Normal Things (Tate Langdon FanFiction)

Chapter Twenty:

I had been in the hospital for six days before they decided I was ready for the psych ward. I've been here for four days; I leave today under good behavior.

I was sitting in a wheelchair, still wearing that horrible hospital gown, and Mom was standing at the Admissions counter, signing me out.

I watched her. While I was serving my time in my room in the psych ward, the doctors and nurses all complimented on my good behavior, how I didn't seem to be crazy and that I was the calmest one there. The truth wasn't that I was calm—I was practically screaming on the inside—but was the fact that nothing in this hospital set me off; nothing brought out Drew; nothing caused her to echo curses and poisons in my mind.

I was completely alone. In mind and reality.

I felt the gown shift over my skin.

Mom was talking to the clerk behind the counter and she glances over at me; she looks scared, like taking me home, like taking this crazy girl sitting in the wheelchair not far from her will haunt her nightmares or kill her in her sleep. I swallow and turn my head away; I can't meet her eyes.

I can hear their muffle voices and then something slams, and I snap my head up and stare at them; the clerk had smacked staples into a group of papers.

You're such a pussy, Drew spat at me. I sigh. She's back. Yay.

Mom takes the stack of papers and makes her way over to me, my backpack slung from her arm. It looked full. As Mom came to a stop in front of me, I put my hands on the armrests of the wheelchair and started to stand.

Mom gave me a sad smile and held out my bag. "Here are your clothes," she said. I thank her and shuffle my way to the nearby bathroom, where I change back into civilian clothes in a tiny bathroom stall.

When I emerge, I'm wearing a matching set of underclothes, a worn t-shirt, skinny jeans that don't match, and my Vans. No socks. I had slung the backpack on my back, feeling the weird weightlessness of it. Mom smiled at me, a genuine smile—she finally saw her daughter instead of a broken psych ward patient—and turned to head out of the hospital.

I followed a few feet behind.

I'd found my phone in the bottom of the bag; I sifted through the loads of messages and calls I had received while not having it. Clarissa and Grant had called seven times each; Carter and Margaret had sent oodles of messages. Tate had sent the most.

Tate had called me eleven times, sent me fifty-four messages, and left nine voice mails. I scrolled through the messages from him.

Tate: Penny, please.

Tate: Please answer back.

Tate: You're mother won't let me see you. She says you're sick. Like with a fever and all. Please, answer back. I'm worried.

Tate: Penny, I love you. Please answer me.

I stopped scrolling through his messages and just locked my phone, raising my hand and biting my knuckle to keep from screaming. Mom is waiting outside, under the awning, waiting for me. When I walk out and stand next to her she gives me a curious look, but I shake my head and she drops it. Together, we walk to her car, both of us ready to get as far from the hospital as we could. 

+++++++++++++++

I'd finally been able to sift through and answer back to all two-hundred and twelve notifications of all kinds that I had received from friends during my ten-day-stay in the psychiatric ward. After I was done, I tossed my phone to the end of my bed and laid back, staring at the ceiling.