Stolen (24 page)

“I don’t know where to begin,” he drawls out.

 “Bruce, just jump in. You’re killing me here
with this waiting game. Just start talking, and if you lose me, I’ll stop you,
okay?” Looking into his eyes with earnest, I wait for him to take the bait and
dish already.

Sigh number three. “Yeah, okay.” He rewards me with a
smile—a weak smile, but a smile all the same. “I just want you to know before I
begin that your mom is out in the hallway, so if you want me to stop at any
point to bring her in here, I will. I thought it might be best if it were just
you and I for the time being. That cool with you?”

“Yeah, that’s fine,” I reassure him; anything to get
this caboose on the tracks.

“So, I guess the logical thing would be to start from
the beginning.” I don’t want to say ‘duh!’ but trust me, it isn’t easy to
refrain.

“I know that look,” he says with a laugh. “Give me a
break, will you?”

“Sorry,” I say while laughing into my free hand. “I
didn’t say anything, though, so you can’t get mad,” I inform him.

“Uh, uh, you got me on a technicality.”

 Things are starting to feel a little less heavy
until I see Bruce rub his hand up and down the legs of his pants, alternating
between his pants and picking the lint I’m sure doesn’t exist from the hunter
green polo shirt he’s wearing, a nervous tick I’m all too familiar with.

Shifting a little in the bed, I take a few shallow,
silent breaths while Bruce begins again. “Do you remember the day you, Rogan,
and Cass dropped Luke off at his house?” Oh no! Clutching the fabric of the
hospital gown close to my chest, I nod, too terrified to speak. Why is he
bringing up that day?

 Sigh number four passes through his lips. “Okay,
yeah, well, anyway,” he stutters, before composing himself. “That day something
bad happened, but not exactly how you remember it.” Avoiding my eyes, his head
stays focused on the bed sheet in front of him. “Luke and his mom died that
day, his uncle did do it, but that’s not where the story ends.”

Closing my eyes, I repeat the words
I can handle
this. I can take whatever he says and handle it. I am strong. I can handle
anything he tells me.

One breath, two breaths, three breaths, go. My eyes
open to a worried Bruce. “Keep going,” I demand, unyielding in my need to know
the truth finally.

Sigh number five. “There was another murder that day.”
Holding tight to my trembling hands, his words spew out like vomit at my feet.
I already know, somewhere I always knew. “Only you and Rogan drove away that
day; Cass stayed.”

I pull my knees tight to my body as quiet sobs shake
me at my core. I can’t be sure if these are tears or the dam being opened, the
water being the truths I hid behind a large concrete wall, the truths I thought
I would never have to release.

“Cass died, too,” I say aloud just so I can hear the
words.

“Yes. She did.”

Memories are flooding my psyche in painful bursts;
memories I’ve locked up, memories I didn’t want to deal with, memories I now
have to face whether I like it or not. “I remember things.”

Optimistically, Bruce gently coaxes me to share what I
remember.

“I remember taking Luke home. Cass wanted to stay with
him until his mom got home. She claimed she was worried about him being alone,
but I think she really just wanted to be alone with him.

“I shouldn’t have let her stay, but she begged and I
was trying to be the ‘cool’ older sister. I made her promise me she would be
home by nine o’clock no matter if Luke’s mom was home or not. She whined,
saying that was only two hours. I told her two hours or nothing.

“I left her there. I didn’t know what was inside. I
never would have left her had I known. Never! Oh, Bruce! Why did I leave her?”
I beg, desperate for an answer.

“Jess, no one blames you. No one could have known. You
did nothing wrong. No one blames you,” he repeats as he moves to sit beside me
on the bed, pulling me into his open arms.

The dam won’t stop. The truths just keep flooding my
senses.

 Pulling back slightly, I relay more of the
memories I tried so hard to lock away. “I remember meeting you. I remember it
now. It wasn’t Cass and mom who had come back from the police station; it was
mom and Rogan. Mom took Rogan so he could give his statement on what he
remembered. You came home to try to get me to talk, but I was already gone,
huh?

“Why did I think there was a stalker? What kind of
sick mind creates a stalker to hide behind instead of dealing with . . . with .
. . with a death in the family?” I’ve said it once already, I can’t say it
again, I may never be able to say it again. I obviously haven’t been ready to
deal with it before now.

Cass is gone. My sister is gone. What am I going to do
without her? I silently beg for an answer.

 “Jess, it was your way of coping. You created a
reality in which you were the victim, not Cass. It was your mind’s way of taking
the burden you felt you deserved. You were trying to make amends to your belief
that what happened was your fault, but it wasn’t your fault. You have to
believe me here, it was a devastating tragedy that no one could have stopped,
least of all you.”

Not stopping to take in his words, I let the rants
continue. Why stop now? “I remember getting so angry at Rogan. He kept trying
to help me through Luke’s death, but nothing he did made me feel any better. It
was because I wasn’t dealing with what I was really upset about, huh? No one
was going to be able to help me until I admitted the truth, ‘the truth shall
set you free,’ right?” I ask sardonically.

“Basically,” Bruce concedes. “You were angry at
everyone associated with Cass. The doctors think that’s why you took so quickly
to me since I had nothing to do with the family.”

“That makes sense I guess. So was I ever abducted? Or
is that a lie, too?”

 The pity in his eyes is answer enough.

 “Wow, I really went all out with this delusion.
Talk about not dealing with your issues.” I try for a laugh, but a mangled
snort is what comes out instead.  

 “We all deal in our own way. Yes, you may have
been elaborate in the way you dealt, but that was only because of the
incredible amount of guilt you felt burdened with; everything your mind thought
up was another piece of the punishment pie, if you will, adding more and more
until the day when you wouldn’t be able to take anymore, when the final piece
of the pie would be the hard snap back to reality. Life sucks, doesn’t it?” he
jokes, nudging his elbow into my side.

 A smile tears through my lips despite my lack of
anything remotely resembling happiness.

 “Why Rogan? Why the stalker, and why did Rogan
have to die? I love him more than life. Why would I turn away from him? Why not
turn toward him?”

 “The doctors believe he was your sister’s
replacement in your mind. You had to lose someone close to you to cope in some
capacity, and he was the next love of your life, so to speak, after your
sister.

“We were all afraid things would crumble after the
funeral. Instead, it only seemed to solidify your beliefs. Rogan knew he
couldn’t show up, so he made sure his mom stayed with you for comfort. None of
us knew if that was going to be a good or bad thing, but we also knew she had
to be there since, to you, it was her son’s funeral.

“When I picked you up from the church and we went to
the pond, you were so upset it took everything in me to keep from telling you
Rogan wasn’t really dead, that you could be with him if you would let your mind
allow it. I knew that wouldn’t be fair, though. You really did have to come to
this on your own. Do you remember anything else?”

     Pinching the skin between my
eyes, I attempt to relieve the pounding in my head while also attempting to recall
more of my buried memories. I remember Alex. Did that even happen? Bruce
wouldn’t have known about that, so I can’t very well ask him to confirm or deny
that piece of the mystery.

What else? What else? What about Kyle and Rachel? “I
remember people, but now I don’t know where I know them from. I’m beginning to
doubt that I know them at all,” I share honestly.

  “Well, let me see if I can help out. What are
their names?”

 “It’s Ky—” The door swinging open stops me
mid-sentence, or rather who walks in stops me mid-sentence, Kyle, with Rachel
at his side. Making my eyes blink faster than the shutter of a camera does
nothing to change the image in front of me. I know because no matter how many
times I try to make the picture change, the fact that Kyle appears to be my
doctor and Rachel my nurse isn’t fading away. What the hell have I done with
myself?

 “You were going to say Kyle and Rachel?” Bruce
questions, already knowing my answer to be yes.

“If you don’t mind, Bruce, I think I’ll take this
one,” Kyle interjects. Bruce doesn’t leave my side as Kyle, or should I say Dr.
Warren as his name tag reminds me, takes the vacant seat in front of me.

 “I guess you’ve figured it out that I’m your
doctor, Rachel is your nurse, and you’re currently being hospitalized in
connection with your mind’s inability to rationalize reality with the reality
you’ve created and been living in for the past three years. Do you understand
so far?” His eyes are encouraging, not judging me, seeming legitimately to want
to help me.

 I manage a nod.

 “Good,” he starts after another assessing
moment, ensuring I’m keeping up I assume. “When you first came here, you were
in a pretty bad place. It was clear you needed to make a human connection with
someone outside of your mind’s network of acceptable people. That’s where
Rachel and I came in.

“We stayed with you when we could, spoke with you
about topics that would be relevant to a young woman, and slowly you began
coming out of your self-imposed shell.

“The hospital has a social every couple of months that
we told you about. You seemed eager to go, to get out and about with others,
but when the time came, your mind shut back down; you just weren’t ready yet. I
think mayb—”

“Stop!” I shout before he can continue. There was
never a college party I was going to be going to, but instead a ‘social’ at a
mental hospital?

My head feels like it’s splitting into a million
pieces. I’m not going to be able to endure this pain much longer, but before I
succumb to it, I have to get out the question nipping the back of my brain.

The room is silent. All eyes are on me, waiting for me
to speak. What is she going to say? the likely question forefront in their
fully functioning, well adapted brains. “How long have I been here? And where
is here?”

If any of you out there have wondered if there’s an
audible noise when eyes blink, the answer is an emphatic yes! Three pairs of
eyes blink in unison—the only sound in the room being those blinking eyes—a
silent dare being challenged among the three of them on who gets to tell the
loon the depressing realities of her pathetic life.

One breath.

Two breaths.

Three breaths.

 Go.

 “This is Clear View Mental Hospital, and you’ve
been with us for about two and a half years now,” Kyle takes the plunge,
answering the questions everyone clearly dreaded answering.

Two and a half years? What the hell? The room is
silent. I feel eyes on me, waiting for me to break, or react, or something. I
can’t worry about that now, though. All I can think is of the almost three
years I’ve just had taken out from me in less than three seconds.

 For the first time since I woke, I take in my
surroundings. There’s the bed I’m sitting on, a worn chair, a picture of a girl
by a horse, and a window with . . . wait a minute, a girl by a horse?

Pushing myself off the bed, I walk the short distance
to the picture to examine it closer. It’s not just some girl standing by a
horse, it’s me as a little girl next to a friend’s horse when I was eight. Why
of all pictures is this one here?

I take a moment to focus on the window. It isn’t very
large, but what’s more important to note is that it has bars on it, effectively
locking me into this small, stark white cell of a room. The walls suddenly feel
like they’re closing in on me. The white taking over, the bars of the window
restraining me from leaving, the horse in the picture rearing its large mane in
my direction as if to tell me it’s free while I’m confined. It lives in the
open where I belong while I’m in this place trapped like an animal.

My head! Oh, my head! The ringing in my ears is so
painful, the lights so bright, the nausea building from within too much to
fight. Leaning on the wall for support does little for me except afford me the
luxury of sliding down to the floor instead of falling face-first, vomit rising
as I go.

I could say lying in my own vomit after having
collapsed to the floor of a mental hospital would be a low point in my life,
for me, though, it’s almost like a new beginning, a day with a memory I can
hold onto from start to finish. I know it isn’t the best memory to have, but
I’m treasuring it for what it is—a reminder that I’m not too far gone to hold
onto an event, register it to memory, then call on that memory for validation
that the event happened. It’s the small things honestly. I never realized how
small an event could be to be significant. As it turns out, every event is
significant. Who knew?