Mind Games

Chapter 59 - Cassie

Cassie had once spilt a finger nail.

It didn't particularly hurt, until it snagged against something or the other. And then the pain was like a jolt of electricity.

The spilt ran into her nail bed, so snipping it wasn't an option. All she could do was bandage it until it grew long enough to snip it off.

Now, her mind was like that nail that had broken long ago.

As long as she let herself exist in a cocoon of denial, she was all good.

But then a sliver of memory would try to re-surface. Her mother trying to poison her... Her grandfather lying lifeless on the floor... Her friend broken at the bottom of the stairs... An anonymous dead body looming over her in the dark... Wanting to run, but frozen in place...

Every time those memories snagged on reality, her mind broke. At times she would start howling. At times she would scream with laughter.

And every time that happened, a nurse would rush into her padded cell and inject her with something.

The injections were like those bandages that protected her nail for so long. They gave her temporary comfort, protecting her mind from the pain of reality.

Every now and then, a boy called Ryan came to visit her.

Her mind struggled to follow what he tried to say. She wasn't coherent enough to respond to him.

So after some small talk on his part, eventually they just kept each other company in silence.

What initially felt awkward, eventually slipped into comfort.

She started looking forward to his visits, even though she wasn't sure who he was.

She could sense that at some point he had been important to her. But she couldn't remember why.

She looked at him now as the rays of sun played in through the barred windows.

He sat patiently in the chair beside her bed.

He was asking her how was she.

Her mind struggled to answer that to herself.

How was she?

She was okay, she guessed.

She couldn't feel anything below her waist. There was no pain. She was comfortable, she supposed.

The nurse had recently removed the IV line that dripped into her veins painfully. She was given meals now. Not amazing meals, but they were better than the saline.

The nurse seemed nice enough. The doctor seemed nice enough.

She understood she was in some kind of nursing home. But didn't know who she was or why was she here.

Sometimes, mostly in her dreams, she almost remembered. And just like that nail, the memories shot out bolts of pain through her that almost felt physical.

No, it was better not to remember.

Was this boy trying to make her remember?

She had felt a tinge of fear and drew away from him initially.

But he never spoke about the past. He talked about the weather, about her, about a book he had read or a movie he had watched. And slowly, she relaxed in his presence.

She didn't remember why was he once important to her, but right here, right now, he started becoming important to her again.

The white fuzz of her mind grew clearer when he visited.

The part of her that was drowning in a void, tried to swim to the surface while he was here.

And slowly, she realised, she would have to accept the pain of the past, if she wanted to reach out to him in the future.