“Making sure you’re alive in there,” it read with an ‘O’ at the bottom.
Ollie.
Memories of moments with him circled as my breathing grew shorter and shorter. A pain ached in my chest, and I reached for the door handle, but it was locked. I couldn’t escape. A scream burned in my throat as I threw my fist at the door. No one was there to stop me as I beat the steel door, screaming until my lungs were completely depleted of oxygen.
My door suddenly buzzed open, and Stanley pulled me from my dorm by my arm and dragged me down the hall. My other hand clawed at his, trying to release myself from his grasp. His grip only tightened, and my head uncontrollably shook as I screamed out, “Let me go!” Stanley ignored me and continued to drag me down the hall. “What did you do to me?” I shouted, my fingers trying to grip the wall as we turned the corner. His silence only made me angrier as I fought against him and punched his shoulder.
“What happened?” the nurse asked as we came through the door. The light in the room was too bright, and I couldn’t see anything. My free arm swung over my eyes to shield them as another scream left me. I felt a pinch in my arm before everything went dark again.
“She’s experiencing an emotional collapse … it should be temporary...”
My lashes parted, and my eyes darted around the room to see Dr. Conway and Lynch speaking at the foot of my bed. It was bright.Too damn bright. I tried to cover my eyes, but my arm was constrained somehow.
“What’s happening?” I asked as I tried to lift my head. My eyes couldn’t adjust fast enough.
“No, darling. Just lie down,” the nurse said before she took my vitals. Dr. Conway pulled a chair beside me and studied my face in silence.
“Answer me,” I demanded.
“I believe you suffered a nervous breakdown, but I don’t know what could have caused it. No one saw you at breakfast, lunch, or dinner on Friday. You were passed out in your room all day. What’s the last thing you remember?”
Ollie immediately came to mind. I remembered his intense green eyes and the way his lips felt against mine. I remembered the mint, coconut, and the …ecstasy.
It was the ecstasy.
“I don’t know,” I lied.
“Something had to have triggered this. Something opened a door, and it was too much for your body to handle all at once.”
The nurse took my temperature and I clenched my eyes shut as I tried to process what Dr. Conway was saying. “This all seems extreme for it to be something as ridiculous as a nervous breakdown.”
“You’ll be okay, this is normal.” Dr. Conway turned to the nurse. “She’s running a small fever, and her body is reacting. Keep her in here for one more day,” Dr. Conway said before I drifted back to sleep.
Chapter Seven
“There’s a fire within her,
golden embers inher eyes.
She makes me burn so deep
That just breathing hurts.”
—Oliver Masters
TIME PASSED QUICKLY as I fell in and out of sleep in the nurse’s station. The last time I’d checked, it was Tuesday, when I was only supposed to be here for one more day. A steady fever idled days after the nurse said it should have been gone, and no one could understand what was wrong with me. Bringing up the ecstasy wasn’t an option. I wasn’t a snitch.
Jake’s bright smile came from behind the white curtain.
“Hey, Mia,” he said, empathy lacing his tone. He stood uncomfortably beside my bed with his arms full of books and snacks. He looked down, and pity struck his blue eyes.
“Don’t look at me like that. I’m not dying, Jake. I only had a fever.”
“A fever? Really, Mia? Everyone’s talking and saying they heard you freak out in the middle of the night.”
I groaned. “Great, so everyone’s talking?”
“It doesn’t matter, as long as you’re okay.” He adjusted the items in his hand before a bag of chips fell out, but he managed to catch it. “I brought your homework assignments and snuck some extra snacks from the vending machine. I didn’t know if you had access to the good stuff in this … sterile environment.” Jake glanced around at the surroundings. “It feels like I walked through heaven’s gates with all the white.”
