Insanity (Asylum 1)

I’m dreaming the words and picturing the face of the person who said them. Black hair. Blue blue eyes deeper than the depths of the Pacific. Clear smooth toasted almond skin. High cheekbones. Chiseled jaw line. A lean muscular body. Strong hands. Long fingers. Low rich voice.

I sit up still groggy and realization goes off like a bomb inside of me. Blue Eyes. I know him—no—not just know him. He’s my other half. My heart is a lock and he holds the key. Damien, Blue Eyes, the orderly…

He’s the love of my life.

Yesterday was the first time I’ve ever seen him here. I can’t remember the last time I saw him. How did he know I was here? How did he find me? When I was brought here, part of me hoped that he would find me.

Words ring out in my head. Beautiful words once spoken to me by him. “Addy, you are my sun, my moon, and my stars. You are my heaven, my hell, and my earth. I’d go anywhere with you. I’d follow you anywhere.”

And he’s here.

I’m angry with myself for not recognizing him right away, but then again I’ve been so bogged down by the asylum’s oblivious mind-fuck pills that I haven’t noticed much of anything lately.

I snake my fingers through my hair and tug. But it’s Damien! Damien! He’s not just any guy.

I’d forgotten him.

Now I know I have to find him.

Shoving my feet off the side of the bed, new surroundings burn my eyes. Tan plaster walls instead of thick white padded ones. One oblong barred window. Two dressers. Two closets. Two beds.

They’ve moved me to a different room.

A gentle squeaking noise bounces off the walls and my eyes avert to my right. Oh shit. They put me in a room with a nut job.

They say I’m a nut job.

But not like this.

Not even close.

She rocks back and forth on her cot, knees to her chest, twisting a piece of her wiry, red hair between her fingertips. Her freckled arms are trembling. She sings with vibrato.

I am slowly going crazy. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six.

Switch.

Crazy going slowly am I. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six.

Switch.

I think about screaming again. Somebody turn her off. She lifts her head slowly, a maddening look in her big, brown eyes and eerie smile crawling across her pale, freckled lips. “Shh,” she whispers. “They’re coming for us.”

“Who’s they?”

She shakes her head and lets out a cackle laced with the deepest kind of crazy. I think they put her in here with me purposely. They’re trying to break me. They think if they put me around truly insane people that I’ll accept my place here. Well…They are wrong.

I don’t know how many times I can say

this; I don’t belong here.

I don’t belong here. I don’t belong here. I don’t belong here. I don’t belong here. I don’t belong here. I don’t belong here. I don’t belong here. I don’t belong here. I don’t belong here. I don’t belong here.

I jump at the sound of the door banging against the wall. I glance at Crazy, who is still rocking back and forth on her cot. A second ago she said, “Shh. They’re coming.” Maybe Crazy is psychic.

There’s a chubby nurse at the door with bright red lipstick and two paper Dixie cups. “Adelaide,” she hands me the cup. She keeps a close eye on me, watching, waiting. She slits her beady gray eyes. It’s like she’s saying; swallow the damn pills already, you lunatic. I watch her watch me. There’s a sneer on those bright red lips. I’d like to wipe it off her face. My eyes flit to her nametag. Marjorie.

She was here during my fit last night. Rammed her knee in to my back. My spine still throbs from the force of her putting all of her weight on me.