She Said She Said

2

Annette’s POV:

Twelve Months Earlier…

“Annette,” the therapist said, trying to get my attention. “Annette, listen, you’ve been in here now for two years. I know it’s hard, but you’ve never said a word, you’re always looking into space, you cringe from contact and yet you still find ways to harm yourself despite all we do.” I stayed silent and she sighed.

Finally, I think that’s when I broke her once and for all. She knew she’d have to have patience, something I heard them tell her when she was assigned my case. She grabbed my shoulders and pulled me facing her. “Listen Annette, your family is what’s important. Paul McCartney was just a boy, you’re being r-”

And that’s when I broke, and I shattered.

“HOW ABOUT THIS, YOU LISTEN? MY FAMILY DOESN’T GIVE TWO SHITS ABOUT ME, THAT’S WHY THEY DROPPED ME OFF AT THIS MAD HOUSE WHEN I WAS SEVENTEEN! I’M NINETEEN NOW AND YOU WON’T LET ME OUT! OH, AND YOU DON’T KNOW ONE THING ABOUT PAUL MCCARTNEY, OR ELSE YOU WOULD’VE SEEN HE WAS MORE THAN JUST A BOY. HE WAS THE ONLY ONE WHO EVER ACTUALLY CARED ABOUT ME AND ACTUALLY LOVED ME. SO LISTEN HERE, YOU DON’T KNOW TWO THINGS ABOUT ME!”

I sat back down on the chair and she just stared at me. “That’s the first time you’ve talked in two years.” All I did was look away and shrug.

Eleven Months Earlier…

It’s been a full month since I last said something, and my therapist actually regained confidence. Ever since then she has seized to catch my attention or make me speak, but she feels better.

I go over to my record player, the only thing they allowed me to have and listed it up. That’s where I kept a broken Elvis record, which was Paul’s favorite. I have one that’s not broken in the player, and I start it and grab a shard of the broken record. As Elvis sang, I pulled up my gown and made a clean cut on my ankle, where I could find space in between others. Then I pulled up my sleeve and made one near the top of my shoulder.

I’ve never been caught doing this, but as fate would have it, my therapist wanted to see what I was doing at that moment, and didn’t bother to knock. She saw my (luckily she didn’t see what I was using) arm bleeding, and saw the little puddle of blood my ankle was causing.

She turned to an employee and yelled “Get a first aid kit!” and ran over to me. “What were you thinking Annette?” she asked me while looking at my cut and pressing it together so no more blood would escape.

I shrugged and a medic ran in with some wipes, bandages and a towel stained with plenty of blood, probably from patients that have come and gone. She wiped my cut and I tried to pull away, but she was stronger than me. She put the towel down on the floor to soak up the blood while she wrapped my ankle up and looked at the other scars I had going up and down my legs.

“What do you even cut yourself with?” She asked. I shrug and she rolls her eyes at me and treats the cut on my arm. “I’m going to be doing random checks like these more often now Annette,” she tells me, leaving my room.

The record gets to the end and I reset the needle.

Nine Months Earlier…

I get to the therapists office a little early and sit in front of her empty desk. I wonder what she keeps in there. I look around and go to her drawers and look inside.

In one, she had the files of all her patients, she has ten. I see my file, the one at the end, and open it. It has very little notes, just saying I still haven’t spoken, until you get to the day I did. She has this written about that day:

Annette went out on a rampage today, the first time I’ve heard her speak. She yelled about her family and the boy called Paul McCartney, who I’ve been looking for.

She’s looking for Paul? I open another drawer and find a map of the hospital that marks all her patients’ rooms. I fold it up and put it in my pocket. The day you find him, I’ll get out of here.

I sat back down as she entered the room.

Five Months Earlier…

I’m sitting in solitary, which is basically just an empty room with soft walls and floors. They couldn’t find a way to stop my cutting, so they put me in a room where I couldn’t possibly cut. I got a lot of time to think in there.

You know what? Fuck Paul McCartney. As far as I know, he’s made no effort to want to find me. It’s not as if I expected him to, but it would’ve been a dream come true. He’s turning twenty in three months, the last time I saw him he was fifteen. He’s probably met girls better than me by now.

“Fuck Paul McCartney,” I said aloud. A voice came over a speaker.

“What?” it asked. It sounded like my therapist, she was probably watching me on the other side of this one way glass.

“Fuck Paul McCartney, I hope I don’t see him again.”

She asked more questions, but I didn’t say anything more, I was going to get out of here.

Two Nights Earlier…

I was ready to go. I had gotten out of solitary, and I had stopped cutting to make it seem like I was getting better. I dared not say a word still though, except when I asked if I could get out of here.

At first my therapist stared at me, surprised I had talked again. “Well, Annette, you may have stopped cutting, but you still talk very little. My guess is that you won’t be out of here still for a very long time.”

I saw no sense in arguing with her, so I just nodded and looked away, developing my plan.

And the plan was going down tonight.

I got one of my old shards and went with it to the dining hall for dinner. I sat down to a new girl, just admitted for cutting, and I turned to her. “You’re going to help me escape,” I told her.

She looked really confused. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve been here for too long, and tonight I’m making my escape. Are you with me or not?”

I gave her pleading eyes, and she gave in. “What do I have to do?”

I took out my record shard. “Here, take this, and when they call you up to get your happy pills, just make a huge horizontal cut along your chest.”

She smiled. “I’m in!” This girl is nutty, but I liked her. When her name was called, she went up and did exactly what I told her to do, and let out a scream.

All of the staff and patients ran her way, the staff to help her, the others to grab the shard and harm themselves. I snuck into a staff’s door and started running. I never looked back, but I heard them sound an alarm to signal someone had gotten out two minutes later.

I used all my adrenaline until I got into the city, went to my old house and broke in. My parents still don’t lock doors.

Since my brother moved out, and he was the only light sleeper, I easily snuck into my parents’ room, carefully stole a bag and some of my mom’s clothes and switched clothes. I went to the bathroom and grabbed a pair of scissors. “Goodbye long hair,” I told myself in the mirror. I cut it really short and threw the pieces away.

I went down to the money jar (I used to steal small amounts of money out of there all the time) and stole all of it. I left a note saying-

“Karma’s a bitch, and so are you guys. If you guys think about calling the cops, I’ll tell them what you did to me. See who gets in bigger trouble.”

I walked out feeling refreshed. Time to start a new life.

Why not start in the only place I’ve ever felt happiness, Liverpool?

Current day…

I, I just couldn’t.

When Paul looked at me with his big, doe eyes that haven’t aged a bit, I knew I couldn’t put my hurricane life into his. Especially when the hospital is still looking for me.

But why do I feel like going back to him so suddenly?