Page 46 of Ward D
Hours Until Morning: 6
Cameron must have left the unit.
It’s the only possible solution. Because I have looked everywhere, and he is not here. Maybe he got sick of not having any reception on his phone, and he decided to step out at the worst possible moment. I can’t blame him—I’m tempted to do the same, but I am an incorrigible rule follower. There’s only been one time in my entire life when I broke the rules and did something immoral, and I paid dearly for it.
I could leave the unit and check if he’s outside. Or I could slip out to finally get some service on my phone. I know the code for the keypad. It would be easy enough to leave. But technically, I’m not supposed to. And what if I open the door and a patient comes up behind me and pushes his way out? How would I explain that?
So I decide not to leave the unit to look for Cam. I’m sure he’ll be back soon enough. He wouldn’t risk getting a bad grade, even in psychiatry. After all, that would screw up his dream of becoming a surgeon.
In the meantime, I take Dr. Beck’s advice and try to get some sleep. But there’s no way I am sleeping in a patient room. The sofa in the staff lounge might be old and dirty and have visible springs poking out, but I’ll get a better night of sleep there than anywhere else.
Before I go to sleep, I take my phone out of my pocket and bring it over to the window. I press it against the glass, which feels cool against my fingers. I squint down at the screen, waiting for a bar to appear. If I get any reception at all, the first thing I’m going to do is call Cam and tell him to get his butt back over here.
Please. Just one bar. Please.
But no. Nothing.
I give up. It’s one in the morning—I’m going to try to get some sleep.
Except as soon as I lie down and turn off the lights, it’s clear that sleep is not going to happen. I stare up at the ceiling, my brain running a mile a minute. I try to remember the tricks Dr. Sleepy tells his patients to help them sleep at night. Most of it is stuff I can’t control at this point, like avoiding naps and caffeine, and getting on a regular sleep schedule. But one thing he always tells patients is that while they’re lying in bed, they can do the four-seven-eight breathing method.
Now I just have to remember what the hell that is.
Okay, I remember. You’re supposed to put your tongue between your upper front teeth, exhale completely, then inhale through your nose while counting to four, hold your breath for the count of seven, and then exhale to the count of eight. And do that three more times. You’re supposed to make some sort of strange sound while you’re doing it, but I can’t be bothered by that.
Here we go…
Inhale for four. Hold breath for seven. Exhale for eight.
Inhale for four. Hold breath for seven. Exhale for eight.
Inhale for four. Hold breath for seven. Exhale for eight.
This is not working. Atall. What I really need is some Ambien. I wish I had asked Dr. Sleepy for a prescription before leaving the clinic. In any case, I am not falling asleep anytime soon.
Where is Cameron? I can imagine him disappearing for a few minutes, but it occurs to me that I haven’t seen him once since we were in the patient lounge together interviewing Spider-Dan. That washoursago. It’s not like him to disappear that way. Cameron might not be as big of a rule follower as I am, but nobody cares more than he does about getting a good grade in a rotation.
Whatever else you could say about Cameron, nobody could match his energy and passion for medicine. He is truly excited about the idea of being a “bone doctor.” He wants to do trauma surgery. He likes the idea of putting people back together after a terrible accident.
That’s really morbid,I commented the first time he said that to me.
Why?He was truly confused.Somebody has to do it. Don’t you want to fix people?
I do want to fix people, but not in the same way. When I was a little kid playing with Barbie dolls, the dolls were always getting “injured” and I would have to bandage them up. Jade used to complain that she was sick of playing Barbie’s doctor’s office. So I got what Cam meant when he said that.
However, I want to fix people without necessarilycutting into them. I can leave the bloody stuff to people like Cameron.
After staring up at the ceiling for about an hour, I recognize sleep is not going to happen. Instead, I decide to take a walk around the unit, hoping I can get rid of some of my anxious energy.
I pass by the two seclusion rooms. The first room is still eerily silent. After all the noise I heard there earlier and the voice begging me to let them out, it’s unsettling how silent it is. I press my ear against the door, listening. But I hear nothing. Not a peep.
Not since the power went out.
“Mr. Sawyer?” I say softly. “Are you all right?”
No answer.
“Damon?” I say.
