Page 10 of Puck Me

I’m here now and there’s no escaping, at least not for the next three days. I may as well get used to that fact and figure out how to survive until Dr. Harris can’t keep me here anymore.

Three days later

“So, Chester, how have you been doing?”

“Fine,” I say staunchly.

“You know, you can tell me how you really feel.”

“And get locked up for another three days? I don’t think so.”

“Kathy tells me that you’ve been doing well. Is it really that bad in here?”

“That’s not the point! You put me in here against my will!”

“I had to do that, Chester, and you know it. I had a legal obligation. Once you confessed to being actively suicidal, there was only one course of action I could take.”

I hadn’t thought of it like that. “So I’m here because you don’t want to get sued.”

“You’re here because I want you alive. The legal implications are real, but I got into this job because I care about my patients, Chester. I want to help you get better, and I can’t do that if you’re dead.”

“I suppose,” I mutter. “I’m still mad at you, though.”

“That’s okay, Chester. I wouldn’t expect anything less. You can be mad at me and hate me all you like. I can take it.”

Yeah, right, until he decides to leave, like Dr. Davidson did.

“How have you been, Chester? Really?”

“This sucks,” I snap. “I still want—I mean, I still feel awful.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Can you tell me a bit more?”

I pause to think about it. “I-it has been helping to keep busy,” I admit grudgingly. “And I suppose the groups haven’t been awful. But inside my head, nothing has changed. It’s all the same. Just the same nightmarish hellscape of hopelessness and despair and death.”

“I understand. It’ll take time for the new combination of medication we’re trying to take effect. I’d like to recommend that you stay here for at least another two weeks so that we can monitor your progress. I’m not going to force you, but I truly think it’s in your best interests.”

“No way. I’m out of here.” I hate that my voice sounds uncertain even to my own ears.

“I know that you want to get better, Chester, and some part of you knows that this is your best shot at that.”

“Oh yeah? Are you a mind reader, now?”

“Not quite, but I’ve become fairly good at interpreting actions. You haven’t once tried to leave, and you’ve even participated in some of the groups here.”

“Don’t you throw that back at me! I didn’t have anything else to do!”

“I’m not throwing anything at you. I’m just saying that your actions are not those of a man who doesn’t want to get better. I know that a part of you wants to die, but there’s still a part of you that wants to live.”

“I don’t want to live like this.”

“And I don’t expect you to. I know this feels unbearable at the moment, but living like this isn’t the goal. The goal is to get you feeling like life is worth living again.”

“I’m never going to feel like that,” I say flatly. “In case you haven’t noticed, my leg is as good as gone. I can never play hockey again. It was my life. And now my life is over.”

“It was your life, Chester—now it’s your past. I was an Olympic athlete, now I’m a doctor, and sometimes I think I enjoy my life now more than I did then, even though I couldn’t imagine that at the time. Your future will hold something entirely different to your past. Don’t assume that it won’t be good just because it won’t be the same. Life may surprise you.”

His words are dangerous. He makes me want to hope, and I know that’s no good. He’ll give up eventually, when he sees that I really am past saving.

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