Chapter 9
I’m the trouble starter
I’m the pain you tasted
Well intoxicated
Firestarter
I’m the self-inflicted
I’m the one infected
Twisted animator
~ ‘Firestarter’ covered by Jimmy Eat World
It took Robyn twenty minutes of pleading and arguing with Angelina to get the nurse to relent and let Robyn visit her new friend in maximum security three days later. The past two days had been a weekend, and Angelina didn’t work on weekends. The nurses didn’t believe Robyn that she had clearance to visit her, so she was stuck until Monday.
Angelina wasn’t thrilled with the idea of a low-level security patient visiting another in maximum security, but Robyn still had clearance to visit her, so she had no choice but to relent.
A security guard and an orderly agreed to escort Robyn to maximum security. Robyn felt her heart jump a little higher in her throat as they drew nearer. She had no idea what to expect, except that Thora said it was Not A Nice Place. She hoped they hadn’t stuck Regan into a jail cell or anything. And how long were they keeping her there?
And just how crazy were the people who had to stay there all the time?
The two men led her down a series of hallways that started to look alike after the fourth of fifth one, but after glimpses of a few windows, Robyn was positive they were heading towards the back left end of the hospital. The forest had been back that way when she saw the outside of the building, and all she could see was the grass surrounding the hospital and the trees beyond it. And the sunlight. She almost whimpered when she saw how bright and cheery it was outside. She wanted more than anything to run out there and throw herself out on the grass, feel the wind on her skin and in her hair. Okay, stop, she told herself. Totally making yourself miserable here.
She knew they were nearing the girls’ section of maximum security when the security guard had to unlock the double doors by using a keypad built into the wall next to it. He had to do this two more times before Robyn found herself in the maximum security block for adolescent girls.
On the outside, it didn’t look too different from the area she was staying in, minus the living room. When she took a closer look, however, the subtle differences were disturbing.
The few windows in the walls were barred and chicken wired, and instead of the nurse’s station being open like it was on her floor, the nurse’s were confined in the station by more of that chicken wired plexi glass. The security guard cleared Robyn’s visitation with the nurses, and one of the nurses stepped out of the station and walked with Robyn and the other two men towards Regan’s room.
Most of the doors on the way there were closed, but a few of them were open. Robyn didn’t even want to look in, but morbid curiosity had her staring as she walked by.
One girl, wearing shorts and a t-shirt too big for her small frame was standing in a corner with her back to Robyn. Another was talking to herself as she paced her small room, and this girl looked up at Robyn with glassy brown eyes. She stopped talking aloud, but her mouth continued to move, forming sentences Robyn couldn’t understand. Robyn suppressed a shudder and looked in the other direction. They were passing the bathroom.
There was no door to the bathroom - anyone could see right in. The two toilets that faced the open door had their stall doors open. Both toilets had their seat covers missing. She didn’t want to contemplate why.
Robyn and her escorts stopped in front of a door about in the middle of the hallway opposite of the bathroom, and the nurse slid a card in a slot on the door to unlock it. It unlocked with a click, and she twisted the knob.
“Normally, the door would remain open during a visitation,” the nurse explained to Robyn, “but we can’t take that risk. A security guard at the door will have to suffice. If you need anything, shout. When you’re ready to leave, just knock on the door.” The door swung open, and she gestured for Robyn to enter.
Feeling weird and out of place, Robyn tried not to glance up at the nurse, the security guard, or the orderly, and entered quietly. She waited for the door to shut to breathe a sigh of relief, which caught in her throat when she looked around.
The room was the size of a large bathroom. A bed sat in the middle of it lengthwise, equipped only with a sheet and a pillow. It, too, was bolted into the ground. The walls and ceiling were white, and the tile underneath Robyn’s feet was large and white flecked with gray.
Regan sat on the edge of the bed, one knee pulled up to rest under her chin and the other leg dangling off the side of the bed. She was barefoot, and her hair was shiny under the fluorescent light. It had been washed.
The girl didn’t look up when Robyn came in. Robyn hesitated only for another second, and then walked up to the bed and sat down next to Regan, whose gaze stayed at some unknown point in front of her.
Robyn asked the first question on her mind. “Why did you do that?”
No answer.
“Was it because of what I said?”
Nothing.
“I . . . I didn’t mean for you to try and escape. I didn’t think you’d take me seriously.”
There was a long silence, and then: “I didn’t do it for you.” Her eyes didn’t move from the point on the floor she was staring at.
Puzzled, Robyn didn’t say anything for almost a minute. Then, shaking her head, she said, “How did you plan on getting out of here?”
This time, Regan turned her head and looked at Robyn. The redhead couldn’t read what was in her eyes, and Robyn was struck by the fact that she didn’t know this girl at all, or what she was capable of. Staring directly into the other girls’ pale green irises brought on even more questions. What was this girl thinking? What’s she thinking while we’re staring at each other? Normally Robyn would be really uncomfortable if someone was staring at her for so long, but Robyn was so curious about this girl that she didn’t mind. It felt like they were trying to figure each other out, as if looking hard enough would reveal what the other wanted to know.
“I would have found a way,” she said. Robyn was skeptical, but a small part of her believed this girl really had the means to find a way out. It didn’t feel like this girl was the type to lie.
“How many times have you tried this?”
Regan continued to study her while she replied. “Enough.”
Maybe being in this place for so long did something to her, Robyn thought. She is a little on the strange side.
“Why are you in here?” Robyn asked. “I would like to know. What’s so dangerous about you?”
Regan opened her mouth, and then shut it. She stopped looking at Robyn. “I’m not dangerous.” Her voice was low. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
Robyn was struggling to understand. Granted, Regan was able to bloody up some of the guards who were taking her away, but what else could she do?
“What do you want?”
Robyn met Regan’s gaze again. The girl looked suspicious now; wary of her.
Robyn had questions of her own. “Why did you ignore me for four days?”
“Why do you care?”
Regan’s question seemed to include Robyn’s reason for being there, and the almost insolent tone in Regan’s voice made Robyn angry. Here she was, trying to reach out to this girl who was so dead set on pushing Robyn away even though she was only trying to help . . .
“Why are you being such a brat?” Robyn asked irritably. “You know, I’ve been as friendly as I know how to be for four days. You don’t talk to me, and when you do you act like I’m the enemy. I figured you hadn’t had a friend in a while, since they lock you in your room and everything, and I came here today to see if you were doing all right.” Robyn let out a breath through her nose, and continued in a softer voice. “One person in my whole life lent out a hand to me. I’ve never forgotten it. It looked like nobody had done the same for you, and I . . . thought you could use one. A hand up. Guess not.”
Frustrated and disheartened that this girl was totally uncooperative, Robyn stood up and walked towards the heavy door.
“Cye.”
Instead of knocking on the door like she’d intended, Robyn let her hand rest against the cool metal and slowly slide down. Just hearing that name sent pangs of longing and homesickness through her. She found herself nodding.
“Yeah. Cye was that one person.” She turned around and stared at the figure still sitting on the bed. “You were listening.”
Regan looked up at Robyn, head tilted like an inquisitive cat. She watched Robyn for a long minute, during which Robyn didn’t move. She wasn’t entirely sure what was going on here, but it felt important, so she stayed quiet, maintaining eye contact with Regan. Finally, the brunette spoke.
“Your roommate’s changed.”
Baffled, Robyn stared at her. “What?”
She didn’t get a reply from Regan, because the door swung open directly behind her. She turned around, and the maximum security head nurse grasped her arm.
“Your presence is requested back in your unit,” she informed Robyn. “You can visit with her another time.”
Robyn threw one more confused look back at Regan, who wasn’t looking at her anymore, and allowed herself to be taken back to her room. She was a little disappointed at what Regan said. It didn’t make any sense, and Robyn was expecting Regan to say something other than . . . that. So much for an important moment. Besides, this girl hardly knew Thora, anyway. She didn’t know what she was talking about.
Maybe she really is crazy, and I’ve been talking to someone who genuinely needs to be here. That thought was disheartening. It made her feel like she poured out her life story and feelings for nothing, if Regan couldn’t even comprehend them or didn’t care. Maybe that was why she never responded.
But she couldn’t help but feel that Regan did understand. After all, she really didn’t know much of anything about Regan. She couldn’t really judge her after saying one crazy statement.
When Robyn was back on her floor, they took her straight to Angelina. Behind the nurse, Robyn saw a few men and women hovering around . . . her room.
“What’s going on?” Robyn asked Angelina.
The nurse hesitated, and Robyn blew out a breath and stared at her.
“Before you go in your room, Robyn, I want to remind you of the condition Thora has.”
“She’s bi-polar.”
“Correct. So far, you’ve only been privy to her manic side.” Angelina ran a hand over pulled back hair, looked towards the people in Robyn’s doorway, and looked back at Robyn. “Thora’s had a relapse of her depressive side. I didn’t want you to go in there without knowing what was going on. If her condition gets any worse, we’re going to have to take her to the hospital ward until this passes.”
Robyn didn’t know what to say. Finally, “Isn’t she on medication to stop this from happening?”
“The medication usually helps lessen the severity of the episodes, but not always. Just . . . be patient with her. She’s not going to be very receptive to you, but don’t get discouraged. Her depressive episodes are usually about a week in length.”
Robyn had a hard time picturing Thora as anything but maniacally cheerful. So when she went into her room and spotted the form of a person huddled in a miserable ball in the sheets of her bed, she didn’t think it was the same girl.
A woman wearing a white lab coat was crooning softly to an unresponsive Thora, who was so wrapped up in her sheet and blanket that only the top of her blonde head peeked through. She was turned away from Robyn, so she couldn’t see the girl’s face.
Robyn was almost afraid to get closer. Tentatively, she shuffled to the other side of the bed where the lab coat woman was hunched over, and Robyn joined her.
Thora’s face was half hidden by the sheet, and one watery, bloodshot blue eye peered out. She looked at Robyn, and then shut her eye. A small hand was clutching the sheet close to her face, and her cheek was wet with tearstains.
A small sympathetic sound escaped Robyn. She felt awful for Thora. She was such a cheerful girl, and to see her depressed and crying was horrible. “Is she gonna be okay?” she asked the woman next to her softly.
The woman made a clucking sound with her tongue. “Eventually. I hope soon. You’re her roommate?”
“Yeah.”
“We’re going to need your help, if that’s all right.”
Robyn nodded. “Sure. Anything.”
“Thora has a problem eating when she has a depressive episode. She’ll be taking her meals in here until it’s over, and I think it would help her see you eating in order to get her to eat. A nurse will come in to make sure she does, but you both will have to coax her to start eating. Does that sound all right?”
“Yeah. What if she doesn’t, though?”
“If this is a long episode we’ll have to feed her through an IV.” Robyn winced. “It’s for her own good. It would also help if you could try and coax her out of bed, get her moving around.”
Robyn looked at Thora, who was either sleeping or ignoring them. “I’ll try. But I don’t want to force her. She’ll eventually have to get up to go to the bathroom, right?”
“Of course. Use that opportunity to get her walking around.”
The doctors stayed for a little bit longer. They gave Thora more medication, and soon Robyn was left alone with a still, silent roommate.
She didn’t know what to do. She’d never seen anyone act like this. Robyn was more used to shouts, threats, and noise versus quiet and unresponsiveness. Be cheerful.
“Hey, Thora.” She sat down gingerly on the side of the bed, near Thora’s stomach. “Feeling pretty crappy right now, huh?” Hesitantly, Robyn reached out and tucked some of Thora’s wispy blonde hair behind her ear. The girl opened her eyes slightly, and watched Robyn out of lowered lids. “Well, I’m not going anywhere, so if you need me for anything, I’m in the room or down the hall. All you have to do is come get me.”
“I don’t want you here.”
Her voice came in a hoarse whisper, and Robyn’s eyes widened. “Why?”
“Go away.”
Robyn frowned. “Honey, I know you’re feeling crappy, but you don’t need to be alone right now -“
“I said go away!” the girl screamed, and Robyn stumbled back from the bed when Thora shot up in a sitting position. She thrust her fingers into her light hair and pulled it back tightly, her face buried in her knees. “Just leave me alone! I don’t want to see anyone!” She let out another scream, and Robyn backed up towards the door. Heart pounding, she turned around and fumbled for the door, and then stepped out into the hallway and shut Thora’s screams in behind her.
“Oh my God,” she said out loud. She hadn’t seen mood swings like that since her mother was alive, and the comparison was eerie. She didn’t want Thora to act like her mother - she liked Thora. There’s a difference, she thought to herself. Mom was schizophrenic. Thora’s bi-polar. She won’t always be like this.
“Problem?”
Robyn looked up to see Jill, the other redhead on their floor. “Maybe.”
Jill smirked. “Your roomie having mood swings?” Robyn nodded and Jill sighed. She reached a hand up to pull her hair up away from her face and for the first time Robyn noticed the pale scars up and down Jill’s arms. Self-inflicted. God, this truly was a miserable place.
Jill was talking, and Robyn wasn’t inclined to stick around and hear it. Not caring that she was interrupting, Robyn made up some lame excuse about needing to talk to Angelina, and she walked off, aware but unconcerned with the girl’s snotty “whatever.”
She’d stopped caring what other people thought of her at this point.
It wasn’t until she reached their ‘living room’ and nearly sat down that a thought hit her. Something someone said.
‘Your roommate’s changed.’
What the hell? How had she known this was going on? Baffled, Robyn sat down. Was it just a coincidence?
No. It couldn’t be. There’s no way it was coincidence that Regan would say that, and then she would get called back to her room to find out her roommate had changed. Emotionally. In a way, she wasn’t the same person right now. That’s what Regan had meant.
Why would she say that?
She had to know. She’d been around weird too much for the past month to not recognize it when it was in front of her face. Standing up, Robyn strode over to the nurse’s station and spotted Angelina.
“Can you take me back to maximum security? I wasn’t finished with my conversation with Miss Mendola.”
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Robyn just stood at the entrance of the small room after the door closed, watching the girl on the bed.
Regan was lying on her back on the mattress with her knees pulled up, so Robyn couldn’t really see her face. She moved to the right of the closet sized room, and she could see that Regan’s eyes were closed, her dark hair forming a pool around her head in stark contrast to the white of the sheets.
Robyn was positive she wasn’t sleeping, and if she was, she’d just have to wake up. She had too many questions for this girl to ignore her this time.
“How did you know that my roommate had changed?”
She didn’t get a response at first. Regan kept her eyes closed, seemingly ignoring her, and, fed up, Robyn burst out, “Come on! You knew something, and you deliberately told me so I’d know something about you. You wouldn’t have said it if you didn’t want me to figure something out.”
Regan opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling. “How is Thora?”
Robyn breathed out heavily through her nose. “She’s miserable. I’ve never seen her like this. Do you know what’s wrong with her? Was what you said just a lucky guess?”
“I know what’s wrong with her.”
There. Robyn felt a little better. It was just a lucky guess. Regan just made a lucky guess that Thora would have an episode soon, if the episodes are as frequent as someone with bi-polar can have them.
It couldn’t be that cut and dry, though. What were the chances that Regan would know exactly what day Thora would have an episode, when Robyn had been here over a week and this was the first time she’d seen Thora like this. As far as Robyn knew, Regan didn’t have any contact with other girls on the floor at all. It nagged at her that this girl knew.
Robyn tried a different approach. “How long have you been here?”
The girl’s brow furrowed a little. Then, as if suddenly remembering, she closed her eyes again. “A long time.”
Robyn gritted her teeth. “Could you cut the vague crap and just tell me?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t have a calendar.” A hint of sarcasm colored her voice. There was a pause. “I think eight months.”
Robyn’s mouth dropped open. “No way,” she said softly. That floored her. What could be wrong with this girl that she would need to be here for eight months? “What are you doing here for this long?”
The girl suddenly turned on her side, her back to Robyn. “I can’t leave.”
Robyn shook her head, trying to think of a reason why she couldn’t. “Is it that bad?”
“I’m not sick.”
She sounded so despondent when she said that. “What about your family?” Robyn asked. “If you’re better -“
“It’s just me. And I was never sick.”
Robyn felt the sympathy one feels for having been there herself. She knew how alone this girl was feeling. But she didn’t know how it felt to be in this place for nine months. Which Robyn still couldn’t understand. If she wasn’t sick, what was she doing here? Was she just in denial about her mental illness?
Robyn wasn’t, however. She knew she didn’t belong here. Maybe Regan was in a similar case. “Then why are you here?” she asked as gently as she could.
Regan sat up suddenly, still not looking at Robyn as she combed some of her hair back from her face with her fingers. She let her hands fall in her lap, and stared at them instead of Robyn. Her brow was furrowed, and it looked like an internal war was going on inside her head. Like she was gathering up the courage to say what was coming next.
But just as she opened her mouth, she closed it. “You wouldn’t believe me.”
That sounded familiar. Feeling hope well up, Robyn shook her head. “You’d be surprised, Regan. Give me a chance. There’s not a lot I wouldn’t believe anymore.” Regan didn’t say anything, and Robyn plowed on, hoping that through her days of one-sided conversation, maybe this girl could trust her a little. “If you’re worried I’ll tell anyone, believe me, I won’t. The only person I feel close to in this hospital currently hates me.” She paused, and finished quietly, “I don’t belong here, either. Something happened to me - and nobody would believe me. I told you that. So far, you know everything about me, and I don’t know anything about you. That seems hardly fair,” she finished with a little laugh “And a weird way to start a friendship.”
Regan lifted her head and looked at Robyn, studying her. Robyn had gotten used to it from this girl. It never seemed intrusive, really - more like she was trying to figure Robyn out. The first few times Regan had gazed at her with those direct, pale green eyes, there was wariness in there that Robyn definitely recognized - what did Robyn want from her, what was she expecting from her? It was the same stare Robyn used to give her mother, when she was unsure of what the woman would do, whether she was going to get hit and if she should start moving backwards to get out of hitting distance. Now, though, that wariness had somewhat dissipated, and Regan only looked thoughtful now. The knowledge that the girl no longer seemed to view Robyn as someone who would hurt her ridiculously pleased Robyn.
“Can I show you something?” Regan asked in a voice just above a whisper.
Robyn nodded. “Sure.”
Regan motioned for Robyn to sit, and she did. Regan’s movements now were jerky, as if she was nervous - the second honest emotion Robyn had seen from her thus far. “Can you - would you take off your shoe?”
Robyn gave her a weird look. “Um . . .okay.” Keeping her comments to herself, she reached down and pulled off her sneaker. She held it awkwardly, not sure what to do with it.
“Just hold it.” Regan took a deep breath, and Robyn was quite surprised to see how nervous she was. Her face was still composed, but her hands weren’t steady and she couldn’t look Robyn in the eye. She placed one slender hand over the shoe, and closed her eyes. “Don’t scream.” Robyn didn’t know what to say to that, so she just nodded, even though Regan couldn’t see her do it.
Robyn looked from Regan to the white, battered shoe in her hand, and suddenly became aware of a tension in the air in front of her, and she instinctively knew that what was about to happen would change everything.
Her shoe lifted off of her hand.
Robyn gasped sharply. Her hand unconsciously closed, as if to grasp the shoe, but the weight of it was no longer on her palm.
It was floating in the air.
Robyn stared at it, mouth agape, aware of the chill of her socked foot touching the tiled floor and the fact that the shoe that should have been on it was floating in front of her. It rose up in front of Robyn’s face, and just behind it she could see Regan’s eyes trained on the object. She watched her shoe travel to Regan, as if led by invisible strings; coaxed by the sheer will of the brunette’s mind. The girl held out her own hand, and Robyn’s shoe settled on her open palm.
Robyn tried to speak, but only let out a whoosh of air. And then, sounding as awed as she felt, said, “Did I just see that?”
Regan handed Robyn her shoe, who stared at it as if it had gotten up and danced a waltz. No, Robyn thought in a daze, it had gotten up and floated to Regan’s hand.
“How did you do that?” she asked, her voice hushed.
Regan laced her fingers together and stared at them. “I wanted it to come to me, so it did.”
Robyn turned. And the girls stared at each other. “How?” Robyn whispered. “Tell me. That you can do this . . . this is amazing.” She gave a stunned laugh. “I wouldn’t have believed it if you hadn’t shown me. Is this . . . telekinesis?”
“Psycho-kinesis. There’s a difference.” Regan’s voice had turned dull, and Robyn, still elated with the knowledge that that sort of power existed, became confused.
“Why does it make you sad?”
Regan’s whole visage tightened with a myriad of emotions - anger, despair, and hopelessness.
“It’s why I’m here.”
Silence filled the little room. Regan’s hair hid most of her face, but Robyn got the distinct feeling she was ashamed and angry. It took Robyn a long minute to process all of this.
Regan was in the mental hospital because she could move things with her mind. It couldn’t be because they thought she was crazy and didn’t believe she could do it - Robyn had seen it with her own eyes. So they were keeping her here . . . to do what?
A few things hit Robyn all at once. For one, she recalled that odd conversation between two orderlies she heard when she’d been sick from the medicine the nurses gave her. They had been talking about Regan. And what she could do. Horrified, she realized that they were keeping this poor girl here to study her ability - to experiment with it and exploit it. Therein, they were exploiting her - keeping her here like a prisoner while they learned all they could about her ability, all against Regan’s will. Regan never had any visitors because they couldn’t risk anyone else finding out about this, because what they were doing was obviously illegal. Holding an innocent girl captive in a mental institute for eight months.
“How did they get away with this?” Robyn asked, feeling anger on Regan’s behalf well up inside her. “How can they do this?”
Regan’s quiet sigh was so heavy, and it looked like as if a great weight had dropped onto her shoulders. “It’s a long story.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”