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Chapter Seven
DECLAN
“GET UP! IT’S TIME FOR VITALS!” Declan Hayes shot out of bed at the sound of the echoing voice.
His hospital gown and thin mattress were nothing compared to the cushy bachelor life he had back home. Seven years ago, after the lost of his love, Serena, Declan found himself back in another psychiatric hospital, the third time that year. How many times in his entire lifetime, it was too much to count. His nonstop week of drunken self-destruction and overdosing on injections of any kind landed him back at Carlisle Psychiatric, a place he had spent more time in than any home he’s ever lived in.
His mother was a violent alcoholic, and he never really found out who his father was. One simple ask always landed in him being thrown down the stairs, a punishment for his curiosity. Day after day, he saw his mother get pushed around by the men who came into her life, treating her like she was their property, following her even as she told them to leave her alone. Even restraining orders never did the trick. They all still managed to find their way back to her.
When he was fourteen, she died from an overdose, and he was forced to live on the streets, taking up odd jobs here and there to sustain a decent lifestyle. But he didn’t care. Hell, he hadn’t cared about anything since his mother beat it out of him when he was just six.
Declan dragged himself out of bed, IV drip still attached to his arm, and slowly waltzed over to the nurses’ station.
“Number, please,” the nurse at the window demanded.
“Patient 2654,” he said, almost automatically.
“One sec.”
When she returned five minutes later, she handed him a paper cup filled with ten different medications. “Don’t forget to take the blue one. It’s your mood stabilizer. We don’t want a repeat of what happened last time.”
Declan rolled his eyes at her, took the cup, and walked toward the dining area where everyone was eating breakfast. He took his seat in front of a gray tray, a bowl of dried oats on one side, a miniscule cup of orange juice on the other, and an almost-rotting apple laid dead and sad in the middle.
He picked around at his oats as the fat guard sitting by the door watched. Carlisle wasn’t exactly known for its friendly and well-mannered patients. Once a week, at least one person tried to make a run for it, fed up with the abuse the overworked staff was serving, and attempted to bolt out the door. Great efforts, but none of them ever made it.
If they weren’t caught by the fat man in time, the armed guards outside had no problem gunning them down. It wasn’t a risk Declan was willing to take, especially since he knew that as long as he behaved, he’d be out in no time.
He looked down at his tiny paper cup and swirled his finger through the pills. The blue one. The menacing blue one. It was a thorn to his brain, a rock in his throat. He hated taking it. He refused!
Looking around to make sure no one was looking, he pulled open the capsule and poured the powder onto the tiled ground before hiding the rest under his tray. It was as clever as it was deadly.
Merely hours later, his mind began to change. His face twitched, his body jerked, and the piercing headache felt like a dozen bullets thrusting through his brain. He screamed, his arms flailing as he injured several other patients during group therapy. He didn’t know what he was experiencing, his vision blurred with red stains. He felt like he was going to hurl, followed by a slow and painful death. And before he could find out what was really going on, he heard a cry, followed by screams of help.
He had killed someone, he found out several days later. Stabbed someone straight in the heart with a piece of the gray tray itself.
“No! I didn’t do it!” When his alarm rang, Declan sprung up from his couch.
He looked around his surroundings. Back to the present day. It was all just a nightmare.
The nerves turned into a smile when he remembered the beautiful Tara Bardot still in his bedroom. He still remembered the day he found her, the beautiful goddess. It was four years ago, and she was one of the first people to sign up for the new social platform, Winks. And because she was, it didn’t take long before she blew up, her content channeling in more and more views, and her face plastered all over the Internet as the hottest new influencer in New York City. Everyone knew her, and everyone loved her.
Declan was never much of an extrovert. Sure, he had a lot of luck when it came to women, but they were the ones usually drawn to him, not the other way around. And he definitely never understood the hype of Internet socialization, or any socialization for that matter. But when he turned on the news one day and saw her face, her beautiful goddess-like face that instantly drew him to her, he struggled to look away. They say love at first sight doesn’t exist, but whoever said that dumb quote had never been inside Declan’s mind. And he wanted her.
And because of that, he created an account and dove into the world of social media. For months, he tried mass liking her videos, commenting wherever he could, and even tried direct messaging her, all with no luck. She never noticed him, never responded to anything he sent. Even though she had several million followers, she still should’ve noticed him, picked him out from among the crowd as her number one fan, and paid attention to him. And when she didn’t do that, he got angry. He had spent all this time not only creating an account, but also day after day following her, and she still refused to give him the time of day.
He almost gave up hope. Year after year spent wallowing in self-loathing and depression, yearning for the woman he believed was his soulmate. He became suicidal, almost at his breaking point, a knife held to his wrist and reminding him of the person he used to hate, when a miracle happened. She messaged him. She wanted him.
“Don’t you think you should, you know, stabilize yourself first before you jump into something like this? Someone could get seriously hurt.” He was sitting on a park bench by Central Park with his sister, Debbie, the night of his date.
He’d been so ecstatic that he finally got a chance to be with the love of his life that his sister was the only person he knew of to tell. But like all older sisters, she disapproved.
“I mean, you JUST got out of the hospital. If Mom were here—”
“Well, she’s not, okay?” he raised his voice and yelled. “She’s dead, just like she should be. She was nothing but a deadbeat. What makes you think I care whether she approves or not?”
Debbie could only shake her head. She didn’t understand. She just didn’t understand. She had a different life. She got to live with their grandparents while he was stuck with their alcoholic mother. She didn’t know what he was going through, what it meant for him to finally be able to have something he so desperately wanted for so long.
A thud was heard in the next room over. He threw the pillow off of him and stood up, the empty beer bottle that was on him tumbling down and rolling across the floor. When he walked into the room, there she was, as beautiful and magnificent as she was when he first saw her. Her skin looked so smooth. Her blonde hair so silky as the strands draped down her back.
