Chapter 17 Jessica
Jessica
My hands are free. That’s the first thing I notice when I wake up.
I lie there for a moment, testing my movement. My legs are also unshackled, as is my head. I roll to my side, and the pain in my back weakens. I slowly slide my hands underneath me and push up into a seated position and look around.
The hospital room is empty except for my bed and a plastic table and chair in the corner.
“Hello?” The room doesn’t have a window, not even on the door, and the walls are like the dog shelter I volunteer at in the summers—stainless steel on the bottom half so we can easily spray them down with bleach.
The top half is padded. I saw walls like this in a movie once.
It was about a girl in a mental institution, and I let that detail fester in my head for a moment.
Is that what this is? A mental institution? The idea is so absurd that I let out a laugh, then stop at the thought that I’m alone in a room, laughing, and that fits right in with the motif.
Maybe I am in a mental institution. If so, it’s probably the one just off 60, right before I-5.
I used to pass that one every time I went downtown, though there are probably dozens in LA.
I’m definitely not in one of the fancy ones, though that would actually be kinda cool, and my best chance to meet and befriend a celebrity.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed and test my weight.
They feel like spaghetti, so I give myself a moment and roll my neck and stretch my left arm back behind my head by its elbow, then do the same with the right.
If Mom were here, she’d massage out the cluster of knots in between my shoulder blades.
Without her, I try my best to open up my back by stretching my arm across my chest.
I wonder if they’ve called her. Maybe she’s in the lobby, waiting for me with a big bouquet of balloons. She loves balloons, even though they are the most useless and annoying gift on the planet. She’s threatened to have balloons at my wedding, like all over the place. A sea of them.
Do you remember what you told us when you came in? What you’d done?
I still don’t even know why I’m here. Am I sick? Injured? Maybe I have the same pulmonary disease Mom has and I collapsed or something. I think of her on the sidewalk by our house, gasping for breath, her eyes open wide, her hand weak when I held it.
I’d known right then, before all the tests and the ER visits and the specialists, that she was going to die. It was this gut punch that occurred, a flip of a switch where everything was okay in my life, and then it was all just a countdown of moments we had remaining.
I pinch my eyes closed and try to think of her phone number. It’s in my cell, and I haven’t had to type out the numbers in ages. I’m sure she’s wondering where I am. Probably thinks I’m at a guy’s house, though the current loser hasn’t returned my texts in like a week.
I tuck my hair behind my ear; it’s ridiculously greasy. I don’t think it’s ever been this oily in my entire life. Suddenly, the need to wash it is unbearable. My scalp itches, so I use my nails to dig into it but can’t deal with the slick rub on my fingers.
I stop and stare at the insides of my arms.
I have bandages on both wrists.
Another mystery. Did I struggle so much with my restraints that I damaged the skin? My wrists do feel sore. I pull up one pant leg of the pale-green medical scrubs I’m wearing to see if the same bandages are on my ankles. They aren’t—my ankles look just fine.
The IV is still in the back of my right hand, the end capped off and taped down.
I leave it alone, ignoring the dull pain radiating out from the needle.
I’m not adept or prepared enough to try to remove my own IV.
I pulled at my mom’s drain line once, trying to help her get it out, and fainted dead away when a bit of fatty tissue came out with it.
I came to flat on my back on the bathroom floor, with her in a giggling fit beside me, the drain line still hanging out of her body.
I wonder how far away the waiting room is and if it’s on this floor.
Mom shouldn’t sit out there too long. She needs to be at home, relaxing in her chair, Golden Girls on the TV.
I might be here for a few more hours, and it’s going to stress me out if I know she’s out there in some uncomfortable chair, waiting on me.
The bandages on my wrists are annoying, and I pick at the left one, using my dominant hand to peel away the edge.
It’s a slow process. The skin revealed is bright red and inflamed.
They probably don’t know it, but I have a skin allergy to certain adhesives, and it looks like the one they’ve used is one of the ones I can’t have.
I pause, the top half of the bandage free, and look for a nurse’s call button.
There’s got to be one somewhere. I examine the sides of the bed, but this is a super-basic one.
It doesn’t even have the up or down buttons, or any power at all.
Honestly, this place seems kind of shitty, which does sort of track with the outside of the building, if it’s the one by I-5.
I stand, testing my legs, then do a very slow circle around the room.
There’s nothing here. Literally just my bed and this seating area, which has that same rounded thick-plastic look that you see on kindergarten playgrounds.
What’s really odd is that there’s no bathroom.
I don’t understand what I’ll do when I have to go, especially since there’s no nurse’s call button for help.
No wonder I peed on myself earlier. My underwear still feels damp, which is like an infection waiting to happen.
I sit on the plastic chair and lay my left arm on the table, using the flat surface to finish getting this bandage off.
Twice in the process, my hair falls in my eyes, and twice I have to tuck it behind my ear, and I swear I’d use the last water bottle in existence to rinse it out if I could.
I can’t believe I slept on a pillowcase with this greasy head.
My face is going to break out like crazy, especially since I haven’t washed it either.
What I don’t understand is how long I’ve been here. This feels like days of oil in my hair, maybe a week of it. Have I been sleeping more than I think I have? Because I have a day’s worth of memories, at most. I remember seeing the doctor. A few times where I woke up in the restraints. And today.
Either way, the very first thing I’ll do when I walk in the house is take a shower. Maybe I’ll splurge and use some of those coconut salt scrubs Mom ordered from Florida and do like a whole spa thing with lit candles.
It sounds heavenly, and I smile, rubbing at my raw skin to keep from scratching it.
Neosporin—that’s another thing the nurse needs to bring.
Neosporin and a different type of bandage, and to remove this IV and check on my mom .
.. I need a piece of paper so I can keep track of all this.
There’s no way I’m going to remember it.
Right now, my head feels like it’s stuffed with cotton balls, like I’m having the world’s worst hangover.
I need to stop doing Molly. Travis says it kills brain cells, which absolutely seems accurate, but shit, I love the high. I love the laughter. I never laugh like that except when I’m on it.
I have an itch in my side, and when I go to scratch it, I feel a fabric band around my waist. Pulling up my shirt, I stare down, confused.
I’m wearing diapers. White, stretchy pull-up-style diapers. Not wet panties—a wet diaper. And that’s apparently how I’m supposed to do the deed.
Well, that ain’t happening. I’m not pissing on myself again, not now that I’m awake.
I return to working on the bandage, and when it’s finally off, I try to understand what I’m seeing.
Two deep cuts, running from my wrist joints to halfway down my forearm.
Not horizontal. I remember learning in seventh grade from Spencer Barnes that suicide attempts should never go left to right, but up and down so you open more blood vessels or something like that.
I know what this is, but it—even more so than me being in this room—doesn’t make any sense.
Why would I try to kill myself?