Losing Leah

by Tiffany King

  I refused to answer her, digging my fingers into my rib cage until they poked painfully between each one.

  “Mia, Gunner was there to help you. He made all those firsts less intimidating. He gave you the confidence to believe you were ready to face the outside world.”

  “You’re wrong,” I said in a quivering voice. “Everyone loved Gunner.”

  “Everyone loved you, honey. Gunner’s personality inside you gave you the confidence to talk to the people who terrified you. He gave you the push you needed. A push we all were grateful for.”

  I shook my head again. “No, this isn’t right.” A filmstrip of memories ran through my head. I could see myself stowing a candy bar wrapped in orange paper in the pocket of my robe, shuffling down the hall that first time, making my way to the doors that would lead outside, stepping outside and seeing Gunner for the first time. Now though, the bench was empty except for me, talking to someone who wasn’t there. My mind recalled another memory of me climbing the stairs, holding my arm out like I’m helping someone up, but now all I could see was me alone.

  I rubbed my eyes, trying to clear the truth away. I didn’t want to see any of it. The memories wouldn’t stop though. Next I stood against the wall outside the office at school. I’m breathing heavily in the memory, on the verge of a panic attack. I lifted my head as if someone had called out to me, but in this memory no one was there. Again I was alone, walking down the hall, talking to myself.

  The last memory was the worst. I sat in the cafeteria talking to my three friends, but of course, they’re not really there. It’s just me alone at the table, talking to no one while everyone in the cafeteria looks on.

  A flush of embarrassment rose to my cheeks as I grabbed my arm, wishing for the flame from my lighter. Everyone knew. Everyone except me. All those kids who judged me at school had been right. No wonder they came after me so relentlessly. I had been the freak since day one. Dr. Marshall may not use the word, but there was no denying that I was crazy. I longed for my basement prison, missing its safety. I would even take the punishments over all of this.

  My heart ached for Gunner. How could he not exist? “Everyone liked him,” I said defensively. I began crying harder, grieving for my loss. If only my tears could wash me out to sea, away from the harsh realities of truth. I hated the truth. I hated this life. Most of all I hated my brain. If I could scoop it out of my head, I would gladly do it. I’d stomp it into a pile of mush that could never be retrieved again.

  A nurse came in to save me from drowning, carrying a life preserver in the form of a needle. As she found my vein, I would have thanked her if I weren’t drowning in a million tears I had kept locked away for so many years. The medicine quickly took effect, sending Dr. Marshall and the ruthless truth fading into the background. I drifted to sleep, feeling more loss than I’d ever felt in my life.

  33

  LIFE INSIDE the Brookville Mental Facility was as different as night and day versus a regular hospital. There were more rules and schedules galore. Visitors weren’t allowed to pop in whenever they wanted and patients weren’t allowed to roam freely. I couldn’t have cared less about any of the goings on inside the facility. There always seemed to be a group activity or session we were forced to attend. We were watched constantly and our every move was monitored by the watchful cameras stationed throughout the entire building. I ignored the cameras like everything else, refusing to interact with anyone who talked to me. I went where they told me, ate what was served in the small cafeteria, and accepted whatever pills were handed to me before lights-out. If this was my life, then this was what they would get.

  Day after day I met with Dr. Marshall but I remained stoically silent. There was nothing left to say. I had nothing left to give. Accepting her revelations became more than I could handle. I found myself second-guessing everything and everyone around me. My days when I wasn’t being forced to participate were spent sitting alone, keeping my room as dark as the nurses would allow. The faces of everyone that walked by my room felt like they were taunting me. They would glance at me as they passed, but were they real? I had no idea. I wasn’t sure I cared anymore. My only solace came when I was given my daily dose of medication at which point my mind drifted into a state of nothingness. No threat of creating imaginary friends or first kisses with a boy who didn’t exist.

  Mom and Jacob tried to visit me the first couple of weeks, but I was too ashamed to see them. Like Dr. Marshall, they knew I was crazy and chose to keep it from me. They let me make a fool of myself, coddled me when I deserved the truth.

  My next therapy session with Dr. Marshall consisted of my continued silence. For her part, she remained unaffected and did all the talking. She opened her laptop and pulled up cases similar to mine. Even though I refused to talk, my eyes devoured the words on the screen. It didn’t escape my notice that many doctors believed my condition was a camouflage for deflecting other mental illnesses.

  “Mia, you have to talk,” Dr. Marshall said, closing her laptop.

  I bit the side of my nail, tugging at the skin. Chewing my cuticles was the only form of self-mutilation I was allowed. The burns on my arm I kept hidden by a gauze bandage had been discovered by the hospital staff. They were treated and wrapped and already starting to heal. Not that I made it easy for them. I picked at the new skin during my first night in the facility, smiling in the dark when I felt it oozing down my arm. I was so wrapped up in its comforting tenderness I gave no thought to what would happen when it was discovered in the morning. My sores were treated and bandaged again by a stone-faced nurse along with a notation to my chart. That night I was strapped to my bed rails, making it impossible to pick at the sores again.

  Dr. Marshall watched me chew my thumbnail down to the quick, but didn’t comment on my mutilation. “Mia,” she prompted.

  I looked up from my nail. “What?” I finally demanded.

  “Can you tell me what you are feeling?”

  I didn’t answer right away, sticking my index fingernail between my teeth. “What I’m feeling? I traded one prison for another. At least in my old prison I wasn’t surrounded by other crazy people who scream all night.” My words came out faster than bullets.

  “Do you miss living with Judy?” she asked, quirking an eyebrow at me.

  I shrugged. “I’m sure you’ll tell me it’s wrong if I say yes.”

  “Mia, your feelings are never wrong. Can you tell me why you miss her? Judy did terrible things to you. Do you miss that?”

  I had been pressured into this line of questioning so many times. Why was it so important for Dr. Marshall to keep harping on Judy? She did “terrible things.” I got it. I did leave though, so wasn’t it obvious that I understood? Were the details really that important? “It doesn’t matter,” I said, glaring at her.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because it’s true. Judy punished me and she had her reasons. Why does any of that matter now?”

  She tapped her pencil lightly on the mahogany desk in front of her, contemplating her thoughts.

  Tap, tap.

  I wanted to reach out and grab the pencil. Break it into a million pieces and then throw them in her face. “Can we just move on,” I said louder than before.

  Tap, tap, tap.

  Fuck that pencil. That’s all I could think. I hated the stupid piece of wood. “You can keep looking at me, but I don’t know what you want me to say,” I said, crossing my arms.

  Tap, tap.

  “How am I looking at you?”

  Like you want to be stabbed with the pencil, I thought. They’d probably strap me in a straitjacket, but it might have been worth it. Anger always seemed to be just below the surface for me lately, ready to boil over. “Can you please stop tapping the pencil?” I said through gritted teeth. I didn’t recognize my voice.

  The pencil abruptly stopped its thumping against the desk. “Is it bothering you?” she asked.

  “You think?” I answered, my voice dripping with sarcasm.<
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  “Mia, are you angry?” Dr. Marshall asked.

  I was, but wouldn’t answer her. I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction. These silly questions weren’t serving a purpose. I saw no point to them or these sessions for that matter. I was where I belonged and nothing was going to change that. Not her questions or her psychobabble.

  “Mia, it’s time we talk about the punishments.”

  “I don’t want to,” I said sullenly, like a child.

  “It’s time.”

  I stood up so abruptly I knocked my chair over and began pacing the room. “Why is it so important? So Judy hit me. People get hit all the time. You break a rule, you get punished. Nothing unusual there.” My voice ricocheted off the walls.

  Dr. Marshall didn’t even blink as I stormed around her office, screaming my words at her. She was unfazed and if I wasn’t so mad I’d even say she looked pleased. I could see nothing through the red haze of anger that clouded my vision.

  “You did not deserve your punishments.”

  “You have no idea what I deserved! If you knew everything I did you wouldn’t be saying that.”

  “Mia, I’ve seen the pictures,” she said compassionately. “You did nothing to deserve what happened to you. Those marks on your back were not your fault.”

  I shuddered slightly. Would there be no end to my shame? I had scars. So what. Plenty of people had scars. “I deserved every single one of mine.”

  “Why?” she asked quietly.

  “I was bad. All the time. Don’t you see? Mother had rules and as long as I followed them she treated me fairly. If I would have just followed the rules she wouldn’t have done any of this,” I said, pointing at a scar on my shoulder.

  Dr. Marshall sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “Mia, people break rules all the time. Children test the boundaries their parents set. They get caught, but their punishments don’t involve a leather strap or starvation. That woman took your naivety and used it against you, to make you believe you deserved her form of punishment.”

  “I did things,” I said, waving my arms hysterically in the air.

  “What kinds of things?”

  I leaned against the wall. “In the beginning I cried a lot. I knew I wasn’t supposed to. It was disrespectful after everything she did for me. I betrayed her time and time again.”

  Dr. Marshall’s chair creaked as she sat back. “Everything she did for you?” she asked, raising her eyebrows. “You mean how she took you from your front yard? From a family who loved and adored you. A family who grieved the loss of you. Is that what you betrayed? Mia, don’t you see? You didn’t betray her; she betrayed you. She took you from everything you knew. Of course you cried. You were a scared little girl.”

  I slid slowly down the wall as her words began to sink in. “But, she saved me,” I whispered. I pulled my knees up to my chest and slowly rocked back and forth.

  Dr. Marshall stepped around her desk and sank down on the floor next to me. “Mia, what was she saving you from?”

  I scooted away like an injured animal. I didn’t want her close to me. I didn’t want anyone close to me ever again.

  Images of my time with Judy flooded my mind. Every scream, every beating, every swing of the leather strap. I felt my body wince in pain as if I were reliving years of punishments over and over again. “My sickness. I mean, I don’t know. I’m just so confused,” I said in a raw voice.

  She shook her head, scooting close to me. “Mia, you weren’t sick. She didn’t save you. She was sick and she lied to you.”

  I closed my eyes. No longer angry. No longer sad. I was empty. There was nothing left to give.

  “I trusted her,” I said, trembling. My vision blurred from welled-up tears. Every emotion I had kept bottled inside began pouring out uncontrollably.

  “I know you did. That’s what she wanted.”

  Dr. Marshall pulled me tightly into her arms, allowing me to crumble into her embrace.

  “I’m so sorry,” I cried, repeating the words several times.

  “It’s all right, sweetie,” Dr. Marshall said as she rubbed my back gently. “Everything will be all right.”

  * * *

  My anger and sadness came and went in sporadic waves over the next few weeks as Dr. Marshall and I discussed my time with Judy in great detail.

  “I’ve met with Judy,” Dr. Marshall told me during one of our sessions. “We sat for an extensive interview. Her own childhood was far from perfect. She was raised by an abusive father who believed in corporal punishment. She used that same type of punishment to control you and bend you to her will.”

  I processed her words. Weighing them in my head.

  “Did she ask about me? Is she even sorry?” I finally asked.

  Dr. Marshall shook her head. “Unfortunately, remorse just isn’t in her genes. The only thing she regrets is losing you. You must understand—Judy doesn’t believe she did anything wrong. She is convinced to this day that kidnapping you was in your best interest.”

  Her words made the air stick in my throat. “So she hates me,” I said knowingly, absently scratching at the skin on my wrist.

  She reached for my hand to stop the clawing. “What Judy did is a learned behavior. Much like when you inflict pain on yourself. For so long pain has connected you to reality. These are learned patterns, but we can work on them together, with your family if you are open to it. None of us want to see you in pain anymore. You’ve had enough harm to last a lifetime.”

  Although I understood Dr. Marshall’s intentions were only to help, at times I still found myself hating her for making me talk. For forcing me to see things I had been so blind to for so many years. She encouraged me to talk until I was sick of my own voice. All my secrets tumbled out as if an invisible gate had been lifted. Dr. Marshall’s probing, though painful, made me finally accept and blame who was truly responsible for everything.

  34

  IT TOOK a month until I was comfortable enough to see Mom and Jacob. Dr. Marshall had been nudging me in that direction, preaching that I needed to “trust” them again. That was her key word. Trust not only my family, but myself as well. Trust that I could handle my life outside the hospital.

  “I’m so excited today is visiting day,” my new roommate, Trisha, said, bouncing on the edge of her bed.

  I looked up from the book I was reading and shot her a look. When she was brought to my room five days ago she was lethargic and practically unresponsive. Her wrists were heavily bandaged and she had a vacant look in her eyes. Within two days of being on meds she was a completely different person. She was so damn chatty and happy that she seemed out of place here. At first I questioned if she even existed, wondering if my mind had once again conjured someone to distract me. Fortunately, Dr. Marshall verified her presence. During our numerous sessions at Brookville, Dr. Marshall and I talked about my time with Gunner at the hospital. It was under her orders that no one, including Mom and Jacob, intervene. She felt at the time that knowing the truth would be too traumatizing. Since my breakdown at school, I was now on a treatment plan to better cope with my stress.

  Chatty Trisha was indeed real and evidently here to torment me. I’d say drive me crazy, but that ship had already sailed.

  I set my book to the side and sat up on my bed. “I’m excited too,” I said, knowing she wouldn’t let it go unless I echoed her sentiments. I avoided looking at her wrists, which were still heavily bandaged. She had confided in me that she slit her wrists when the voices in her head wouldn’t shut up. She did it to silence them, but her younger sister found her before all the blood could leak from her body.

  Looking at her now, cheerful and happy, it was hard to believe that a week ago she had tried to end her life.

  “You want to go down and wait in the rec room with me?” she asked, bouncing to her feet. She was like a damn kangaroo. “That way we’ll be the first ones there when they let the visitors in.” This wasn’t Trisha’s first stay at Brookville Mental Facility or Broken-v
ille, as some of the residents liked to refer to it.

  I hesitated before answering, wiping my hands that were suddenly damp on my pant legs. “I guess,” I said, climbing to my feet.

  I wanted to see Jacob and Mom. I knew I was ready, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t terrified. What would they say? What would I say? I was a completely different person now. I knew I had a sickness, but I still didn’t understand the inner workings of it. Dr. Marshall claimed we might never understand it, but acceptance was the first step. Talking about my past had been the second step, and from there we have been moving forward. Would my family accept me like this? I wouldn’t know until I saw them.

  “Yay, I can’t wait to see my family. Baillie said Mom baked me my favorite cookies last night. Wait until you taste them. They practically melt in your mouth.” Trisha linked her arm through mine as we left our room.

  I was tempted to pull away. Everyone I thought I could trust since I had escaped Judy’s had left me. Logically, I knew Trisha was different. She wasn’t a friend my brain had conjured up. She was real, which made me want to pull away even more.

  Other patients called out to Trisha as we walked down the hall together. None called out my name. Trisha had been back five days and already seemed to talk to everyone in the whole facility. I’d been here over a month and spoke only to Dr. Marshall, or on occasion in group therapy when they forced a question on me.

  Trisha though never shut up. She was like Gunner and Heather rolled into a tiny magpie on crack. If she sprouted feathers, I wouldn’t have been surprised.

  Trisha dragged me to one of the tables where a checkerboard sat with the pieces scattered about. I sat down, lost in my thoughts as I idly flipped one of the pieces in between my fingers. The board brought back memories that didn’t even exist. I thought Gunner taught me to play checkers, but it had been another trick from my brain. Dr. Marshall explained it as something I had most likely learned years prior. Judy punished me to repress any of my life before her involvement until eventually all my memories became buried. Gunner had a free pass on all those memories.