My mind just focuses now on running through the hallway and trying to avoid bumping into other patients. Various nurses yell out to me as I run by and they call for security. Maybe if I run fast enough, I can get out of their sight and... And... I didn't think I'd get this far. I have no idea where the hell I'm going. I'm in a mental facility; it's going to be highly secured. Where to go, where to go? I look around while I run and all of a sudden I fall onto the floor. This is the problem with not thinking plans out thoroughly.
"Shit!" I yell as the pain hits me all at once. The person I ran into falls to the ground as well and starts rubbing the back of her frizzy, red head. It's Tess.
She quickly stands up and I slowly push myself to a seated position, groaning from pain radiating through my entire body.
"Well, well, well..." she says as she waves my file in front of my face. My eyes widen. "What are we running away from, Lillian Jade Shaw?" she says while reading the label on the file.
"Please..." I say, breathless. "Give it back."
"Nah, sorry hon," she opens the file. "Nobody's secrets are kept from me."
I quickly get up. "Give it back!" I shout as I snatch the file out of her hands.
She crosses her arms and gives me an evil smirk. "You attempted suicide."
"Please," my vision blurs from a mixture of exhaustion and excruciating pain. "Forget you ever saw that. Don't say a word."
Behind her, far down the hallway, I see orderlies and security jogging, looking for me.
"Shit!" I say hoarsely and take a deep breath, then turn the other way down the hallway and start to run again.
I eventually find a bathroom and slam the door open, then lock it behind me. I run to the toilet and tear every paper out of the file, crumple each one in between my sweaty right palm, then shove the papers into the toilet and push them down as far as they will go, not caring that I'm sticking my hand in toilet water. I push down the lever and, as expected, the toilet clogs and starts to overflow as I attempt to shove the papers even farther down the toilet.
"Come on, come on!" I panic.
The door suddenly opens and about five people storm into the bathroom and come over to me.
"Come on, Lillian, take a walk with us," one of them says.
"No! Get away from me!"
All of them grab onto me and pull me onto my feet. I try to thrash away their grasps, but they're all much stronger than I am.
They drag me by my arms down the long corridor outside of the bathroom. I try to plant my feet against the hard tile floor as much as possible in an attempt of restraint, but these people are too strong, and I'm too weak from my incident. My socks skid across the floor and I try to drop my body weight towards the ground. I continue to scream and yell at the orderlies to let me go. They found out where I was and where I hid my file. I have to go back and get it. But, no matter how hard I try, the orderlies keep their grips firmly on my forearms and underarms and force me on my feet. Other patients stare at me as I make a scene. I don't care - I'm sure they've seen worse.
Have I really gone mad?
I once thought that I didn't belong here, but, do I?
I'm sure if I was standing in another patient's point of view and saw me like this, I would cringe and thank the heavens that this girl is locked up in a mental institution rather than on the streets.
Well, shit.
I eventually stop resisting the orderlies and just gaze ahead as they lead me through the halls. They bring me through a door that leads to a bigger room with more doors. Each door has a name on them, and they bring me to a door that has the name Dr. Redding on a plaque hanging from it. One of the orderlies knocks on the door.
"Let her in." I hear a woman say from inside the room.
Then the orderlies force me in through the door and I end up falling from their pushing. I hit my face on the tile floor and I wince and cry out. I tried to stop myself with my hands, but realize they're in cuffs behind my back. The orderlies pick me back up and I stand, wincing at the pain.
"What the hell was that for?" I yell at them and then try to blow my hair out of my face.
"My apologies for that personally, Lillian," the woman says. "I wanted to meet with you as soon as possible."
I look up at her, and she has her dark, graying brown hair in an updo and wears a long-sleeved dress with high-heels. She leans against the front of her desk, seeming to be anxiously awaiting my arrival. She then nods at one of the female orderlies, and she comes up to me and unlocks my handcuffs, freeing my arms. I quickly tuck my hair behind my ears and cross my arms.
"Who are you?" I say.
"I'm Doctor Redding, but you can call me Katherine," she says eloquently. "Please, have a seat." She gestures towards a chair adjacent to her desk. I hear the door open behind me and look and see that the orderlies are leaving the room. They close the door behind them.
"I'd rather stand," I retort back to Katherine.
She gives me a single nod. "Fair enough." She goes around to the back of her desk and takes a seat behind it. I watch her as she shuffles some papers.
"I'm a Psychologist here at Ventura Mental Health-"
"I don't need a fucking shrink." I sputter. I suddenly remember saying those same words to Mia a few days ago.
Katherine chuckles. "Try not to think of me as a shrink, Lillian. Think of me as, let's say, a friend. Okay?"
I scoff. "A friend?" I yell. "I don't even know you!"
"Yes, I guess that's true..." she says as she continues to shuffle with paperwork on her desk. "But, I've come to know you fairly well so far, Lillian."
"How do you already know me?" I ask as I see her pull a file out of one of her drawers. My heart drops in my chest and my expression dulls.
"Well, I've looked over your file numerous times," she walks back in front of her desk and closer to me. "I know why you're here, I know what brings you into my office today," my mouth tastes sour and I feel sweat forming on my lower back. She opens the file in her hand. "Having access to this file right here tells me a lot about you. Lovely how that works, isn't it? Saves me a lot of time, that's for sure," she chuckles. My pulse beats loudly in my ears and I feel it pumping in my chest with every heartbeat.
Katherine's brows draw together. "Lillian? You don't look so good."
"How...?"
"What?" Katherine chuckles again. "Did you really think you flushed your one and only file in this whole hospital down the toilet? We have multiple copies, including on the computer systems. All locked up." She sets my file back on the desk and I drop my hands down, defeated. Tears of anger drown my eyes. "So, yes, I know you tried to ditch your file from us to hide something. Unfortunately, it doesn't work like that, Lillian," she says with a frown.
Stupid. Fucking stupid.
Tears start to soak my cheeks and my heart is about to leap out of my throat. How could I be so stupid? I should have known better that they would have more than one paper copy of my file on record.
I just stand there. I want to run out of here, but as she said, I can't run or hide. Katherine gazes at me in thought. I avert from her gaze and look down at the ground and cross my arms again.
"Lillian, do you know where you were before you got here?" she asks carefully.
"I was at a party at college...-"
"You were in the hospital, Lillian... for three weeks," she says. My gaze meets hers. "You died for a few minutes. You were resuscitated, given emergency surgery for your internal bleeding and got bolts placed in your broken arm and both of your collarbones. Amongst those, you also broke four ribs, your cheekbone, got a crack in your hip bone, and got a severe concussion," she sighs. "Those are just the worst of the injuries you got when you jumped from that ledge, Lillian. The doctors didn't think you would come back. You were put into a medically-induced coma for three weeks to help you heal properly."
I blink and realize that my eyes have dried from being widened for so long. It wasn't a couple of days ago when I last talked to Mia. Did she just say I died? I was in a coma?
I try to process all of this, but it overwhelms me. I look down and rub my sore shoulder. She got all of that information from that damned file.
"Now your secret will get out. You've got nowhere to hide now," I hear her whisper. I jerk my head up at her, who continues to study me.
My eyes widen and I take a step back. "What... What did you say?" I ask with a tremble in my voice.
"Lillian... I didn't say anything," she grabs a pen and paper pad from her desk and studies me with her eyes. "Talk to me, Lillian, what's going on?"
I itch underneath the cast on my arm and look down again. "Are you sure you didn't just say something?"
"Yes, Lillian. Why? Did you hear someone talking?"
I shake my head instantly. "No, it was probably just nothing. I'm really tired and in a lot of pain. Plus, this is a lot to take in," I say sheepishly. Katherine writes something in her notepad with furrowed brows. I let out a big sigh.
"Of course, you must be exhausted, so I'm going to give you access to go back to your room now and rest," she puts her notepad back on her desk. "But I will arrange another appointment with you tomorrow morning."
My body is begging me to rest, and everything aches from my little escapade today. I turn to go out of the door.
"I want you to think tonight, Lillian," she says behind my back. "I want you to think about what you are hiding and why it is beneficial for you to hide this secret. I also want you to think of how detrimental it can be for you to hide it."
I let out a huff of frustration.
"Understand?" she says.
"Yes, fine. Whatever."
So not happening. She can go ahead and read my file, learn all my damn secrets and put that puzzle together herself. Then, go screw herself. I look back at her, my jaw clenched and eyes burning with scorn.
"Perfect. I'll get someone to walk you back to your room," she says calmly, despite the glare I'm giving her.
She dials a few numbers on the telephone on her desk and picks up the phone. "This is Doctor Redding, may you please send an orderly to my office to escort Lillian Shaw back to her room please?" she pauses for a beat, then nods. "Thank you."
I want to run out of this place and never look back, but I'm a prisoner.
I've gotten so used to escaping; now that I'm stuck, I don't know what to do with all of these feelings of rage and overwhelming sadness. Three weeks I've been in a coma?
I died?
I guess I didn't completely fail at my attempt.