WHITE WALLS FINAL Ebook

by Lauren Hammond

  Hopefully in misery.

  I know that misery loves company.

  I pray he never gets any.

  Three nurses, two orderlies, and one doctor stampede through the door. There's shouting, but it's muffled. I think I hear a faint whimper from Aurora. A nurse and an orderly stand on each side of me and try to pry my hands from my throat, but I squeeze with more force. Soon more tiny white dots blur my vision.

  The doctor is shouting orders at the staff members in my room. Everything is slipping.

  Fading.

  My surroundings flash in and out of focus. I am so close to Mommy and Damien.

  So close. So close. So close.

  I think I see their hands reaching for me. Then I hear a faint voice, it's too soft and high-pitched to be Damien's. “Not now, little bird. It's not your time.” The voice belongs to Mommy.

  I feel a pinch in my right arm. My eyes roll to the left and the metal tip of a needle gleams beneath the flickering fluorescent light above my head. No. Not more drugs. Anything but more drugs. Please.

  I don't like the way the drugs make me feel. They erase everything. Make my mind feel like it's somewhere else. Possibly on vacation. They make my arms and legs feel like jelly. And when I walk I feel like the floors are rocking back and forth beneath my feet. It's terrifying to lose control of myself like that, but most of the time I wake up the day after and forget all about losing control in the first place.

  I know the staff prefers that all the patients walk around like robots. I've been here a month, but I didn't need a month to learn that tidbit of information. My first day here, I watched them inject a hysterical patient in the hall across from my room. I watched as pleasing smiles spread across the lips of the doctors and nurses, while the patient's limbs twitched a few times in their arms before they stopped moving all-together.

  It's during those moments that the staff thinks they've won the battle between sanity and insanity. But they haven't. I know this. It doesn't matter what they think. It doesn't matter how many times they stab a patient with a needle and fill their veins with mind-erasing drugs. The cure for crazy isn’t in that syringe. They’ll still wake up and be crazy tomorrow.

  I fight against the drugs snaking through my bloodstream, but after a few seconds my fingers start to lose the grip around my neck. My arms are falling at my sides. My head rolls back and I blink when the bright light above me flashes in my eyes because it's all I can do.

  “Roll her over,” someone shouts. I think it's the doctor. “Strap her in tight.”

  Metal pinging against metal throbs in my ears. I am face down on the thin mattress of my cot, still struggling to keep my eyes open. My arms are behind me now. There's a voice in my head telling me to move, but I can't.

  I realize they've put me in a straightjacket.

  To save me from the only thing that can harm me.

  Myself.

  The echo of my door slamming bounces off the walls of my room. My eyelids are heavy and they droop down. Now I can only manage to keep my eyes open in slits. And just before I succumb to the magnificent thought of slumber, I see him.

  Damien.

  He crouches down next to me, his blue blue eyes are vibrant. Almost electric. He brushes my hair out of my face with a gentle sweep of his fingertips and plants a kiss on my forehead. “There, there now. My beautiful, beautiful Addy.” His voice is deep yet musical. It reminds me of listening to the classical station on the radio. “Did you honestly think I'd let you kill yourself?”

  I try to answer him, but I can't find words. Or my voice. I'm too far gone, drifting off into what I know will be a dreamless sleep, where everything is black and somber. I feel the corners of my mouth pulling. Could I be smiling?

  The coils of my mattress squeak and I feel Damien crawl onto my cot. He slips one hand over my hip and pulls me close to him. He rests his hand low on my stomach. His skin feels hot. I shiver as a surge of heat bleeds through my thin hospital gown and climbs up my abdomen. Damien nestles his chin in the crook of my neck, his lips against my ear. “I won't let you die, Addy.” There's a pause. “No,” he murmurs. “I'm right here with you. It's you and me, my love. Forever.”

  Chapter Five

  ~After~

  I'm not sure how much time has passed.

  Seconds.

  Minutes.

  Hours maybe?

  What I do know is that I've seen some sunrises and I've seen some sunsets, so in my head I assume that it has to be days. But I can't be sure. I can't be sure because everything seems to be blurring together. The sky. The trees. The muddy brown path beneath my feet.

  It’s been a while since I've had anything to eat or drink. I've learned to ignore my hunger pains, but my mouth is hot and dry and I'm not sure how much longer I can survive on saliva as a beverage. My steps are shaky. My knees sore. And as I continue walking I tune out all the other sounds in the forest such as; birds chirping, twigs snapping, my own shuffled footsteps.

  “Ouch!” A sharp pain shoots through the arch in my foot and I halt my steps when I notice that I stepped on a rock with jagged points on the surface. I sit down on the dirt path, lift my foot and examine the damage.

  My feet are covered in mud and there are barely any spots of my flesh visible. Strips of my skin dangle loosely along the sides and there are some spots where dried blood is mixed in with the mud. I've had worse injuries, but I need my feet. I need them to carry me away. To lead me out of the forest. To help me start a new life for myself.

  I press into the puncture wound with my forefinger and wince when the pain shoots up my leg. Frantically, I search the forest bed for something to wrap around it and settle on a few large leaves that will serve nicely as a homemade bandage.

  Shadows surround me.

  They touch my skin and turn my whole world black.

  They blanket the path of mud in front of me, creeping forward as the sun drops from the sky.

  I abandon the urge to wrap my foot and with the help of a nearby tree, I get on my feet again. Honestly, I figure I'll be much better off if I keep moving rather than lingering here to worry about my foot. Besides, there at least ten other cuts on each of them anyway. One more isn't going to make that much of a difference.

  As I hobble along the darkened path, my stomach shouts profanities at me for keeping it empty for so long. The unpleasant rumble adds to the list of things wrong with me at the moment, but I push them all aside. I have to get out of this forest.

  Or die trying.

  Chapter Six

  ~Before~

  When you have nothing else to live for, finding any kind of relief is impossible. The thought of it existing at all is simply a nagging voice in the back of your mind.

  There are times where I question myself.

  There are times where I seek out the new Adelaide, the Adelaide I've become since Damien died and ask myself will it ever go away?

  Will what go away?

  The pain.

  The heartbreak.

  The never-ending misery.

  The part of me that wants to live in the past, and relive that devastating day over and over again inside my head. Part of me thinks if I relived that day, I could change it somehow.

  Maybe.

  It's possible right?

  Isn't it?

  Then there is another part of me that tries to convince myself that it never really happened.

  That it's some sort of delusion.

  A fucked up version of a fairy-tale.

  A dispersed thought bubble popped by a pin.

  Standing in front of the lone barred window in my room, I grip the bars and place my head against the metal with a sigh. I am a lonely, heartbroken girl in a room with white padded walls, a barred window, and silent thoughts.

  “Come here.” Soft words spoken from a deep voice waft toward me, and climb up my collar bone before they throb in my ears. Through the reflection of the window, I see Damien. He's sitting on my cot, his back flat against one of the four
white padded walls. His left leg is propped up, and he rests his left elbow on top of it. He wears a teasing smirk on his perfect, chiseled symmetrical face, and the sight of it makes me bite my lip, blush, and look down. “What are you doing?”

  I scrunch my eyebrows together. “What do you mean?”

  A loud husky laugh leaves his throat and swells in the confined space. I contemplate asking him to laugh again because I love the familiarity in it. The way it makes my heart pump even harder. And the way it makes me shiver in an indescribably good way. “You know what I mean.” He pats the empty spot on the cot next to him. “I said come here.”

  Obediently, I make my way over to my cot and sit down next to him. A loose wire of spring penetrates through the cotton covering of the mattress and pokes me in the butt. I purse my lips for a moment and push aside the tiny twinge of pain. I decide to ignore it. These moments with Damien are too rare and too precious for me to be focused on anything but him.

  I don't know why I don't see him as often as I'd like to. Or why he only appears to me at the strangest times. Usually it's in the morning or right before bed. I know I shouldn't be complaining about it. I should be content with the fact that he comes to see me at all.

  We sit on the cot, shoulder to shoulder, but I keep my gaze lowered. I'm staring at his muscular forearms, the bronzed color of his skin, and the way his veins are like tree roots defined on his flesh. His weight shifts next to me and the cot dips down when he reaches over me and tucks my black waves behind my right ear. “Are you tired, my love?” he questions.

  I am all out of answers so I simply nod.

  I lie down first and Damien follows my lead. He drapes an arm over my waist and nuzzles his nose into my hair. I can feel the pull of his breath as he inhales deeply, and the familiar scent of his soap combined with his bodily scent creeps up my nostrils. “I love you,” he breathes into my hair and his hot breath trails down the nape of my neck, seeping into my skin.

  “I love you too.”

  His hand slips beneath my hospital gown and I exhale when his fingers shimmy below the band of my underwear. He's like a lion who has spent days of searching the barren African plains without a zebra or gazelle in sight.

  He's starving.

  For my touch.

  For my kisses.

  For our bodies to unite and become a tangled mess of limbs, frantic heart beats, and raspy breaths.

  He snakes his arm underneath the crook of my neck and turns my head with the tips of two of his fingers. “Kiss me,” he demands.

  For the first time since he arrived I look into his eyes. I stare into deeps seas of blue, vibrant sparkling sapphires, and never ending sky. I want to say something. I want to tell him how these moments with him are the only parts of my life that are keeping me going anymore. That I thrive on them. Anticipate them. But he doesn't give me the opportunity to say anything because his lips are already pressed against mine.

  Our lips dance the tango and the kiss deepens when my mouth parts and Damien slips his tongue between my teeth. I break from the kiss, breathless and Damien traces the curve of my neck with his tongue before wrapping his lips around my earlobe. “This feels amazing,” he murmurs.

  He's right.

  This does feel amazing.

  Not only amazing, but spectacular.

  Transcendent even.

  But somehow, in the back of my mind I'm thinking that this moment, here with Damien, feels way too amazing...

  Too amazing to be real.

  Chapter Seven

  ~Before~

  What I've come to learn is that the staff at Oakhill are liars.

  Everything changes after admittance.

  Patients in trance-like states eerily roam the darkened halls, tortured screams coat the tan walls, and sometimes electricity vibrates through the plaster and it feels like the whole institution is shaking. The lights flicker from time to time. Sometimes people disappear and you have no idea what happened to them.

  I'm not sure how long I've been locked up for.

  Ten days?

  Maybe twenty.

  Possibly thirty.

  Anymore my days and nights blur together, and I feel like I'm living in an alternate reality. I can't keep track of time.

  All I know is that I wake up every day in the same room, with white padded walls. One cot with a thin mattress. One barred window. And one lunatic rocking back and forth on a cot, hands twisted in her hair, trying to hold back the blood-curdling screams that are bogged down in her throat by saliva as thick as molasses.

  That lunatic is me.

  When I arrived at Oakhill, I didn't think I was that far gone. I didn't think that the screw inside my head was that loose. But it is. And there isn't a screwdriver around anywhere to tighten it. I’m sure I had all my screws when I came here. But this place…

  This place will take things from you.

  This place makes the sane people crazy and the slightly crazy people insane.

  I start questioning myself.

  I start repeating, Is that what happened to me?

  I was wrong.

  Because just before I arrived, he showed up on the bus. He, meaning Damien.

  He reminded me of the pain I'd felt when he died. He reminded me of what it's like to feel your heart explode in your chest cavity at the realization of living your life without the only person you've ever loved. And he reminded me of the promise I'd made to him months ago.

  I told him that I'd love him forever.

  That I'd never let go.

  But part of me wants to let go.

  Deep down inside I know that I can't go on loving a ghost forever. I tell myself this every day. Then I see him and I forget about having those thoughts. Because when I do see him, he looks like the Damien I met on that humid summer day, who was smirking at me, and driving his candy apple red Cadillac in reverse.

  When I see him he looks so vivid.

  So full of life.

  Not so...so...

  So dead.

  A click rings out in my room and bounces off the padded walls. I shiver and cower on the farthest corner of my cot as a tall nurse, with a manly stature walks toward me, carrying a small cup. She's dressed from head to toe in white and part of me thinks that if she stood against the white padded walls that she'd blend right in. I also think that if I am flying high on my meds, I won't even notice her.

  She extends her chunky arm, and I peek up at her through the shield of hair covering part of my face. My eyes flit from the cup in her hand to her steel grey eyes. She shakes the cup impatiently. “Come on, Adelaide,” she urges in a deep voice.

  Still, I hesitate. The meds they give me in the evenings bring out wild, terrifying dreams. Dreams of Mommy. And Damien. And that forlorn look on his face just before he toppled over into a puddle of his own blood.

  I shake my head at the cup and slide further back on my cot.

  The nurse's silver name tag flickers underneath the lighting.

  Marjorie.

  I don't think her name suits her. Marjorie reminds of a woman who is dainty, polite, and attractive in an off kilter way. This Marjorie isn't any of those things. She's manly. Harsh. And even though she tries to pretty herself up with makeup it doesn't really work.

  Marjorie takes two steps forward and grips my forearm. Her fingers bite into my flesh and I cry out as she rasps, “You have ten seconds to take these pills or you know what will happen.”

  I shake my head again and whisper, “No.”

  “Take the pills,” Marjorie urges again and then she twists my hand around and places the cup in my palm.

  Yes, I know what will happen if I don't cooperate. It has happened several times before. At Marjorie's hand. Whenever I fight her, she puts me in a straightjacket. She fastens me in tight, shoves my meds down my throat, then leaves me alone so I can cry myself to sleep. Or wake up from the nightmares and hallucinations brought on by the pills, only to have more staff members barreling through my door to sedate me
further.

  I don't want any of that today. I can't control what happens to me after I take the pills, but I can make it easier on myself by not fighting Marjorie. So I clamp my fingers around the cup and toss them back. Marjorie smiles at me sinisterly, pats my head with force, takes the cup, and leaves me alone to drown in my own fucked up delusions.

  Chapter Eight

  ~After~

  My surroundings have started to fade in and out of focus. The trees whirl around me in circles. Browns, greens, and blacks. Browns, greens, and blacks. I have to stop and place my arm against one of the trunks. I drop my head, exhaling. The dizziness is overwhelming. I can't remember the last time I ate or drank anything. I can't remember what day it is.

  My entire body is covered in beads of cold sweat and I've started hallucinating.

  “Psst, Addy.” Damien's hushed voice rings out through the trees. “Come find me.”

  I groan softly and try to lift my head. I don't have the strength to play his game right now.

  “Addy.”

  “No!” I shout and my voice trails, echoing as it travels along the cleared muddy path. “Why are you doing this? Why?”

  I try to lift my head again and I succeed, but only to rest it in the crook of my elbow. My eyes are on the ground and I notice a pair of brown shoes, an added accessory to the forest debris along the path. My eyes travel upward, taking in Damien's appearance. He doesn't look like the Damien I was seeing when I was in Oakhill. He looks like he did the last time I saw him. He looks the way he did a second before he died.

  I suck in breath that I can't release. My lips quiver at the sight of the dried blood on his light blue button up. His skin is pale, his lips gray. And the haunting, lifeless look in his blue eyes is too much to bear. I blanch and look away. “No,” I cry. “No.”

  He moves closer, twigs snapping beneath his feet, followed by a rustling of dead leaves. My body goes rigid. Panic flushes through my blood stream. I can feel him right next me and his cold, rancid breath fans across my face. I inhale then exhale quickly, gagging on the way he tastes, like a dug up corpse. “What's the matter, Addy?” His fingers are in my hair and his voice is eerie. Emotionless.