Page 5 of Lovers Fate

I lean forward, placing my hands together like I’m praying with a wide smile. “What do you think, Doctor?”

“I think you’ve made significant progress.”

I tilt my head to the side as though I don’t care what he thinks. “How is that possible if I haven’t told you anything?”

Three years ago, when they sent me to Worcester Recovery Center and Hospital for forensic evaluation, I felt no remorse.

No regret.

So why tell?

And since I haven’t said a word about that night, Dr. Foster wouldn’t know how I felt or what was going through my mind. Not him, or any of the doctors who thought they could save me by getting me to open up about my past. They had nothing to go on except what the police kept in evidence and a couple of six-second clips from a Nest cam.

Since then, I have hardly slept. I hardly ate.

“I want to remind you that the team of doctors has diagnosed you with personality disorder, PTSD, and depression.” And since you have followed treatment, we think you’ve done great.”

I lean back, slouch in the cold plastic chair, and laugh through my nose. “So I’m cured?”

He doesn’t laugh.

He doesn’t flinch.

He stares at me, but I know different.

“I wouldn’t go that far,” he says in a professional tone.

“But I’ve never admitted to doing anything.” I scrape the cuffs against the table to annoy him. ”Yet… the judge charged me with involuntary manslaughter, not murder. I was defending myself. Mostly. My saving grace with the judge is that I’ve done my time. I guess it’s time for me to move on, Doctor. I’ve been…good. I’ve taken my candy around the clock, haven’t I?”

When the medications wore off, I danced in every padded room they placed me in. A psychiatric nurse watched me in case I flipped. I don’t remember where I learned to dance, but I danced like I’ve performed for years.

Instead, my audience was made up of doctors, nurses, and all the patients on this side of the ward who were treating the criminally insane. They watched me with interest, eyesfollowing me everywhere I went. Recreation, community, and my sessions. They found the absence of music intriguing.

The songs would play in my head, but I don’t remember where I heard them from. However, I loved it when they would give me puzzled looks. It gave me something to do while the doctors tried to figure out how I became a cold-blooded killer. How could I have become a cold-blooded killer if I never displayed any signs of violence? I didn’t fight anyone. Not at school. Not with my mom. Not here.

But I knew something wasn’t right when we moved to Stockbridge. I could feel it. A sense of evil. I wasn’t sure if it was the town itself or the people in it. But it was something sinister. I could feel it the minute my mother drove into town that something was off. I don’t know what it was, but it might have something to do with Chris; it might have been something that made me forget what happened or why it happened the way it did. I could have run and called the police, but I didn’t. I killed him.

“You have,” he finally admits.

“That’s how it works, Doctor. I take the pills, behave, serve my time, and leave when you think I am stable enough, giving you no reason to think I’m a danger or risk to society.” I place my hands on my thighs. “Now that I’m an adult, you’ve signed off, and the judge has said I can go free.”

“That’s what I wanted to discuss,” he says. “Where do you plan to go? How do you plan on supporting yourself?”

My mother decided to hand me over to the state of Massachusetts the minute I was arrested. She didn’t believe I was innocent. She didn’t care what he tried to do to me, only what I did.

I became a ward of the state, and since I’m set to be released and aged out at eighteen, I can’t be sent to foster care or a group home.

Dr. Foster knows I have no place to go. No family. No friends. The truth is that my mother disowned me, and my father has never been seen again.

During my five years of treatment at Worcester Recovery Center and Hospital and my year at Framingham, no one paid me a visit. No one wrote me a letter. What does Dr. Foster expect me to do?

“Get a job, duh,”I mock.

“Don’t mock me,” he scolds.

“You have to admit, Dr. Foster, it was a silly question that required the right response.”

“I’m not amused, Athena.” He clears his throat and continues, “I can arrange for transport. I can only convince them to agree to one ride until the end of your birthday month, when the state’s insurance expires.”

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