Authors: Lauren Hammond
Chapter 22
~BEFORE~
Damien has been gone for a month. I know that isn’t very long to most people, but to me it feels like decades.
He writes me.
Love letters.
They are poetic, heart-warming, and beautiful. Just like him.
The first time I received a letter from my beloved was three weeks ago. At first, I was a little worried about the contact between us because of Daddy and everything, but Daddy is never home when the mail comes. I’m not allowed to get the mail. Daddy prefers that he brings it up when he comes home. But before Damien left he promised he’d write me so I check the mail every day after my walk. And so far I’ve gotten a letter every week.
Today is Friday.
I stand at the end of the drive and sift through the pile of mail. Joy floods through me when I see my name on the envelope and I quickly remove the letter, fold it up, and shove into the pocket of my dress. Then I race up my driveway, my heart beating a million miles a minute. My veins pulsating with anxiousness, and my head swimming with thoughts about reading my lover’s words.
I miss him the most when I’m alone in my bed at night. I keep my window open because I think there’s a small part of me that thinks I’ll see him, standing there, beneath the light of the moon, ready to sneak me out and whisk me away to our own little world. A world of him and me. A world of love and beauty. A world without hurt, depression, or misery.
But he never comes.
I know it’s because he’s thousands of miles away, going along with our plan, readying for our future, but somehow me leaving the window open at night, and pretending that he might show up helps me get through the days without him better.
Pouncing on my bed, I squeal like a giggly child as I shred the envelope and pull out its contents. Something metal and shiny falls on to my thin, yellow blanket and I pick it up. A heart-shaped locket. I hold it up, watching the sunlight beaming in from the window as it dances along the metal surface. The sun touches it in spots making it shimmer and I suck in a deep breath, overwhelmed by its beauty.
There’s a separate piece of paper apart from the letter. I open it slowly and tears sting my eyes as I read it.
Addy
This is a gift for you, my love.
It reminded me of the way I love you.
And I just wanted you to know…
That you will always have my heart.
Love always and forever,
D.
I’ve never owned a piece of jewelry and as I continue to read the little note, I put the locket on, and remind myself to take it off when Daddy gets home so he doesn’t see it. I know what will happen if he does. See it, I mean. He’ll either break it, or steal it and try and sell it. More money for his dirty, wicked habit.
It’s expensive to drink in excess. Daddy knows this, but I’m not sure if he cares. He doesn’t like me to know any of his financial matters, and I’m sure that’s perfectly normal for most parents. I know Damien doesn’t know how much money his parents have either. I mean, he knows they have garages full of money, but he doesn’t know the exact amount. I only know about our financial situation because when Daddy isn’t home sometimes bill collectors call our house. Daddy, doesn’t always pay our bills on time and sometimes he doesn’t pay them at all. Sometimes I think about mentioning the calls, but I know that might earn me some lashes with his belt or a fist to the jaw.
That reminds me of a saying Mommy’s mother used to tell me when I was little. “Children are to be seen and not heard.” We couldn’t ask questions. We couldn’t even speak. Basically, what she meant by that was that children were just supposed to sit there, with their hands folded in their laps and stare off while the adults went about their business. We were supposed to exist and not exist at the same time. We were supposed to be life-like dolls.
I was always thankful Mommy never thought of it that way. She’d always frown at her mother and say, “Oh hush, mother. That’s too old fashioned to even think about.”
Sadness overwhelms me when I think about Mommy. I know she would have loved Damien just as much as I do. And I know he would have loved her too.
After breezing through Damien’s letter, where he tells me about college life, how much he misses me, and how he’s counting down the days until he can see me again, I fold it up, and hop off my bead. I move the light wire bed frame and twist off the tip of the left brass knob on the frame and pull out a small screwdriver.
I took the screwdriver from Daddy’s toolbox a long time ago. It’s not like he ever uses his tools. And besides, he has like twenty of the same screwdriver, so I knew he’d never miss it. I palm the rusted metal tool, and kneel down, jimmying one of the hardwood floorboards loose. I’ve hidden Damien’s other two letters in this spot, and I place the small note and his third letter there as well.
But I keep the locket on.
For now anyways.
This way, I can always have Damien’s heart right next to mine.
Chapter 23
~AFTER~
I’ve been getting flashes lately. Little visions that pop into my mind for a second, if that, and then in another flash, they vanish.
Most of them tell me nothing of importance.
The one I get the most often is me standing somewhere in a white dress. My raven hair is parted down the center, flowing over my ivory shoulders in a cascade of curls.
Another one is a sound. Not necessarily a flash because I’m walking through darkness. A baby howls in the distance. A needy cry and it’s like I’m searching for the tiny human. There’s an urge rushing through me that once I find the baby I need to comfort it. The only problem is that I do never do, find the infant that is.
Dr. Watson seems pleased that I’m making progress. The day before yesterday, he flashed me a smile that touched his eyes, something I’ve never seen from him, and then he pulled me into a hug. Another affectionate first from the cold, yet striking doctor.
But it’s progress to him. Not progress to me because these visions still tell me nothing. They don’t give me any indication of how or why I came to be here.
I’ve seen Damien a few times since our little tiff on the way to the infirmary. I’ve tried to talk to him. Tried to apologize. Assure him that whatever happened between us was just a misunderstanding, but every time I open my mouth, he shakes his head and stalks off in the opposite direction.
Today I’m being rewarded for progress and good behavior. Dr. Watson has spoken to Marjorie and she’s going to be taking me out of my cage and outside for the day. I’m beyond thrilled by this. Aurora was right. Maybe it does pay to behave and I’m even more sure of that when Marjorie arrives at my door with a pair of jeans and a white t-shirt.
The denim and cotton feel spectacular against my skin. The pants rough and the t-shirt light and breezy. I contemplate asking Marjorie if I can wear this outfit to bed and then tomorrow and then the day after that, but she’s got a scowl on her yapper and I decide not to give her a reason to bark at me.
At the entrance to the courtyard the sun is already beaming through the two rectangular windows on the metal double doors, and I take a deep breath imagining the wind in my hair, the sun on my skin and the enticing scent of fresh air as I take it into my lungs. When Marjorie finally opens the door, I practically bolt outside into the lush, green courtyard and within seconds I’m rolling around on the neatly manicured grass.
I close my eyes as the wind blows, tousles my hair, and eases the heat from the sun overheating my skin. Damien and I used to spend hours like this in the summers. Covered in blankets of each others arms, beneath the tall tall grass, basking in the beauty of the outdoors and the blazing summer sunshine.
I miss those days.
Now that I’m making progress, I can’t wait to have them back.
Someone lies down next to me. I can hear their body thud and the short grass as it rustles against it. I smile, hoping that it might be Damien. I don’t know why I’m thinking that. I know, Damien, spends most of his time in the men’s ward. I open an eye and instantly close it, a scowl forming on my lips.
It’s not Damien.
It’s Aurora.
“Hey,” she says in a meek voice.
“Hi.” My voice is anything but meek. I hope she can sense the disdain in it. Unfortunately, she doesn’t.
“It’s gorgeous out, isn’t it?” she chirps in a singsong voice.
I roll my eyes behind my eyelids. “Yeah.” There’s a small part of me that just wants to be done with the drama and just put what happened between us in the past, but there’s an even bigger part of me that knows I’ll never be able to get over the fact that she betrayed my trust and our friendship.
Let’s face it, I could have ratted her out. I could have told Marjorie that she too had been neglecting her medication and stuffing her pills in the wall right along with me. But I didn’t. Because unlike her, I am not a rat.
Aurora shifts in her spot and I can feel her hovering a little too close to me. Opening my eyes, I shield the sun from them with my forearm and turn to face Aurora. She’s propped up on her elbow, plucking blades from grass from the ground. Scrunching her eyebrows together and puckering her lips, she opens her mouth slightly. I think she’s going to say something. Until Merilee Winter steps in between us narrows her eyes at me, scowls, and snaps, “Can you believe Meredith Thompson?” she scoffs and rolls her hazel eyes, her wiry brown hair littered with strands of gray, wafting around her pale face. “To think she’d accuse me of sleeping with her husband just because he likes to mow the grass and I like grass.” Then she laughs and skips off, mumbling to herself.
Poor, Merilee. She’s one of the lifers. She’d lost her mind when her husband was found murdered in an alley a few blocks away from their home.
Aurora sits up, pretzling her legs and my attention shifts back to her. “I know you’re mad at me,” she says. “I can’t say that I blame you.”
What I’m really anxious to know is why she would do that to me. I thought we were friends. “How could you do something like that?”
She throws her head back, allowing the sun to warm her cheeks and breathes, “It’s more than what you think.”
I sit up. “Oh yeah? How so?”
“It’s a long story,” she mumbles under her breath. “And hard to explain.”
“I have time,” I tell her, urging her to go on with my violet irises. I feel like I deserve an explanation for all that I had to endure for her being a shitty person and it better be a good one, too.
“I was trying to protect you,” she tells me, weaving a crown out of a few long blades of grass.
I lift an eyebrow. “Protect me?” Then I glare at her incredulously. “Seems like you did a lousy job. In case you didn’t know this, I wound up with a broken hand and a month in solitary.”
She pays no attention to my tone and continues weaving. “I did know, actually,” she fills me in. Sometimes it bothers me that Aurora can remain so calm about some things. In fact she does the opposite of what most people do; she freaks out about the stupid stuff and remains calm and collected about the not so stupid stuff. “In case you didn’t know this,” she mimics my comment and tone, “the walls here are thin and people talk.”
Shaking my head and grinding my teeth I look away. I don’t know why I’m wasting my time, so I move to get up, but Aurora clamps her fingers down around my forearm. “Wait.” There’s urgency in her voice. “I’m not done.”
“You seemed done talking to me.”
She scrunched her face. “Well you made an assumption that was wrong.”
My eyes center on the metal fence that cuts off our ward from the men’s ward. Damien is at the fence, fingers looped through the metal rungs, eyes locked on me. Pushing to my feet, I start for the fence. I can’t help the magnetism I feel whenever he’s around. I can’t help that he’s always able to lure me into his web with those crystalline blue eyes.
Aurora is up off the ground following me. “Where are you going?” she whines. “I thought we were having a conversation.”
“We were,” I say. Then I decided to end it.
She grips my shoulder and jerks me around to face her. “You need to listen to me.”
I shrug my shoulder out of her grasp and roll my eyes. “I was until you decided to stop talking.” I thought it was nice of me to hear her out as much as I had because there’s a huge part of me that thinks she doesn’t deserve my time.
“I didn’t stop talking,” she huffs. “You didn’t let me finish.” She peeks around my shoulder at the chain link fence, eyes narrowed. “Where were you going anyway?”
“None of your business,” I snap, turning on my heel and stalking toward the fence. I come to a stop halfway when I realize that Damien isn’t at the fence anymore. I scowl over my shoulder at Aurora and storm in her direction, nudging her shoulder as I brush past her. “Great,” I mutter. “Now he’s gone.”
“Who?” Her voice hikes up a level. “That Damien?”
That Damien?
That Damien?
The way she says it so casually infuriates me.
She doesn’t understand. He’s not just that, Damien. A random boy. He’s the keeper of my heart. The light of my soul. “Not just that Damien,” I spit out, my voice laced with anger.
“You need to stop this.” She spins around and jogs to keep up with me.
“I’m glad you think you know what I need,” I seethe, hoping that she’ll leave me alone before the hot steam swelling inside of me erupts through my ears.
She doesn’t let up. “This is exactly why I said something to the staff. Adelaide, you’re delusional! I think this place has finally gotten to you.”
I whip around, hatred flashing in my eyes. She bumps into my chest and I raise my finger. “You don’t know anything! And you’re the one who should talk. You pretend you’re crazy because you’re too much of a coward to stand up for yourself!”
Her mouth drops open and she takes a deep breath. “You don’t know anything either.” Suddenly she snaps and digs her fingers into my shoulder. “Do you what it’s like in the basement?” Her eyes are wild and for a second I’m more terrified of her than I was the first time I met her. “Do you know what they do to you? How they torture you?” I back up, trying to get away, but she keeps coming at me. “Do you know what it’s like to be restrained and have thousands of volts of electricity pumped through your body?”