||Charlotte Robin Dun|| First Person||
The scalding hot water spurts down in an arch from the shower head over my tired and sore body, my eyes squeezed shut tightly in pain.
She's like a rock and you keep chipping off a piece to hold onto.
This can't be happening to me. This isn't real. This has to be all some sort of sick joke that everyone is taking part in, or maybe even just one terrifyingly long nightmare that I just can't seem to snap myself back out of it and into the land of consciousness. I can't be any more sick than I already am, I can't be all of these things. This isn't fair! I've done nothing wrong to deserve this sort of fate, I don't need this happening to me.
"I-I-I," I stutter, sinking down the shower wall slowly and down to the ground of the tub. The water beats down on my body violently as the tears stream down my face, a cascade of the two pouring down my cheeks and mixing together. "I can't do this," I sob out quietly, my words barely audible underneath the sound of my raw cries and the hiccups catching in my throat. The shower water swirls in a pool underneath and around me, slowly draining as more and more water keeps coming down. "I can't live like this."
And it's true- I can't. I can't spend another minute trapped in this place- I think I'll kill myself before I have to endure another month and a half of this torture. I'm being drugged up, subdued into some sort of toy that they can easily tweak before shipping me back to Columbus with a brand new tag and barcode tattooed on me. I can't imagine surviving this any longer.
Waking up this morning was no relief like it used to be. The sun slowly rising and defeating the night used to feel like I won a war every single night by merely staying alive and not succumbing to the horrors that plague me in the darkness, but now it's almost like a saddening defeat- I didn't die in my sleep once again. The first night without anything to occupy myself was terrifying, and I expected it to get better. But it's Thursday now and not a single thing has changed for me. I can't live like this.
"Charlotte!" I hear someone shouting from outside of the bathroom door. I recognize the voice as Mrs. Moore. "Charlotte, sweetie, are you alright in there? You've been in there for forty minutes, darling!"
"J-just a m-minute!" I call out in a weak and broken voice, stuttering relentlessly on my words. I pull myself up to my feet by holding onto the wall, trying to steady my feet as I try to regain my balance. I rub my face quickly in the water that's now a lukewarm temperature, attempting to rod my features of the red tint that's following the sobs that I'm attempting to choke back. Another knock, louder this time around and sounding more urgent than before sounds from outside of the bathroom.
"Charlotte! I want you out in five minutes!" Mrs. Moore demands over the roar of the shower. I gasp for air and turn away from the shower head, pressing my face against the cold wall while attempting to catch my breath.
"Ye-yeah!" I shout out. "I'll be there!" I lean against the wall and watch the water pour down onto the shower floor, the water draining in one long cycle. Eventually, five minutes passes and the door is being banged harder than ever. I don't feel like I have enough energy to get it, so I slowly sit down and lean my head in the corner of the walls, letting out a breathy sob. "I can't do this," I whisper to myself, "Ryan, I can't do this for you anymore."
"Charlotte!" Someone else is pounding their fist on the door, this time louder and insistent, almost like they're trying to break the door down. Mr. Truman, the little bitchh. "If you do not come out within thirty seconds, we will break down this door!"
"Go the fuck ahead!" I call out weakly. "You fuckingg pervert!" I bring my knees up to my chest and close my eyes, wrapping my arms around my body. I can't even find the energy to get up. Dr. Tancredi mentioned to me that I have Mixed Bipolar Disorder, which means that apparently I experience both typed of episodes at once or consecutively- I'll have moment where I'm extremely elated and energetic or irritable and reckless which is mania and then I'll have depressive episodes where I'm sad and moody and exhausted. And the worst part is the fact that I can experience the both of those in one giant ball of emotions- crying uncontrollably while talking about how happy I feel with everything. So far that hasn't happened to me, but I find myself waking up some mornings, just like today, in such a lousy mood that I can't bother to do anything but sit there and stare at the wall.
"Charlotte!" Mrs. Moore gripes. "Now!"
"Robin, honey, I know that you're not feeling well, but I'm going to need you to come outside for me, okay?" Sara tells me in a soothing voice. I don't have the energy to sit up and do what she wants me to do, so I focus on catching my breath. "Robin?"
"I can't do it." I tell her. "I can't."
"Yes, you can, sweetheart. Just turn off the shower, get dressed, and we can go to my office, okay?" She bargains with me, and the offer seems decent enough, so I decide that I'll try to get up and listen to her. I push myself up to my feet and quickly shut the water off, pulling the shower glass aside and stepping out of the shower. I'm engulfed in a wave of hot, steamy air, so I lower myself to the ground and focus on pulling on a new pair of underwear, a clean bra, a pair of leggings, and Josh's ReelBearMedia hoodie with my money stuffed into the waistband of my pants. When I'm finally dressed up and my hair is as dry as a towel can get it, I finally open the bathroom door and stumble out. Hands latch around my wrist gently, and Dr. Tancredi ushers me over to my bed and sits me down, rolling up my sleeves and inspecting my arms and wrists for any proof that I was self harming inside of the shower. I wasn't. I notice that Mr. Truman left, the only two people here being Dr. Tancredi and Mrs. Moore.
"Robin, were you crying?" Sara whispers gently, her voice soothing and calming as she strokes the inside of my palm with her thumb. I close my eyes and refrain from answering her because the answer is obvious enough; it's apparent that I was crying in there.
"I want to go home," I mumble to her, "I'm 19, I want to go home."
"I know, Robin, I know." Dr. Tancredi nods slowly, glancing behind her to Mrs. Moore. She stands there with a frown on her face, watching how kindly I'm taking to Sara. "Let's go to my office, okay?" I nod in agreement, letting her pull me up to my feet. I grab a pair of Toms from my closet and slip them onto my feet because I lack the ability to tug on a pair of sneakers. Sara leads me out of my bedroom and down the hall, and soon enough, we're in the infirmary. Instead of taking me to her office, she takes me to the room that I slept in when I hit my head badly, plugging in a hair dryer to the wall thT she retrieved from her office and passing it to me. I hold the blow dryer to my head and switch it on, letting the hot air slowly dry the water soaking my dark hair. Eventually, my hair isn't a wet mound dripping down my sweater, but I don't feel any less mentally drained than I did sitting in that shower minutes before.
"Please let me call my mother," I tell Dr. Tancredi, and her eyes widen because this might as well be the first time that I've ever requested to call anybody else but Josh and Tyler.
"Your mother?" She repeats after me, as of searching for some kind of clarification that mother means exactly what she thinks it means. I nod my head slowly, curling up on the bed in the infirmary. Dr. Tancredi heads over to the phone binder that they kept with all of our contact information, flipping through the pages of emergency contacts until she finds the name Dun. She picks up the landline phone and begins to punch in the number, dialing all the way back home to Columbus, Ohio. She waits as the phone rings, listening until somebody picks up. "Hi, this is Dr. Sara Tancredi of Newport Academy calling, I'd like to speak to a Mrs. Dun?" She says to whichever family member of mine that picked up the home phone. Dr. Tancredi spares a glance my way and waits for a short moment before she's speaking again. "Yes, hi, Mrs. Dun, Robin is requesting to speak to you." Sara waits for a few quick seconds before she's motioning me over to her. I drag myself up to my feet and to the counter, propping myself up on the island before picking up the phone.
"Charlotte," my mom says in a surprised voice, like she expected me to not call her at all. "Baby, how are you holding up?"
"Mom, I need to get out of here." I tell her. "I can't stay here, I can't."
"Sweetie, you're so close-" She begins to try and encourage me to not give up and quit on my rehabilitation because God knows that my mother is enjoying not having to deal with me just breathing up the air in our house. Because the Lord knows that my mom never really cared enough about me to listen to what's best for me.
"I told you, Mom, I can't. I don't care about what you think, this is about how I feel, and I feel worse than ever here." I explain to her quickly, not daring to let her get in a gap to talk about what she thinks is best for me. "I need you to sign me out of here. I'll stay with Josh until December and we'll come back home for Christmas and my birthday perfectly well. Just please help me out for once."
"I'm not signing you out, Charlotte." My mom says. "Believe it or not, honey, this is going to be good for you. Newport is-"
"Bullshit." I finish for her. "Newport is bullshit and I don't fit in with it. Please let me come home."
"I can't, baby. You're going to stay there until your program is done and then you can come back-" I can't help but feel royally pissed off at how hellbent my mother is on locking me up in this place until December 15. I can't believe how much she wants me to take my own life, because time and time again have I told her that I don't want to be here. She's only thinking about her own sole comfort of having me halfway across the country in a mental institution that's doing an even shittier job than the one she passed up on years ago. At that exact moment, I finally do understand what Dr. Tancredi meant by mania and depression combining into one terrifying episode.
"You're so selfish!" I yell at her, and Sara twists around from her spot across the room where she's shuffling through some medical paper work. Her eyebrows crease and furrow together in confusion. "I can't believe that you actually hate me so much to torture me!" I can feel the telltale build up of pressure behind my eyes, warning me shortly that I'm going to start crying in frustration soon.
"This is for your own good, honey." Mom tells me in a soft and calm voice, like the truth that I'm screaming and spouting out isn't affecting her at all because she already knows how terrible she is to me. "You'll be good as new when you come back, you just wait and see! You'll be over Ryan and you'll start school again-"
"Fuck you!" I scream into the phone. "That's all you ever cared about; using your kids as achievements in life! You couldn't let me mourn my best friend for three weeks because you don't actually care about me. Go to fuckingg hell!" I yell violently, throwing the phone with such anger and vigour, the entire landline yanks out of its socket in the wall and nearly goes flying straight to the ground. Sara looks at me with surprise, her eyes wide and her mouth agape. She makes to take a step towards me, to get closer, but I'm jumping off of the counter and running straight for the door.
"Robin!" Dr. Tancredi yells after me, but I sprint down the hallway with newfound energy, following the twists and turns of corridors until I'm bursting through the double doors of the lobby, skidding to a halt when I catch sight of two security guards and Marie standing there. Sara must of told them.
"Robin, I'm going to need you to turn around and head back to your room." Marie tells me in a cautious voice, gesticulating to the doors behind me. I keep my gaze set on the exit, just mere feet away from where I stand. My own freedom lies behind those doors, and I fully intend to take it back.
"I'm not sorry," I tell her honestly, running straight towards the security guards. I swerve left at the last second and slam straight into the doors in a body check sort of way, shoving them right open and setting down the pathway. The security guards gather their wits and follow after me, running along as I sprint down the pathway leading to the outside world. Once I break out of the foliage hiding the street from me, I make a sharp right and run down the pavement, my feet aching and smarting because I'm only wearing Toms. I run for what feels like hours but is surely only minutes.
She's like a rock and you keep chipping off a piece to hold on to.
And there's gotta be, gotta be something more than this.
In a life full of exits and entrances.
-/::\-
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