Straightjacket (7 page)

“I was sent here to help you.”

She shook her head in confusion. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Help you—” His mouth was so dry. He had to look away from her. As each second passed, he was falling deeper and deeper into something that he wasn’t supposed to be feeling.

“Help show you that it doesn’t have to be this way.” He blurted it out, before he did something he’d regret. “You don’t deserve—deserve the way you’re treated. You’re strong. You’re not alone.” He was starting to ramble, but he didn’t know exactly how to say it. “You’re worth something, worth a lot. If you could just get away from your parents, you’d see.”

She was silent. It seemed like forever. Her head fell forward and soon the fabric of her hoodie was dappled with dark spots. Moist trails ran down her cheeks. She was so quiet; he wouldn’t have guessed she was crying if he hadn’t seen her.

What the hell did he just do? He’d given too much away. He definitely didn’t want to make things worse for her. Seeing her like this, he hated himself for making her so miserable. And then—a sudden urge to grab her, pull her close and kiss her so hard that he couldn’t breathe and she couldn’t feel the pain anymore. She was so sweet, so good, and he didn’t want to have to wait for her to save herself. He wanted to save her now, all on his own.

“Anna, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he said over and over, despising himself for handling this in exactly the wrong way. He was desperate to reach out for her hands but stopped himself.

“I—I just don’t…” She was trying to answer, but he could tell that she couldn’t straighten things out in her head.

“You don’t know anything about me,” she managed.

He didn’t know what to say. The only thing he could think was
please don’t leave.

“Why do you have to put me in the middle of your problems? If you want to live like this, making things up, that’s your problem, but don’t make me feel—feel like crap and drag me down with you.” She brushed away the sticky hair that tears had pasted onto her cheek.

“That’s not what I’m trying to do—”

“I know you saw me with my parents before, but you don’t know anything about me.”

“I’m sorry. I saw what they were doing to you—”

“Just leave me alone. My life is none of your business.” She jumped up and ran toward the door. In her haste she accidently slammed her thigh into a chair and stumbled. Caleb leaped up, terrified that she was hurt, but before he could get near her, she shoved the chair behind her and ran out.

No one else had seen what had gone on between them. He wouldn’t have cared if anyone
had
noticed. It didn’t matter what anyone else thought, except her. He wasn’t thinking about his mission now.

She hates me.
The words kept looping through his head.

Chapter Six

The voice startled Anna so badly that her whole body jerked, forcing a stifled whine out of the springs in the mattress.

“It’s time for your appointment,” one of the attendants said.

She’d been lying on her side in bed with her legs curled up toward her stomach, her cheek resting on her damp pillow. She’d been thinking for a while, interrupted only by a couple of crying fits. Her thoughts had been muddled, skipping from one thing to another. She had no control over where her mind wandered—first to her parents, then to Caleb, then to the hospital, and back and forth again and again. Although she had no desire to go to her therapy session, she was relieved that maybe she’d stop thinking for a little while during the walk over there.

She pushed herself up and off the bed, surprised by how heavy she felt. The attendant walked out of the room, and Anna followed as she tucked the hair that had escaped from her ponytail back behind her ears. She was led down the hallway to the double doors. She tried to peer through the thin rectangles of glass in each of them, but she couldn’t make out much. The attendant slid his card through the black box on the wall. The locks clicked and the doors swung open. A small gust of air rushed at her, but instead of feeling cold from it, she breathed it in and noticed it didn’t smell like the mingling of Clorox and food she had become so used to.

“This way,” she was told, and the attendant waited for her to come to his side before he walked through the doors. He stood close to her as they walked, most likely so that he could grab her arm if she tried to bolt. As if she had anywhere to go.

They walked over to the elevator and the attendant pushed the
up
button. It hadn’t even occurred to her that Dr. Blackwell’s office might be on a different floor. Instantly, she felt a rush of adrenaline surge through her. Her blood pulsated through her neck and arms and fingers with every beat of her heart as she waited for the elevator doors to open. Then her hands felt wet and cold, and she could have sworn she was two seconds away from passing out. Just then the doors slid open and she froze. The attendant started to walk in, but when Anna didn’t move, he stopped with one foot on the floor of the elevator and one on the floor near her, holding the doors open with his hand.

“Come on.” He was clearly annoyed.

“Can’t—can’t we take the stairs?”

He looked at her like she was planning some great escape. “No, we can’t. Get in.” He took her by the arm and pulled her inside.

She stumbled in, tripping over herself, but the attendant kept her on her feet with his firm grip on her forearm. He pushed the
3
button and the doors slid closed.

Each and every vein was flooded with horror.

She stood petrified, dazed.

The only part of her that wasn’t frozen was her heart with its violent banging against the bones in her chest. Even her eyes were frozen, fixated on the crack between the doors to see if they were still rising. Were they even moving? They might be stuck. Right now. Trapped, with no way to escape, nowhere to go, just six square feet making up the whole world.

I’ll make myself move
.
I’ll get over to those doors and pry them open with my bare hands if it happens
.

But she couldn’t do anything except stare at the crack between the doors.

She was going to lose her mind. It would happen any second.

If she couldn’t get out of this steel coffin, if she couldn’t breathe some fresh air—

Ding!
The doors slid open. She tried to rush out, but the attendant gave her a tug backward.

“Just a minute,” he said. “Take it easy.” He led her out and onto the third floor, maintaining his grip. She felt dizzy for a moment, but the immediacy of the panic was starting to dissipate. All she could think about was that at the end of the hour she’d have to go back on the elevator. How could she get out of it? Scenarios raced through her mind. She kept walking forward even though the attendant had stopped in front of Dr. Blackwell’s office.

“Over here,” he yelled, and pulled her back toward the door. She stumbled but he caught her before she fell. He dragged her over to a brown couch, forced her to sit down, and left, closing the door behind him.

Dr. Blackwell wasn’t there yet, so she could finally try to compose herself in the quiet office. She rubbed her sweaty hands up and down her jeans.

A few minutes passed, and Dr. Blackwell still wasn’t there. She’d always hated just sitting in an exam room, waiting for who knows how long, but she didn’t mind here. She wished she could just sit and wait for hours. The squeaking of footsteps against the linoleum floor in the hallway penetrated the door. The attendant was pacing. She was relieved that he had decided to wait outside the room.

Dr. Blackwell kept his office much warmer than what she was used to in the ward. The cold had become such a part of her life. She had learned quickly to dress warmly, but the chill permeated the layers of T-shirts and sweatshirts no matter what. Here, in the warmth of this office, it even seemed like she wasn’t quite as depressed as she had been an hour ago. Being freezing all the time had added to her burden.

She slipped off her hoodie, draping it carefully over the arm of the couch. Sweat saturated the back of her T-shirt, and she reached her hand around to pull it loose from her skin. This wet remnant of her panic attack in the elevator was the only chilly thing in the room.

She took a sweeping glance around. The entire wall behind the desk was filled with books. Some were lined up with their spines standing vertically, while others lay flat, stacked one on top of the other. There were just so many. There might have been room for more if they weren’t all shoved so carelessly into any space that might fit them. Everything about the ward was so bare and stark. Here, the chaos stacked on the shelves overwhelmed her.

Her focus shifted to the desk, which was just as disorganized. Twelve-inch stacks of paper, file folders, and more books lay everywhere with a few pens strewn across the surface. A thin cylinder made of glass fixed to a square wooden base stood dangerously close to the edge of the desk, a big pile of papers shoved up against it and threatening to send it crashing onto the floor at any second. Anna couldn’t read the words that were etched onto the glass surface, but it was clearly some kind of award.

Framed diplomas and five or six plaques hung on the walls. The only thing she could make out was the big, bold letters that spelled out
Dr. James Blackwell
on each of them. An empty Hungry Man fried chicken dinner box was lying at the bottom of a nearby trashcan.

Enormous windows spanned the entire wall to her left. The sun radiated through the clear glass and flooded the room without any mesh to squeeze and smother it. She walked over to see outside and even spread her hands on the cool glass. Below, the cars wove their way through the driveway. A few people meandered around the parking lot. Others relaxed underneath a clear canopy, smoking cigarettes. The yellow-and-black-striped gate flipped hypnotically up and down as the cars moved in and out of the lot.

She wasn’t bored watching all of this. Everything outside was so normal. It comforted her to see that other people existed outside. Her world had shrunk in a matter of days, and even though these people looked so small from this height and raced by so quickly that she could barely catch a glimpse of them, it was proof that they existed.

The door swung open, startling her. She swung around, her muscles tensing in anticipation of the scolding that would surely follow for having gotten off the couch.

“Good afternoon, Anna.” Dr. Blackwell smiled. He walked over to his desk to drop another pile of paper on the stack. Then he sat down on a chair across from the couch.

“Would you like to join me?”

“Um, yeah.” Anna sat back down in her spot on the couch.

“So how are you?” he asked, the smile lingering on his lips. His face had never looked anything but kind to Anna. It had a way of disarming her, but not completely.

“I’m fine.” It was the best she could do.

“What have you been doing with your time?”

“Mostly reading.” She slipped her hands underneath her legs and sat on them. She didn’t want to be so terse with him; in a way she wanted to please him.

“Good. It’s important to do things you enjoy.”

The last thing she was doing was enjoying herself. But she wouldn’t disappoint him by telling him she read to drown out everything around her and to fill the empty, boring days.

“Have you become friendly with any of the patients?”

Anna shifted her weight uncomfortably. “No.”

He peered up at her over the rim of the glasses that balanced unsteadily on the tip of his nose.

“It would be nice for you to try and speak to some of the others. Many of them are feeling the same things you are. Talking about it with someone informally can be very therapeutic.”

She wanted to answer, but she really didn’t know what to say.

“I’d like to start by talking about what you mentioned to me when you were first admitted.”

She didn’t like the direction this was taking, but at the same time she was relieved he had stopped prodding her about who she was talking to. She definitely didn’t want to talk about Caleb. “You seem very angry at your parents and blame them for your being here.”

“Yeah.” Her soft spot for Dr. Blackwell was hardening into a callus.

“You turned eighteen three months ago; you
do
know that neither your parents nor the hospital has the legal right to hold you here?” He was so logical. He made it sound so simple, as if she could just walk out of the building and leave because she felt like it.

“I know.” This was even worse than the threat of having to talk about Caleb.

“Then let’s try to talk about why you’ve chosen to be here, and what I can do for you.”

A million possibilities of what to say next raced through her head. “I’m here because…because…”

“Take your time.”

“It’s not that easy. My parents told me I had to come here. I couldn’t just tell them no.”

“Why couldn’t you tell them no?”

“What do you mean? I just couldn’t.” She looked at him like
he
was the mental patient.

“Tell me why you couldn’t.”

Her hands flipped out from underneath her and she raised them, palms up. “What was I supposed to do? Just walk out the door? Where would I go? I’m supposed to start college in the fall. I don’t know what everyone expects me—” She was embarrassed that she’d lost her temper.

“Anna, it’s okay. Tell me about your relationship with your parents. Have you always done what they told you to do?”

She sunk back into the couch and folded her arms across her chest. “Pretty much.”

“Have you ever done anything that displeased them?”

“Displeased?” She almost burst out laughing. Displeased wasn’t exactly what she had done to them. When she hadn’t behaved in the way they expected of her, they were far more than
displeased
. “Yes,” she replied simply.

“Can you give me an example?”

She thought through the thousands of examples she could offer him but settled on one in particular. It wasn’t like she wanted to share anything with him really, but he had asked and she was feeling vengeful.