Chapter 5
FIVE
GWENNA
I am aswim. Everything around me liquid. Everything within me liquid.
Especially my head.
“That was overkill,” Jessie is saying. I blink.
Focus. We’re sitting in the waiting area outside the director’s office.
The very same plush gray couch I sat on with my mother seven weeks ago, the very same pale gray walls, the very same sleek frame around the same nothing artwork.
“Grace panicked. You’ve seen what happens to some of those girls when the boyfriends show up with—”
“They’re not my boyfriend,” I mumble. What? That doesn’t even make sense. I squint my eyes shut and open again.
“It was only 10 mils of Ativan,” Jessie says. “It should wear off in a few hours, max. I’m sorry, Gwenna. If I’d been there…”
“It’s okay.” I nod, genuinely grateful, even as my throat is raspy and thick and my skin is still tingling with a light sheen of panic.
Because they’re here.
They came here.
To see me.
To…save me?
I don’t know. I don’t know. Even through the Ativan haze, I’m anxious and knotted up and I don’t know what’s going on. Apparently they were told to leave the premises, but I can’t shake the feeling that they’re still here somewhere, standing by. Waiting.
“Yes, I’m looking at it right now.” Linda the admin cradles her desk phone to her shoulder, frowning through her reading glasses at her screen. “No. No. It’s—we’d need to have another transfer in to cover it. Her…” Linda taps a key, scrolls her mouse. “…mother, looks like.”
At the sound of that word, panic spikes in me. Or tries to. It’s like the volume’s been dampened on my reactions and I can only get to a 3 or 4 out of 10.
“Wait,” I say, loud enough for Linda to hear--she ignores me—and certainly for Jessie. “Wait. What’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” Jessie says, looking to the director’s firmly shut door and then back to Linda.
I believe her.
Did something else happen? I think. Did they…do something? Break something? It doesn’t sound like them—property damage—but neither does showing up here like…like this. Maybe they…
God, I wish I could think. My brain feels like soggy cotton. I give my head a shake just as the director’s door snaps open.
“We’re going to—Gwenna.” Her tone drops on a dime, from snippy to its usual serene. “You’re here.”
“You asked for a case conference,” Jessie points out.
“Of…course.” The director exhales, throws Linda a look, and folds her hands at waist level.
She’s around sixty or so, I’d say, slender, but more wiry than willowy, with steel-gray hair she wears swept back in a tortoiseshell barette and an endless wardrobe of billowing linen clothes. “Please. Come in.”
We do, Jessie waiting for me to toddle in first and shutting the door behind us.
The director’s office is blander than the waiting area, if that’s even possible. Even the chairs are stiffer. Grace the counselor is there, as is the security guard.
“Well.” The director settles behind her desk. “This has been…a morning, hasn’t it?”
No one says anything. The director presses onward.
“Obviously, this kind of…incident is unacceptable. That much should go without saying.” A hint of the snippiness bleeds in on those last words.
Then why say it at all? I almost blurt out.
But no. My tongue is heavy and my head is mush.
Be normal, Gwenna.
Whatever the fuck that even means at this point.
“As director,” she goes on, “It is my obligation to maintain a healing, stable environment. We are a private institution, which means that residency here is at the discretion of the director. So, if any of our residents poses a distinct threat to that atmos—”
“This was not anything Gwenna instigated,” Jessie pipes up. “I highly, highly doubt she—”
“Please,” the director says sharply. “If I may.”
Jessie retreats, but not before shooting me a quick glance as if to say sorry, I tried.
I nod back. What did they do? my mind is screaming. What happened? What did they do? What did they do?
The director is still speaking.
“…give your mother a call to inform her, and—”
“No.” The single syllable jets out of me like a reflex.
The director pauses, slowly dials her gaze in on me.
“No?” The corners of her lips twitch.
“No,” I say. “Don’t…do you have to call her?”
The director blinks. “That depends, Gwenna. Would you prefer to underwrite the costs of your transfer to Garnet View yourself?”
What is she…Garnet View?
“Because your current account balance will not be enough to cover the additional fees.”
That’s the PC dorm.
“We’d need authorization to initial another bank transfer.”
That’s what Linda was on the phone about just now.
A shiver cuts through my mental haze.
“I…what?” I manage.
The director coughs.
“As I was saying,” she goes on, with a meaningful look at Jessie, “that given what happened today, it would be in your best interest to be on protective care for the foreseeable future.”
No. No. My heart plunges. What happened to at the discretion of the director?
My mind swirls as the director’s speaking words I can’t even hear. I thought she was going to kick me out. I thought, maybe, the guys had done—
A knock at the door interrupts her speech.
“Yes?” she says, after a moment.
The door swings open, revealing Linda the admin wearing an apologetic expression.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” she says, “but this young woman insisted she—”
“Morgan,” comes another voice. A familiar one. “Le Fay.”
I’m hallucinating.
No. What? No. She—
That can’t be right.
I’m still trying to puzzle what the fuck is happening when she—Morgan—my best friend, maybe my only friend—sweeps into the room.
She looks exactly the same. Except, no, the outfit is new: white, head to toe, very après ski, complete with a pearl-colored down vest and fur-trimmed boots.
“Pleasure to meet you,” Morgan says, acknowledging the room but offering no hand to shake. “I’m a…peer mental health advocate. From Caliburn. University. Where Gwenna studies.” Her perfume, heady and floral, wafts over me as she sits down to my left.
The director stares at Morgan, goggle-eyed but blank-faced, as if she’s debating whether or not she should sic the security guard on her. But before she can say anything, Jessie speaks up.
“Gwenna?”
I look from Morgan to my therapist, see the concern written on her features.
Her question from earlier echoes in my mind.
Any friends, Gwenna?
Apparently, I answer. Outwardly, all I do is nod.
“No, she…Morgan can stay,” I say. “If that’s all right.”
I glance at Morgan, and her eyes find mine.
I’ve got you.
I don’t sense it from her so much as…hear it, somehow, even though I know she didn’t say anything out loud.
Still. If this is a hallucination, I’ll take it.
“I believe we do allow for a support person to be present at a case conference,” Jessie puts in mildly. “Usually a family member, but…”
The director pauses just a beat longer.
“Very…well.” She regroups. “As I was saying, after this sort of incident, protective care is what we recommend for—”
“Question.” Morgan puts her hand in the air. “What type of incident, exactly? I’d like to get up to speed.”
“The…a security incident,” the director says.
Morgan nods, frowning. “I see. Which Gwenna…caused?” Another burst of floral and citrus washes over me as Morgan tips her head.
“Well…” The director looks from Grace to the security guard. Grace winces and tilts her head sideways—a not really kind of move. The security guard pulls the corners of his mouth down and just shakes his head, a physical version of nope.
The director takes a deep breath.
“It’s less about who’s at fault,” she says, “and more about ensuring that residents in a state to…befall some kind of harm are supported.”
“Actually,” Jessie speaks up again. “If I may?”
No one stops her.
“In my professional opinion, Gwenna’s at no significant risk to herself, or others. Frankly, I’m not sure she ever has been.” Jessie’s glasses flash. “I’d attest to that.”
The director looks ready to sputter, but catches herself and just takes a long inhale through her nose. Then another.
And as she does, something seems to…soften in her expression.
In her everything.
Like she’s loosening up.
She breathes in again.
“I see,” Morgan says. “So this…protective care would be…overkill?”
“In…so many words,” Jessie agrees. “We try to reserve it as a…last resort. Or for anyone brought in under a 5150, as needed.”
“Involuntarily, you mean?” Morgan asks. “Which Gwenna was…”
“Not,” Jessie confirms.
“Aha.” Morgan nods. “So if I’m understanding correctly, then…there’s nothing keeping Gwenna here?”
Everyone’s eyes turn to the director.
“I…yes,” she says, after a moment. “Yes, that is correct. Gwenna is an adult, and there are no legal or medical restrictions keeping her here. That said, we do like to confirm that she has a…stable environment waiting for her, as a matter of continuity of care.”
“Oh, I can assure you she does,” Morgan says crisply. “We’ve made sure of that.”
We’ve. She’s lying, obviously, or seriously embellishing the truth, speaking with the royal we just to appear legit, and still.
We’ve made sure of that.
The director nods. “Then it’s…up to Gwenna.”
It’s up to me.
I haven’t had a choice, a real choice, in so long it feels intoxicating.
Go with Morgan. Stay here.
Go with Morgan. Stay here.
Go with Morgan—
“I…want to go,” I say. “I want to leave.”