mena wrapped herself in the blanket, like she was in a cocoon, just to keep warm. I lay comfortably under Janine’s blanket and mine.

The comfort didn’t last long. I woke up in the hallway again. This time it was daytime instead of night, and I was in front of Nicholas’ old bedroom again. The door was completely closed this time, and I didn’t hear anything coming from the other side. If only I could just wake up. I shook my head, pulled my hair, and even bit myself, but I did all of this in the hallway. Nothing would get me back to Bent Creek. I didn’t want to be in this place. Not again.

Feeling hopeless, I started to turn away, but before I could move an inch, I heard a low moan from the other side of the door. It was a painful moan followed by another. I put my ear to the door, and the painful moans were mixed with low cries. I had heard these cries before. The cries had played in my mind until that night when I’d tried to make them stop. The night I’d taken the pills and had taken the knife to make myself rest. The night I’d let Nick see me weak.

I reached out for the door, and this scene suddenly started to move in slow motion. Every move I made and every sound I heard was dramatically played out. I couldn’t hit a button to make it play faster.

I turned the knob to Nick’s door, which seemed to take an eternity. The door opened slowly, without a creak. Jack was naked on top of Nick. He was hurting him all over again, but this time I could see everything a lot clearer, since time had slowed down. I opened my mouth to scream, but nothing came out. I wanted to move. I wanted to go over and grab him and kill him, but I couldn’t move. Jack raped Nicholas until I thought he was dead. That’s when I screamed, and Jack saw me watching. I got scared and I turned away, sure that Nick was dead. I ran for the kitchen, but before I could get down the hallway, Dr. Cuvo and Dr. Pelchat were there, waiting for me. Dr. Pelchat had my chart open in his hand and held a pen, ready to write. Dr. Cuvo had something shiny in his hands, and he held it out to me.

I looked at what it was before I took it. I’d grabbed the knife out of the drawer. He had it ready for me, because he knew I was going to need it. Dr. Pelchat nodded at me when I looked at him. I took the knife from Dr. Cuvo and quickly turned back towards Nick’s room down the hallway. I tried to make time go faster, but it wouldn’t. I could only take slow, angry steps. As I got closer to the door, I let the anger rise inside of me so that I would have enough strength to make the knife go all the way through him and make it hurt and make him cry worse than the way he made Nick cry. Tears fell out of my eyes, and that’s when the anger took over.

I was two steps away from Nick’s door when the door flew open at a normal speed, while I was still in slow motion, and Jack ran from the doors, faster than time was allowing me to go. He ran past me quickly before I had time to register that he’d made time to work for him and I hadn’t. I was still moving towards the door. When I got to Nick’s door, I opened it immediately. Time sucked me back into normal speed as soon as I saw my brother, wrapped in his blanket and lying on the floor. Jack was gone. The knife slipped from my hand and fell to the floor.

Nick lay on the floor and didn’t move. He didn’t make a sound. I turned to Dr. Pelchat and Dr. Cuvo, who were standing at the end of the hallway. They seemed to be moving in slow time. I saw Dr. Pelchat writing in my chart, and Dr. Cuvo was looking over his shoulder. I knew what was coming next. I looked in at Nick as he lay motionless and probably dead. I looked back at the doctors desperately.

“No, please...” I pleaded with them.

Dr. Pelchat kept writing.

“No...” I cried in a whisper. “Please don’t do this.”

“Kriiiisstenn,” Dr. Cuvo bellowed out in a scary, deep, slow-motion voice.

“Please...” I pleaded. “What did you write?”

“Whaaaat did I wriiiite?” Dr. Pelchat’s voice was even more demonic.

He threw his head back and laughed with the voice of a monster. While lost in his laughter, he let Dr. Cuvo take my chart from his hands before he dropped it. As Dr. Pelchat laughed and amused himself, it only made me even more frightened. The sounds of the deep and horrific laughs were making bumps form on my skin. Dr. Cuvo turned the chart to me slowly.