“Well, pay it no mind,” I tell her and I can’t help it, I reach out and clasp her hand in my own. Her slender fingers are cold, and she needs a sweater. “You should go get a wrap, and we’ll go for a walk outside.”
She stares at me, her gaze bright and clear.
“I’m not allowed outdoors privileges yet,” she tells me, and she pulls her hand away from mine, clutching it to her chest.
“Rain-check, then,” I say lightly. She nods.
“I feel like I’ve met you before,” she says. “Is that silly?”
No. You know me inside and out, through and through.
“I guess I just have one of those faces,” I shrug.
“You’re British, but your last name is French,” she points out, b
ut she’s careful not to use a question.
“I’m an enigma,” I tell her, and I sit back in my seat. She stands up.
“Of that, I have no doubt.”
She walks away, but she pauses at the door, and as she does, she looks back.
At me.
She slips away, though, out of sight. When she’s gone, I feel the void of her absence immediately. I feel how the moon must feel every morning when the sun rises.
Cold.
Two
Mental hospitals are not quiet at night.
Screams echo down the halls, not because patients are actually being hurt, but because some think they are, and some are simply afraid. Afraid of the dark, afraid of the unknown, afraid of being alone. Fear is a powerful weapon, and we tend to wield it upon ourselves.
I wait in my narrow bed, my sheets folded perfectly down to my waist. I stare at the ceiling and count the squares while I listen for the nurses. They’re doing their rounds right now, one door after the other after the other, peeking in and checking. I wait until they look in on me, and then I sit up on bed and shove my feet into slippers.
I know where she is.
It’s the first thing I did when I arrived… I sneaked down the hall and found her.
She’s there now, in her room, with the door slightly ajar. She never likes the door closed. It makes her feel closed-in. She’s always been that way.
Checking the empty hall-way for nurses, and finding none, I peer into Calla’s room.
She’s sitting on the edge of the bed, ethereal and lovely, even in a hospital gown. There is one window, with shatter-proof glass, of course- and the moon glimmers in. The moonlight makes Calla’s skin even paler, and her eyes even more luminous.
I nudge the door, and she looks over her shoulder and when her gaze meets mine, she startles, then relaxes.
“Dare, right?” she asks, although I know she hasn’t forgotten.
I nod. “Yep. All day and all night.”
She smiles, and her fingers play with her hospital band.
“What brings you to my room, Dare?” Her question is soft, but it is not timid. Her eyes meet me and she is almost defiantly assured. I supposed she has to be here. She knows she doesn’t belong, yet here she sits.
“I’m restless,” I tell her. “Do you mind if I come in?”