“Ours is a secret.”
“It’s not a secret if you’re telling people about it, now is it?”
She chuckled. “Ya have a point there.”
Her mood swings made me dizzy, so I didn’t bother answering any more of her ridiculous questions. After one round of poker, which she won, of course, everyone took off for recreation as I retreated to my room.
Later, I ate lunch in my room to avoid Maddie, and by the time dinner rolled around, Dr. L dragged me out again to the common area. Maddie eyed me from afar as I tried figuring her out. She was tall, thin, and with a pretty face—I would guess five-foot-eight. She sat poised as her bangs dropped slightly below her eyebrows. Every few minutes, she shook her head to move them from her eyes as she shuffled the deck nervously. Everything about her stance, the way she spoke, and her facial expressions screamed confidence, but irony filled her blue eyes.
“These meds are for you,” Dr. L said, handing me over a small cup containing two pills.
“No, I’m not supposed to be on meds. I’m not taking anything until I talk to Dr. Conway.”
“Alright, so be it. I’ll give you one more day. But if Dr. Conway doesn’t show, you’ll be forced to take your meds. It’s in your paperwork, Mia.”
Even though it was in my paperwork, Dr. Conway had taken me off all medication since my first office visit with her. It had to be in her notes. Where the hell was she? I couldn’t go back to the way I was. “Has anyone tried reaching out to her?”
“I’ll make a phone call.” Dr. L sighed before leaving.
“They’re serious about those meds, ya?” Maddie asked as she pulled out the chair in front of me. “Pretend to take them like I do.”
“How do you pretend?”
“It takes practice, but ya have to hold them in your throat … then when she leaves, cough them back up.” Maddie shrugged. “Or ya can hide them between your gum and upper lip if you can’t.”
“You do that every time?”
“Sure do. I am how God made me. We’re all normal. It’s the pills making you not the full shilling.”
I partly agreed with her, partially disagreed. Sure, God had made us, but was it with a blank slate or with our lives already planned out? Because it was what happened to us that changed us, molding us into who we’d actually become. Nature vs. nurture bullshit. I hadn’t been born emotionally detached. I’d become this way because of what my uncle had put me through. But then I thought about actual psychopaths. The ones raised in decent homes and loving families. Had they been born that way, or had a moment in their life happened to trigger it? Did they ever have the same chance? Were we all born with the same amount of light in our hearts?
“Penny for ya thoughts?” Maddie asked.
“Ha. My thoughts would put you in debt.”
Maddie giggled as her overgrown bangs swayed from side to side. “You’re funny. I like ya, Mia.”
Wonderful. Maddie knew my name.
After dinner and the shower routine, Dr. L led me back to my empty room and closed the door behind her before I curled over the plastic mattress. The room was freezing and I pulled my arms into my sweatshirt, then pulled my knees up inside, hugging myself as I shivered in a ball.
For a split second, I wished I was numb again because having all these feelings without a reason to have them was torment. Easily, I could get by here with my Emotional Detachment Disorder—with my walls. Free of heartache. Free of pain. Free of my past, which I now remembered.
But I had made a promise to Ollie, and I clung to my promise because it was my only attachment left to him.
It was the sound of my name that woke me. My eyes parted to see Ollie kneeling beside my bed with a finger held to his lips.
Great.I had gone mad.
I blinked a few times as his fingers brushed my forehead and ran over the top of my hair.
“Ollie?”Please be real.
A small grin appeared over his face. “Hi, love.”
In an instant, I sprang to my knees and swung my arms around his neck, breathing in his scent. He was real, and he was here. Running my fingers through his brown messy hair, I kissed his neck and cheek and lips. He wrapped his long arms around my waist as he dropped his head into my neck. “But how?”
“I told you I have connections,” he said and pulled away to see me. “You don’t belong here, Mia.” He looked around before his eyes met mine again. “Are you okay? Why were you in the hospital? What happened?”
