Released (Caged 3)

Slowly, the events of the past few days sloshed into the forefront of my mind.

“Welcome back,” Dr. Baynor said. He was smiling when I looked over to him. “Don’t talk yet. Give yourself a few minutes.”

He came to the side of the bed and injected something into the IV.

“It should help with the itching,” he said quietly. He nodded his head toward my arm and then picked up the cup of water beside the bed. He gave me a quick drink through the straw. “How’s that?”

“I…” I cleared my throat a couple of times. “I feel like I got run over.”

“Not surprising.”

I looked at Tria and tried to find some way for those “gateways to the soul” to give me some inclination as to where I stood right now, but they told me nothing.

“When can I go home?” I asked, and a little voice in my head wondered if I still had a home. “’Cause this place sucks ass.”

“You could consider vacationing in the Alps,” Baynor suggested. “How do you feel about skiing?”

“Would you be there?” I asked.

“Sure, I’ll tag along.”

“Forget it then.”

Baynor laughed, but Tria just fiddled with the strap on Hercules’ Humvee as Baynor explained a lot of shit about how I was suffering from anxiety attacks and that the one I had at Yolanda’s apartment was quite a major one.

“You can go home in the morning,” he told me. “I’m keeping you here for observation, and I want to start talking about treatment for both your anxiety and other issues. You can either cooperate, which means you walk out of here tomorrow, or you can bitch and moan and threaten me, and I’ll hold you for three days on a psych evaluation. Your pick.”

“Fucker,” I muttered.

He picked up my chart and poked around at it while Tria stood off to his side, down at the end of the bed. Our eyes met, but she dropped her gaze to the floor. After a minute, she looked back up at me.

“Can I…can I talk to you?” I asked. I tried for the puppy-dog eyes that usually worked when I had a cold and wanted her to cook for me.

Baynor looked from me to Tria, then gave me half a grin, tapped his pen on the clipboard, and walked out the door. Tria didn’t move but stayed down at the end of the bed not looking at me.

“Tria?” I whispered, and she finally looked up.

“Here we are again,” she said. She made a little gesture that took in the room.

“Yeah,” I said. “Um…maybe if we worked out a deal, we could just move in…save on the rent or something.”

Her tight lipped smile didn’t express any humor.

“Yeah…probably not. The décor here sucks.”

Nothing.

“Tria?”

She looked up at me again.

“Are you…I mean…will you…you know…come back home?”

For the longest time, she wouldn’t meet my eyes. When her head finally tilted up, she didn’t have to answer.

“Please,” I heard myself whisper. “Please, just…don’t. Don’t do this.”

“Do you have any idea what the last couple of weeks have been like for me?” she asked quietly. “Any at all?”