by K. L. Savage
“Sunnie! Stop running down the hall. It’s time for your medicine.”
I twist my head until my cheek is against the pillow, and I look out the door. Gale takes out a needle and presses it into the IV. Hurried footsteps pound against the floor, and maddening laughter follows. The joyous sound gets closer as I get sleepier.
“I’m sorry, Patrick. You need to rest. You’re endangering yourself. You aren’t thinking straight. No one is here.”
“Please, get the locket. I need it. If I can’t have booze,” I slur when the drugs hit my system. “If I can’t have booze, I need the locket.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
I know that tone. It means she probably won’t be able to do anything. I close my eyes, but the laughter has me fluttering them open again. A woman runs by my room, and I get a glance at her long blonde hair. She looks over her shoulder and smiles like the devil when she realizes she’s causing trouble, something Satan enjoys whisking up.
Then she backtracks and steps in the doorway—my doorway. Her chest is heaving from running away from people who are trying to get her to take medicine. When she looks at me, something in my chest loosens.
I don’t fucking like it.
I like being in pain. I need the pain.
She cocks her head and studies me, then looks down the hall to see if her chasers are getting closer. She lifts her hand at me and waves, then dashes off again, right as a hand tries to grab her arm. Sunnie barely manages to escape, but she does, manically laughing down the hall.
“Damn girl. She’s always keeping us on our toes,” Gale chuckles. “Some of those nurses deserve it, but you didn’t hear it from me.”
Maybe Gale isn’t that bad.
I don’t know what running is like, not when I’ve stayed in one place for so long.
But whoever this Sunnie chick is, I hope she runs for the both of us.
CHAPTER TWO
SUNNIE
Another two days have gone by.
The man down the hall won’t stop screaming. In a place like this, voices carry in the hollow halls. His pain is terrorizing. I’m surrounded by everyone’s agony, but his is different. It’s pure anguish. With every shout and plea, he unknowingly stabs me in the chest.
I’ve learned a lot about him over the last few days. His name is Patrick, he’s an alcoholic, and right now he is going through the worst of his withdrawal. He’s seeing hallucinations of someone named Macy. I don’t know who that is, but whatever happened, it couldn’t have been good to bring him here. For him to be so addicted to alcohol that his body can’t live without it is really goddamn sad.
I flip over onto my back and exhale, listening to him scream.
“Please, I need the locket. Get the locket! Take it from him.”
I’m not sure who ‘him’ is that Patrick is referring to, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out. The ‘him’ is the reason why Macy is dead, that much I can gather. I have so many questions for Patrick. Who is Macy? Who is this man he keeps yelling about? What happened? What’s the big deal about this locket?
And if the man wants the locket, he should have it if it helps with his recovery. When we are admitted into this facility, they take everything off us that we can harm ourselves with. Belts, necklaces, shoelaces, so on and so forth. People find a way to kill themselves during treatment. It doesn’t matter if they take away our belongings. If someone wants to die, they find a way. It’s as easy as that.
About a month ago, someone snapped a coil spring from the bed frame and jabbed it into their throat, right in the jugular. They bled out in a matter of seconds. The regular bedframes are still here too. Obviously, whoever is running this place doesn’t give a shit if another person dies from using the coils.
How much of this facility is rehab and how much is judgment?
I’ve yet to determine that, and I’ve been here for a month. The nurses can be nice, the orderlies are asses, and the doctors here, while some care, most don’t. It is a state-run facility, and most of the people who work here believe they are wasting their time because so many of the patients are beyond help. Once the addicts are set free, most of them come back after relapsing.
“I hate using my resources on patients that clearly don’t care and want to die.” A quote I heard from Doctor Evan Wills. A true piece of shit.
“Just kill me, already. I don’t want to be here. I’m telling you to let me die,” Patrick cries from down the hall.
I flip to my side and shove my hands under my cheek and listen to his wails. They are so devastating, and everyone around here knows it. Usually, when a new patient arrives, everyone has their own opinions and spouts crude remarks. Not when it comes to Patrick. Most of the people who work here can feel his pain, and the only one who is strong enough to help Patrick is Gale, one of the sweetest nurses of all time.
“I’m not going to let you die,” Gale says undoubtedly, probably patting his forehead with a wet cloth. She loves doing that. She thinks it’s the best way for someone to feel they are cared for. She isn’t wrong. I got the flu a few weeks ago, and she dabbed my forehead with a cold rag, and I felt so much better. Perhaps, it’s because she gives a damn about her patients. I can feel that she cares about us. In every move she makes, in every wiggle of a finger when she scolds us, and when she makes us take our medications.
She’s the only one I never give a hard time to when it comes to taking those damn pills for my anxiety. Everyone else can go fuck themselves. I usually make them run after me, then they lock me in my room until I take my medication.
I always take the pills at the end of the day. I just like to fuck with the nurses who I despise. My anxiety is one of the main reasons I’m here. If I don’t take my pills, I’m a walking disaster.
Kind of like Patrick who is currently begging Gale to kill him.
I roll out of bed and close the door to shut out Patrick’s heart-wrenching calls for help. Not that keeping a barrier between us helps much. The door mutes his screams, but it doesn’t abolish them. I lay my hand over my heart and lean against the door instead of laying in my bed. If he thinks it’s hard now, wait until the alcohol is out of his system and he faces the twelve steps of recovery for alcoholics.
I’ve been here long enough to know all of them, and some steps I want to give the middle finger to. Luckily, I’m not here for the twelve-step program.
The ground is cold as I slide down the door. Looking around the room, I know there are worse things in life than getting help. I have a roof over my head, food, and a bed to sleep in. The room itself is small with light blue walls to keep the patients happy. There’s a plant in the corner, a fern, I think. There’s a simple dresser in the corner with sweatpants and t-shirts with a laundry bin next to it. A twin-sized bed is against the wall near a window that overlooks the Vegas sky and dry desert.
There are bars on the inside to cover the glass, so we don’t break the window and use the shards as weapons. To me, it’s overkill, but to someone who may want to kill themselves, it makes sense. It’s a decent precautionary measure.
I want there to be more in life than these four walls. I want to get better and maybe I can fall in love and have children. I want to travel too. Everywhere, anywhere, but here. I want to be more than my father has planned for me. I’m only here because of his political agenda. He can’t have a daughter who is addicted to drugs and out in the public eye. He’ll use me as a platform, to gain the sympathetic votes of drug addicts and families of addicts that can ‘relate’ to his pain.
My father doesn’t give a shit about me. If he found out I died, he’d bury me, shed a few tears on camera, and then order his favorite whores for the night like he always does. Mourn for me? My dad would be relieved if I died.
I can’t give him the satisfaction. I have to keep truckin’ just to piss him off and inconvenience him with my horrible bad habits and annoying personality. His words, not mine.
I may not be perfect, but my imperfection
s make me who I am. I’m a hazard, a reckless chance someone would have to be crazy to take. I know there is a quality inside me that has to be worth something. If there wasn’t, I would have been dead a long time ago.
The screams finally stop, and the sudden quiet has me standing and opening the door. I peek my head out, look left and right, and then take a step out of my room.
It’s past hours.
I feel so dangerous breaking the rules. It’s thrilling. I roll my eyes at myself. I used to pump heroin in my veins and rob liquor stores, and now the high I get is the one where I am creeping out of my room. I won’t get arrested, so the worst thing that can happen, can’t.
Lucky me.
I’m going to spy and see who this Patrick guy is.
I tiptoe down the hallway and stop at the corner. I flatten my back against the wall and slide my eyes to the right to make sure I’m alone. What’s great about afterhours is more than half the staff goes home. Gale stays, and Patricia at the front desk answers the phone. She also falls asleep around the same time every night.
And if Gale catches me, she tells me to go back to my room.
It’s our little secret.
I still don’t want to get caught just in case someone else on the staff is here, like Lundon. I hate him. He gets grabby. I can’t count how many times he has touched my ass. No one believes me when I speak out about it either because I’m not to be trusted since I’m a drug addict and all.
I peer around the corner and jump when I see that creepy clown painting hanging across the hall. I know it’s there, and every time it scares the hell out of me. The clown is holding a yellow balloon, has a big red nose, white face, and a creepy smile that makes me shiver. They call the painting ‘uplifting’ and ‘happy’ because clowns make people laugh.
Clowns give me fucking nightmares.
Pushing off the wall, I tiptoe down the hallway, and my slip-on shoes lightly scuff against the floor. A door opens in the distance, and I freeze.
Like that will help me become invisible.
Gale walks out of Patrick’s room with a clipboard in hand, humming to herself, and sets the paperwork on the swamp green countertop of the front desk.
“How’s he doing today?” Patricia asks.
“I think the worst of it is over. Poor thing. I hate it for him. Whatever happened, it wasn’t good, Patricia. He hurts my heart.” Gale pats her chest and exhales. “Anyway, I’m going to the restroom. Holler if you need me.”
“I’m going to the vending machines. I’ll walk with you.” The roll of her computer chair reverberates down the hall, and I hold my breath, hoping they take the hall on the other side of the desk. If they come down this side, I’m screwed.
“Oh, get me chips!” Gale says with a clap of her hands.
Their jabber gets further away, and that’s when I tiptoe again, hurrying this time. Before I take a right into his room, I dodge behind the counter. Patricia always keeps her yellow purse hanging on her chair, and she has a romance novel inside of it that I’m almost done reading. She gets to read it at lunchtime, so a quick snatch and grab is always easy.
Book in hand, I walk across the hall into Patrick’s room and close the door behind me.
The air is dense and hard to breathe. The sadness is choking me, like a hand wrapping around my throat. I glance around and see the stool in the corner and push toward the side of his bed. I set the book in my lap and take a good look at the man I’ve been wondering about for the last few days.
“Hi, Patrick. I’m Sunnie,” I introduce myself. He’s sleeping, so the greeting goes unheard. I bend over the rail of the bed to get a good look at his face, and my heart stutters. “Wow, you’re…” The word handsome doesn’t even explain how attractive he is. Even when he is at his worst, he looks better than my best. “That’s just unfair.” He has a few days’ worth of scruff, and his brown hair is long and greasy from not being properly washed. He has high cheek bones and a straight Roman nose. There are creases in the middle of his brows, permanent ones, from a constant scowl. There’s a tattoo playing peek-a-boo where the collar of his shirt stretches, showing the golden skin of his shoulder. “For a sick guy, you don’t look half bad,” I say, impressed. “I hope you like romance novels, Patrick. It’s the best I can do. Everything in the library is a snooze fest, and I had to steal this, so you better fucking like it.”
I hope when Patrick sees me, it isn’t his hand that is wrapped around my throat.
CHAPTER THREE
PIRATE
My throat is dry as cotton. My tongue is sticking to the roof of my mouth, and a voice is waking me up from my drug-induced sleep.
“His finger grazed over her nipple…”
What the fuck? I think I’m waking up. Maybe I’m still dreaming, and the medication they gave me is causing a sexual fantasy.
“She gasped from the tender pinch and tossed her head back, crying out his name. ‘Samuel. Oh, Samuel.’” A snort comes from my right. “Please, lady. We all know it isn’t that good.” A voice as smooth as silk decides to add commentary to whatever the hell she is doing. “His cock throbbed under her hand…”
My eyes flutter open and squint when the harsh light penetrates my daze. I smack my lips together and move my tongue around my mouth to get some spit in the works. I’m really fucking thirsty.
“Samuel thrust himself inside Elizabeth’s tight heat…”
I turn my head, not really paying attention to the words being read to me, but I want to know who is here.
Her head is angled down as she reads from the novel in her lap. Her blonde hair is as bright as the sun, cascading down her face like a waterfall. This must be Sunnie. If the hair and the name go together, that is.
“Her orgasm climbed with every hard…”
“What the fuck are you doing?” I growl. I don’t mean to sound so harsh, but my voice is hoarse from all the shouting I’ve been doing the last few days. I’m so tired, and I hope like hell the hallucinations are over.
She screams and slaps the book over her heart. “Jesus, warn a girl next time. You can’t just come back from the dead like that.”
“I’m not dead.”
“Could have fooled me,” she says, lifting a shoulder. “Anyway, where was I?” Her eyes scan the page, and she smiles when she finds her spot. “Ah, here we go.” She clears her throat. “Her orgasm climbed until she finally fell over the peak and shattered, convulsing on his long, hard member.” Sunnie giggles. “Member, who calls it that? This isn’t realistic.”
“What the hell are you doing in my room? Who are you?” I want to make sure the girl here is Sunnie and not some other crazy chick. I’m going to assume someone has to be crazy to be here.
“I’m Sunnie,” she holds out her hand with another megawatt smile, showing her straight perfect teeth. Her eyes are the color of sapphires, sparking like the finest damn gems under this cheap fluorescent light.
I stare at her hand and do not shake it in return. “Your happiness is giving me a headache.” I close my eyes and hope when I open them Sunnie is gone.
“Nope. That would be the alcohol withdrawal you’re going through. Blows, right? You keep making me misplace the spot on the page. No problem. I’ll find it in no time.”
I open one eye and glare at her. Her small, delicate hand is still hovering in the air, waiting for me to introduce myself. “Stop with the positivity. Your cheery bullshit. I don’t want anything to do with it. Get out, and take your sex novel with you.” I toss my arm over my eyes and start to shake again. Damn it, when will this process be over? It’s been four or five days, I think.
“No, I’m going to stay. You look like you need company.”
“I don’t need anything,” I tell her just as my heart rate speeds up again. “No, no, no.” I can always tell when a hallucination is about to hit. Gale has finally been able to convince me that what I’ve been seeing isn’t real. I’m better off keeping my eyes shut. “Go away, Sunnie.” There’s a hint of a plea in
my voice. I don’t want anyone to see me weak and vulnerable, especially a woman like Sunnie. She’s beautiful, all sunshine and goddamn blue skies. A smart guy would get lost in her.
A dumb guy would only make her clear skies gray, and that’s exactly the kind of man I am.
“He flipped her over—” I snatch the book from her hands and throw it on the floor. “That was rude,” she states on a huff, then tosses her gold strands behind her shoulder and grins at me. Sunnie bends over to pick up the book and dusts the cover off.
“Get the fuck out! Get out, Sunnie. I don’t want you here. I don’t even know who you are. Get out.” I clutch my chest as tremors work their way through my body.
“I’ll have to start all over now.” She flips all the way to page one.
Fucking maddening! I grit my teeth, and right as I’m about to curse her out, Macy appears in the corner. I pinch my eyes closed and shake my head. “You aren’t real. You aren’t real. You aren’t real,” I repeat like a broken record.
“Bubba.”
“Please, go away.” I almost sob, but I hold back. I can’t do this for much longer. If I thought I was wrecked before, it’s nothing like it is right now. It’s like I keep dying, but someone brings me back to life every time. My body is tired, my heart is broken, and my mind is thankful to still be here.
My soul is fucking dark, angry, annoyed that I somehow keep getting dragged to the deepest parts of hell, but for some reason, Macy won’t let me stay there.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Sunnie says as she opens the book.
“Bubba, you let the bad man get me.”
It’s always the same words coming from Macy. My guilt has manifested into an illusion. It’s only guilt. It isn’t Macy.
“Get out, Sunnie. Get the fuck out!” I try to yell, but there’s no use. My voice is shot.
“Bubba…” Macy is closer now. I jerk away when her hand reaches out and touches my cheek. This is new. I can feel her. I have never been able to feel her before.
