Straightjacket (9 page)

Her lips were tinged with a flush of pink, and he wanted so much to see what they felt like against his. But before he could lean in and taste her, the sound of a clearing throat came from the doorway. Her body jumped backward, and in an instant her arms fell away from him and were folded across her chest.

The shock of her having left him struck without warning. It was instinct now that pushed him to step forward, intending to take her in his arms again and not let her pull away. But before his body could do what it couldn’t help but do, he heard a voice.

“What’s goin’ on in here?” Carlene asked, narrowing her eyes at them both as if lasers were about to shoot out.

He turned to the large figure looming in the doorway.

“Nothing,” they both shot back in unison.

“Keep it that way, horndogs,” she scolded, still trying to catch her breath from the short walk down the hallway. “Here.” She shoved a small plastic cup into Caleb’s hand.

“Why do we have to go through this every day? I’m not taking this.” He couldn’t help the sharp edge in his voice.

“Caleb, hon, you’re not doin’ yourself any good by refusing to take your meds.” She grabbed the back of the chair as she tried to control her wheezing.

All this time Anna scanned the room awkwardly, clearly welcoming the sight of anything except him. He should have known that the role of lunatic wasn’t one he could escape so easily.

“I don’t need it.” He didn’t try to hide his hostility. “Tell Dr. Blackwell he can stop going through the motions. It doesn’t matter how many times you bring that in here. You might be able to shoot my hand full of stuff when I can’t move, but I’m not taking those pills.”

“You sure have a nasty temper when you want to,” she huffed. “Suit yourself.” She turned toward the door and headed out. “See ya tomorrow, same time,” she yelled behind her. Anna had retreated almost entirely into the corner. He sat down on the bed, leaned over with his elbows on his knees, and let his head fall into his hands.

“Caleb?” she whispered.

“Yeah?”

“Are you okay?”

He shook his head back and forth like he was trying to expel the memory of what had just happened. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“What?”

The springs of the bed squeaked as she sat down at the other end. “How come you don’t want to take your medication?”

He hated that just a few minutes ago they were together, feeling like nothing could come between them, and now they were talking about this.

“Because I don’t need it.” He was blunt but didn’t mean to be. All the bad feelings, the badness of this place, were making a mess of things.

“But don’t you want to stop having those, what are they called…episodes?”

“No, I don’t mind them. I’m fine.” He couldn’t tell her that he needed them. They were his only connection to heaven, with who he really was. To take them away would be agonizing. There would just be this place and nothingness. He couldn’t even bring himself to think about it.

“Is it because you don’t want to stop talking to him?”

Her words left him stunned. “No…no, that’s not…That stuff…I know what it can do. You take those pills, and all of a sudden, you can’t think straight, your hands are shaking, you can’t do anything. It makes you into…into a zombie.” His voice grew louder, even a little frantic. He took a deep breath to get himself under control. “I just don’t want to get into it.”

“Sorry,” she said and let her head fall toward the floor. “I didn’t mean anything. I’ve just been thinking about what you said, about being an angel, and it’s just, I mean…who am I to say it’s not true?”

He didn’t know what had happened to her over the last few hours, but something had changed. She was different. Her face, her body, all of it changed. It was almost like she was taller. What she had just said was too enticing. She made him want to blurt out everything and tell her all about who he was in heaven so she would know that this wasn’t him, only a badly formed imitation. But he forbade himself. It wasn’t part of his mission.

What was he even thinking, pulling her close like that and telling her what she meant to him? He was weak and selfish. This wasn’t about him and what he needed, no matter how deep his feelings for her were becoming. He had to control himself, and he had to start now.

“Anna, I’m sorry but I’m not feeling so great,” he told her as he stood up. “I think I’m gonna lie down. Thanks for coming to find me.” He walked toward the door and hoped she’d follow soon.

“Oh…yeah, okay.”

There was hurt in her voice, and he hated himself for being the cause of it.

He forced a smile.

She returned it.

Then she was gone and he was alone again.

Chapter Eight

Anna sat by herself on one of the benches in the courtyard. This was only her second time outside since she’d been admitted. The first time, she hadn’t noticed anything except the stone walls. About eight feet tall, they ran all along the perimeter. Although she could tell they were supposed to blend in and look natural, she noticed them right away and couldn’t forget that their job was to keep her in.

Today, she let her eyes wander over the bushes that had been trimmed into perfect domes and the clusters of flowers—no doubt nontoxic—that had been planted at exact foot-long intervals. Young trees rose up here and there, the paucity of their leaves providing little shade from the sun that beat down on her. It was clear, though, that everything had been manufactured perfectly.

She liked being outside, far away from the stifling, stale air of the hospital, but soon cigarette smoke started to mingle with the smell of fresh mulch. Almost all of the other patients were puffing on cigarettes, and a faintly visible yet pungent fog started to settle over the courtyard. Anna’s eyes passed from one smoker to the next, watching the tips of their cigarettes burn brighter as they sucked the smoke into their lungs. They blew the smooth white clouds out from between puckered lips, and it floated toward her. Every once in a while one of them coughed violently. She felt like she was the one choking.

Chrissy was sitting on the bench directly across from her. She was smoking like the rest as she gossiped with the girls in her clique. She would throw her head back every few minutes, laughing loudly with her mouth gaping open and her teeth bared. She’d arch her shoulders back and stick her chest out, her long hair falling even longer down her back. It looked to Anna like part of a mating ritual, and sure enough, some of the men couldn’t help but look over and salivate.

Anna ignored all the guys staring at Chrissy, though. Since yesterday, every waking second she’d been thinking about only one—Caleb. Her heart seemed to flutter whenever she relived what had happened in his room. Even now, her cheeks flushed when she remembered what his arms had felt like wrapped around her waist.

There was something about being so close to him like that, listening to him call her pretty, watching the way he looked at her, like she was the most important person in the world, that made a familiar feeling stir inside of her. She’d never been in love, but she’d dreamed about it. She’d wake up from those dreams and make herself lie there so she could soak up what was left of the feeling. After a few minutes, it would disappear, and she’d feel like she lost something special. But now, thinking about him, she felt that same longing swirling around inside. It was the first time she’d felt it when she was awake. She couldn’t wait to see him again, to see if it would get stronger.

She leaned back so that her head rested on the bench. There were no clouds, just the sun in the center of an endless stretch of blue. It was so bright she couldn’t stare at the sky for long, so she closed her eyes and lost herself in a mix of black and pink; her eyelids only blunted the intensity of the sun. There were no distractions from thinking about Caleb now. She threw herself one more time into the memory of his arms wrapped around her.

When she got to the part when he had asked her to leave, though, she stopped. She didn’t want to remember it. She’d made herself go, embarrassed and confused and hurt. She couldn’t figure out why he had pulled away from her like that. Was it something she did? She tried to put it out of her mind, go back to the feeling of his warm breath near her mouth, but the irritation kept creeping in. She shut her eyes even tighter, trying to block out the pink and lose herself and her frustration in the blackness.

“Hi, Anna.”

Of course she knew who it was before she opened her eyes. When she did, Caleb was grinning in front of her with both hands tucked into the pockets of his khaki cargo pants. She hadn’t seen him outside of the hospital before, and now, free from the sickly glow of the fluorescent lights, he really did look angelic. Her irritation vanished.

“Hey, Anna?”

“Oh…yeah, hi.” She hadn’t realized that she’d just been staring blankly at his face and hadn’t even said hello.

“Can I sit down with you?”

She sat up straighter and moved closer to one end of the bench. “Yeah, sure.” Chrissy, who had just let out one of her shrill laughs, caught a glimpse of them and flipped her hair over her shoulder. Caleb either didn’t see or ignored her. Anna smiled smugly.

“So.” Her heart pounded as the wooden planks of the bench shifted when he sat down.

“So.” He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, letting his hands meet and his fingers interlock. He snuck a peek at her over his shoulder and smiled. She found that she had to start concentrating on breathing. Her stomach felt dizzy. She wanted to be as close to him right now as she had been yesterday, but her body stayed glued to where it was. She called herself crazy—crazy for thinking he could want her after practically pushing her out the door; crazy for feeling the way she did toward a stranger who might be completely insane. She tried to stop harassing herself, but the doubts continued to chew a tiny hole.

“How are you?” Even his voice could hypnotize her.

“I’m good.” There, that sounded pretty standard. Then there was silence again.

“How about you?” she forced out. His perfectly square jaw, the way his lips curved, even the blue flecks in his eyes—all of it was too distracting.

“So is this the non-smoking section?” he asked, still grinning.

“Yeah. I can’t stand all that smoke.” But maybe he was a smoker. And about to light up right next to her. If that were the case, she’d sit there and breathe in his smoke without a word if he’d just stay by her. She tried to backtrack. “I mean, it’s fine for them, I just don’t like it.”

“Me neither.”

She let out an audible sigh of relief and then turned away horrified. He didn’t seem to notice, though, and turned to look at all the smokers. “It’s so freaking hot out; sucking on a stick of fire just doesn’t seem very appealing to me.”

“Yeah, I know.” Ugh, could she be any more boring? She couldn’t think of one thing to say. All she could do was sit and look around at the other patients. Her cheeks grew hotter, and it wasn’t because of the sun. Hopefully he wouldn’t notice her humiliation.

Suddenly, he broke the awkward silence. “I’m sorry about yesterday, about making you leave like that.”

“It’s all right,” she blurted out. “Don’t worry about it. It’s nothing.”

“I just wanted—I don’t know what I wanted.” He squinted up at the sky. “Can we talk now?”

“Yeah, sure.” She waited for him to start the talking, and when he didn’t do anything except stare back at her with an amused smile, she reached down and twisted her ring around her finger. It gave her something to do besides feel embarrassed.

“So you don’t have a book with you. What happened?”

“Nothing. I just wanted to look at everything out here for a while. I never realized how much I could miss some stupid trees and flowers, but I guess that happens when you’re locked up every day.”

“I know what you mean.” His eyes swept across the courtyard. “It feels good out here, more normal.”

“Yeah.” She’d exhausted that conversation. She scoured her mind for anything to say that could be interesting but came up with nothing. To her relief, he broke the silence first.

“So do you just read a lot, or do you write too?”

“I’d like to write. I mean, I want to be a writer. I can write papers and stuff for school, but when I try to write what I want—well, I’ve tried a lot of times but I just can’t do it.” She didn’t know where all this was coming from, why it was pouring out of her. But the way he asked her about herself made her want to tell him. It just seemed so easy. “One time I went out and bought one of those nice hardbound journals, but when I sat down to write in it, I just froze. I just couldn’t think of anything to say. That blank page…it’s just…terrifying. Eventually I got something down, but I could never write anything that was any good. So I just kind of stopped.”

“So you’re a writer who doesn’t write?”

“Um…I guess I never thought about it like that.”

“They say you’re supposed to write about what you know, things you experienced.”

“Yeah, but I don’t want to write about anything I know and have to go through it twice.” Her voice sounded miserable even to herself.

“You know, you can talk about stuff with me.”

She eyed him cautiously, unsure of how to answer.

“You can just talk
at
me and I won’t even say anything back if you don’t want me to. And I’ll never tell another living soul your deepest, darkest secrets.” He said the last part in a low, creepy voice. “My lips are sealed.” He shut his mouth tightly and twisted two pinched fingers by the corner of his lips, pretending to lock them and then throw the key over his shoulder. She covered her mouth to stifle a laugh, but he reached up and wrapped his fingers around her own, pulling her hand down to her lap. “You have such a pretty smile. Don’t cover it up.”

He’d done it again; he’d called her pretty. The feeling from her dream struck her hard in the pit of her belly, filling it up until it burst out through her chest and down her arms and legs. She wanted so much to be closer to him, keep talking to him like this, maybe even tell him what it was really like for her. She’d been so lonely, and not just in this place, but all the time for so long.