Page 4 of Starve
Right?My mom questions my age as she repeats it to the nurse for my record, but I’m too busy staring at my hand to really notice. It doesn’t even hurt. At least, not like it probably should.
She’s twenty-three. Yes.
I am twenty-three. Thanks for noticing, mom. But then again, I suppose I should just be thrilled she knows I’m older than eighteen and younger than twenty-five. Anything else is really just gravy, since she normally doesn’t worry herself with details when it comes to me.
After all, for the first year after I moved, she didn’t know the name of the town I live in. Though in her defense, she was busy.
With a new husband, new kids, and a new life.
The words from the nurse sound hesitant. Apologetic. When something in them makes me realize I should be listening, my mind urges me to come to the surface instead of drowning in the comfortable, fluffy blackness I’ve been in since the incident in my bathroom.
“No.” I cut off the nurse, blinking up at her, and she gives me a sympathetic look just as my mother stares between us, obviously confused. “There’s no way you’re serious.”
The nurse bites her lip, looking back at her computer with obvious distress on her face. “I see you’ve heard about our sister facility,” she says, her voice stilted. “I can promise you, Miss Hollis, there’s nothing to worry about regarding Bluebone Ridge Mental Hospital.”
I fix her with a look, wincing as the pain in my hand makes itself known. Even though they gave me a numbing shot before putting in the three stitches to hold my palm together, it definitely still stings. And now that I’m fully aware again, the pain is here with a vengeance. “I don’t need to go anywhere.” I sigh, running my other hand through my blonde hair. “It was an accident.”
But I don’t need to look at either woman to know they’re giving methe look.“Come on, Mom,” I plead, hoping that for once in my damn life, she’s on my side about this.
I hadn’t been trying to kill myself, or really even hurt myself. I was overwhelmed, overstimulated, and just unable to think straight. Even if she hadn’t shown up, I would’ve been fine.
She owes me this.
“I…I don’t know, Fern,” my mom argues gently, reaching out to touch my arm. “You were standing there in the bathroom digging a pair of scissors into your hand like you didn’t even feel it.” She says the words carefully, like she’s afraid of saying the thing that’ll set me off again. Something that will mean she has to stick around longer instead of going home to Spokane with her newer, shinier, less mentally unstable family.
“I understand your uncertainty, but our doctors have determined you need to be evaluated,” the nurse tells me gently, setting her iPad down on the counter beside her. “Unfortunately, we’re past a discussion about the matter, Fern.” I hate the waythey both say my name, and I close my eyes with a sigh, refusing to let myself freak out even more.
Crying apparently won’t get me out of this, but…
“Not Bluebone Ridge,” I try this time, with more conviction in my tone. “There’s no way you’re sending me there.”
The nurse frowns again, looking at the door as if she’d rather be anywhere but here. But really, that just makes two of us. Every tired, stressed nerve in me prickles at the idea of being shipped up the mountain to the place where all local horror stories are born, but my mom just looks confused.
“What’s the problem with Bluebone Ridge?” she finally asks, a touch of irritation in her tone when neither the nurse nor I volunteer the information. “We have insurance. If the care there is subpar?—”
“That’s not the case at all, Mrs. Hollis,” the nurse assures my mother with a tight smile.
“Whittier,” I correct without thinking. “Her name is Whittier.”
“My mistake, Mrs. Whittier. The hospital is up in the mountains. It’s a very nice facility?—”
“It’s haunted,” I mutter with a sigh, interrupting her. “Those are code words for ‘it’s haunted and in a deserted place.’”
“It’s rural,” the nurse clarifies tightly. “It was rebuilt several years ago, but there are unfortunately local legends about it that paint Bluebone in a less-than-favorable light. I can promise you, truly, that I wouldn’t be sending your daughter there if I?—”
“If I offer you one hundred thousand dollars, will you go with me as my nurse?” I interrupt again, rolling my eyes up at her. When she doesn’t answer right away, I grin in an unfriendly manner. “Haunted. Deserted. Where dreams go to die and where local horror stories are born, Mom. The creepy ambient music kicks in about a quarter of the way up, where the road gets all windy and the wind starts howling.”
“Well…” My mom looks a bit troubled. Like she’s maybe regretting her decision to agree with the doctors about me needing help. At least, that’s my hope until she looks at me with that guilty, self-serving expression I know all too well.
“You’re being a bit dramatic, Fern,” she tells me softly. “And if they think this is for the best, then I have to agree with the doctor.”
“You mean the doctor who talked to me for all of five minutes while focused on an iPad, whose signal cut out three times? That doctor?”
Both women just look at me, expressions flat and making it clear they’re over my shit. But if I’m going to Bluebone Ridge, I’m going to make sure their days are as shitty as possible, since I’m sure it won’t compare to mine.
Fuck…Getting committed really wasn’t part of my plan today. But focusing on old ghost stories really is helping me not focus on the idea of being committedagainst my will. “What if I say I’m fine?” I sigh, running a hand through my hair again and hating the burn of tears in my eyes. “What if I sign a paper saying if I stab myself with scissors again, it’s no one’s fault but my own?”
“Unfortunately, that’s not how it works, Miss Hollis,” the nurse informs me, her smile still tight and unamused. “But you’re welcome to disagree with our assessment and say no to a seventy-two hour evaluation.”
