Chapter 37
CHAPTER
THIRTY-SEVEN
SYBIL
PRESENT
The fluorescent lights overhead hum and make my eyes ache.
I lean against the doorjamb of the dayroom and flip through a magazine, my heart hammering.
I stayed awake most of the night coming up with a plan to get past the nurses and orderlies.
Our room doors aren’t locked, but the heavy doors at the end of the hall need a keycard to get through.
I’m not letting that keep me from getting to Troy.
Through the reinforced glass pane of the doors, I see the dietary worker approaching right on schedule. He’s an older man with slumped shoulders who looks endlessly bored. He arrived earlier to leave our food and now he’s coming to retrieve the tall, stainless steel food cart full of dirty trays.
This is my only window of opportunity. The post dinner cleanup lines up with a shift change of nurses and orderlies. It’s a little chaotic and the night shift is understaffed.
“Hey Arthur, how are you doing tonight?” Nurse Kinnon calls.
“Upright and breathing,” he grumbles, walking down the hall to grab the cart. It’s a towering metal box on wheels, stacked high with plastic bins holding messy dinner trays, the perfect thing to hide behind.
Nurse Kinnon rolls her eyes and goes back to writing at the small nurses’ station. She isn’t looking at all when he rolls the cart by me and I step behind it, matching his stride on the opposite side. Neither of them can see me.
If I’m lucky, no one else will either. I only need a few seconds. I hunch down a little, my feet silent on the cold tile, using the cart as a moving shield. He pauses and the beep of his keycard being scanned makes me hold my breath with anticipation.
The doors swing open, and we pass the threshold into a hallway while they begin a slow, pneumatic swing back. I hear them lock automatically behind us. I’m out but not free yet.
We turn a corner to a wall of elevators, but when he continues down the hall, I stop and press the button.
He could see me now if he looks back, but I doubt I’d stand out.
Jane brought me some leggings and a sweatshirt to wear.
The only odd things that might be noticed before I make it out are my bandaged hand and the slipper socks on my feet instead of shoes.
The elevator doors slide open, and I hurry inside. I hit the button for the bottom floor then hammer the close door button until they shut, leaving me alone. The glowing display counts down while my hands nervously twist around each other.
The doors have barely opened when I dart into the hallway, keeping my head down. I scan the room numbers, my chest tight with desperate hope. 110, 111, 112.
This is it. I press the handle down on room 112 and slip inside, closing the door behind me.
The room is dim, but I can see him clearly.
Troy lies in bed, wearing a hospital gown with the covers pulled up to his waist. He’s asleep and for a moment, I can’t move, only stare at him.
Tears stream down my face. Look what I’ve done to him.
After everything we’ve been through, he’s always stayed by my side, fiercely protective, never wavering in his love and devotion to me. And I tried to kill him. Jane told me he doesn’t blame me, and I know that’s true, but it doesn’t change that I did this to him.
The worst part of my breaks is that I remember everything afterward. Not only our shared past but the things that happened while I was in the grip of psychosis. It all comes back, but during the episodes, I can’t remember anything after the day I escaped Hearth and Vine Farm.
He tried so hard to keep me safe and happy. To keep me firmly in the nineteen nineties so I wouldn’t be afraid or confused. He took care of me the way he always does. In return, I stabbed him.
Part of me wants to walk out of here and out of the hospital. Just run away from him and everyone who loves me because they might be better off. Or maybe I’m a runner at heart. It doesn’t matter. I can’t. I can’t live without him, no matter how selfish it might be.
Quietly, I walk over and climb into his hospital bed the same as I did twenty years ago. He isn’t as badly hurt this time, but I’m careful not to jar him.
I curl up close to him and he stirs, opening his eyes. “Sybil?”
“I’m sorry,” I choke out. “I’m so fucking sorry.” Sobs break loose, and all I can do is wrap my arm around his neck as he cups the back of my head.
“Shh, sweetheart, I know. It’s okay. I’m okay. This isn’t your fault.”
It is, though. He’s lying in a hospital bed with a sewn-up gash in his stomach because of me. “You could’ve died. I almost killed you.”
“It wasn’t you, not really. They did this. The cult did this to both of us.”
No cult member held that knife, I did, but I know he’s not wrong. All these years later, we still can’t escape the things that were done to us when we were young. Does everyone spend the rest of their lives battling their childhood?
“We can’t go on like this. You can’t risk your life to be with me. I should leave or—”
His hands land on each side of my face, interrupting my hysterical words. “Stop. Stop right now and listen to me.”
Intense eyes stare into mine. “If you remember everything, then you know what we swore we’d never let them do.”
Of course I know. It’s been over twenty-two years since he made me that mixtape and it still stays in a box of keepsakes in our closet. Except when he had to bring it out because I accused him of stealing it.
“Tell me, Sybil,” he insists.
“They’ll never tear us apart.”
He hugs me as tightly as he can, mindful of his bandage. “That’s right. This is forever, so get that through your head now, but you’re right. We can’t go on like this. Two things are going to change. First, I’m getting this tattoo removed. I don’t need it and it only makes things worse.”
After we escaped, he suggested having our tattoos removed or covered up, but I wanted to keep mine.
I didn’t see it as the scarlet mark they wanted me to.
I saw it as a scar of survival. Seeing it in the mirror made me feel triumphant, not ashamed.
When I explained that to him, he decided to keep his as well.
We’d steal them from the cult and wear them as badges of our accomplishment, and their shame.
“Okay.” My sobs lessen but tears still run down my face.
He sweeps them away with his thumbs, then reaches over and picks up his phone to show me a picture of a small beach house.
Sadness washes over me. Our family and friends live in Kentucky.
Jane’s family and Troy’s are all I have since my grandma died a couple of years before we escaped. Our whole life is here and I love it.
I sigh and hand his phone back. “It’s a beautiful place, but I’d rather you have me admitted when the psychosis begins than move and start all over.”
“We aren’t moving. We’re going to take a little winter break every year. We wanted to travel when we retired anyway. Instead, we’ll spend three months a year in whatever beautiful place we choose, as long as it’s warm and never snows.”
It sounds amazing, but can we just pick up and go for so long? “What about Clover and the goats, and your auto shop?”
“Clover’s coming with us. Jane has volunteered to housesit and care for the goats.
She said one of her daughters would be willing to help too.
The shop can do without me. I’ve already spoken to my brothers and everyone’s on board.
They love you too, you know. Now, help me pick a place and we’ll leave once your doctor releases you. ”
I wipe the last tear from my face as he hands me his phone again. Despite everything, I feel like the luckiest woman alive. There was a time when I thought no one could love me and now I’m surrounded by love.
We cuddle together, looking at vacation rentals. Not quite an hour later, the door swings open, flooding the darkened room with bright light from the hallway.
“What in the world...?” A nurse stands there, gaping at us. She regards Troy. “I was coming to let you know that she was missing.”
I sit up and let my legs hang over the side of the bed. “It’s okay. I’ll go back. I just needed to see him.”
“How did you get out of the ward?” she asks, shaking her head with a wry smile.
Shrugging, I grin at Troy. “I’ve had a lot of practice at escaping.”