Learning to Trust

Chapter 67 - Day One

She can hear her stomach growl, and for once since her return to the city she once knew so well, she actually wants to eat food.

If the investigation had continued, maybe the people of the IB group would have discovered that the drug David had given her not only affected her eyesight, but her ability to stomach food, and balance on her own two feet.

Instead, the investigation fell through, and they will think that she was blinded from the light when leaving the building, that she simply isn't hungry, and that she just isn't strong enough to balance yet.

A soft tap on the door is enough to make her heart leap out of her chest as she jumps up.

The door opens and in walk her doctor, Dr. Scott and her nurse since she arrived in the hospital, Julie.

"Hey there, darling. How are you feeling?" She says, her voice in a medium tone as she smiles lightly, walking over to the right side of the hospital bed.

The girl opens her mouth to speak, but then closes it.

Too many bad things have come out of speaking for her. So many to the point where she's decided to not speak at all.

"Are you in pain?" The doctor asks.

"No." She says quietly, partially lying because of the discomfort she currently has in her leg that was operated on.

The pain is just something she has grown use to; nothing out of the ordinary.

The doctor sits down in the chair next to her bed, not wanting to upset the girl by hovering over her lying in the hospital bed.

"Do you remember anything before you were knocked out?"

The friendly dog; running her hands calmingly through his fur, then the wheelchair.

"T-The wheelchair." She says very quietly.

"Tell me, Tris. What about the wheelchair upset you?"

The girl shakes her head no.

"You can tell me, it's okay. There's no one here that's trying to hurt you. I want to make you as comfortable as possible, so I want to know how I can do that."

The truth is, the girl doesn't remember why she fears the wheelchairs. She just knows they've led her to bad things in the past.

"I don't remember." She says quietly.

"That's okay." Dr. Scott says, rubbing the side of the girl's shoulder with her hand.

"The dog." The girl says.

"What about the dog?"

"He was so nice, comforting, soft." The girl's mind drifts.

"I scared him." Her mind comes back as the memory is vivid in her mind. "And he scared me back. I feel bad."

Her mind drifts again and she looks off into space.

"Do you ever want to see the dog again?" The doctor asks.

"Yes." She says, her eyesight not moving from its space on the wall across the room.

"Maybe if I wasn't insane I wouldn't have scared him, and maybe then I would be able to see him again."

"What makes you say that?"

"They don't allow dogs in the Mentally Impaired Unit."

"You're not going back to the MIU, Beatrice."

"But I belong there. You all have said it. I'm insane. It's not like I'm even a member of this city anymore, and I'm just falling apart at the seems. It's only a matter of time before that Candor guy throws me out of the city like Marcus Eaton was."

Both are quiet, not knowing what to say.

"You always were listening, weren't you." Dr. Scott meets her gaze.

The girl's mind drifts to all the horrible things that have happened when she talked this much.

"Beatrice?"

The girl doesn't reply, fearful for the beating she will surely receive for all this talking later.

"Can I get you anything? Are you hungry? Thirsty?"

The girl's stomach growled still, but she remained silent.

"I'll check in on you later. If you need anything, press that button on the wall or yell."

The girl doesn't reply.

She still doesn't know that there's only six days left until her living hell.