Chapter Fifty-Seven
Miranda
I ripped the stupid, cheap, white grippy socks off my feet and tossed them on the floor with a sigh of relief that I would never have to wear them again.
But, well, when you were confined against your will, they didn’t let you have shoes. So the slipper socks were what you had to deal with.
Alice, the girl I’d been sharing a room with, a pretty normal woman who had a long history of bipolar issues, told me she had an entire dresser drawer full of the grippy socks from all her different psych ward stays.
When I’d asked why she’d kept them, she’d shrugged and said, “Hey, they were free! Who passes up on free socks?”
Me, I guess.
Not because I had anything against the socks, per se.
Just what they represented. Days and days of my life that I would never get back.
People looking at me and treating me like I was both fragile and dangerous.
Sleepless nights because someone came in with a flashlight every so often, flashing it in my face to make sure I was still alive.
As if there was anything in this godforsaken place to use to take my own life even if I were so inclined.
All it was was white walls and linoleum floors and barred windows and that ever-present scent of industrial cleaner that just didn’t quite cover the smell of a bunch of human beings all crammed in the same airless space. Some of whom had objections to showering.
I’d been anxious when I’d been walked to the ward, wondering if I would be met with people screaming and rocking or spitting or trying to hurt me in some way.
I’d been both pleasantly surprised and incredibly sad to find that most of the people were just… normal. People who likely just needed more support—psychologically, economically—to be able to deal with life outside without wanting to kill themselves or falling into deep depression.
There were a few genuinely… unwell people around, though.
Including one older man who had, on more than one occasion, dropped his pants and either urinated or defecated on the floor. Right in front of everyone.
“That’s Pete,” Alice had told me, nodding as I went a little green at the whole ordeal. “He’s kind of a lifer. In and out like me. But, clearly, a little more bonkers. I might go manic and fuck too many guys in a twenty-four-hour period, but I’ve never taken a shit on their floor.”
I liked Alice.
She was way too young to have been in and out of psych wards so often.
“Oh, my mom had me locked up for the first time when I was eight. That was the worst,” she’d told me, her pretty blue eyes going stormy as she recalled it.
“There was this five-year-old that first night. Sobbing for his mom over and over. And those pieces of shit who worked at that ward dragged him, literally dragged him by his legs to the quiet room. Can you imagine? Being locked in a padded room, alone, because you were crying for your mom when you were five-fucking-years-old? Those were heartless monsters at that hospital.”
“I can’t imagine,” I said, my heart aching for that little boy, wondering where he was now, if he ever told his mom what had happened to him, if she even gave a damn.
“They aren’t all like that, though. This one isn’t too bad. I mean, there are some real nutters here on occasion. But so long as they aren’t violent, I don’t mind.”
“Can I ask you why you, you know, have to keep coming back?”
“Oh, you know us bipolar types. Never learn our lesson. Always go off our meds. I mean, of course, there are plenty of stable, well-adjusted bipolar people who take their meds. But, well, I know a lot of others like me. Then we go into a manic episode. That’s different for each of us.
I get really slutty. And occasionally dabble in some drugs I have no business touching.
Especially with how much they lace that shit these days.
“But things are always pretty good in the manic side of things. It’s the comedown from that high that sends me back here.
I have no energy. I live in my bed. Not showering.
Barely eating. Friends and family worry, but there isn’t shit they can do.
Then, well, after a few weeks of that, the little voices start creeping in, saying ugly shit, making me believe it.
“I mean, not real voices. I don’t have a split or, like, schizophrenia.
I mean, I love me a good multiple-personality friend.
Those are the best. Some days you are talking to the real them.
You know, Janet, aged forty, has a couple kids and a husband who loves her.
And then other times, Janet is gone and in her place is this edgy, raunchy truck driver by the name of Russel.
“Anyway, yeah, it’s not real voices. Just the depression talking. That starts to get bad. And sometimes I try something, or sometimes I just… turn myself in before I can try something.”
“Wow. I’m glad you get help. I wish you didn’t have to keep repeating that cycle, though.”
“There’s an old saying about us bipolars and how often we have to hit our lows before we finally give in and accept that we have to take our meds. Haven’t gotten there yet, but I’m hopeful.”
“Why don’t you take them?” I’d asked. “If that isn’t offensive to ask.”
“We don’t really worry about being offensive in here. We’re all basically here for the same reason, right?” she’d asked, and I’d noticed the way her gaze slipped to my bandaged wrist. “The meds suck. I keep hoping for a new combination that doesn’t make me feel like a zombie, but so far, no luck.”
That was Alice.
Hopeful, yet fragile.
I was going to be sad to leave her behind.
“You’re leaving me, huh?” Alice asked, snapping me out of my memories, making me look up to find her standing in my doorway.
Small.
God, she was so tiny.
I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen an adult woman so childlike before. Short, so slight she looked like a strong wind could snap her bones, with a short crop of dark hair and these big, doll-like blue eyes.
She was almost hauntingly pretty. Like a ghost in a dream. You could see her and then immediately question if she was real or some ethereal being.
“The head-shrinkers don’t think I’m a danger to myself anymore,” I told her, nodding. That was her term for the psychiatrists.
“They always come to that conclusion for me too,” she said, dropping down on the bed across from the one I was sitting off the side of. “So, are you a danger to yourself? I won’t tell them.”
“I’m not,” I assured her. “I just want to get back to my life. I can’t even imagine how much work I’m going to have to catch up on.”
“Hey, do you think it’s possible that I could, you know, shoot you an email or follow you on social media or something? You know, when they deem me sane enough to leave again, that is. It’s cool if it’s a no. I get that sometimes you don’t want to have loony-bin friends outside of the loony-bin.”
“I would love to keep in touch, actually,” I told her. “But since we don’t have any pens here, you are just going to need to remember my number.”
“I still remember my sixth-grade locker combination,” Alice said, smiling. “Shoot,” she invited, listening as I rattled it off, then repeating it back to me.
“Let me know when you’re out, okay?” I asked, reaching out to give her wrist a squeeze. “You really made this stay tolerable for me. I can’t thank you enough for that.”
“Hey, that’s the job of the old timers, right?” she asked, following me out to the desk. “Now, don’t come back, y’hear?” she said, shooting me a soft, sort of sad smile as I headed back out toward my old life.
While she stayed there.
Without her newfound friend.
My heart ached for her, but I figured I would hear from her one day. And, like she kept telling me, she was a veteran of state-run psych wards. She would be okay.
So I needed to get my head back on my own life.
I didn’t know what was going to happen once I was released, especially if my smartwatch wasn’t charged to call anyone.
You could say I was floored to find a car parked and waiting for me.
“Miss Coulter?” the driver asked. If he had any thoughts about the place I was being released from, he kept them to himself.
“Ah, yes,” I said, brows pinching, wondering why there was a stranger there instead of Cam, or Mitchell, my usual driver.
“Cam arranged for me to pick you up,” he said, the words sounding rehearsed, which only assured me that Cam had, indeed, set this up. Because he was absolutely the sort to hammer a phrase into someone’s head.
“Oh, okay,” I said, following him toward the car. “Do you happen to have a char—“ I started as he opened the door.
I didn’t get to finish the word because he was pulling a charging cord out of his front pocket.
“Cam?” I asked.
I got a nod to that. “Cam. He was… exacting,” the driver said with a wicked little smile that said that what Cam actually was, was a pain in the ass. Which was exactly what he needed to be at times to work for me.
“That sounds like him,” I said, blinking at the sudden stinging in my eyes. I may not have a lot of close people in my life, and sure, I had to pay Cam, but he was one of the good ones. I was lucky to have him.
As soon as I settled in the back of the car, I realized just how lucky.
Because not only had he arranged for me to have a charger for my watch, but there was a whole bag in the back full of little supplies he knew I’d appreciate.
Hand sanitizing wipes, which I promptly used all over my hands, neck, and even my face to hold me over until I could have a proper full body scrub in my own shower.
There was a bottle of my favorite iced tea, some little packs of cookies and chips, a nail file and clipper, a hairbrush and jaw clip, and a tin of strong mints.
Over the hour-long ride back to the city, I used every single thing in that basket, reminding me again how invaluable Cam was to my life, even if it did feel a bit strange that he hadn’t shown up to pick me up himself.