Page 11 of Born of Ice

My insides curled into a tight ball while on the outside I’m in a cage. A prison.

I’m too lost in my own agony to notice that flurry of nurses back in the room as they give me or someone else, commands. Too lost to pay attention to Erik who is fisting his hair, tearing it away from his scalp or Filip who is standing next to him.

“Hold her!” I hear someone yelling as sets of hands wrap around my thrashing shoulders, pinning me to the bed. “It will be okay, honey, I’m just going to give you a sedative and you can rest.”

That’s the last thing I hear before my world shuts down again and the next time I wake up, I wish I wouldn’t.

4

Silver linings

Electra

I sense him inthe room in the dead of the night.

Despite the sedatives, I’m not asleep. Or at least they didn’t last, and I’ve been lying in this bed for hours, staring into the darkness that’s now my reality.

I’m not sure why he’s here. Why he bothered to come.

Hasn’t he done enough?

How much more can I take before I bleed out.

Erik must not notice that I’m awake. Or he doesn’t care. Why would he?

I’m no one. Just someone he used to know…

He walks up to the side of my bed and stands there. Just stands there for long, silent minutes until I watch his hand rise as if he’s about to touch my legs. It’s hovering right above my knee, but he never makes contact, retreating his hand as if touching me will infect him as well.

“Why are you here?” My voice catching him off guard, and I hear as he sucks in a sharp breath.

“Elle…” he trails off, looking up to me but I’m not bothering lifting my eyes up to him and he casts his gaze back down to my legs. “You understand, don’t you?”

I want to laugh. I want to cry. I want to slap him, but just as fast, I realize I don’t care. He killed that part of me too.

“Leave. There’s nothing more for you to break here.”

With morning light comes a new sense of emptiness I try to drown out with fitful sleep, but that fitful sleep brings nightmares.

I haven’t had those in a long while. But now they’re back. And they are cruel. So cruel.

There doesn’t seem to be a happy medium. I’m up, I hate my existence. I’m out, I fight my existence.

Sometime during the day Filip comes by, thrusting papers and a pen into my hand, repeating the same stupid, pointless words Erik had last night. “You understand, don’t you?”

I wanted to scream thatno, no I don’t understand. I don’t understand anything. But that would mean I had to talk. And talking takes effort. And effort I don’t have.

The nurses and doctor come by a few times, and I catch their looks when all of their questions go unanswered but those are not any worse than how my boyfriend—ex boyfriend—looked at me.

And there we go again. A single thought of him, gets those heart monitors yapping away and the whole flurry of “saviors” come by to pull me out of the panic attack. Because that’s apparently what it is, I heard them say it. And I think they also said I need to try and stay calm because my heart is weak right now.

Maybe I should pull the cord out so the next time it gets going, no one will know. No one will be there to stop it. Maybe that would be my way out.

But again, that would take an effort. And I don’t have it.

I’m not sure how many days pass as I stare out that window, watching the snowfall, day in and day out. God, to be that free.

“Merry Christmas, Miss Monroe.” A cheery nurse floats into my room.

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