Beautiful Nightmares (The Asylum Trilogy) (9 page)

Chapter Seventeen

~Before~

28 days.

I
’ve heard it takes 28 days to break a habit.

28 days to start fresh.

Start anew.

It takes 28 days to transform a person.

But I must be different—no—I
am
different. Because it’s been 28 days since I’ve learned Dr. Watson, I mean Elijah is my husband. It’s been 28 days since he started treating me, trying to jog my memory. And it’s been 28 days of hopeless sessions, frustrated growls, and weary sighs. My memories are ivory eggs that cannot be cracked.

Or at least this is all what I’ve been led to believe or what I’ve been told.

I’ve started to notice something about Oakhill, too. I’ve started to notice that it bleeds people dry, but not of blood, of hope.

When you first are brought here, you have this will about you. I had it when I first arrived. I convinced myself that I wasn’t crazy. I told myself that I would find a way out. That’d I’d escape. Those thoughts are long gone now. I know with certainty that I won’t get out of here twice, so I’ve accepted my fate and that’s that.

I sit in the rec with Aurora while she colors. She’s humming some show tune, but I’m used to her humming. It’s almost soothing now, comforting. Her singing, now that’s a different story. Merilee Winters stands at the large glass plated window and stares out into the courtyard. It’s winter. There’s no sign of life. Everything’s dead. Including most of the patients living here.

Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Tick, tock.
Merilee chants along with the hands of the clock hanging on the wall.
Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Tick, tock.

“Merilee’s acting particularly nutty today,” I mention to Aurora.

Without lifting her eyes from the coloring book Aurora answers, “Yeah. Electroshock.”

My eyes drop to her petite, dainty fingers as they scribble various colors across the pages. “When?” I gasp.

“Yesterday. I saw them haul her away.”

Maybe I’ve been here so long that I’ve managed to tune out the flickering lights and vibrating walls. And all the screams from the patients blend together anymore. It’s like the score for a motion picture. “Why?”

Aurora shrugs. “She smuggled a fork from the cafeteria. Put it in her underwear. Then during morning meds tried to stab Marjorie with it.”

“But, why?” Merilee is definitely crazy, but she’s never been dangerous.

“I think they’ve fried her brain, one too many times.” The certainty in her tiny voice startles me.

Chills me to the bone.

I start to shiver and then pump warmth back into my arms.

“You’ll never have to worry about that though,” Aurora gazes up at me through her lashes, a flicker of disdain in her chocolate eyes.

I glare at her and drop my hands to my sides. “Why do you say that?”

Aurora sets down a black crayon, tilts her head to the side, and narrows her eyes into slits. Then her eyes drift toward the open doorway. “Because you have your own personal knight in shining armor.”

Turning slowly I cast a glance at the doorway to see Elijah propped up against the frame. The muscles in his biceps bulge as he crosses his arms and nods at me.

~ ~ ~

The metronome needle sways back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

A gentle ticking cuts into the quiet and I swear I can feel the slow beat from the medical instrument throbbing in my temples.

Dr. Watson, I mean Elijah sits across from me with a penetrating gaze and his hands folded on top of his desk. “Open your mind, Adelaide.” His voice is gentle yet firm.

But what he doesn’t understand is that I’m trying, but I can’t.

Sometimes I wonder if he fully understands how bad I want to remember, but it’s like my mind won’t let me.

It feels like a shield made of iron and no mental weapon can stab through it.

I feel like this is my new mantra;
Open your mind, Adelaide,
being that every time I have a session with him it’s what he says juts before I allow the gentle lull of the metronome to pull me under. I have to admire his tenacity. His determination and will to make me remember, but I always feel like I’ve let him down when my session is over and he’s left with nothing but a void of a wife who still has no recollection of her time with him or her life with him at all for that matter.

A violent scream bleeds through the walls of the office and stunts my descent into the land of picking through my memories trying to put the puzzle back together that is my life.

I shiver at the sound of the agony in that scream. I picture Marjorie restraining a patient. I picture the malicious smile on Dr. Morrow’s lips. Pulling my knees to my chest, I rest my head in between my knees. “Please doctor, I mean Elijah,” I cover my ears with my hands, “please make them stop.”

Elijah is up from his seat in a flash, dashing toward his office door. He closes the door. I hear the lock click. Then he’s at my side. He places his hand on my shoulder, and the warmth from his touch seeps through the flimsy material of my hospital gown and eases my shivering. I peak up at him through my lashes as he tucks my hair behind my ear. “Better?”

I nod with steady breaths and lower my legs as he takes a seat across from me again. He flicks the needle of the metronome a second time and I relax. My eyelids grow heavy. Fighting off the pull at first, I widen my eyes, but it’s no use. I’m being dragged down into the darkened parts of my mind. Just before I close my eyes, I notice the look on Elijah’s face. He seems pleased. He’s wearing a hint of a smile and I can tell that he thinks these treatments are working. It makes me sad that he’s filled with so much hope and I keep deflating it.

The truth is, I wish I could remember our time together. I wish I could remember the life we shared. The love we had or have. More than anything I wish I could remember my daughter.

I assume the love he has for me must be a love of gigantic proportions. Because who would fight for someone the way he’s fought for me if the kind of love we shared couldn’t move boulders. Mountains even.

With that, I slink down in my chair, rolling my head back, my neck cradled by the back of the chair. Then I allow the soft ticking of the metronome to probe my mind, to hypnotize me. I allow it to take me to places I’d rather not go.

~ ~ ~

I don’t know how much longer I can handle this.

This meaning my treatment sessions with Elijah. I admire his will. I admire his determination. I admire the fact that he loves me enough to continue these frustrating treatments every day and when I remember nothing, he still gives me a faint smile and says, “Maybe we’ll have more luck tomorrow.”

The broken spirit that I know is lying dormant behind his smile is what keeps me from saying, I hope tomorrow never comes.

As awful as it is for me to admit it, that’s the truth.

I’m beyond exhausted and every day that I leave his office, I feel like another little piece of me disappears. Like an orange slowly losing layers of skin as its’ being unraveled.

There are times where I think I’m breaking him down, chipping away at his hard edge. There are times where I think the cold doctor is starting to evaporate. The part of him I used to find
intriguing is fading away. Pretty soon he’ll be just like me. An emotional blob, a mess of a person. Sometimes I wonder if and when he reaches that point that the staff will take action and have him committed.

I’m staring at him now. He sits across from me at his desk, his hands balled into one giant fist, his forehead resting against his hands. He’s shaking and I can tell he’s using every ounce of strength to keep himself together. Through gritted teeth he says, “Alright Adelaide. That’s enough for today. We’ll resume tomorrow.” His voice is thick with the worst kind of emotion—pain—and I can tell he’s starting to realize I’m an egg that can’t be cracked.

I stand before him, wanting to offer an olive branch. Maybe tell him, I’ll try harder. But he slouches his shoulders with a sigh and I decide against saying anything. Instead, I slip out into the quiet hall and out of Elijah’s view.

I close the door behind me and listen for the click to make sure it’s closed then I hear him. “You just don’t get it do you?”

Damien.

My head snaps to the left. “Get what?”

He’s not real. He’s not real. He’s not real.

I know this. I know he’s a hallucination, a side effect of the barbiturates. But there’s also a portion of me that wonders why I’m still seeing him then because I stopped taking my meds weeks ago.

He’s perched against the plaster wall, arms folded across his chest, foot propped against the lower part of the wall. His radiant blue, blue eyes stare back at me in a direct way. “Get that all these treatments are useless and failing for a reason.”

I snort and brush past him, walking down the hall. “And what would that reason be?”

Damien is at my side in a second and shrugs. “You don’t love him.”

I shake my head. “You don’t know that.” I had to love him enough at one point to marry him and have a child with him. But I’m not going to say that to Damien.

“Neither do you.”

“Well maybe I will one day,” I bark back. I happen to have a little bit of faith in Elijah’s determination to get me to remember. Elijah seems to think so.”

“Elijah seems to think so,” Damien says in a mocking tone.

Out of nowhere Aurora scampers down the hall and sidles up next to me. Her head snaps to the left and she scowls at Damien. “Leave her alone.”

Damien puffs out his chest and takes a step toward Aurora. “I’m tired of you telling me what to do.”

They’ve been like this a lot lately. I’m always wondering why they’re fighting over me. Neither one of them ever seems to want to tell me and I hate feeling clueless. Finally I scream out in frustration, throw my hand in the air and face them both. “What is going on with you two?” I ball my hands into fists and place them on my hips. “You’re always bickering about something that has to do with me and I want to know what the hell it is! I’m tired of being left in the dark about it!”

Both Aurora and Damien exchange awkward glances. I give them both an awkward glance. Now the whole situation in general is awkward and I’m stuck in the middle. “Well come on,” I urge them with lifted brows. “Somebody spit it out.”

Again, neither one of them says a word.

I stomp my foot. It’s childish, I know but I just want some damn answers.

Damien cocks his head to the side, his blue eyes gleaming. “You really don’t know do you?” His voice goes up a level.

I don’t think I’ve ever been so confused. “No,” I say. “I don’t.”

“Listen Addy,” Aurora says in a soothing voice.

“Oh, cut the crap,” Damien snaps, jutting his arm out and shoving Aurora to the side. He points to himself then to Aurora. “We’re dead.” My mouth falls open because nothing he says is making sense. I know Damien died. But Aurora? Dr.Watson? Marjorie?

“So wait…” I try to find more words, but can’t. I clear my throat. “Does that mean?”

“Yeah,” Damien says, in a matter of fact tone. “So are you.”

Chapter Eighteen

~After~

I’m blinded by darkness.

I’m careful not to make any sudden movements in fear that I might know something over and make loud noises that would make the night-shift orderly come running. So I move forward, on my tip-toes and put my arms out to feel for any object that might cross my path.

I’ve been in this office more times than I can count and I know that Dr. Swell has a lamp on her desk. If I turned the light on in the room that draw too much attention, but I know that lamp would be dim enough if I pulled it off the desk and set it on the floor.

I take a few strides and run into the corner of Dr. Swell’s desk. I almost cry out in agony as a searing pain starts at my hip before traveling down my thigh. Instead, I swallow hard and take a deep breath, pushing through it. This mission is too precious. Too delicate. And too important to blow.

I can’t get caught.

I just can’t.

There’s too much at stake.

My existence for that much and on top of that, all I’ve wanted these last couple years is to know who I really am. All I’ve wanted is answers to the questions that constantly probe my mind. And it’s not just that I want them, I need them. I’m the type of person who can’t get a firm grip on reality without closure. If I don’t have it, the uncertainty of the unknown will always hold me back. The
what if’s
will eat away at my brain until the nodules in my cranium look like noodles.

I blink several times into the dark then squint. The moonlight seeps through the closed blinds and gives me a little bit of light. My gaze locks on the filing cabinet in the back left corner of the room. The tan colored metal is cloaked by a layer of shadows. I know my file is in there, but the question is; which drawer is it in?

There are five different drawers.

I know Dr. Swell. The woman is a perfectionist. My guess would be that everything is organized alphabetically and that my file has to be in either the top drawer or the one beneath it. I move toward the filing cabinet slowly. I stuffed the fork I used to pick the lock on my door into my bra and the coldness from the metal is making my shiver. I’m also shivering out of fear. I can feel my knees wobble with each step that I take and I swear I can hear my heart pounding in my ears.

When I’m at the cabinet, I reach for the handle on the first drawer and yank it open. It makes a soft scraping sound and I grit my teeth and pause before continuing on. Leaning over, I examine each manila envelope closely and just as I thought, they’re in alphabetical order. I’m halfway through the A’s when I hear a stirring noise right outside the door.

I freeze.

I suck in a deep breath.

I wait for the noise to disappear.

When it does I breathe a sigh of relief.

After combing through the rest of the A’s and through all of the B’s, I see my file. It is thick, three inches wide to be exact. I remove the file from the drawer then close it. Taking a few steps backward, I set the file on the floor and remove the lamp from the desk. I set the lamp on the floor next to the chair with wheels. After that, I sit down Indian style, and turn on the lamp. I know having any kind of light on here is risky, but I want to dive into my file without having to wait until morning.

I’m anxious.

Impatient.

And way too curious.

Just to be on the safe side, I slide the lamp underneath Dr. Swell’s desk then stand to see if that dims the light at all. It does a little bit. I walk around to the front of then take a few steps toward the door. There’s a soft glow and I think while it is still too noticeable, I have some time to read parts of my file before the night-shift orderly takes another walk down the corridor.

Then I start thinking about Dr. Swell. I start thinking about my missing file and if she’ll realize that it’s missing. I rack my brain, thinking about our sessions and how often she pulls my file out. It’s not very often. She usually comes in, strolls around her desk, and sits down without even going to the cabinet. But then I have to consider that she might read it and add to it after our session ends.

I weigh the pros and cons. If she notices that it’s missing, the worst thing they’ll do is strip-search my room, drug me, and then put me in solitary confinement. The thought of this doesn’t bother me at all. I’m practically in solitary anyway and they’ve been drugging me for years. The only pro is that Dr. Swell thinks I’m completely crazy and not just a little bit crazy. Me, for the most part I think I’m both. I have my moments.

Sometimes I wonder if I’d be different if I lived outside of this place.

At Oak Hill, there are walls that bind me.

Voices that haunt me.

People that taunt me.

Sometimes I wonder if I’d know what it’s like to laugh at a joke or if I’d be able to believe in hope again. For the longest time, I’ve felt like every ounce of hope I’ve ever had has been lost. I remember someone once mentioning that I have or had a daughter and I wonder too if I would have been a good mother. I wonder if I was a good wife to Dr. Watson.

I know those things won’t be listed in my medical file, but maybe Dr. Watson’s notes are piled in here as well.

It’s that thought that pushes me forward.

So, I walk around the desk, plop down on the floor, open the manila folder, and start reading.