These men who thought women owed them for simply existing weren’t suffering from a mental illness. They were disgusting parasites leeching off a woman's good intentions until there was nothing left of her to give. They didn’t deserve the time and effortmost women would show them in a relationship, and they sure as shit didn’t deserve a second chance in my book. Once you laid hands on an innocent woman, or even worse, a child, you could consider yourself marked by death. It was just a matter of time before the Grim Reaper would come to collect.
July 5th 2020
Traditionally, I’ve always celebrated the Fourth of July by attending a work cookout Dr. Faris hosts at her house. She usually has a decent turnout with a mix of friends, family, and staff, but the main event is where her house is located. Her property has a complete unobstructed view of the hillside where the city lets off their fireworks display.
This year, I invited Craig to go with me. He’s always told me he’s not super comfortable in social settings, so I was surprised when he agreed to go with me. The dinner was good — a typical cookout complete with hamburgers, hot dogs, and all the sides — and Craig seemed to be having a decent time. As usual, the city's fireworks display was nothing short of impressive. I just wish the rest of the evening had been just as nice.
Since we all had work the next morning, we called it an early night and left soon after the display was finished. Craig had driven me so naturally that I was planning to ride with him back to my house. He smiled at everyone and said goodbye to me as we left, walking down the short driveway to where he parked.
Once we got in the car, however, his mood flipped faster than a light switch. He asked me if I knew what type of people I liked to hang out with. When I asked him what he meant, he laughed at me, saying I must not know how all my ‘friends’ talk about me behind my back. One of the receptionists said I was the laziest tech there, so she wasn’t sure why I was tired all the time.
His words hurt, bringing tears to my eyes. I had worked with this group of people for a long time before I had even gotten my degree as a veterinarian technician. Before I had completed the degree, I was working in the kennels part-time. He told me that the way they talked about me made him highly uncomfortable and that he loved me and was just trying to look out for me. Craig made sure to tell me that he just wanted to see me happy, and being surrounded by people who thought so little of me wasn’t how he thought he was going to spend his night.
It was getting late, and we weren’t going to get to spend a decent amount of time together once he dropped me off, so he asked me again if I loved him while we were still driving. When I said yes, he told me to show him as he pulled his dick out of his pants, not even waiting for my tears to finish from what he told me about my friends.
Chapter nine
The Phoenix
September 25th 2023
My group was informed before breakfast this morning that our schedule for the day would be continuing as originally planned after the complete cluster fuck Brandon had caused everyone yesterday. After breakfast, we would spend a few hours receiving individual therapy until lunch, followed by art therapy and group time in the lounge. Cindy made no mention of whether Brandon would be coming back to join the group anytime soon, and no one seemed to want to ask her. Maybe they reserved medieval medical practices for their difficult-to-handle patients, and he would be in the process of receiving a lobotomy.
The private offices for the therapists were located on the fourth floor, so we had to wait for them to come retrieve us when it was our turn. The trip up would require exiting the wing where our rooms were located, so instead of the nurse having to make multiple trips, they let the therapists know when we returned to the hall so they could come collect us.
Right before lights out the previous evening, the nurses had given me the bag Michelle was able to bring me. Per their procedure,everything had to be searched before I was allowed any access to personal possessions. Shemar informed me that anything they had to confiscate from the bag would be given to me upon my discharge. All that was left in the bag were the clothes I had asked for— leggings and shirts—and a few books from home.
Being able to put on what I deemed to be normal clothes before bed last night was a comforting feeling, like slipping into your own bed on your first night back after a long trip. It comforted me in the only way I could be comforted by something so familiar right now. Plus, the leggings would help me hide the thing that bothered me the most right now, my ever-growing leg hair. Even though the hair itself was light in color, blond like the hair on top of my head, it grew just enough to feel wrong, like the physical embodiment of a grima, an unpleasant sensation like when someone scrapes their teeth on a fork as they’re eating, making my skin prickle with unease.
Two books were also left in my bag. Shemar let me know that Michelle had brought more, but due to the content of the books, they weren’t going to be allowed around the other patients. Just because I didn’t have any triggers when it came to the books I read didn’t speak for everyone else I shared the hall with, and they couldn’t risk others becoming triggered. The books they left me wouldn’t have normally been my first choice when it came to something to read, but I would take fantasy novels overthe self-help books and murder mysteries provided for us in the lounge any day.
Scratching at the bandage covering my arm, I tried to decide if I should unpack my belongings or leave them in the gym bag Michelle had packed them in. Two weeks wasn’t exactly a short stay, but unpacking made it seem like it was more permanent, like I was jinxing myself into a longer stay. My clothes didn’t belong here any more than I did, so I wasn’t going to pretend that it was a temporary home. The only item I left out on my small bedside table was the journal the nurses gave me upon my arrival. Writing was therapeutic, or some hakuna matata shit they said would help with the overwhelming feelings I sometimes had. Writing was an outlet I had used throughout the years, but I wouldn’t say it had solely solved any of my problems.
Journaling used to be an outlet; it used to help get the feelings out that I never knew how to cope with. After the incident with Craig, however, I found my creativity to be sorely lacking. He may not have killed me that night, but he succeeded in killing off a part of me that even a necromancer would be able to resurrect. I made a promise to myself that I would try to write something, no matter how small, at least once a day.
I perched on the edge of the thin foam mattress and brought the journal to my knees to balance it. My head was full of thoughts and emotions from the past few days, so full that I wished more than anything to be able to articulate the mess floating around inmy brain onto the paper on my lap. It seemed like an impossible confrontation, easier to address a problem with a sword than with a writing utensil, suddenly too complex for me to recall using.
Words didn’t come easily; the tangled web in my heart was too intricate to write about. All I could manage was doodles in the corners of the paper. It was too fucking hard to try to sort out anything that I was thinking about. I could easily write about how he tried to kill me, but I had said it until I was blue in the face, and no one cared enough to listen. What would change from writing it down? Nothing, not a damn thing.
I clutched my pen in my hand so hard it was bound to break, the desire to throw it against the wall raging inside me. The need to stay calm was ingrained in me from a young age. Don’t act out. Don’t speak out. Don’t cry. Don’t break down. Don’t show emotion. The things I wasn’t allowed to do far outweighed what I was allowed to do as a child. My parents' moods had always been unpredictable; different emotions appeared depending on whether they were high, drunk, sober, or medicated. I learned at a young age to walk on eggshells, be agreeable as much as possible, and do just about anything to not rock the boat.
Just as I was about to give in and sling the pen, or anything, against my bedroom wall, a knock sounded. It wasn’t a nurse; they never knocked while doing their rounds every quarter of an hour. A man larger than any of the nurses I had interactedwith so far cracked open the door. The air seemed to be sucked out of the room as my therapist entered.
Last night was too much for me to be able to separate the details; my mind frequently disassociated and tended to forget small details when it was overloaded or overstimulated. My short-term memory suffered the most, though most people just excused it as everyday forgetfulness, and I never bothered correcting them. In my memory from my only interaction with him, he didn’t stand out as much as he does now, looming in my doorway like an omen.
His height was difficult to forget, even with my shitty memory. He had to be at least six and a half feet tall, with shoulders so broad they took up most of the doorway, leaving little space to see around him and into the hallway. Last night, he hadn’t appeared quite so massive, but given my panic attack, it’s not surprising that I remembered it that way. His brown eyes were still the same as in my memory. He didn’t just hold a passing glance, much like the night before, his gaze was deep and searching, never breaking eye contact first. It was a dominant move, but not in an unwelcome manner. I found myself wanting to get as close to him as I had been last night and let myself be free to get lost in his deep brown gaze.
Today, I was far enough back to get the full effect of his physical stature. A white button-down shirt stretched across his shoulders, close to the point of being tight and tucked neatly into the jeanshe wore. I guess therapists here didn’t have to abide by the same dress code the nurses did.
A badge was clipped to his upper breast pocket, his name, Daxton Bradshaw, underneath his photo, with a barcode for scanning through the doors. I vaguely remember learning his name last night when he helped calm down my panic attack. I felt my cheeks start to heat at the memory. Not only had it been traumatizing seeing the man who tried to kill me, but that I had a full-on panic attack in front of my unfairly attractive therapist was mortifying. At the time, the thought hadn’t crossed my mind, but now that I was face to face with him, and in a better state of mind, it was an embarrassing reminder.
“Miss Devlin, are you ready to get started?” He asked, his voice deep and gravely, straight out of an audio version of a romance novel.
“Sure, getting my head shrunk sounds like a wonderful way to spend the morning.” Just because he was good-looking didn’t mean I was happy to be spending time with him. He was probably going to be just like everyone else and assume I was fabricating the story of how I ended up here.
He chuckled, “I’m not a psychiatrist, simply the therapist assigned to your case while you’re staying at the clinic.” Daxton held the door open for me before leading me down the hall and to the double metal doors that led to the elevators.
“You misspoke, the correct word is imprisoned,” I stated sourly, bitterness dripping on every word. It was hard not to feel that way when your basic freedoms had been stripped away, no matter how temporary they made it seem. A prison without bars was still a prison, just dressed up a little nicer.
