Charlie awakens sometime in the late afternoon with a horrific headache. For a moment he is dazed and isn't sure why his arm feels tight and restrained. He feels the sling and then he remembers. He takes a couple of pills with a sip of water before he leaves the bed. He walks over to his phone that he left on charge and he reluctantly turns it on. He uses the bathroom, brushes his teeth and starts to get ready, difficulty, as his phone vibrates nonstop behind him. He ignores the messages—mostly from his mother—and tries to put on his shirt using only one hand.
Once the shirt is on he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror. He stares at the sling on his shoulder and it's a physical reminder of everything that happened last night. It's a reminder of Molly's pain. He stares at the scratches and cuts on his hands, also another reminder. She's everywhere. She's on his skin. He needs to get her out of his mind but he doesn't know how. He sits at the end of his bed for a long time just thinking about last night, about everything he wants to forget.
"Charlie!" his mother's voice squeals from downstairs. "Aubrey's here!"
He must have drifted so far that he didn't hear the doorbell. He hears his mother tell her to go upstairs and Charlie can't even bring himself to move. He rubs his head and his eyes as Aubrey walks into his bedroom.
"It stinks in here," she mutters. "Have you only just woken up?"
"Yeah," Charlie says.
"Jesus, what happened to your arm?" She walks around to get a better view and Charlie covers his arm and turns away from her.
"Nothing. I just had an accident."
"After you left my place?"
He nods. "What are you doing here?"
"Well, you've been ignoring my calls and texts all day." She walks over to his phone and picks it up. "You haven't even clicked on them."
"My battery died; it's only just charged. I don't really feel like talking right now, can we talk tomorrow?"
"No," she laughs, dropping the phone back on Charlie's desk. "We are going to talk now, Charlie because if we don't then there won't be a tomorrow for us."
"I thought that's what you wanted."
"It isn't," she says. "Look, we fight okay? It's what we do. We fight and we make up. I'm sorry if I upset you last night, you just caught me off guard when you turned up. Why don't we go out tonight instead? My friend's having a party and it's not too far away."
"I thought you were working tonight?" he questions.
"No, I've got this weekend off. I think this party will be good for us."
"I'm not really in the party mood," Charlie says quietly. "But you go, have fun."
"I'm trying here," she says angrily. "I don't get what your problem is. We don't have to go to the party, you can come around my place and we'll just watch a film or something. I don't care. I just want to spend time with you."
He laughs unexpectedly. "I haven't heard you say that in a while."
"Because I mean it." She narrows her eyes and walks towards him. She separates his legs with her knees and slides astride his waist. He wants to push her away, but he can't find the energy. "Spend time with me tonight. Please. I'll go easy on you."
She runs a finger down his sling and he finally looks at her. "Okay," he says.
Her face lights up with joy. "We can get a take out and lounge on the couch. . . or maybe the bed." She leans down to kiss him and Charlie sighs against her lips. He kisses her back, barely, but she can tell something's wrong. "Sorry, are you in pain?"
"No, it's not that," he says. "I just. . . I need to talk to my mum for a bit."
"Alright," she says, backing off of him. "I'll see you at mine then around eight?"
He nods. "Yeah, bye."
"Bye." She narrows her eyes as she leaves his bedroom, but then she turns back around. "Aren't you going to walk me out?"
"What? Oh, sure."
He stands up from the bed and he follows her down the hallway. He catches a glimpse of his sister through a gap in her door. She's sitting at her desk writing in a booklet. His sister is a bookworm, and she loves homework. For an eight-year-old she's annoyingly smart, but also, rather lonely. She doesn't make friends easily and sometimes Charlie wonders if he's her only friend. Their father died when she was a toddler, she doesn't remember much about him which is probably for the best.
Charlie opens the front door and kisses Aubrey goodbye. He takes a breath of relief when he closes it. He turns through the archway and walks through the dining room and into the kitchen. His mother is there, waiting for him, but he ignores her as he picks up the coffee pot and pours it into a mug.
"You've slept the whole day," she says. "You really were tired."
"Yeah."
"You want to talk about it?"
Charlie takes a sip of the coffee and then stares around the kitchen. He looks at the red tiles that are patterned into squares along the back of the counter and then to the crumbs and pieces of rubbish that are scattered around the wooden flooring. He isn't even aware that he's spacing out.
"Charlie?" his mother says.
"If you had the chance to do something that could help someone but it wasn't what you wanted to do, would you do it?"
"Charlie, I'm a lawyer, I do that every day," she says lightly. "What's going on?"
"It's complicated," he sighs.
"Well, sometimes we have to do things we don't want to do. That's life."
"But if you had the choice," he says. "If it was entirely up to you and you knew that it could possibly even save someone's life, would you?"
"Yeah," she says. "Wouldn't you?"
He drops his eyes. "I don't know."
"What happened to you last night?"
"I don't know that either." He takes another sip of coffee and then stares at the ticking clock. "I have to go. I'll be back later."
"Go where?" she says. "Charlie!"
He grabs his car keys and leaves the house. He sits in his car for a minute, thinking this over, wondering if he's making a huge mistake. He turns the key in the ignition and he reverses out of his driveway. His shoulder stings in retaliation but he doesn't have enough time to walk. The hospital is too far. He has to drive back over the bridge to reach the hospital and he almost closes his eyes. He sees her there all over again, standing on the edge, he shakes his head as he remembers her eyes. How sharp and determined they were. He clenches his hands around the wheel as he feels her nails clawing into his skin and he breathes heavily as he recalls that critical last second, the second that changed everything, the second that caught her just in time. What if he's too late now?
The hospital parking lot is almost empty as visiting times are nearly over. He isn't sure what the times are for the mental health ward, maybe there isn't any. He finds a parking space and watches as a nurse helps an elderly man walk across the lot. His nerves are getting the better of him and he can't control them. But he has to know.
He leaves his car and he walks up to the ward entrance. It's a separate building from the main hospital and is more enclosed. The reception area is quiet unlike this morning. A woman with sandy brown hair meets his eyes as he walks towards her.
"Hi, can I help you?"
Charlie is so afraid of the answer that he doesn't dare ask the question. He begins to choke and the woman tilts her head as she observes him.
"Do you need help?" she asks.
"Molly," he says. "She's a patient here. She was admitted this morning. Is she still here?"
"Are you family?"
"No, uh, I'm a friend. Sort of. Is she okay?"
What he wants to ask instead is; is she alive? He can't form those words, he doesn't even know how to process them.
"I'm afraid I can't disclose that information."
"It's alright, Sarah. I'll take it from here." The doctor from this morning appears behind the woman and she nods. "Charlie, isn't it?"
"Yeah," Charlie says.
"Come with me."
Charlie doesn't know if this is good or bad. The doctor types in a code on the door and it buzzes open for them to enter. It is the same door from this morning that opened up to a hallway of headaches.
"Is she okay?" Charlie whispers.
"See for yourself." The doctor knocks on the door and then opens it slightly. "You have a visitor, are you up to it?"
Charlie doesn't hear her response but the doctor steps back and then points towards the door. Charlie walks towards it and he enters the room. The first thing he sees is a giant, golden-coated dog laying at the end of the bed. It puts its head up at his arrival and then lays back down. The second thing he sees is Molly. She is hidden underneath the covers, drawing on a pad of paper with a pencil. She looks up and meets his eyes, her smile startles him.
"Hey," she says.
"Hey," Charlie says. "You've got a roommate."
"He works for the hospital," Molly says. "He's a therapy dog. I've got him on loan."
"They must think you need him the most," Charlie says as he strokes the dog. "What's his name?"
"Shiloh."
"He's cute. Is it helping?"
She shrugs. "What are you doing here?"
"Honestly? I'm not sure." Charlie drifts over to the window ledge and he sits down. He folds his arms as he watches her draw. "I felt kind of rude leaving you like that this morning."
"Why? People have been leaving me my whole life."
Charlie doesn't know what to say to that, because he believes her. Her hand moves a little faster against the paper and some kind of fire in her has ignited. He can't tell if it's anger or pain.
"Well, I came back," Charlie says.
Molly looks at him. "You're checking that I'm still alive."
"I am."
"And you can see that I am, so now what?"
"I don't know," he says shamefully, moving his eyes around the room. "I hate hospitals. I think if I spent a day in here then I'd be the one that's depressed."
"It's not so bad," Molly says. "It's quieter than out there. I can think."
"And draw." Charlie leans forwards to sneak a look at her drawing but she grins and moves it out of sight. "After everything that happened that's what you're shy about?"
"It's not finished," she says. She tucks the drawing under her covers and then stands from the bed.
She's wearing a thin, white shirt and grey sweatpants. Her long hair is tied back into a ponytail and it drops in curls along her back. He stares at her for a moment, transfixed by her subtle beauty. She sits next to the dog and pets it.
"He's trained to respond to my behaviour changes," Molly says. "Impressive, isn't it? That if I get upset or angry then he'll know what to do. He'll know what to do even if I don't."
"They wouldn't give you a dog unless they thought you were going to get upset or angry," Charlie says. "You've told them haven't you? The truth?"
She nods slowly. "He really thinks that he can help me. He's arrogant."
"You should listen to him."
"I'm just a number to him," she says. "I'm a case study."
"What's the study?"
"Physical therapy. I think he made the term up."
"Like the dog?" Charlie asks.
"The dog is phase one," she says as she wanders over to the window. "You are phase two. God knows what he's going to drag in here next."
"I'm not a part of this study, Molly. I'm real. I came here by my own choice."
"I don't believe you." She folds her arms and glares at him with doubt. "He probably made you feel bad about it, didn't he? Told you to come back? Told you that I'd probably be dead if you didn't help."
"Something like that, yeah."
"I've known doctors for a long time," she says. "No matter how different they seem to be deep down they're all the same. I don't need you here. I don't need help."
"You do."
"Go home, Charlie. Go and live your life. Forget that you ever met me. I'll be okay, I've got Doctor Alan." She grins to herself and looks away. "I'll be okay."
"I want to be here," Charlie says. "You know, apart from the whole trying to kill yourself thing you're actually quite cool. You're smart. You see things that others don't. I wish you could see that, too."
"My sister said that to me once," she whispers. "A long time ago."
"What was she like?"
"She was fierce." Molly smiles as she leans back into the window. "Brave. Braver than I ever was. She was obsessed with birds. She collected all of these picture books and she'd look through them for hours. I always thought it was. . ." Molly stares right at him, and Charlie doesn't know what he's done. "How did you do that?"
"Do what?"
"I talked about her," Molly says.
"Why wouldn't you talk about her? She sounds interesting."
"Yeah. I just. . . I've never done that before."
"Oh." Charlie observes her strange mood change, as though she's having an epiphany. "Do you want to keep talking about her?"
"I'm not sure," she says.
"Well, tell me why she was fierce."
"She just was," Molly says. "She wasn't afraid of anything. If someone caused us trouble then she'd be first in line to sort them out. She had some anger issues as a teenager so my mum forced her to attend yoga classes. She got addicted." Molly presses a hand to her chest as a tear rolls down her cheek. "I don't know how I'm doing this."
"It's okay. You can tell me."
"She got addicted and she. . ." Molly holds in a cry but she fights it and calms herself. "S-she stopped having anger outbursts, she found peace. She started baking and cooking and she'd teach me sometimes." She wipes her face and she looks at him. "She taught me about life."
"She taught you how to survive," Charlie says.
Molly nods. "She tried to prepare me for the world, she tried to prepare me for the future."
"She made you stronger," he says. "She knew that you'd grow up and face the same challenges that she did. Parents don't get it but siblings do."
She smiles weakly. "You have siblings?"
"Yeah, I've got a younger sister," Charlie says. "I'd love nothing more than to wrap her up and lock her away in a room for the rest of her life so she doesn't have to face this world. It's a crap one but it's the only one we've got."
"She'll be okay if she has a brother like you looking out for her."
"I'm nothing special."
"You risked your life to give me a second chance," she says. "That's special."
Charlie feels relief to hear her say that. He thought she'd hate him for what he did, but she understands. She's beginning to understand more than she wants to. He can tell that she's holding back. There are so many memories buried inside of her about her family that she's desperate to get out, to unleash on someone willing to listen. Those memories are precious and she believes them to be only hers. But she let him in. Just then for a few minutes she allowed him to listen. And he wonders if a therapist has ever gotten that far.
"I don't know about you but I'm starving," Charlie says. "Do you want to go get some food?"
"I'm not supposed to leave the ward without the doctor," Molly says.
Charlie smiles and walks towards the door. "I don't think that'll be a problem. I'm phase two, right?"
Molly smiles and whistles for the dog to join her as they all enter the hallway. She keeps a distance from him, as though she's afraid of touching him, even accidentally. Charlie has no idea what he's doing, he's making it up as he goes along. Something brought him back to this hospital, something brought him back to her and against his better judgement he wants to figure it out.