Stand Alone

by P. D. Workman

  “I was kidnapped,” Justine told her. “I was  … I was at a park with my real mom. You know, just playing in the sand, I wasn’t really old enough to do very much.”

  “Uh-huh?” Megan leaned closer, breathless.

  “Then this person grabbed me. I didn’t know who she was, and she grabbed me really roughly. I was scared, and I started to cry. I heard my real mom start to scream. The woman who grabbed me ran and got into a car. There was a man driving. The woman sat in the front seat, with me on her lap. She forced me to sit still, holding me really tight. I could still hear my real mom screaming and crying, and the car pulled out, leaving her behind. That was the last time I ever saw her.”

  Megan’s mouth was open as she listened, wide-eyed.

  “What happened?” she urged breathlessly.

  “She held me really tight. I was crying, and she slapped me and held her hand over my mouth. Sometimes she covered my mouth and my nose together, so I couldn’t even breathe. I kept fighting her  … but she took me away. That was Em, the mom I’ve got now.”

  “Did she seriously kidnap you?” Megan demanded, her eyes popping. “You’re not just messing with me?”

  Justine nodded.

  “You can’t tell anyone, though,” she whispered. “If the school contacts her or something, she’ll know that I talked, and she’ll beat me and lock me in the basement. You can’t say anything to anyone.”

  Megan shook her head.

  “But  … you have to tell the police! You have to get away!”

  “I’ve tried,” Justine told her, gripping her arm. “I’ve talked to teachers, police, social workers, everybody. They don’t believe me. They think I’m just trying to get attention, or to get Em in trouble for something she didn’t do. She has a birth certificate, she has baby pictures. Everything looks legitimate. Nobody believes me.”

  “How did she get a birth certificate and everything if she kidnapped you?”

  “How do I know?” Justine left the toilet stall and went over to the sinks, where she wet a paper towel and dabbed her hot forehead and neck. “There must be someone who can forge these things. Any time I try to get help, I get in trouble. So you can’t tell.”

  Megan still wasn’t sure of this. Justine could see that she still intended to tell someone. She felt compelled to do something to help Justine.

  “If you get me in trouble, she’ll hurt me,” Justine warned. She pushed up her sleeve and showed Megan the shiny, half-healed friction burn on her forearm. “Look, that’s where she burned me. Don’t say a word to anyone!”

  “If she’s hurting you, then even if you can’t prove that she kidnapped you, they can still take you away from there; put you in foster care or something. If you show them you’re being abused, they’ll take you away, so she can’t hurt you any more.”

  “No,” Justine insisted. “You don’t know how many times I’ve tried to tell people, tried to escape. She can talk them out of anything. She’ll tell them I’m hurting myself. Get me put in psychiatric lock-up. I’ve got a history already.”

  Megan was nodding, and Justine could see by her expression that she had heard stories. She knew about Justine’s previous hospitalizations and psych assessments. Or had heard enough about them to make her believe Justine.

  “I want to help,” Megan told Justine earnestly. “How can I help you?”

  “Just stay quiet about it,” Justine said. “I shouldn’t have said anything to you. It’s just that  … I get flashbacks sometimes  … and when you were talking about your mom  …”

  There were tears in Megan’s eyes. She was a tender-hearted one.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean  … to trigger anything.”

  “It’s okay. It’s not your fault. You never know what it will be. The stupidest things sometimes. Sights, smells. Things that don’t even make any sense to me. At least I can understand why talking about your mom holding you would trigger something about Em holding me. But sometimes  … it will be a TV show  … a smell at the grocery store  … I dunno.”

  “What are you going to do?” Megan questioned.

  “Nothing. I’m not going to do anything. Just keep my head down until I’m old enough to be on my own. Get away from her.”

  “Three more years?” Megan said doubtfully.

  “It’s been thirteen,” Justine pointed out. “Three years seems like forever  … but it’s a lot shorter than thirteen. Maybe I won’t make it that long. Maybe I’ll run away or something. But if I’m gonna do that, I gotta keep my head down, and not raise any suspicions or attract any attention.”

  “Okay,” Megan conceded finally. “I won’t say anything. But  …”

  “But what?” Justine questioned aggressively.

  “But  … what are we going to say for our project?” Megan queried tentatively.

  Justine laughed.

  “We’ll say  … we both have early memories of being held by our mothers.”

  Megan nodded.

  “Okay,” she said. “I can start with that.” She sighed, looking at Justine. “Do you want to go back to class, or are you going to go home?”

  “Let’s go back to class,” Justine said. “I don’t want to go home.”

  “You’ll be okay?”

  Justine nodded. They walked together back to class. Ms. Taupe looked sharply at the two of them.

  “This was not a free period,” she remonstrated.

  “Justine wasn’t feeling well, Ms. Taupe,” Megan explained, “and I went to make sure she was okay. We both still discussed our memories.”

  Ms. Taupe looked at Justine sharply. Justine was pretty sure that she was still flushed, and her cheeks damp from the sweat and paper towel compress. She nodded slowly.

  “Are you feeling better now, Justine?”

  “Yeah, it’s okay. It just hit me really sudden  … but I think I’ll be okay now.”

  “Make sure you help with the assignment. Don’t just leave it to Megan.”

  Justine nodded. The bell rang, and she grabbed her books to leave. Megan tried to walk beside her, but Justine hurried on to her next class without a word to her.

  CHAPTER 12

  JUSTINE WANDERED AROUND THE house restlessly. She had done her homework, making up the work that she had missed during her mental-health day-off. Em wasn’t home from work yet. Justine was feeling out of sorts, bouncing around the house by herself. On days like this, she felt as if something was missing from her life. There was a hole in her. She didn’t know how to put it into words, even for herself. It was an undefinable sadness and sense of loss. She would never be complete. No matter what she did to fill her life, she would always have that emptiness.

  Em had vowed even when ending the health food diet not to buy any more junk food, but she had broken down once or twice, and Justine had bought her own treats with money that she found conveniently lying around the house. Bored and anxious, Justine turned to her stash for comfort. The sweet and salty snacks were soothing, but didn’t fill the void. It wasn’t actually in her stomach.

  Eventually, Justine grabbed her board and headed out the door. She was just too restless to stay indoors. As her wheels hit the road, and she felt the familiar hum of the pavement beneath her feet, she started to relax. It was sort of like zen or yoga or something. Her body, doing all of the work, was able to relax, and her brain was able to find a more peaceful place, to turn off the chaotic hamster-wheel of thought for a while.

  Justine slipped into the house, pulling the door shut behind her. She had come to this house before. It wasn’t entirely empty, it had been staged by a Realtor with some unused decorator furniture. Obviously, not a real person’s living furniture, but an artificial environment, like the fake trees in the monkey enclosure at the zoo. It wasn’t ideal, but if Justine pushed some of the furniture back and lay on the floor with her eyes closed, it felt right.

  She knew she couldn’t stay there for too lon
g. It wasn’t an abandoned house, just an empty house. Unoccupied for now. The Realtor could be through at any time, preparing for an open house or touring potential buyers through. It wouldn’t be surprising if there was a security company checking up on things too.

  But it was good enough for now. For now, it gave her a quiet place to think, and helped her to calm down and feel comfortable in her own skin. The chaos of the day went away. All of the little things that had bothered her throughout the day. Any stress from confrontations with Em. She could put it all away when she was alone in a house all to herself. Except her own house, of course. Em’s house. Justine could never be comfortable there.

  * * *

  Nurse Babcock manned the triage desk efficiently, handing out forms, evaluating injuries and stories, and passing the pertinent details on to the medical staff so that everyone could be treated in the most efficient and least frustrating way. Sometimes people did get frustrated with the system, but mostly that was the people who were using the emergency room as their primary care doctor, and coming in to have colds, flus, and mild infections treated there. They could sit in the emergency room for hours, all through the night, it didn’t matter to her if they complained about it. It was her job to make sure that there wasn’t anyone in critical condition, that there weren’t any emergency room deaths while people sat and waited for treatment. She prided herself in the fact that there hadn’t been any emergency room deaths on her watch, and that most people were satisfied with how long it took to get in to see the doctor.

  She looked up as the electric doors whisked open, and then closed again. A young woman walked in. She was clutching one arm against her body with the other hand, and she staggered as she walked in, looking around with wide, vacant eyes. She was wearing a black sweater over her outfit, and it camouflaged her wound, but as Nurse Babcock hurried around her counter toward the half-fainting girl, she could see blood dripping down the hand of the injured arm.

  “Orderly,” she called in a loud voice, putting an arm around Justine to support her and assess the injury. One of the support staff stepped up quickly, grabbing a wheelchair. He and Babcock maneuvered the girl into it. Babcock searched her arm for the injury and saw the gash in the shirt, with the raw flesh behind it.

  “Severe laceration,” Babcock barked. She grabbed the cuffs of the girl’s sweater and pulled it off quickly. Then they could see her blood-soaked white shirt underneath. The orderly swore. Nurse Babcock grasped the girl’s arm above the wound tightly. “You,” she told the orderly, “hold here. Firm pressure.”

  He took over her position. Babcock pulled up the blood soaked sleeve, exposing the long, deep laceration.

  “What’s your name, honey? Can you tell me what happened?”

  The girl’s face was white and pinched. She looked at them blankly.

  “What’s your name?” Babcock repeated loudly.

  “Justine,” she said faintly.

  “How did you hurt your arm, Justine?”

  Justine looked down at it. Her eyes turned up briefly and her body slumped.

  “Fainted,” Babcock muttered. She shook Justine briskly. “Wake up, Justine. No sleeping on the job,” she said with a humorless chuckle. “We have questions for you. Wake up!”

  Justine roused again, looking around in confusion.

  “How did you hurt yourself, Justine?”

  “Fell down.”

  Babcock looked for any other signs that she had fallen or been in an accident. Her clothing was not torn or dirty. There were no other apparent injuries. Just a gash on her arm, one long, clean cut.

  “Where did you fall down?”

  She made a vague gesture toward the door she had come in through. Nurse Babcock caught sight of one of the interns.

  “You, come here and help. Now.”

  The intern came over obediently, and looked Justine over quickly.

  “Get her into exam two,” Babcock ordered. “Clamp that off. I’ll call vascular to have a look at it. Stay with her in case she needs anything. She’s already fainted. Evaluate for any other injury.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the young doctor said wryly. He and the orderly took Justine off. Babcock paged the appropriate doctors, and began to write up a chart.

  Justine had been shocked by how much the cut hurt. She had barely made it into the emergency room, her brain going haywire with the shock of it and her body searing with pain. She was used to the minor injuries that she sustained regularly skating, and hadn’t expected that this would be any different. She had a high pain threshold and thought she’d be able to handle it a lot better. But apparently her arm had been hurt a lot worse than she’d thought. It was very deep, and it hurt more than anything else she’d ever felt.

  The young doctor who’d joined them in the emergency room was shaking her and talking to her in a loud voice.

  “Justine. Stay with me. Did you hurt yourself anywhere else?”

  Justine shook her head giddily.

  “Do you have any allergies?”

  “No.”

  “Where’s your mom? Do you remember her phone number?”

  Justine tried to remember through the fog, but couldn’t put the numbers together.

  “Uh  …”

  “What’s your last name, Justine?”

  There was a growing pain in the middle of Justine’s belly. She held it with her uninjured arm.

  “Uggh  …”

  “Your name?”

  “My stomach.”

  “What’s your last name?” he questioned insistently.

  Justine doubled up over her stomach, pulling away from him, and threw up.

  “Get housekeeping,” the doctor choked. He grabbed a basin and held it in front of Justine.

  “You okay, Justine? Can you hold onto this with your other hand?”

  Justine held onto it, though she wasn’t sure if she could coordinate holding it in the right place and throwing up at the same time. Someone put a cool cloth against the back of her neck. It felt good. Justine continued to hold her stomach while they worked on her arm, but the sickness seemed to be fading. There was a buzz of activity around her.

  “Got a vascular consult coming.”

  “Cut the shirt off and clear the field.”

  “Is she still conscious?”

  Someone shook her uninjured arm.

  “Stay with us, Justine.”

  Justine was barely aware of them. They seemed far away. She tried to stay focused on the conversations, on how they were taking care of her, giving her what she needed.

  “Pressure is down.”

  “She’s shockie. Get a warming blanket on her. Load some Demerol.”

  “Do you have any allergies, Justine?” the voice was very insistent, right beside her ear. “Are you allergic to Demerol or any opiates?”

  Justine tried to shake her spinning head.

  “No.”

  “I’ve got a vein. Loading Demerol.”

  A warm feeling spread up Justine’s uninjured warm, up to her heart, and then radiated out over her body. The pain from her cut faded.

  “Oooh,” she murmured.

  “That’s better, huh?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Keep the IV port. We may want to load some fluids.”

  Gradually the action spinning around Justine started to wind down a little. She focused in on the nurses and doctors still attending to her. A couple of doctors were discussing the cut and the best way to treat it. The younger one gave Justine a reassuring smile when he noticed her watching him.

  “Hi, Justine. Starting to feel a little better?”

  Justine nodded. She looked down at the deep cut on her arm, and felt faint again, wobbling in her seat. He moved in and covered the wound with a blue cloth.

  “There, you go. Don’t look at it. You’ll feel better. Can you tell us how to reach your parents, Justine? We should get in contact with them before going too far here.”

  Justine shook her head slightly.

&
nbsp; “You don’t know how to reach your parents? Are you a runaway?”

  “No,” Justine rubbed her forehead vaguely. “I can’t remember the number  …”

  He smiled understandingly.

  “Between the shock and the Demerol, that’s understandable. Can you tell me your full name?”

  “Justine  … Bywater,” Justine’s lips formed the words, but they didn’t feel right. She shook her head in irritation, trying to shake off the cobwebs.

  “Okay. I’m sure we’ll be able to track down some contact information for you. What’s your mom’s name?”

  “Em  … Emily.”

  “Great. And Dad’s?”

  “I  … don’t know him.”

  “And does your mom go by Bywater or something else?”

  Justine nodded.

  “Bywater.”

  “Great. I’ll have someone track her down for you. Where would she be right now? Would she be home? At work?”

  Justine looked around for some sign of what time it was. The hospital lights were bright, and she couldn’t see any windows. She couldn’t remember what time it had been before she had hurt herself. She couldn’t remember anything.

  “It’s evening,” the young doctor told her, “about  … nine o’clock. Where would your mom be now?”

  “At home,” Justine said with a sigh.

  “But you don’t remember the number?”

  She paused, trying to remember again, but shook her head, laughing slightly in embarrassment.

  “Don’t worry,” he reassured. “We’ll have the police track her down for us. It will only take a few minutes. Then we can talk to her about this cut and what we need to do.”

  Justine looked down at the blue cloth.

  “I really cut it badly,” she said vaguely. She considered moving the cloth to look at it again, and the doctor shook his head.

  “No, don’t look at it. You want to tell me how this happened?”

  “I just  … slipped and cut it.”

  “Slipped how? Walking down the street? Carving a pumpkin?”

  Justine frowned.