I’d written about him before, but this particular day was different. I needed to describe the way he was looking out the window because I couldn’t figure it out. Seeing his smile was like a seeing a sheep walking down Fifth Avenue. It didn’t belong there.
I took my journal out of the pocket of my robe and wrote about David’s smile. He was looking out the window and thinking something magical. I realized that it was the wistful, longing look of someone who was in love. Not that I’d ever been in love. But I’d seen movies, and David was definitely in love.
It was so enchanting to see it there in the hospital. That anyone could feel anything so deeply that wasn’t paranoia, anxiety, or desperation struck me as otherworldly.
I wrote about the sun coming through the window, hitting his sharp, pale features and lighting up his extraordinarily long and thin body. David was an exceptionally tall, skinny guy with a Byronic air. He even had the romantic curls of a poet, now that his hair had grown back in after they’d shaved it.
I formed an opinion about David in that moment. And it was that I liked him. But I kind of wanted to kick him, too. I wanted to tell him to tuck his heart back in. It’s sloppy to leave it hanging out like that.
Even then I knew I was watching something deeply private. Embarrassed by his earnestness, I started writing about the floors and the walls and the texture of the paper under my fingers. I wrote about the nurses and the clocks and the feel of the medication seeping into my veins, turning my blood to chalk.
I never stopped to think that I had been writing in group therapy just moments before. I had written about how he kept complimenting Dr Holt. How he laughed at every joke and hung on her every word. The other doctors, watching the video surveillance cameras of the session, would only see David engaged and responding to treatment in a positive way. But my journal was not a camera hanging in a high corner. My journal was on the ground in the thick of it. Moment to moment. It caught and recorded more than the bird’s-eye view.
I never stopped
to think that an outside set of eyes reading my observations about the therapy session, followed so closely by my heavily detailed description of David’s burgeoning attachment, would see the whole picture through me, which I still couldn’t, trapped in the absolute truth of the details as I was. The whole picture was that David had fallen in love with Dr Holt. Given David’s history, falling in love was the first step towards his self-destructive impulses. It became imperative that something be done about it.
Unfortunately, the wrong ‘something’ was done.
The effect my journal had on others, be it an un-journal full of lies or the hyper-truth of moment-by-moment life, was still beyond me, although it was the reason I was in that hospital to begin with.
I wrote until the drugs made me still again. The red light on the surveillance camera blinked on, telling me that night had come, and it was time to sleep. Then I stared at the fan, rotating way above me in the never-darkness of my hospital room. I thought about how tall David was, and the distance to that fan. I thought about it, but still in my cocoon, I couldn’t say anything. So I just stared.
Woop-woop.
31 JULY
I wake up aching, like a fist clenched for too long.
I open my mouth wide, and my jaw cracks. It’s a satisfying sound and feeling. I unwind myself from the blankets Taylor wrapped around me.
I sit up and see that my phone is vibrating. I know who it is before I check the caller.
When I don’t answer, Rob sends me a text.
Are you OK?
Yes, I text back, just a little shaky. Did you talk to Liam or Taylor?
Both. Aura-Blue too. I’m coming back early.
The thought is actually a comfort, even though I’m going to have to break up with him as soon as he’s settled.
Is your mom OK with that? I text. He’s told me bits and pieces about her. She’s very attached to Rob, and she’s jealous of any time he spends away from her.
Don’t care. I’m so worried about you. Taylor told me you took the news hard.
No other way to take it. I’m glad you’re coming back.
There’s a pause before he writes, I miss you.
See you soon.
He doesn’t try to continue the conversation. I’ve been keeping our exchanges brief for the past week. I won’t lie to Rob, so I haven’t been able to say much at all. I still want to break up with him in person, and I’m sure he knows something like that is coming.
I’m probably overthinking the whole thing. I should just text him and tell him that I’ve met someone else.
But I actually care about Rob, and I want to do this as respectfully as possible.