The Patient

by Steena Holmes

  “I bet you sat in one of the chairs close to the children’s section, didn’t you? Close enough to listen in but not close enough to be noticed.” I twirled the straw in my own smoothie cup and tried to cover the laughter she no doubt caught in my voice.

  “Maybe.” She tapped the top of the bench even faster. “She was really good.”

  I glanced at her tapping fingers, making it obvious that I’d noticed she was antsy.

  “So?” She sat up straighter, removing her hand and placing it in her lap.

  “So . . .” The word lingered between us.

  Savannah let out a very long and exasperated sigh.

  “Fine.” She worried her lip for a bit before turning toward me. “My uncle is staying longer.”

  “For how long?”

  I wished I had my notes right then.

  “You got me. My parents decided to extend their vacation, something about visiting friends.” Her fingers started their drumming action on her thigh.

  For someone who appeared quite happy, she sounded anything but.

  “Does it bother you they haven’t come home yet?”

  She snorted. “Like I really care.”

  “Did you ask to join them?”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “Seems to me like you might miss them or something.”

  “Miss them? Are you high? This has been the best summer ever. For the first time in my life, I get a break from their crazy shit and endless lectures.”

  She lied, not with her words but with her tone.

  “How are things going with your uncle?” I still hardly knew anything about him, and I wasn’t comfortable with that.

  She shrugged. “He’s been away for a few days. He’ll be back tomorrow, when we thought my parents would be back. It’s been . . . nice, to be on my own. You know? I’m old enough.”

  I agreed with her. She was old enough to be on her own.

  “Are you looking forward to him coming back?”

  She tried to hide it, but there had been a flash of angst in her gaze. Not just regular teenage angst, but something more . . . I was on alert now.

  “Sure. He’s cool. I’m good being alone, though. It’s nice. No one to clean up after, no one to tell me what I should or should not be doing. I’ve waited for this freedom forever, and it’s finally here. I just wish it could always be this way.”

  I wished I had my notepad.

  “One more year and you’ll be off to college, and you’ll have your freedom then.” I needed to drive this point home, that this aspect of her life was only temporary.

  “One more year of living in hell? No thank you.” She flicked a piece of hair off her face and arched her back, her face turned up to the sun.

  “If you had to choose, would you rather live with your parents for the next year or your uncle?”

  From the look in her eyes, I could see her trying to figure out where I was going with this.

  “How about none of the above? Honestly, Doc. You seem off today. What’s going on?” She angled my way, one leg tucked beneath the other, fingers tap-dancing on her knee.

  “We’re not here to talk about me, Savannah.”

  She snorted. “Whatever.” She planted both feet back on the ground and bent forward, elbows on knees, head cradled by her palms.

  “I want to be free. Of them all. I don’t need them in my life. I don’t want them in my life,” Savannah said, her voice lower than the growl of an uneasy dog.

  My heart twisted and turned for whatever trauma she’d experienced but never admitted to. From all outside appearances, her parents were a loving couple, devoted to their daughter despite how hard she’d made life for them lately.

  “Why do you hate your mom and dad so much?”

  “Because they deserve my hatred.” The words flew out of her mouth like a butterfly escaping its cocoon.

  “But why?” All I wanted to do was help her get to the root of that emotion, to understand where her strong response originated from. If she could hate them with so much passion, she could love them just as much.

  Savannah’s leg bounced, and she played with the cup in her hands before she jumped up and faced the Red Queen.

  “They don’t know how to love. Not real love. Not love that children deserve. Don’t you get it? They’re selfish and judgmental and expect me to bend to their will without being aware I might have a will of my own. Did I tell you I used to pray for their deaths? I would beg and plead with God to kill them, whether it was in a car crash or some type of accident. I thought God loved me . . . and if he did, he would save me from them. But there’s no God.” She spat on the dirt to the side. Her back was rigid, her shoulders tensed, her hands fisted. “Which means I need to take care of it myself.”

  There was an aura about her that swirled with anger and frustration, and it scared me.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  I hadn’t helped her. Not one bit. From the time we’d started meeting to now, the anger and hatred she’d felt toward her parents had only grown, not diminished.

  “When I realized there was no God, I knew I’d have to take control of my own life. Of my own happiness. And I will. I have a plan, and Uncle is going to help me. I don’t need my parents in my life, and by the time I’m done, everyone will finally believe me that they weren’t good people.” Her voice broke, and she tried to hide the swipe of her hand against her cheeks. But I saw. I noticed the tears.

  My heart burst with tears I couldn’t shed, because all those feelings in her voice—the loneliness, the sadness, the frustration and emptiness—they were in my soul.

  I pictured a little girl who sat at a table with a deck of cards, waiting for someone to play with her.

  A little girl curled up on the couch, watching a movie by herself, while her parents argued about something inconsequential.

  A little girl like me, but not like me, who just wanted to be loved.

  Why was it whenever I spent time with Savannah, there was this yearning for the little girl of my soul to come out? To be felt and heard and loved?

  “You must trust your uncle.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement. Confirmation of what I heard.

  “He’s the only one I like in my family. He gets me. He loves me, and he doesn’t just say it, you know? He shows me. My parents, they might say it, but I know they don’t mean it. But him . . . whenever he’s around, I feel loved.”

  “Feeling loved is nice.” I needed to be careful how I trod these next few minutes. “Everyone shows love differently, just like everyone needs to be loved in different ways. Maybe when your parents return, we could have a session with them about this?”

  Savannah snorted. “Like that will ever happen. I’d rather they just didn’t return. Maybe their plane will crash, or . . .” Her eyes lit up as she talked.

  I leaned forward, elbows resting on my knees, and looked at the girl in front of me.

  There was something off about her today.

  For all her laughter and happiness earlier, I caught the anxiety she tried to hide.

  For all her talk of love and dreams of being free, I heard the panic in her voice.

  For all her bravado, I saw the little girl who wanted to be loved.

  “How about we get off that topic”—I gave her my gentle smile along with my accepting voice—“and talk about the next few weeks. What are your plans? Will you go back to the library?”

  “My uncle wants to go on some day trips, even camp for a few nights. Do some shopping and just have fun. He likes to spoil me. When I was younger, he called me his princess.” She grabbed one of her braids and tugged. “Those are probably the only good memories I want to keep from when I was little.”

  “Being his princess?”

  She was saying all the right words to raise my alarms.

  I really hoped his treating her with so much love was just that—an uncle loving his niece. A familial love between two family members.

/>   My stomach clenched, the smoothie rolling around in endless waves.

  “My uncle loves me. What’s wrong with that?” She jutted out her chin in a challenge.

  I leaned back on the bench. “Absolutely nothing.” I hoped I read too much into her words, that her uncle was as amazing as she thought he was. But I couldn’t shake the dread inside me that he wasn’t.

  She turned her back, ran her hands along the queen’s voluminous dress.

  “I wish I was the Red Queen right about now,” she said. “Off with your head,” she shouted, her arm slashing in a hatchet movement. She glanced over her shoulder, her eyes narrowed, and she waited for my reaction.

  I shrugged.

  She tsked me, her finger wagging while she shook her head in mock dismay.

  “Now, now, Dr. Rycroft. That’s two shrugs from you already. How unlike you.”

  I went to shrug again but caught the movement in time.

  “Why don’t we head back, Savannah,” I said, making my voice light. I grabbed both our cups and tossed them in the garbage on our way out of the courtyard garden.

  Savannah walked two steps ahead of me.

  I didn’t mind.

  By the time we reached the edge of the park, she’d slowed until we walked side by side.

  “I’m still going to the library,” she said out of the blue.

  “Is that right?”

  “I’m learning a lot. I’m beginning to understand how the mind of a killer works.”

  My brows arched like the McDonald’s arches.

  “All from reading a few books?”

  “I’m a quick study,” she shot back. “When I want to be. You know what they say, right?”

  “No, what’s that?”

  “Practice makes perfect.”

  My stomach churned at the implications of those words. I smiled at people we passed by and waited till we were out of earshot before asking the question I knew she was dying for me to ask.

  “So how does the mind of a killer work?”

  She twirled again, her face as bright as it had been when she’d first arrived, but this time, the joy in her eyes was real.

  “It’s fascinating. It’s like they shut off all emotion and only focus on themselves. Nothing else matters, only whatever plan they concocted in their mind. Their focus is everything. Most of them are brilliant. Did you know that? They had to be to get away with all the murders they did. And it wasn’t like they knew how to kill at first. They had to practice. To learn.”

  “I wouldn’t call that fascinating, nor would I call them brilliant. They eventually got caught, didn’t they?”

  “Everyone makes mistakes.”

  There was no disdain in her voice, no reproach, no disgust.

  Instead, I heard respect, admiration, and praise.

  “Savannah, killing a person is never okay. You know that, right?”

  “Why? Because society deems it so? Fuck, even in the Bible, God demands retribution and death.”

  “You are not God.” I shouldn’t have had to remind her of this.

  “Yes I am.”

  I waited for her to clarify.

  “My father says we were made in the likeness of God. So if I look like God, if my faith can move mountains, and if my tongue holds the power of life or death . . . sure sounds like I’m God to me.”

  I stared off to the side. The need to control my facial features, my eye roll, and even the sigh that wanted to come out were strong.

  “I think you’re taking the scripture and what your father said out of context, don’t you?”

  “Ask me if I care.” She pulled at both her braids, taking one of the skull bobby pins out and handing it to me. “My mom almost threw these out, said we don’t worship the devil in our home. Can you believe that? I found her in my room, holding a bunch in her hand.”

  “How did you feel when she admitted that?” I was used to Savannah changing the subject on me, so I just went along with it.

  Her forehead wrinkled as she thought about her answer.

  “I hate when you ask me about my feelings. You know that, right?”

  I nodded. “That’s kind of in the job description, though. Hate to say it.”

  “Whatever.” She stared straight ahead. “I was mad. She had no right to be in my room and take what wasn’t hers. It wasn’t right.” She crossed her arms over her chest.

  “Did you know your mom would feel that way when you bought the skulls?” It was important to get Savannah to stop focusing on herself all the time and start thinking about how others around her felt and were affected by her decisions and reactions.

  “I really don’t care.” Her lips pushed out in a pout. “But you’re going to make me answer, aren’t you?”

  Why say anything when she said it for me anyway?

  “Fine. Yes, I knew she wouldn’t like them. And yes, I bought them in spite of it.”

  “Or maybe because of it?”

  “So what if I did? Do you really think I care what she thinks or believes?”

  “I’m curious—does your uncle like skulls?”

  She gave me an odd look. “He has a few tattooed on his body. Why?”

  “I just wondered if he knew how your mom felt about them, that was all.”

  She snorted. “He doesn’t care what she thinks. He only cares about me. His princess.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  MEMORY

  I can’t stop the shaking no matter how hard I try.

  Mind numb. Heart racing. Body on fire.

  Uncle’s fingers tap-dance along his steering wheel while I bury mine beneath my legs.

  We’re on the run, but we’re free.

  Free.

  I don’t even . . . My mind can’t . . . What does that even mean? Free?

  “Breathe, princess, just breathe. We’ll stop at a secluded beach tonight, sleep under the stars, just you and me, and celebrate our new life. Trust me, okay?”

  His fingers leave the wheel and reach for mine.

  His thumb runs along my skin. Focusing on his touch calms me.

  He calms me.

  I breathe. Deep.

  We did it.

  I did it.

  OH MY GOD. I did it. I made them pay. I—

  “That’s my girl.” Uncle winks as he squeezes my hand. “The hard part is over. You did great, Firefly. I couldn’t have done it better myself.”

  The praise goes straight to my heart.

  “How many times have you—” I choke up, unable to untangle the word from around my tongue.

  “Killed?”

  I nod.

  “Say it.”

  What does he mean, say it?

  “I want you to say the word. You need to say it for yourself. Make it real. Don’t degrade the memory of what you just did. Take ownership of it—be proud of it.”

  He speaks to me as an equal; I hear it in his voice. He doesn’t see me as a child who needs tutoring but an equal who has to get over this mountain, the mountain of my first kill.

  “How many times—” I clear my throat, forcing the knot around my tongue to relax so the word can slip free. “How many times have you killed someone?”

  His nod tells me how proud he is of me.

  I’ve never felt that sense of pride from anyone other than him. I can’t remember the last time anyone else said they were proud of me or loved me or even believed in me.

  Not like he does.

  “Between us, three people. They all deserved it too. I’ve never been caught, so when I ask you to trust me, I mean it. We’ll be fine.” He stares straight ahead into the night, his truck lights on the dirt road the only things illuminating our way.

  Those lights, the brightness staring straight ahead, pushing back the dark night as we race along the road, they give me hope. Hope that no matter how dark things seem, no matter how suffocated I feel, there will always be a way out.

  “How many people have you killed?” he asks me in turn.

  “Two.”
The words aren’t pulled out of me. They don’t cut my throat into shreds as I admit the truth. They slide off my tongue with ease.

  The raw honesty of that one word breaks something inside me. It breaks and births a new being with a need for room to grow.

  “That’s right,” he says with pride. “You’ve killed two people who didn’t deserve to breathe the same air as you. Two people who didn’t love you and only used you for their own purposes. Two people who were already dead inside.”

  “I hated them.” Is it just me or does my voice sound different? More mature. “I hated them,” I repeat. I like how it sounds, the emphasis placed on I and the H and how the words all ring together. Three words become two become one as I accept the feelings for what they are.

  “They didn’t deserve your love or hate. They don’t even deserve to be a memory for you. Wipe them clean from your mind. Create your own memories if you need to. Fill in the blanks with what you believe you deserved. No one will know the difference.”

  His words make sense. I’ll take the good parts, like when I was younger and my father was my daddy. A daddy who loved me, protected me, paid me attention, rather than the man I killed tonight. The man who was raping my mother, who called her a whore even as he degraded her and their life together.

  “Is that what you did? Created your own memories?”

  He nodded. “People say everything in life is dictated by your surroundings, what you were born into, how you were raised. That all that psychology crap is built into your DNA, and you can’t help but react based on those imprints. I call bullshit. Life is what you make it, Firefly. There is no predestination mumbo jumbo, no afterlife, no God you have to pray to for forgiveness. Life is about choices. Your choices. You get to choose who you will be, where you will go, who you will love, and what memories you’ll take with you.”

  I think about that.

  I hold the power to change my life at any time. Become someone new. Create a new life with a different history, one of my own making.

  “Any regrets? From any time you killed someone?” Deep inside, I know the answer, but I want to be sure.

  “Not a single one.”

  “She was your sister.” The words are whisper loud and mixed with a little bit of sadness.

  He squeezes my hand hard.