I close my eyes and let out a sigh that seeps despair and feel like ending my life is my only option.
I’m sitting on my bed while I rip pieces of my sheet apart. I knot them together and it doesn’t take me very long. I stare at the long, braided piece of sheet, stretched out along my cot and cover it with my thin blanket.
I tell myself that tonight will be the night.
Tonight I will be free.
Tonight, I will leave the Oak Hill institution once and for all.
Chapter Twenty Two
~Before~
“You bitch!” I scream wildly and launch myself at my nurse. “You’re lying. You’re lying!” I sound like a lunatic. Like my own personal brand of crazy. My voice is high and shrill and is a mixture of rage and fear.
The nurse cowers below me, her hands in the air, blocking me as I try to wrap my fingers around her neck. “I will kill you, you liar!” I’m still shouting and I’m not sure where all of my composure has gone. “Tell me where you put it! Where is my baby?”
They told me I was pregnant.
Then they told me that I lost it. That I lost my baby.
It was at that exact moment that I swear I lost my mind. Because I knew it was his. I knew the child that was growing in my womb had to be Damien’s. He’s the only boy I’ve ever been with in that way. On top of that, he’s the only boy I’ve ever really loved.
Then, there’s the man in my dreams, but still.
A dream is just a dream.
It is not reality.
I can’t see anything but red. I am so so angry. I am so very, very confused. The logical part of my mind is a light-switch that has been turned off and all I can think about is Damien and our baby and the chance of a lifetime for me to finally be happy.
I am screaming, sobbing, and shaking.
I’ve been hysterical since the moment they told me I lost his baby.
Two burly male nurses in matching periwinkle scrubs burst through the door, tackling me just before I strangle the life out of my nurse. She coughs. Touches her thr
oat. I don’t see anymore because at that point, I’ve already been injected with a sedative and am well on my way to lullaby land.
The two male nurses lift me up as the drug takes effect and lie me down on my bed.
I say his name, “Damien.”
Wrap my arms around my stomach.
I wonder where he is and why he isn’t here.
“My baby.” I cry to myself. “My baby.”
Hours later, a nurse comes into my room to check my vitals and I’m tucked in a ball in my hospital bed. The nurse is tall, thin in a waifish way, with salt and pepper hair and a pixie cut. “Sit up dear,” she says in a soft yet kind voice. Her eyes are kind too. Big and brown. Like a puppy’s.
I do as she says and then she places two long fingers on my wrist, checking my pulse. “Is he out there?” I ask a hint of hopefulness in my tone.
“Is who out there, dear?”
“Damien.”
“Damien?”