Long Live the Queen

Nine: Stargazer

E

The earth is wet. Heavy. It chokes me as it's heaped on top of me but I can't move. Part of me is dazed, unable to comprehend what's happened. The other is mesmerized by the smell of the rain that I can barely hear over my frantic heart. There are other scents, sharp and angry. Everything reeks of blood. My blood. My eyelids are heavy lead curtains. There are voices. I strain against the sound of silence and try to pick out their words but I hear nothing. Nothing except-

I have had enough.

"You can't keep me here! I'm nineteen, I'm an adult! You can't kept me here and I don't want to be here anymore! You can't keep me here if I want to leave, that's against the rules! You can't do that!"

The nurse has mistaken my anger for hysteria, I'm sure of it. She can't comprehend why somebody in my state would choose to check out of the hospital so soon. My insistence is madness to her. I've assured her that I'm fine but she doesn't seem to agree. Not that I blame her. Though I don't know much about myself, I have seen myself in the mirror and I'm sure that my ragged appearance isn't helping my case. I look like hell and I feel like it too.

"Sweetheart, I know you're getting restless but you're not well enough to go back out there."

She doesn't mean physically. Aside from the wounds I sustained in whatever incident ended with my near-death, I'm perfectly fine. It's my mental and emotional state that's worrying her. It's been a day or two since they finally took me off of suicide watch. They seem like they're still waiting for me to kill myself. No matter how hard I try, I can't convince them of my will to live.

"The hell I am! You don't know me! You can't tell me if I'm ready or not! I need to leave, I have to get out!"

In the long days that I've been here, I've slowly started to lose my mind. They treat me like I'm a petulant child, and perhaps that's how I'm acting, but I can't bear to be here any longer. That doesn't quite forgive the fact that I'm shouting at her. Then again, I wouldn't be shouting if people would just listen to me. I feel as if I'm invisible. Like I'm a ghost. That's closer to what I am than anything else I've been labeled as in the last few days.

"You know, sweetheart, this isn't helping me think that you'll be okay if we let you go."

She crosses her arms over her chest and looks at me with barely masked disapproval. There's a spark of amusement in there too, but it's overshadowed by the annoyance she's mustered after days of me begging her to let me leave. It would be more intimidating if she wasn't almost a foot shorter than me. She has to look up at me to scowl.

"I promise I'll be okay. I fucking swear on my life... I swear."

Maybe that wasn't the way to go. Her thick eyebrows seem to crawl up her forehead like caterpillars. I ball up the end of my nightgown, gripping the fabric so tight that my knuckles turn white, and bite my lip. Unfortunately, I keep setting her off and she doesn't like to be set off. We haven't been seeing eye to eye on everything but she's the only person here that seems to care what's happening to me here. She just doesn't want to listen to what I have to say.

"E, I'm trying to help you. I really don't think it's best for you to leave right now. Where are you going to go? What are you going to do?"

Her eyes have softened a little but her voice is just as stubborn. She is insistent that I'm not leaving this hospital and I've decided that I'm going to leave. We're in a battle of wills here and I've decided that I'm not going to lose. I'm leaving this hospital and that's the end of the argument. She can't keep me here. I have to leave. I have to go.

"Anywhere. I will go anywhere but here. I have to go. And please don't call me that. I have a name, it's somewhere. I know it."

She has started calling me E. It's all I remember of my name but I'm determined to recall the rest. I'll remember my name, along with the rest of my life. There are things locked away in my brain that I need to know. My mind hasn't stopped buzzing since Officer Perty's last visit. Lindsey and Maia. All I can think about is Lindsey and Maia. They've been on my mind all week. The lines on my wrists have begun to heal but theirs never will.

And I know something about it.

"You don't have anything out there. There's nothing out there for you."

There's no malice in the way she says it, just cold facts. She's right. There isn't anything out there for me but there's also nothing in here. All I have here is pills and television and my window with its nice view of the road. There's something I need to find and I can't locate it in this hospital room. I need to find the truth. I need to learn what happened to Lindsey. To Maia. To Aaron.

I need to know what happened to me.

"I need to get out. I don't care, I just need to get out of this place. I'm losing my fucking mind..."

I can see the gears turning behind her eyes. She's trying to think of something, trying to work out an answer to my frustration. I don't think she can see how desperate I am to leave. I can't spend another day in this room. I can't stay here anymore. I need to get out there, I need to figure out what's going on out there. There's something happening and I'm a part of it. I know it. I just need to figure it all out.

"One more day, sweetheart. Give it one more day. If you really want to leave, you can go. I can't stop you. Just give it one more day. Get some sleep, watch a movie. One more day."

She smiles at me but I don't smile back. I just look down at the nightgown, nodding like a sulking preteen whose parents just scolded her. Do I want to give it another day? No, not at all. Will I give it one more day? Of course, if it'll pacify her into letting me leave tomorrow. She doesn't have a choice, anyways. She can't keep me here against my will. Just one more night and then I can go. I can figure it all out.

"Fine."

She leaves me alone after that. It's one of the first times I've been conscious and by myself since I arrived, considering they thought that leaving me alone would lead to me hanging myself with the bedsheets. It's dark now, almost black. All I can see is the headlights that flash on the road outside like huge fireflies. They remind me of the stars. I can't see the stars from this room.

"Please..."

I don't know what I'm asking for but I sound like I'm begging for it. I'm wishing on headlights instead of stars but I hope that that'll be enough. It has to be enough that I can remember. I need to know what happened to me and the others. I know that I know something, I need to remember what it is. So I'll wish on headlights for tomorrow to be a better day than the others.

I need to get out of here.