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“Wow. I’m glad you get help. I wish you didn’t have to keep repeating that cycle, though.”
“There’s an old saying about us bipolars and how often we have to hit our lows before we finally give in and accept that we have to take our meds. Haven’t gotten there yet, but I’m hopeful.”
“Why don’t you take them?” I’d asked. “If that isn’t offensive to ask.”
“We don’t really worry about being offensive in here. We’re all basically here for the same reason, right?” she’d asked, and I’d noticed the way her gaze slipped to my bandaged wrist. “The meds suck. I keep hoping for a new combination that doesn’t make me feel like a zombie, but so far, no luck.”
That was Alice.
Hopeful, yet fragile.
I was going to be sad to leave her behind.
“You’re leaving me, huh?” Alice asked, snapping me out of my memories, making me look up to find her standing in my doorway.
Small.
God, she was so tiny.
I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen an adult woman so childlike before. Short, so slight she looked like a strong wind could snap her bones, with a short crop of dark hair and these big, doll-like blue eyes.
She was almost hauntingly pretty. Like a ghost in a dream. You could see her and then immediately question if she was real or some ethereal being.
“The head-shrinkers don’t think I’m a danger to myself anymore,” I told her, nodding. That was her term for the psychiatrists.
“They always come to that conclusion for me too,” she said, dropping down on the bed across from the one I was sitting off the side of. “So, are you a danger to yourself? I won’t tell them.”
“I’m not,” I assured her. “I just want to get back to my life. I can’t even imagine how much work I’m going to have to catch up on.”
“Hey, do you think it’s possible that I could, you know, shoot you an email or follow you on social media or something? You know, when they deem me sane enough to leave again, that is. It’s cool if it’s a no. I get that sometimes you don’t want to have loony-bin friends outside of the loony-bin.”
“I would love to keep in touch, actually,” I told her. “But since we don’t have any pens here, you are just going to need to remember my number.”
“I still remember my sixth-grade locker combination,” Alice said, smiling. “Shoot,” she invited, listening as I rattled it off, then repeating it back to me.
“Let me know when you’re out, okay?” I asked, reaching out to give her wrist a squeeze. “You really made this stay tolerable for me. I can’t thank you enough for that.”
“Hey, that’s the job of the old timers, right?” she asked, following me out to the desk. “Now, don’t come back, y’hear?” she said, shooting me a soft, sort of sad smile as I headed back out toward my old life.
While she stayed there.
Without her newfound friend.
My heart ached for her, but I figured I would hear from her one day. And, like she kept telling me, she was a veteran of state-run psych wards. She would be okay.
So I needed to get my head back on my own life.
I didn’t know what was going to happen once I was released, especially if my smartwatch wasn’t charged to call anyone.
You could say I was floored to find a car parked and waiting for me.
“Miss Coulter?” the driver asked. If he had any thoughts about the place I was being released from, he kept them to himself.
“Ah, yes,” I said, brows pinching, wondering why there was a stranger there instead of Cam, or Mitchell, my usual driver.
“Cam arranged for me to pick you up,” he said, the words sounding rehearsed, which only assured me that Cam had, indeed, set this up. Because he was absolutely the sort to hammer a phrase into someone’s head.
“Oh, okay,” I said, following him toward the car. “Do you happen to have a char—“ I started as he opened the door.
