Infinite Reflections

IX. The Intuition

The hushed whispers of surprised patients were all I heard as we passed through the hallway and into the staircase. We passed the crowds of druggies waiting for lunch time, the empty rooms of the suicidals that were eating, and then stopped at the top floor of the building, walking through a door with a lock that had been previously broken. I wondered if the area Levi was taking me was as abandoned and desolate as he was.

The top floor was one huge room, lit by a dim light bulb that was hanging in the center. The shades and curtains were pulled tightly over the windows, blocking any speck of light from the outside world. There were old crates and boxes lining the border of the room, all were seemingly old and unused. The room was entirely covered in dust, all but the large rug that was laid in the center, directly under the source of light. We both took a seat on the rug, and Levi looked at me with an understanding sympathy.

“Did you break that lock?” I asked, and Levi tilted his head, giving a fake nod. “Why?”

“This is the only place they aren’t monitoring,” Levi pointed out, and I looked around the room to make sure he was right. There wasn’t a single flickering red light on any of the corners; no cameras.

“What do you do up here?” The question seemed odd. What would he do, given a moment of peace from the otherwise unforgiving world he’d been plunged into?

“I think,” he commented, laying back on the rug and staring at the ceiling, patiently waiting for my next question. His body was relaxed, as if he hadn’t invited a stranger to his most secret hideout.

“About what?” I asked, painfully aware of the way my curiosity was portraying me as an interviewer.

“Suicide,” he responded, ripping his eyes from the ceiling to meet my gaze. “But you wouldn’t understand, would you?” For a moment, I saw the pain in Levi’s eyes, though he quickly wrestled the emotion away, replacing it with one of pure curiosity.

I froze, as if every system in my body had shut down at the same time as my heart. How could Levi know that I was innocent? How could he believe it?

Dragging his body from the floor, Levi slipped to the corner of the room, digging in one of the boxes that sat safely in the dark. He pulled a tan file from the box and brought it to my side. He lay down, opening it carefully. “Attempted suicide by overdose of Oxylipton,” he read, his eyes moving from the page to my eyes, as if he didn’t believe a word he read. “Was it painful?” he asked, and I nodded, my eyes falling to the floor.

I could remember that fateful day all too well. The sickness I’d felt in the classroom, and the pain that had gathered in my gut before I finally lost my hold on reality.

Levi paused for a moment, noting the soaked red bandage that hung tightly to my arm. He tore his eyes away before he was finally able to continue. “Someone slipped you the drug?” he asked, although it sounded like more of a statement.

He didn’t wait for my nod, noting my confusion at his knowledge and continuing instead. “If you really had a death wish, I doubt you would have acted upon it in such a painful way,” he explained.

“You don’t know me,” I reminded him, hugging myself gently. I felt invaded, as if he’d taken too much thought into the details of my life, when in reality he had only touched the surface. This wasn’t my life, this was only a rough situation I’d gotten myself into. I’d get out.

“I know that most people think that overdose is a painless way to die,” he continued, “but not with Oxylipton. But you would have known that. You would have done the research, had this been of your own doing.”

I could feel myself breaking down for some reason, the realization that someone finally understood was too much to handle. My heart lifted from the pit of my stomach, tears welling in my eyes.

Levi noticed the tears, pulling his arms around me and holding me as he whispered. “Someone framed you, Syrenne,” he assumed, stating the same thing that I’d been thinking since I’d woken up in the hospital that day. “Not even someone who wanted to die would put themselves through that.”

“Why do you care?” I spat, pulling Levi’s arms off of me and standing up, backing a few steps towards the door. “Why did you bring me here?” I was overwhelmed, not a single reasonable response left in my body. If Levi really believed me, why hadn’t he told anyone? Why had he dragged me to the top floor of Berkeley to tell me this? Then it hit me.

The top floor was secluded, without a single person to spy on our conversation.

Levi went to the same box he’d retrieved my file earlier, digging out another tan file and handing it to me. ‘Levi Bentley Aldridge,’ the file read, ‘cause of admission: attempted suicide by overdose of Oxylipton.’ Somewhere deep into the file, his date of admission was presented, a date that was over two years ago. Would I have the same fate? Would I be stuck in Berkeley for another two years?

“Someone framed you too?” I asked and Levi gave a glowing nod, happy that I finally understood.

So that was why Levi had never spoken to any of the suicidals. He wasn’t one of them, he was stuck in the same situation I was, in a place I’d never belonged. My eyes lingered past the stitching of the short sleeves of his blue tee shirt, to the dozens of cuts that lined his arms. Hadn’t he been thinking of suicide earlier? If someone had framed him, why was he suicidal now?

“Why do you want to kill yourself?” The question evidently hit home, eliciting a defeated glance straight from Levi.

“After you’re accused of being suicidal for so long, you adjust to it,” he pointed out. “All of the doctors think I’m suicidal, that I have a mental block over the memory, but I know that’s not true,” he continued. “I never wanted to be in Berkeley, but now that I am, I’m never getting out.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, the idea of staying in Berkeley until I died was a less than relieving thought. “They can’t keep you forever.”

“They can if they think you’re a danger to yourself,” he responded, gesturing to the cuts that lined his skin, “and they’ll never forget these.”

“Why did you do them?” I questioned, raising my hand and tracing my fingers along one of the scars. Why had he done them, if he knew it would prevent him from leaving?

Levi’s hand came down to my bandage, his fingers light along the open wound. “Why did you do this?” he asked, delaying my question.

“Minna was going to cut-”

“It didn’t stop her, did it?” he asked, and I shook my head solemnly. “It wasn’t all for Minna, and don’t you dare say it was,” he insisted. “I know how you’re feeling, the way you cried during church service this morning. I know that you’re feeling hopeless,” he stated intuitively, “and if that feeling can stop for even a second, you’ll be glad to do anything.”

I shook my head, tears spilling from the thick barriers of my eyelids. “You don’t know anything about me,” I responded, standing up and approaching the door. Levi didn’t say a word as I left, and I was more than happy for that.

The truth was, Levi was right. If I didn’t do something, I’d end up the same way Levi had, covered in scars with an impossible chance of ever being released.