by Kitty Thomas
This can’t be real.
“F-fine,” Nicole said. Her mouth tasted like cotton.
“If you need some breakfast first, I’m sure Dr. Cronan would approve that. Help you get oriented?”
“Okay.” She didn’t bother with the tennis shoes. Putting on shoes meant acceptance of this Twilight Zone reality, and she wasn’t ready to go there.
She followed the nurse into the cafeteria. It was mostly cleared out, but they were still serving. The hot stuff was gone, though. Nicole grabbed a banana and a bowl of cereal and sat at a table in the far corner. The nurse hovered.
“Am I on suicide watch? Are you afraid I’ll drown myself in my milk?”
The nurse gave a short, nervous titter that was probably supposed to pass for a laugh and excused herself.
The banana was too mushy and definitely tasted real. The cereal and milk were the same. As she drank her orange juice, Nicole ran her fingers over the wood grain on the table. Was it wood grain… or a convincing plastic? It felt real and solid, whatever it was.
She tried to remember what had happened with August and Dominic. How real had that felt? She hadn’t bothered to stare at or touch wood grain. Too much had been going on. She hadn’t had a reason to question the reality of what was happening.
A tear slipped down her cheek, and she brushed it away with the back of her hand. There was no way she could say she wasn’t deluded. She was in the midst of a delusion. Either it was this world or the world with the vampires in it. And which made more sense? If you knew you were delusional, a mental hospital was most likely to be real.
Standing in the cellar last night with August, she remembered wanting him not to be real. Could he have done something? Had he created this? But how could he? Her mind was too strong for him to control. Maybe the link made her more vulnerable. It had obviously made her want him more. Or maybe he’d lied from the start. Maybe there was nothing special about her mind at all. Maybe he hadn’t really had to kill people. Maybe he was just fixated on her. But that pointed back to mental illness, because why was she that special?
“Mrs. Rose, How are you feeling this morning?”
Nicole was irritated to be interrupted by Dr. Cronan as she tried to sort what was real and what wasn’t. Both realities felt equally real and equally illusory. Maybe none of it was real. Maybe there was a third option that was more weird. Wouldn’t that be a hoot? She held back laughter at the idea. It would make her seem crazier to have a maniacal laughing fit over soggy cereal.
“I’m fine,” she said, downing the last of the orange juice.
“You can leave your tray here, and we’ll go to my office to talk.”
Nicole left the tray and followed the doctor down several dimly-lit hallways until they reached his corner office. He motioned for her to go in the room first.
She chose the navy leather chair across from his desk, not the couch. She wasn’t quite ready to surrender to the process—whatever that meant. She lacked too much power here as it was. There was no reason to make the disparity sharper.
Dr. Cronan took his own high-backed leather chair on the other side of the desk. The chair swiveled in an undignified manner when he sat, making him seem like a small child trying out being a grown up. He cleared his throat and took out a notepad and fountain pen.
“I want to speak with my husband.”
Dr. Cronan looked up, his face creased with disappointment. “Now, we’ve talked about this, Mrs. Rose. We agreed after a few sessions with your husband that the course of your treatment would go more smoothly if we had a period without intrusion from the outside world. Dominic is part of the world you inhabited with the delusions. We’re trying to create a different space here for you. A safe space.”
“But you can’t keep me without my permission unless a judge… ”
“Mrs. Rose, what do you think the date is?”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“The date? What is the date on the calendar?”
“I… ” She hadn’t known the date on the calendar, anyway. She’d been too busy sorting through all the conflicting information her brain had been trying to process since the moment she’d met August to bother with the date.
“Let me ask it another way. How long do you think you’ve been here?”
“Three days… I think.” Or was it four now?
Dr. Cronan scribbled down some notes on the legal pad in front of him. “You’ve been with us for three months, but I’m not surprised you’ve lost time. Drugs can have side effects, and we still haven’t found the right combination.”
“You’re lying.”
“Please don’t do this again, Mrs. Rose. We’re trying to help you.”
Nicole stood and began to pace the room. “This isn’t real. You’re lying. This is all wrong. I was just with August and Dominic. Things happened that were upsetting, but they happened. August got me out of here, like I said he would.”
Dr. Cronan’s eyes held a paternalistic sort of pity as he shook his head. “No. That isn’t what’s happened. We dealt with that delusion two weeks ago.”
“Then this is a dream. The last thing I remember with August, I was going up to my room to sleep, so this must be what I’m dreaming.”
“You’re becoming agitated, Mrs. Rose. Could you please sit down? I’d like to go over some of our previous discussions, and I can’t do that if you’re pacing.” He indicated the chair she’d vacated. “Please. Sit.”
Whether this was the reality or the delusion, more information couldn’t harm the situation. Nicole sat and tried to appear calm though everything inside her was screaming. Papers snapped in rapid succession as the doctor thumbed backward through the notepad. “Okay, here we are. I’m interested in talking about the desire for August not to be real, because I believe that’s the key to helping you. A delusion tends to serve a purpose in a person’s life and gives them a sense of control. Do you remember the session we had with your husband a couple of months ago?”
Nicole shook her head as the doctor pulled out a tape recorder and sorted through several mini cassettes until he found the one he sought.
When he pressed play, Dominic’s voice came out of the recorder. “I feel like I’m partly to blame for all this.”
“Why do you say that?” Dr. Cronan’s voice.
“I’d been neglecting her. I had such a big case load, and it kept dragging on month after month. I took her out for our anniversary and tried to be there with her, but I know she didn’t think I was there.”
Nicole could almost hear Dr. Cronan nodding over the recorder. “I see where you’re going with this. Yes, we talked about how a delusion can create a sense of power. If one’s world gets out of control, one might invent a fantasy that makes it right again. Nicole, do you think you invented August to give you someone who would pay attention to you, who would want you, even need you to a degree your real partner had stopped feeling?”
“That’s not… he’s not… ” there was a long pause. “Maybe.”
Dr. Cronan shut off the recorder. “Do you remember that session Mrs. Rose?”
Nicole shook her head. This was the first time the realities had crossed because she did remember Dominic neglecting her, of treating her like she didn’t exist and didn’t matter, like she was some annoyance he had to deal with in between the important business of being a big shot attorney. It had never been that way before. Somehow he’d always made time for her, and then suddenly it was as if they’d dropped off a cliff, some point of no return where the relationship could never feel good and right again.
But to invent a vampire of all things? That wasn’t a normal response. But were Uncle Chuck’s bathroom butterflies normal? And if delusions were about control… what was her uncle trying to control? What good could butterflies do him?
“I think you’re ready to let go of August. Don’t you? Your real husband loves you. He’s concerned for you and wants you to come home.”
Yes, Dominic was concerned now. Now that
she’d been deemed mentally unstable and hospitalized, she was probably all he thought about. And didn’t that make it more likely that August wasn’t real? Because Dominic had really neglected her. Maybe this was the outcome of that, not a vampire who had somehow made him stop loving her.
“Mrs. Rose, do you want August to be real right now?”
“I don’t know.” It was the truth. Whenever she was with him, she hoped for some reprieve that would save her from a life that couldn’t end. Without completion. A life without Dominic, without her family. But now, in the hospital, faced with the almost certainty that she was a nutcase, being the immortal victim of a vampire seemed less tragic.
He was an external force acting upon her, not the gaping, terrifying void inside her own mind. If her brain really worked this way… or failed to work this way… how could she know anything was real? Wasn’t August better than that? As bad as he was? Wasn’t it better to be a victim of sound mind?
There was a knock on the door and another doctor poked his head in. “Excuse me, Dr. Cronan, may I speak with you in private?”
As soon as she was alone, Nicole raced to Dr. Cronan’s side of the desk to see the notes he’d written about her, but it was all scribbles. Not the illegible writing of a doctor, but literal scribbles that were not and could not be words. They had never been real words. She pressed play on the tape recorder.
“The vampire bat feeds solely on blood, a trait called hematophagy. Vampire bats are distinguished from fruit-eating bats due to their short, cone-shaped muzzle,” a monotone female voice droned. Nicole pushed the eject button. The label on the cassette said: “The Lifecycle and Habitat of the Vampire Bat.”
She raced to the other side of the office. A filmy white curtain covered the windows, allowing blinding sunlight to filter into the room through the gauzy fabric. She pushed the curtains back, frantic to open a window and get some fresh air, but there was no window, no sun. Only a solid, brick wall with white spray-paint graffiti that read, “Poor, crazy girl.”
She turned back to the desk, her gaze lighting on a letter opener. She grabbed it and sliced her arm, watching it heal in front of her eyes. What did that mean? Either she hadn’t just cut herself… or August was real and this wasn’t.
Dr. Cronan returned to find her standing, crazed with the letter opener gripped tightly in her hand. “Mrs. Rose, put that down. We don’t harm ourselves here.”
She had a sudden flash of being hosed down and kept in a dark hole of a room here at the hospital. No, we don’t hurt ourselves here. Other people hurt us. That’s how this all works.
“Is there blood on my arm, Dr. Cronan?”
Nicole couldn’t see any. Almost as soon as she’d sliced her arm, before the blood could properly pool up, it had sealed.
“I need you to put that down, now.”
“Answer me! Is there blood on my arm?”
“Of course not, and we don’t want there to be, so please put it down.”
Dr. Cronan edged to his desk, as if she were holding hostages, and pushed a red button.
Before she could process the turn of events, two strong orderlies burst into the room and wrenched the letter opener from her hand. They dragged her down the hall while she screamed. She knew the crazier she acted the worse whatever happened would be, but she couldn’t stop the hysteria bubbling out.
Halfway down the hall she was shoved into a room. The door locked behind her. Something soft broke her fall. Dear God, it was a literal padded cell. Were those things real? Did people use them? It made sense to protect someone from themselves, but was it a myth? A pop culture idea?
Where did her ideas about mental institutions come from? Movies. Unrealistic movies. So if what happened to her in here was like those movies, then didn’t that make this the delusion? She tried to grab hold of the flash she’d had in Dr. Cronan’s office… being hosed down and the dark room. Nobody did that. Did they? Did people get hosed down now?
Nicole squeezed her eyes shut and tried to relax, breathing slowly in and out, allowing the images and memories to flow over her. There was a room with a box and a dial and screams, her screams. But everything was so quiet and peaceful for a while after that… until she got upset again. There had been a crackling sound like static just before the screams.
Another time… ice baths. Another time, straps and needles. Lots of pills. Lots of fogginess. No hope of ever leaving. What had he told Dominic? How had Dr. Cronan convinced him? How had he convinced a judge? It was like a dream where everything jumped from one event to the next without a bridge. So this was a dream, it had to be a dream. And then she’d wake up… with August? Was that better? She held her face in her hands.
This can’t be real. It can’t be real. It makes no sense.
But did August make more sense? She’d tried to understand how she could possibly not be traumatized by months in his cellar no matter what he’d told her about the power of the bond, no matter how much of his blood she’d consumed to make it all go away. But if this was the real world how could she not remember her months here? What had they done to her head? Had they done something that had destroyed her memory? Had it been the shock treatments? Or a drug with a bad side effect?
Nobody does those things anymore. That’s not how mental hospitals work now.
But how did she know? And if this wasn’t real, why did it feel so real? Didn’t that equal crazy either way?
She crawled to the far corner and drew her knees up to her chest. Would they bring her food? A banana and mushy cereal wasn’t going to last her long. How many drugs was she on?
She’d been abandoned by both Dominic and August.
Which version of hell did she prefer? The other one had a possibly-dead and possibly crazy-vampire Dominic and a definitely crazy-vampire August. This one just had crazy in all flavors and styles wafting down the hallways, seeping into the air, floating screams.
“I don’t want to be delusional. I can’t be delusional.” As if saying it out loud could somehow demand reality to take form around those words.
The door startled her when it opened. Dr. Cronan dragged in a plastic chair with fat legs that wouldn’t tip over on the padding.
“Are you ready to speak reasonably now?”
“I don’t want to be delusional,” she whispered.
“That’s something close to progress.”
Was he being sarcastic? Did they do that in mental institutions?
“I want to speak to Dominic. I want my husband, now. He’s my attorney, and I have rights.”
“You will see your husband when we’ve had a chance to sort you out.”
“No. You’ve had your chance. I want to see Dominic, or I won’t participate.”
He shook his head and glanced at the notepad that held scribbles and no substance. “It didn’t go well for you the last time you gave that ultimatum.”
“Is that a threat?” Dominic wouldn’t abandon her, would he? But… in either reality he’d brought her here. August’s image slipped into her mind. “I’d rather have the other world.” She turned away, assuming Dr. Cronan would take the hint and pack up his chair and notepad of nonsense and leave. But he didn’t.
“Interesting. I thought you were ready to let him go. Would you mind telling me why?”
Nicole picked at a loose thread in the wall. “Why would I prefer this world? The one where I obviously have no chance at recovery. I will rot in this place behind bars with lunatics and too much medication to remember half of it. As bad as some of the other reality can be, there is a whole world to explore and infinite time to explore it. August wouldn’t let anybody else hurt me. And maybe Dominic will be okay. It’ll work out somehow.”
“Dominic? You’ve integrated your husband into the delusion?”
“August made him into a vampire. He’s not separating us. I get to keep him.”
Nicole jumped when a hand gripped her shoulder.
“Nicolette… ”
She opened her eyes and leaped ou
t of the bed, putting distance between herself and the vampire. It took her a moment to realize where she was as her eyes darted about the room, trying to make sense of things. “Did you… did you do that to me?”
“Do what to you? Let you sleep?”
The dream had been too real. It wasn’t as if she usually realized she was dreaming while dreaming—most people didn’t—but that dream had been hyper-real in a way that made her worry it was the true reality and this was merely a delusion. How often did dreams do that? If it were possible, the dream had felt more real than waking up out of it. So how did she know she was awake now?
“I’m not sure what’s real. I don’t know if you’re real or if I’m in a padded room right now hallucinating.”
August’s eyes widened. “Oh.”
“Oh? Oh what?”
“I fed you my blood while my emotions were erratic. It may have affected you and your dreams.”
“I thought you couldn’t control me.”
He rolled his eyes. “Obviously I can control you in various ways. But you are not my mental puppet. I can’t enthrall you. I can tempt you. I can make you want me like you’ve never wanted anything else, but what you do with that desire is yours. But blood exchanges… I didn’t think about potential side effects, I apologize.”
He held his arms out to her, but she regarded him with suspicion. “Did you direct the content of my dream? Did you intentionally make any of that happen?”
“It doesn’t work that way.”
“How do I know that? How can I trust that?” In fact, the more she thought about it, the more foolish it felt to listen to anything he said about anything. Since she didn’t know about the rules of his world or his nature, he could make anything up, and she’d have no choice but to go along with it. Just because he said something didn’t mean she should smile and nod and go along as if it were obviously the truth.
“Nicolette, I have no idea what you dreamed. So if you’re going to accuse me of something, kindly give me enough information to know what is so bad.”
