Freedom of Sketch

Tough Love

Valentine's Day is coming, so the Circle Valley staff, who enjoy celebrating every single damn holiday (no matter how obscure), have dedicated the entire week to pink, red, chocolate, and hearts. Lots and lots of hearts. A white, frilly garland blooming with thousands of pink hearts surrounds the nurse's station, the Aquarium's chicken-wire window, and the door to The Lounge.

Talia scoffs as we watch the techs struggle to keep it taped up. "Can't use staples because we could take them and I don't know, dig someone's eyeballs out of their sockets?" she says.

I nod toward Alyssa, the annoying patient who very much enjoys calling other residents out on their "problems" while soaking in the self-satisfaction that she is, in fact, the "sickest" of us all. "Do you want to hold her down and I'll do the gouging, or...?"

She laughs. "I'll take one eyeball, you'll take the other."

"Agreed."

Alyssa glances up from her elaborately decorated Recovery Folder and sniffs when she sees us staring at her. We look away and loudly begin discussing our science class assignment: draw an anatomically correct heart - veins blue, arteries red - and label everything appropriately, to include drawing arrows in the direction of the blood flow.

"Well, since you're the artist and I can't even draw stickpeople," Talia says, "you're obviously drawing my heart for me."

"And since you have perfect penmanship, you're doing all the labeling," I conclude.

We take over a table and begin drawing, coloring, and labeling.

Talia surveys our work. "If Ms. Gabriel doesn't accuse us of cheating, I'm going to eat my hospital bracelet."

I bite my fist, laughing. "I'll go off my meds for a week."

Talia dramatically sweeps her arm across her forehead and leans back in her chair. "Please! Spare us the craziness! Do not go off of your meds!"

"You bitch," I giggle, lightly kicking her in the shin.

"Excuse me," Alyssa says haughtily. "Some people are actually trying to recover while they're here, and would appreciate it if you played your immature games somewhere else."

"And 'those people' do not include you," Talia snaps.

"What the hell do you mean?"

"Oh, please. Every time you get bumped up to the next Level, you either stop eating for three days or cut yourself with a paperclip."

I nudge Talia. "Let's go. She's not worth it."

"No! Someone needs to call her out on her bullshit!"

A new girl interrupts. "Recovery takes time, guys. And everyone recovers differently. Relapses are a part of the journey." She is standing flat against the purple accent wall, and looks absolutely terrified of us.

Talia: "Where did you get your social work degree?"

The girl drops her gaze and kicks at a loose piece of carpet fiber floating along the floor.

Tori pokes her head in the room. "Everyone doing okay?" She writes something down on her clipboard. She must be doing her rounds, where she has to document each person and their location every fifteen freaking minutes.

I grab Talia's arm. "Yeah, we were just leaving."

"Actually," Tori says, pointing her pen at Talia, "you just got a phone call. Want me to transfer it for you?"

"Yeah!" Talia bounds out of the room.

I sigh and sit back down. I haven't heard much from Daniel, and Lizzie is ignoring us altogether since we aren't "respecting her health decisions", as though she's chosen to go Vegan or something. I pick up a cheap colored pencil, sniff it, and place it back on the table. I miss the smell of Caberwood's art room and wonder how far along they are with the repairs to the studio. I should have my mother call them to ask if they've gotten anywhere with finding the actual person who started the fire. I pick up the blue pencil and play with it between my fingers.

BANG! We all jump.

A sudden, piercing scream from the hallway fills the air up with an electricity that makes all of my body hair stand on end. I drop the pencil. Alyssa, New Girl, and I are locked in a triangle of "what the fuck do we do?", trading horrified facial expressions.

I'm halfway across the room before I've even decided whether or not I should get out of my chair. The screaming and shouting resumes, but I run out into the hallway. It's empty, save for some staff members coming out of their offices to investigate the commotion.

I turn left, where the nurse's station and patient phones are located. Talia is storming up and down the corridor, tearing red construction paper hearts from the walls and windows, and ripping them into tiny pieces. The floor is littered with shreds of red. "Talia!" I race toward her.

A thick arm appears. Wade's cologne and voice fill my head. "Stay back!" he orders.

Talia continues screaming and crying, her face a blur of tears and sweat. "Leave me alone!" She shrugs off the staff members who reach out to her, who try to guide her to her room, or worse: to Seclusion.

Tori: "Let's just talk about this without yelling."

Jenny: "Please stop screaming. Would you like something to calm you down?"

Wade: "You're disrupting the community. You need to quiet down, right now."

Talia whirls around and throws a handful of torn-up paper in Wade's face. "You think I respond to 'tough love'?" she rages. "Well I don't believe in any kind of love, so FUCK OFF!" She then sees me standing behind Wade, biting my fist again, but this time out of fearful confusion. She throws up her arms. Bits of red are tangled in her teal hair. "Sorry, Shiloh. Guess what? I really am fucking crazy!"

Before I can say anything, she points a finger at her temple. "BANG, BANG!" she half-laughs, half-screams.

Wade has had enough. He and Evan haul the hysterical Talia away. Meredith follows them, her heels click-click-clicking through my brain. A door slams. Dr. Bhandari appears behind the nurse's desk to help Jenny with some medication orders.

I close my eyes so I don't have to see syringes. I'm so sick of syringes.

Tori can see how visibly disturbed I am by this unexpected explosion, and offers to stay in The Lounge with me with the door closed so I can't hear Talia's low, painful moans haunting the halls, climbing the walls, and shaking the lights. But they still seep through the crack under the door, find my skull, and rattle what's inside. For the first time ever, I find myself asking for a pill to calm me down.