Asleep

by Krystal Wade

  “What is it?” Rose’s heart thundered in her chest. After everything, she wasn’t sure she could handle one more disappointment, one more thing someone had discovered she’d done wrong. “Please.”

  The nurse focused her attention on Rose and leaned in close to her ear. “I discovered a man downstairs in Hall HS. You see, even I’m not allowed to go down there, but since you’ve been . . . unwell, I decided to work the nightshift. I just couldn’t stand not being here for you in what I know is your worst time of day.” Another glance over the shoulder. “But that wretched Nurse Vicki left post early one evening, said she had to run to Hall HS and check on a project of Dr. Underwood’s.”

  Bile ventured up Rose’s throat, and she had to swallow the acidic fluids down, sucking in a sharp breath through her nose. Five days in here, under restraints, with that stupid, awful, ugly girl staring back at her from the wall, practically laughing at Rose, those taunting imperfections just out of reach, far enough away so that she could see them and not do a thing to fix them, the sadness of her parents as they turned away from their only child . . . After all that, Rose wanted to accept that she had problems. She wanted to believe if she took her treatment and endured the nighttime excursions, she would be allowed to go home. Even though logic told her that wasn’t the case. “And . . . ?”

  Nurse Judy shook her head. “And . . . she took too long. So I ran off to check on her. I’d always been told there wasn’t anything down there but a part of the facility that needed renovation. Rose, I swear to you, I didn’t know.”

  “Didn’t know what?”

  “That people were treated that way in this facility. I’ve heard you, your wild complaints about being dragged down there and messed with in one of those rooms. At first I thought it was part of your illness, but now that I’ve seen him, this man living in his own filth, I’m not so sure.”

  Hope blossomed in Rose. “Did you find a door with my name on it?”

  “No, but I’ll keep lookin’. I don’t know why I want to believe you so badly. It must be because you remind me of my Isabel so, so much.”

  Rose blushed. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me, not until we get to the bottom of this. I never did find Vicki, so it’s safe to assume there’re secret doors leading to other parts of the facility, or there’s only the one patient and this is all in your head. I don’t know what’s going on, Rose, but I saw your parents here the other day, and I know they love you, and I know you love them. If I were in your mother’s position, I would want you healed and home as soon as possible, but if someone’s hurting you . . . I hate to think of what kind of trauma that would do to you.” Nurse Judy squeezed Rose’s shoulder. “Just please be good. I’m begging you. Please don’t be late for appointments. And don’t skip your medications again. Let me figure this out.”

  The nurse’s words forced the air from Rose’s lungs. “You knew?”

  Judy frowned at that. “Oh, dear, of course. What else would explain that?” She waved at the girl on the wall. “Though Dr. Underwood is extremely pleased you drew, even if only subconsciously. He’s been talking about some sort of medical breakthrough all week, walking around here like a god, he is.”

  “You don’t think he has somethi—?”

  “Don’t you even think it. That man’s quite an excellent doctor and human being. I’ve known him since he was young, when his parents were still around, so don’t worry about him.”

  “I miss my parents,” Rose blurted, relieved at Judy’s confirmation of Dr. Underwood, but also saddened at the mention of family. Two images would haunt Rose forever: her mother’s unkempt appearance and her father’s distraught expression as he consoled his wife.

  “And they miss you. Come over here for a minute.” Judy led Rose to the bed where they sat with the nurse’s arm around her. “First, let’s not make mention of what we spoke of earlier until I get some answers. Agreed?”

  Rose nodded.

  “Words, dear. Words.”

  “Agreed.”

  “Good. Now, if you could see your parents right now, right this instant, what would you say to them?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Do you think that would be good enough?”

  How many times had Rose already told them she was sorry? She apologized every time they got in a fight, and every time the words fell from her lips her mother would shoot back with, “I don’t want to hear that you’re sorry. I want to see that you’re sorry. I want you to actually put actions along with the words.”

  “No.”

  A frown spread across Judy’s face. “You’re probably right. I don’t want you to answer me, Rose, but I want you to think about why you’re here. And if you can, please be open and honest with Dr. Underwood in your meeting.”

  “I will.”

  “I know.” The woman sighed as she crossed the room to set out clothes for Rose. “You’re very late for your day already. Let’s get you moving and into your routine. No repeats of the behavior from the other day, ‘kay?”

  “I’ll do my best.” As much as Rose wanted to be good and follow her routine and not have any repeats of late-night jaunts into insanity, she had to find Phillip, to tell him about the man in Hall HS and how they might have an ally in Nurse Judy. Rose had to tell him that now, more so than ever, no matter what the doctor and the nurses thought, they had to escape the institute. “And thank you for listening.”

  “Not another word.” Before Judy left to go about her duties, she explained how people who have been fed through tubes and pumped full of sedatives and fluids and painkillers as well as mind-numbing anti-psychotics might have a few side effects. Headaches, weakness, burning from the catheter, all normal things that would need to be monitored. “Let me know if you experience any of those.”

  “God I hope not.”

  Judy cupped Rose’s cheek, then quickly dropped her hand. Part of Rose hated that the nurse was involved with the institute at all. And if this was real, and the rooms really were monitored like Phillip had said, Judy might be fired for warning Rose to be good.

  “You’re a good girl, Rose.”

  The idea that Nurse Judy cared for her uncovered a deep sense of longing Rose had kept hidden away for far too long. She was empty and had been searching for someone to fill her up. She knew who she wanted but worried she’d never see them again, worried she’d never be able to show them she was sorry.

  Cold fear spread through Rose’s body as she jogged across the corridor and peeked into Phillip’s room. It was deserted. Before searching for him, Rose stopped by the nurse’s station and made it look as if she’d swallowed her medications. She held them on her tongue until she reached Hall F, where she pretended to cough up phlegm and used a napkin to wipe her skin.

  Phillip sat at their usual spot, watching Rose, his eyes more alert than she’d ever seen them. She grabbed a tray of food and sat down beside him. The chatter of the other patients seemed louder today than on most days; grunts and moans and muttering filled Rose’s ears.

  “You’re right,” she whispered. “We have to run.”

  Nodding, he said, “About time.”

  His voice shocked Rose, and the pieces finally settled into place. Phillip had snuck into her room every night. “Thanks for letting me know how many days passed. How’d you get in?”

  “Doors weren’t locked.” He took inventory of the bruises on his arms, his legs, his collarbone. Phillip’s actions were the same as they’d always been, except a little less shaky, a little less natural. The way he acted seemed forced, as if he didn’t want anyone to notice he was different. But Rose noticed. “Like they forgot about us long enough for your lips to heal,” he whispered, his head down, rocking back and forth now that he’d finished counting.

  She touched her mouth, the taste of blood when her face smacked the floor now only a ghost of a memory. “Couldn’t they have found a better way of explaining the injury to me? Like I did it to myself.”

  “I’m sure tha
t’s what your paperwork will say.” Phillip rested his arm on the table and leaned over his runny oatmeal, then he turned his head toward her, his gaze determined, but he didn’t allow anyone to see.

  She took a few minutes to drink this new guy in. He was different than the Phillip she was used to. He had his jaw clenched and his fingers squeezed into a tight fist, but something about all that anger made him appear strong and confident, maybe a little dangerous. Now instead of being the guy standing still in the background, he’d be the one out front and fighting, defending the woman he loved. Maybe he’d even fight next to her.

  Outside this place, Phillip would be the type of guy Rose and Megan would have giggled over.

  He swiped his blond bangs away from his eyes and shifted on the bench.

  “You’re different,” Rose finally stated, as if that would lessen the craziness of her watching him for so long.

  “I’ve been off my meds for as long as you’ve been out, maybe a day or two longer. Sometimes I lose track of time, too. Oddest thing is that no one’s seemed to notice or care.” Phillip gazed at his oatmeal, as if he’d rather be drugged than eat it. “But I don’t want them to figure it out.”

  Knots took up residence in her belly. “What’s the plan?”

  “Why are you here, Rose?” Phillip picked up his spoon and dipped it into the mush, swirling it around, and kept his voice low. “Why would your parents leave you with this man?”

  “This man? You mean Dr. Underwood?” Rose lifted a shoulder. “Because they didn’t know what to do with me and my depression, and he’s a good doctor.”

  Phillip’s hand froze, his spoon just hanging there in his breakfast. “You don’t still believe that, do you? He’s not good. He knows something.”

  Shaking her head, Rose couldn’t picture Dr. Underwood being involved with the torture at all, especially not after what Judy said about him. And no way in hell was she involved. Thomas, Martin, maybe Nurse Vicki, but Underwood? He cared so much about Rose, and he’d done so much for her. No. This was just a case of bad employees. “I don’t think he does. If anything, thinking that only makes me feel like I belong in here. He’s been really good to me.”

  She turned to Phillip, and the compassion and sympathy etched onto his face nearly took her breath away. “What?”

  “I should have expected that.” Phillip pushed the hair from Rose’s forehead, allowing his fingers to linger there for a moment before tucking the long strands behind her ear. “At least for now. They probably filled you back up with meds. But you can’t trust him, Rose. You can’t trust any of them. We’re going through the same thing, and I’ve already lost everyone else in my life. I can’t lose you, not to him, to them, and you’re the only other person he’s ever brought to this wing, and I just have to know why. Why you’re here. What he wants with us. Don’t you want to go home?”

  She could curl into the comforting sound of his voice, curl up and fall asleep. Dr. Underwood always spoke with similar passion, but there was always an edge to it too, if she thought about it. He wanted her to know who was in charge, that he knew more about her than she’d admit. Maybe it wasn’t passion he spoke with but condescension. Whatever the case, here Phillip spoke as though he cared when days ago he did everything to avoid her. Rose rubbed her forehead where Phillip had placed his fingers and discovered she had a knot there. “I do. Badly. I know what I did was wrong, that my parents were at a loss. Whether I believe it’s my fault or not, I still want to fix things.”

  He choked down a bite of oatmeal. “Then, please, tell me. What did you do?”

  “Let’s get out of here.” Rose left the table and moved toward the exit. She didn’t want to be inside while having this conversation. She wanted out, where they could speak freely.

  Phillip followed her down the stairs and past Mr. Gordon who opened the door for them. Snow covered the ground, a good three inches of thick, white powder.

  Rose stopped. “Since when does it snow in October?”

  “Since it’s not October,” Phillip said while gritting his teeth, as if her not having a clue of the time of year put him over the edge.

  She remembered all the tick marks in her room and wondered if she’d actually been the one to put them there. A shiver ran through her. If she had, how could she have forgotten? “Well, then, what month is it?”

  “At least December.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his scrubs, shoulders hunched. “They don’t want time to exist for us here.”

  “December.” Not moving from the top step, she glanced into the white lawn, the sun glistening off the flakes like diamonds. Two months. Two months!

  The cold didn’t touch Rose. Nothing could touch her in this moment except the certainty of how crazy the institute made her.

  “Tracking days is almost impossible.”

  “The counting?”

  He nodded once, his round, brown eyes holding hers. “Sometimes.”

  “And the other times?”

  Phillip frowned and glanced away. “Sometimes I’m counting bruises.”

  Rose wanted to reach out to him, to tell him everything would be okay, but even she couldn’t believe that. “How could that much time pass without me realizing it?” She strained to remember something more than the few days she could recall, something that would prove two months had gone by. “And why are they doing this to us?”

  “I don’t know . . . .” Phillip’s gaze drifted upward, like an answer would rain down from the heavens, and he closed his eyes. “I got in a fight with some guy. Somehow he found out about my mother and what she did and thought it would be funny to tell the whole school I was afraid to go into the woods. He failed to mention why, or what I was truly afraid of, which was being alone. Motherless, friendless. I didn’t even like being in a room full of people if at least one of them wasn’t speaking to me.”

  “What?”

  Returning his attention to Rose, Phillip said, “That’s why I’m here. You’ve avoided the question a couple times, so I thought it might help if I told you first.”

  “You were committed because you got into a fight? That doesn’t even make any sense.” Rose wasn’t sure she wanted to tell Phillip her story now. It was long, complicated. Even she didn’t understand it all, but he didn’t seem nearly as crazy as she did, all things considered. Rose left the stoop, holding the railing tightly, then walked out toward the barren oak tree, the snow crunching under her socked feet. Oddly, the cold still didn’t bother her. She felt more alive than she had in a very long time.

  Phillip followed, picking up his feet and practically running. The cold definitely bothered him. “I tied him to a chair, Rose, and I punched him and told him I would keep punching him until he admitted to the whole school the truth of what happened, that the reason I freaked out when I thought I was locked inside a classroom was because the last time I was alone someone died, someone jumped to her death. I was too young, lost in the woods for hours before anyone found me, crying, screaming for my mother. But that’s not the worst of it.”

  She stood under the protection of the branches and placed her back against the tree’s trunk and her feet on the exposed, dry roots. “What’s the worst of it?”

  Phillip joined Rose, matching her stance. He cupped his hands in front of his mouth and puffed air into them, taking a moment to compose himself. “I did this in front of everyone, as if once they all heard the truth I’d suddenly not be the freak whose mother died and maybe someone would talk to me, instead of leaving me to sit alone every day. The kid was bloody and wrecked by the time he admitted what my mom did, then the cops showed up. And my poor parents. They brought me straight here, and Underwood was able to keep me out of jail.”

  “Sounds like the asshole deserved it.”

  Closing his eyes again, Phillip added, “The asshole is blind in his left eye now. I don’t think anyone deserves that for being a bully.”

  Rose reached out to Phillip and took his hand in hers. She squeezed his fingers, and
he squeezed back. “It was a mistake.”

  “I know, and it’s one I’ll never forget. So when you showed up here and landed in my wing and started appearing in my nightmares, I figured we were alike. I saw you strapped to the chair and wondered if you did something similar.” He took a deep breath and lifted his head. “Did you? Do something like I did, I mean?”

  She wished she could say yes to make Phillip feel better, but Rose couldn’t. “No.” Her heart pounded, and her breaths came faster. She wanted to tell him everything, without putting blame on anyone else, but these issues weren’t all her fault. They just weren’t. “I ran away from home when I was sixteen. My mom acted like she hated me. Always pushed, pushed, pushed. Don’t be like Heather Shepperd, Rose. Don’t stay out all night with those friends of yours, Rose. They’re not good for you, Rose. Stop spending all your time in the attic, Rose. Are you doing drugs, Rose? Rose, Rose, Rose.”

  She stopped herself, taking a deep breath, then looked at Phillip. He was still watching, waiting, not an ounce of judgment that she could read on his face. Rose took a little courage from that and kept going, “Nothing I could do was right. And so I stopped trying and stayed with a friend—or someone I thought was a friend—who has really laid back parents. Oddly, my parents kind of let me. Probably figured I’d make my way back home or screw up in school and want their help. Honestly, things were going fine. Mostly. Megan and I didn’t agree on our plans for the future. And my boy—”

  The two people Rose had trusted and cared for more than anything in this world, the people she’d expected to save her and always be part of her life, she didn’t even know what to call them anymore. Megan had been a friend, but she clearly wasn’t. And Josh . . . Rose’s heart tore at the thought of him and what he did to her, what he was still doing to Megan. But they weren’t important anymore, not at all. They never would be important again, she realized.

  “Sorry. This guy, Josh, he always found a way to make Megan and me play pranks on each other. We used to find the pranks funny, but when living that close to another girl, they just turned out to make us seem like royal bitches.”