Me & Her

Me

I don't want to wake up.

My eyes refuse to open, and I am praying that my lungs will give out or that my brain will hit a self-destruct button. But it doesn't. Nothing and no one can save me. I can't even save myself. Save Alyssa. Where is she? Where is Alyssa? Where is she?

Please, I can't live without her.

It takes me too long to acknowledge the truth: Alyssa is gone. Cut from head by a scalpel of pure agony. My head injury. It rattled my skull. Perhaps it ruined her. Because she's gone. There is only silence in my head, and I want to scream. To cry and weep and thrash until I break a bone.

I don't want this. I've never wanted this.

Alyssa! Alyssa, please! Come back. I need you. I need you. Come back.

No answer. Just pure silence. My throat contracts, as if about to vomit. My eyes burst open. Instantly, I want to close them again. To drift off into a world where I am nothing and no one.

Instead, I'm greeted by the beep of a heart monitor and the pinch of electrodes on my forehead. The cold kiss of a facility-issue gown, lying atop a bed. Rather, strapped to it, with big white chafing belts encircling my wrists. I wriggle my feet. My ankles too are immobile.

My head spins like a teacup at a county fair, my brain matter chasing itself into a stupor. This is impossible, this isn't right. I shouldn't be here. I try to wriggle around on the bed, but large hands sporting latex gloves hold me down. Garbled voices are all I can hear. Until one particular tone obliterates the haze of the room.

Mrs. Karen Hill. One of the founders. The woman who oversaw what passed as my existence. The Mother who pretended to love me.

My head rises, while my mouth itches to spit in her face. The realisation strikes me.

Alyssa is gone. No one will save me now. She's gone. I lower my head back down.

"More sedatives," comes another voice, whiny and airy. As if they have no idea that there is person lying below them, waiting to shatter.

The world grows fuzzy again and it isn't long before I'm facing Karen Hill for the second time. I can sense that the electrodes have been removed and my bloodstream is clearing the sedatives from my system. Immediately, the world sharpens, and I can see the main components of the room. A large ceramic like button – it appears as gelatine from where I'm lying even though it is likely an oxidised version of aluminium – serves as an alarm system. I fight the urge to roll my eyes. Here we go again. White walls, white ceiling. A steel door in the far corner of the room. To my left sits a metallic tray covered in a green tarpaulin. An IV feeds into my right arm, making me groggy at the mere sight of it.

Above me stands Karen Hill, flanked by two pock-mocked doctors sporting clipboards. My face falls. If Alyssa we here she'd lung from the bed, snap the restraint like rubber bands and breaks those clipboards over her knee. If Alyssa were here. My body deflates, as if my veins have been pulled out of my nose like an Egyptian Pharaoh. Alyssa is gone.

Behind Karen Hill, the Doctors are stone-faced. Their clipboards are granite gavels, ready to pass their judgement. I'm not a person to them. I am a disorder lying on a bed.

Raising my head as much as I can, the world lashes into focus. But I shut my eyes. I don't want to see it.

Leaning over the bed, Mrs. Karen Hill smiles. The smile of an IV line as it wraps around your throat.

"Welcome back, my big brave girl". I say nothing. Even if I want to reach up and yank her hair from her scalp. Karen Hill gestures half-heartedly to the Doctors behind her.