Page 14 of Needing to Fall
No one wants you. You think you can survive out there now? You have nothing. Youarenothing.
“In other words, you’ve fallen about as far as a human being can go,” he said, not moving from his desk.
His words echoed around me, colliding with the ones playing in my head.
I was in the pits of Hell. There was no light. No hope. I didn’t even care. It all came to me in a rush. It didn’t matter if I ever got out of this hospital. It was only postponing the inevitable. I would end it as soon as I stepped out of those doors. Keeping me here was just prolonging the hurt. It was its own kind of torture that I had no control over.
Nurse Hatchet said I could get out if I listened and did what they said, but did it really matter? None of it did. I was stuck in the tar of my life, and it wasn’t ever going to loosen its hold and let me up for air.
The doc came over to the couch, and I jumped away from him, afraid he might touch me.
He halted, not coming too close. “Tomorrow, we begin to rebuild. For now, I’m going to call Nurse Bennett to come and get you.”
If I had been thinking clearly at the time, I would have learned my nurse’s real name instead of calling her Hatchet, but my emotions were all over the place, and everything in my head was a jumbled, scrambled mess, so it escaped me.
He left my side to punch some buttons on his phone while I just sat there, my forehead resting on my knees, allowing my tears to coat everything, drowning into nothingness.
***
That night, Nurse Hatchet granted me sedation, and I welcomed the blackness.
***
I haven’t talked to Wrestler McMann for days. I sat in his office while he tried, but I ignored him. There was no point, no point in anything. The black film around me was too thick to see above.
The doctor prescribed me sleeping pills, but I refused to take them. If I did sleep, it was because I passed out from crying or staring into lost nothingness. In those instances, I only slept an hour here and there, never any more. I hated to admit it, but I missed not having Andi to call and talk to or come and lay with me. I missed her making me feel a tiny bit happy, even for brief moments in this pitiful existence.
That was purely selfish, and it was weird how I would hate her one moment then miss her so much the next. It was something else that I kept from Nurse Hatchet and the doc: the up and down waves that my mind was taking me on. I kept them to myself and let them eat at my soul.
Nurse Hatchet opened the door to my room, and my head swung to it. Rarely anyone came to my room, and when someone did, it was for one of three reasons: one, to bring me food; two, to give me meds, which I gave into; or three, to take me to the doctor. This helped me relax just a touch. I didn’t have the constant worry for the first time in my life that the Petersons or my parents would barge in and take me away.
“Time for your session,” she told me, walking in and clasping her hands in front of her. She never felt any fear, or she was at least damn good at not showing it if she did. “You need to tell him everything.”
I sighed yet didn’t answer. I wasn’t going there. He had gotten enough out of me; he wasn’t getting any more.
She reached for my hand and cupped it in her grip. I tried to get away but couldn’t, which made the panic start to bubble.
“Let go,” I croaked out, having it get caught in my throat.
She stroked the top of my hand. “Calm.”
This was gentle, comforting in a way. I stayed tense, though didn’t pull away.
I took some deep breaths before she began. “Child, you need to talk and get better. Living inside your head does no one any good.”
I wanted to say,Living at all isn’t good for me, but I kept my mouth shut.
“Doc can help if you let him. You can go out and become the woman you were intended to be.”
I scoffed loudly and rolled my eyes. I wasn’t intended to be anyone in this world. I wasn’t intended to live a life that many only took for granted. No, the life I was intended to live was the one I wanted to escape.
“Young lady, don’t you roll those eyes at me.”
I halted because the way she said it wasn’t bitchy or condescending like I had heard it a million times from my foster families. No, this was caring yet assertive.
Unease slithered along my skin. No one cared about me. It wasn’t something anyone did. She couldn’t, either. I wasn’t worth her time.
“You are a bright woman and deserve to be happy.”
