Chapter 11
Charlotte
The silence is maddening. The Quiet Room is aptly named, for sure. The rest of this place echoes like a sound chamber. From my bed, I can hear footsteps tip-tapping as they creep along the hallway in the dead of night, but not in here.
In here, the intruder would open the door before you even knew they existed.
Time is but a fanciful concept within these walls. Have I completely lost my mind? Every time I take the meds, things get fuzzy, but it’s also the only time I get darkness… and through darkness comes clarity.
Light, yet the heaviest weight I’ve ever felt.
Hazy, yet the clearest I’ve ever seen.
Quiet, yet the most deafening sound audibly possible.
The light buzzes. My heartbeat echoes in my ears. I feel the rigid thumping against my chest. The hinges squeak. My throat bobs as it swallows. The metal scrapes. The darkness calls.
Rinse and repeat.
The orderlies never speak to me or answer questions. They bring their trays, watch me ingest whatever they brought, and then leave.
Always alone.
Just me and my spectral darkness.
Food. Darkness .
Pills. Darkness .
Thoughts. Darkness.
No matter what, it always comes back to nothingness.
* * *
“I don’t know what’s happened to me, Momma,” I admit, lying on my stomach with my face pressed against the padded floor.
My fingers find the now familiar nail marks left over from the lost souls who occupied the space before me. Their madness becomes my comfort. My nails trace their hopeless routes, walking in their proverbial shoes of despair and agony.
A loose thread of the material lays flaccidly along the top of the pad. I lightly pluck it up and let it fall again. “I don’t know how to live without you. Everything hurts. Nothing makes sense. Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” I ask, desperately trying to keep anger from my voice.
I don’t want to be angry at her. But fuck, how could she keep such vital information from me? Why would she wait until it was far too late to tell me that she was sick? If I had known sooner, I could’ve convinced her to do treatments. We could’ve looked into clinical trials.
In the weeks after her death, when I was lucid enough to work my fingers properly, I scoured the internet and found multiple trials happening all over the country. Why did she rob us of that chance?
I tightly wrap the loose tendril of string around the tip of my finger. As I ponder the reasoning, I observe with a detached gaze as the flesh gradually swells, taking on a deep shade of purple, completely devoid of emotion.
Was it money?
I would have begged, stolen, sold… anything to get it. Even if it meant facing Grayson and faking “the good daughter” routine to get it out of him. Fuck, I would’ve sold everything we had. I would’ve sold myself if it meant saving my mom.
Why her?
Anger surges through my body like a relentless tide as I reflect on the betrayal my sperm donor inflicted on not only me but my mom, too. The emotion, fierce and consuming, engulfs me. Each thought of his betrayal intensifies the flood of resentment and disgust. For what? The whore of a secretary? Was she worth destroying our whole fucking world? Does she have a pussy made of Corinthian leather or something?
She doesn’t hold a candle to the beautiful person my mom was, inside and out. Amelia Johnson was a step above all the rest. Truly, she was a coveted soul that this world will forever suffer without.
A storm begins to brew within, with each wave of anger crashing against the shores of my emotions. His actions sullied what should have been a solid foundation of trust and left behind the wreckage of broken familial bonds. The weight of his deceit drowns me in a fiery turmoil threatening to consume any remnants of fondness or understanding I’ve ever possessed for the man.
I wind the string tighter around my already numb finger, punishing the digit for the sins of the father.
Fuck him.
“I would’ve done anything, Momma… anything,” I croak, my throat dry and raw from the recycled stale air in this small box.
I roll onto my back and trace the blemishes filling the ceiling over to the silver ballast holding the large fluorescent tube. I fixate on the chiseled edges of the metal cage surrounding the glowing bulb. Sharp lines run the length of multiple ceiling tiles, probably about the length of my body.
I slide over, position myself directly underneath the cage, and pray, “Lord, I know I never talk to you. I’m not even sure if I believe you exist. I have at some point, but how can I continue when all this fucked up shit keeps happening to me?” I wave my hands out wide in the air above me, beckoning an answer to appear before me.
“If you could do me a solid, I’ll never ask you for shit again,” I beseech in a secret whisper with a sly smile on my face. If He granted this one wish for me, I wouldn’t be able to ask for anything again.
My lids flutter shut, watching as the dots behind my lids dance in the darkness and bring my hands together in a prayerful motion against my chest. “Please, give us one of those 1964 earthquakes right now. I’m talking the force of eight thousand atomic bombs because I need that case–” I pull my right hand out of prayer to point to the light above me. “ – To come loose and make everything stop. Please make it all stop.”
Squeaking hinges have me rolling my head towards the door. I peek through one eye and see a set of black tennis shoes coming into the room, the recognizable tinkle of tablets rocking against one another in their paper cup.
I squeeze my eye shut once more and shake my head, “Guess that’s yet another fuck you from you, huh, big guy?” I snort with a sarcastic huff of laughter, aiming my words at the God who either doesn’t exist or finds it amusing to fuck with me.
“What did you say to me?” Anger floods the voice of the burly, unamused orderly.
I wave him off with my right hand and then hold out my palm expectantly. “Not you, Tiny.” I curl my fingers back and forth in a “gimme” motion. " I was just having a chat with our Lord and Savior.”
He slams the cup into my waiting hand and scoffs, “It’s a little late to play the good girl, don’t you think?”
As the tablets work their way down my throat, I shrug my shoulders as much as the unforgiving floor allows. “Don’t most people beg for forgiveness as the Devil drags them to Hell?”