Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 104138 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 521(@200wpm)___ 417(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104138 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 521(@200wpm)___ 417(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
Stepping back into my room, I pass the used razor back to Jackie. “Thanks.”
“Looking good,” she says, smiling. “Doors open in ten minutes. You’ll need to wait in the day room for your visitor.”
“Okay.” I nod. “Thanks.”
My courage starts to wane when she leaves, so I read over Theodore’s letter again to remind myself why I’m doing this. I’m doing it because I miss him, because I need him, because I love him.
I haven’t been in the day room before and as I soon as I get there I don’t like it. There are several couches dotted around, and a stack of plastic chairs either side of the door. In the corner, there’s a desk with a nurse sitting at it, watching us. Someone is always watching us.
There’s a woman, younger than me, sitting in one of the large armchairs. She’s clutching a teddy bear which is tatty and worn, and nodding her head like she’s having a conversation with someone who isn’t there. When I sit down, a man who’s so young he might well be a teenager, walks over to me, wearing an eye-patch and fidgeting with the zip on his jacket. “I didn’t do it, you know. They say I did, but I didn’t.”
I offer an awkward smile, not knowing what he’s talking about or how to respond. I feel like I don’t belong here with these people. I’m not insane, just…sad. I’m not judging them, intentionally at least, but they make me feel nervous. I don’t know how to interact with them.
“He’s harmless,” says a woman, a patient I think, as she sits down beside me. She’s probably a few years older than me, smartly dressed with her auburn, flecked with grey, hair tied up into a neat bun. “That’s Jimmy. Schizophrenic. He thinks he’s in here for stealing his neighbour’s wheelie bin.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“I’m Nancy,” she says, holding out her hand for me to shake. “Depression, borderline personality disorder, and attempted suicide…for the third time. What are you here for?”
Wow. Blunt much? “Bipolar and attempted suicide. I’m James.”
“It gets easier. Once you’re past the refusing to leave your room stage, you’ll soon get to know everyone. Over there…” She points to the woman with the teddy. “That’s Suzy. She sits in here every day but I’ve never seen her with a visitor. The guy over there, folding paper, that’s Gary. He’s bipolar and OCD. He’s a great guy, funny, but don’t touch his stuff or you’ll see the not-so-funny side of him. Have you got a visitor today?”
“Yes. My partner, Theodore.”
“Like the chipmunk?”
I laugh, the memory of his ‘I want to hate you almost as much as I want to fuck you’ face, still fresh in my mind. “That’s what I said when I met him. Didn’t go down too well.”
“I’m waiting for my husband.”
“You’re married?”
“You don’t need to sound so surprised. Even us crazies can fall in love.”
“Sorry,” I mutter, flustered and feeling like a gigantic dick. “I didn’t mean-”
“I’m just teasing. Honestly? When I’m on a spiral it surprises me, too. Three times I’ve been in here, yet he’s still out there, waiting for me.”
“Don’t you feel…selfish?” For some reason I can’t fathom, I feel completely at ease talking so frankly to this stranger. It’s her eyes. There’s something lurking behind them that I can relate to.
“Yes. I still feel that way. But you know, I think people, especially people like us, forget how powerful love can be.”
“How do you keep going? I mean, three times…I don’t think I have the strength to come back from this again.”
“Hope, I suppose. I don’t really have an answer for you. Every time I feel the same way. Exhausted. Numb. But somehow, at some point, that hope kicks in. It’s all you can do. Hope you’ll get through it, hope you can be good enough for the people who love you, hope that it’s the last time you’ll ever feel that way.”
“What if hope hadn’t kicked in? Or what if you’d succeeded?”
“A month ago that was all I wanted, for it to end. When I got here for the third bloody time I decided I’d stop trying with the pills, talk my way out of here and take a leap off the motorway bridge instead.”
That’s exactly what I thought, too.
“Now? I’m ready to keep going. Keep trying. It’s all I can do.”
“And if you spiral again?”
Nancy shrugs. “I have to believe that I won’t. So do you.”
“But you can’t guarantee it.”
“No, but you can’t guarantee you won’t be living the happiest day of your life and get hit by a bus either. We can’t live on what ifs.”
“You know, for someone in the loony bin, you talk a lot of sense. You seem so…so normal.”
Nancy laughs, patting my knee. It surprises me that I’m not bothered by the contact. “I doubt you’d have said that if you’d met me a month ago. We are normal, James. A little different to most, perhaps, but we’re still people all the same.”
“You’ve been here a month?” I can’t decide if the idea of being here that long fills me with fear or relief.
“Well, just under. What level section are you on?”
“Two.”
“That means they can keep you here for up to twenty-eight days. But if you’re a good boy they might let you out early,” she says, winking. “Hasn’t anyone discussed that with you?”
“My therapist might have but, well, sometimes I’m guilty of switching off.”
During an absentminded glance across the room, I spot Theodore hovering in the doorway. I stare at him, my heart hammering in my chest. He’s even more beautiful than my mind’s memory of him. His hair is a little longer, the subtle highlights grown out at the roots.
He walks gingerly over to me, his hands tucked into the pockets of his jeans, and for a moment I forget how to breathe.
“I’ll leave you two alone,” Nancy says, reminding me she even exists.
“Th-thanks,” I stutter, my gaze locked on Theodore. Standing up, my legs feel like jelly, and I consciously tug on the sleeves of my shirt. He seems as afraid to start the conversation as I am, and for a few long seconds, we just…stand.