2. I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself
TWO
I JUST DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH MYSELF
HARKINS
“Visiting hours are almost over, Mr. Harkins,” the receptionist calls through the speaker.
Every inch of me rots with discomfort. I clench my molars to keep a distasteful remark from slipping out, the feeling of holding back making my skin crawl.
There’s a humming in my ear, distant but low, persistent enough to shatter my endurance for all things overstimulating.
So, I focus on the only thing that has ever kept me sane:
Her.
Always her.
The cold air blows from the vent in full force, as if it’s the staff’s intention to draw out my misery in whatever way possible—mental, emotional, or physical.
The thought that I’m being targeted as a visitor feels ridiculous at first, but through unrelenting paranoia and a less than tolerable climate, my irrational thoughts prove to be less than far off.
The A/C blows the strands of hair not bound by her braids, and though she barely blinks from the force, I immediately wonder if she’s just as cold.
I wonder if they’ve given her the bag of clothes and other hospital-approved things I was told I could bring for her.
I wonder if she’s eating enough, or if anyone is helping her keep the hair from matting in the back of her head where she can’t reach with the brush on her own.
I suffer eons of self-torment and what feels like everlasting anguish propelled by my own internal thoughts all in the span of time it takes her to blink. Her eyelids lag, lazy in their half-flutter, and when they shut completely, they’re slow to reopen.
Has the staff already medicated her in the short time she’s been here, or is this just the lasting effects of the sedative they used during her transport? I hate the dull look in her stare, the way her internal glow has dimmed, how even her copper skin has muted to a grim gray.
“Camila.” Her name trembles past dry lips, my voice weak and raspy from too many nights of sleep without her.
She doesn’t seem to register on the first call, so I brush my thumb to the top of her hand, her skin frigid and shocking to the touch. She flinches again, just like before, but this time, I hold and don’t let go.
“What did you mean by that?” I squeeze her hand so she can feel my warmth, so I can shift her focus back to me. “What does that mean, Camila?”
The crooked smile carves deeper into her cheek, but there’s no sign of humor present in her spirit. There’s no joy or genuine happiness to her. Something hollow takes its place, and it consumes any of the warmth I push her way.
“Camila…” I nudge her again; this time, my voice is stern but still. The smile doesn’t falter, her expression doesn’t crack, and I’m left with a discomforting sense of unease.
Camila was brought in on Friday night. Halloween.
It was supposed to be an observatory hold, forty-eight hours.
I was told she would be seen by the psychiatrist, that he’d let her go as soon as she was calm enough.
They failed to tell us the clock doesn’t start on the weekends, or that leaving wouldn’t be as easy as walking out the front doors.
It’s 6:45 in the evening now; there’s fifteen minutes left of visiting hours and once the receptionist calls time, there will be nothing I can do but drive home. Drive home to my shitty life without her, drive home to my shitty house that feels like a prison without her. Drive home to nothing.
From Saturday to Sunday, the realization hit me harder than a freight train: I am nothing without her.
I drove to this facility almost a dozen times, arguing with staff and pleading to see her, trying to figure out if they were going to be holding her longer than planned.
I packed her favorite comfortable clothes, her favorite books, and even took a polaroid of her favorite plant so she could have it near her.
Monday, I reveled in the misery, staring blankly at walls and contemplating if my absence in this world would matter to anyone but her, if staying alive to prevent her further pain was enough to keep me going.
On Tuesday, I found hope buried in the anguish of waiting for Wednesday to finally arrive.
Today, that hope was crushed into a million fragments with a single shake of her head as I asked her to come home with me when her hold time ran out.
“I want you in here with me.” She spoke with so much clarity and certainty, the very hairs on the back of my neck rose to stand.
I’ve tried to process, tried to beg her to see reason.
I’ve even spiraled down into that dark abyss that told me it was me, it was us that had festered.
Somehow, Sunny Valley Sanatorium seemed more appealing to her than the confines of our relationship.
Camila promised it wasn’t me. She looked me in the eyes and spoke the only words that have ever mattered—
“To the end, beloved.”
But it feels like the end when she wants to stay here.
It feels like the end when our bed is not where she chooses to sleep.
It feels like the end when being separated by the distance of a cafeteria table seems like continents away.
It might just be the end when the ring I put on her finger Friday night didn’t even stay on long enough to leave a mark. In a plastic bag somewhere here, I’m sure, inside a drawer with a piece of tape over the front of it, her name scratched in permanent marker.
Because God forbid she finds a way to hurt herself or someone else in this place with a diamond ring.
I remind myself that Camila Machado is dangerous, that if anyone could commit a violent crime with a piece of jewelry, it would be her. I bite back a smile for just a moment, choosing to hold the joke in and file it away for another time, when she’s in better spirits again.
Camila pulls her hand from mine, her cheek turning to the side as if she’s looking at something in the distance. It’s only the sterile white wall of the visitation room, but the piercing force of her stare makes me feel like there’s more there.
Something I don’t see myself.
“Five more minutes, Mr. Hark—” The receptionist cuts herself off on the microphone, removing her finger from the button too soon.
“Doctor,” I mumble under my breath, my heartbeat accelerating at the thought of running out of time.
It will be a week before another visitation Wednesday, before I can see her again, and if she doesn’t leave now, on her own terms at the end of this medical hold, there’s a good chance she won’t be able to leave at all until they’ve deemed her medically fit.
It’s these patients who get screwed by the system, becoming permanent fixtures of the sanitorium, incurring medical debt they’ll never clear and allowing the facility to claim one more patient for their grant payments.
Once they’re in there voluntarily, it’s the staff who gets to determine what constitutes medically fit.
It’s why they do such a good job of sedating and immediately drugging the ones who come in on holds.
It makes them easy to manipulate when their mind is clouded by heady medications and even easier to get them to sign away their rights before they’re sound enough to think it through.
It’s why I need so badly to understand why Camila is intent on staying here.
Because I can’t throw her over my shoulder and take her out myself. Not if, legally, she’s the one in her own way.
“Mila, please talk to me. Tell me what’s going on. Something, anything.” My tone is urgent. I can no longer hide how scared I am from her.
She furrows her eyebrows like she’s thinking about it, confusion evident on her face for a few brief moments until her eyes widen, her face brightening as she blinks away some of the fog.
“Are you here for me, Demetri?” It’s as if she hasn’t been present for the visit at all, none of my words actually reaching her.
“Yes, Camila. I’m here for you,” I reassure her, leaning over the table, putting far too much of my weight onto the flimsy thing as I strain to place a kiss on her forehead.
She smiles again—no teeth, just the curl of her lips, but it’s exaggerated. “Good,” she says on an exhale that fills the entire room with a sense of palpable relief.
The double doors open, two orderlies walking toward us so perfectly in sync, it’s somewhat haunting.
Left leg, right leg, arms swinging perfectly like little robotic nurses cut from a Burgess novel.
They stand next to her, silent, eerie almost, not bothering to shift their gazes to me or acknowledge my presence.
The metal chair she sits on scratching against the floor tears through what remains of my composure, the sound harsh enough to force a wince from my throat. The smile remains on her face, her head tilting slightly to the side, as if in thought.
She whispers, “Until then, beloved.” The orderlies drop their hands on her shoulders, and she stands, turning away from me.
I’m less sure of anything than when I first stepped in this place, but I know this isn’t right. Any universe in which Camila Machado walks away from me is wrong.
“W-wait.” I stand, calling out to her.
She doesn’t turn, but the white scrub-wearing lackeys on both sides of her do. It’s simultaneous, their performance perfectly in sync, when they open their mouths to speak. “Visiting hours are over. Please come back again next week.”
“B-but I ha—” I protest.
“Visiting hours are over. Please come back again next week,” they chant again, goosebumps covering my flesh from head to toe.
She’s through the doors before I have a chance to say any more, before I can try to stop her or hold her, kiss her one more time.
It feels worse than failure. In this very moment, the only thing I’m certain of is that death would be better.
“Where’s the doctor?” I turn to the receptionist, not disillusioned in any way, shape, or form that the Kubrick-inspired orderlies can be of any help to me.
“Gone for the day. Clinic hours start at eight tomorrow.” The short-haired brunette stares at me from behind the glass partition at her desk.
My heart begins a rapid drumming. “Well, what do you do if there’s an emergency?”
I can feel her eyes rolling even from this distance before she presses the button, her exhausted sigh still caught by the microphone. “Protocols are in place. I can assure you, all patients are safe when the attending physicians are not around.”
“What about visitors?” I’m speaking through a tightly clenched jaw, my nerves taking over, the anxiety so consuming, it feels like all my muscles are tight, locking up on their own without my permission.
It feels like I’ll crush my teeth to dust in my mouth.
The microphone buzzes with feedback, her finger on the button too long before she speaks. “Uh, what?”
My question confuses her, but I’m not speaking in code. I walk closer to her desk so she can hear me clearly. “Visitors. What do you do if there’s an emergency regarding visitors?”
Her eyebrows come together in the middle. “What kind of emergency?”
“The kind that requires being admitted.”
“Evaluations for voluntary inpatient stays start at nine a.m. Doctor Valerian has three slots tomorrow between group sessions. If you like, I can book it for you now. Do you have your insurance card on you?” She stares blankly at me, waiting for an answer.
“I said, it’s an emergency.” I can’t even see anymore. Everything feels clouded, foggy—I know I’m losing this fight, but I can’t.
Too much depends on it.
“What kind of an emergency?” she repeats, her tone almost mocking this time.
My scream is guttural; it startles her, sending her back in her chair, eyes wide and fearful.
A male orderly in white scrubs stands, observing from my side of the partition.
I don’t remember seeing him come through the doors—has he been there the entire time?
He doesn’t move, arms staying crossed at his chest and his expression unphased.
I reach into my pockets, but I remember they’re empty aside from my ID and a ChapStick, having dumped all my belongings in the passenger seat of the car before going through the metal detector.
Visiting hours are over, but the hospital doesn’t close, not when there are permanent residents inside who need round-the-clock care. The psychiatrist may not be in, but he isn’t the only one who works here.
I swallow my thumping heart back down where it belongs and soothe it with the promise of patience. Impulsivity will not serve me here.
“You again?” an orderly with a soft mustache sneers at me as I make my way inside again.
Luck still favors me, getting me through the doors just seconds before the clock runs out on the facility’s “open” hours.
The receptionist speaks through the microphone, still sitting behind her little plastic shield. “Visiting hours are over, Mr. Harkins.”
I push the honorary out through clenched teeth. “Doctor.”
It’s all that’s left of me.
“Visiting hours are over, Doctor,” she corrects herself, tone dripping in snark as she rolls her eyes and gestures to the door the orderly holds open now, key in hand to close up shop like this is a retail facility or some sort of petting zoo.
“I’m not leaving,” I tell her.
“Want me to call security? I think Robbie is still up on the fourth floor,” the orderly asks the receptionist, looking right through me, as if I don’t exist.
“I told you, I need help,” I warn, closing my fist tightly in my pocket. The sharp sting of my salvation feels less like pain and more like relief in this moment.
“You’ll have to wait until morning for intake. I don’t make the rules.” She holds the button on the mic too long, the screech of feedback bouncing off the pale pink concrete walls.
I’m tired of games.
When I pull my hand from my pocket, crimson drips through the cracks of tight white knuckles as I open my fist.
“Oh, shit.” The orderly panics but stays still, unprepared for something so far from his routine.
Jean pushes her chair back as if she’s finally going to leave the confines of her little nurse’s station, but she isn’t fast enough. The razor blade feels hot against my skin, scorching the flesh it tears when I grip it with steady fingers and run it up the length of my right arm.
I bite my cheek through the pain, tasting liquid iron, unable to determine if it’s saliva pooling behind my teeth or just a psychosomatic result of seeing so much of my blood outside of my body.
There’s too much noise to focus now, sharp electric sounds and an entire lecture hall of students clamoring in my ear, begging for my attention.
But I’m not at the university anymore, and when I try to switch hands, the razor falls from my grip, tendons destroyed in the process, leaving me unable to complete the task on both sides.
“Mr. Harkins, stay with me.” The nurse’s eyes are wide, full of worry as she takes the brunt of my weight in the fall to the floor. “Call upstairs, Jeff. We have a T14 in progress.”
There’s a scuffle at first, but then, my vision becomes blurry.
“Now!” she screams.