My attention drifts as my foot bounces restlessly on the floor. I’ve been like this since I woke up, as though there is a steady low current of electricity pulsing under my skin. My palms are sweaty and the tension between my shoulder blades could snap a crow bar in half. I’m excited and terrified all at once. Desperate to see him again and dreading the inevitable awkwardness.
It’s not until I hear a deep voice, one that I’ve been replaying in my mind over and over, that I realize that group is over and I’ve been left sitting among the circle of empty chairs. I tip my chin to look up and have to tip it even further before I finally see his face.
“Is this seat taken?” Trey asks with upturned lips and dancing eyes. He’s wearing a grey t-shirt that hugs his broad shoulders and bulging biceps. His jeans are loose, hanging just right on his narrow hips. Instinctively I check my sleeves and hope that he hasn’t begun to notice the nervous habit. I swallow with a little difficulty as I try to keep my eyes focused on his face.
“That depends,” I tease, “are you going to share about how you carried an alien’s baby, were studied by the government, and then dropped in the desert to rot?”
His warm laugh pulls me towards him and I’m hopeless to stop myself.
“I don’t have quite that intriguing of a tale, but I might be able to come up with something.”
I’m staring like a love struck idiot. One minute I’m flirting and the next all I can do is watch his lips move as he talks and try to breathe in through my nose attempting to smell his alluring scent.
“Tally,” his voice and his snapping fingers, draw me from my stupor and I look away pretending to have found something more interesting to look at―as if.
“So why were you in here during a group session?”
I bite my lip as I realize that I hadn’t even thought about what he might think if he found me in here. I’m grasping at straws as I try to come up with a suitable answer. Finally, a light bulb.
“I like to sit in on group sometimes just to hear what the therapist has to say, just in case she says something that might help my aunt. She refuses to go to group.”
“Oh, that makes sense, and that’s really great of you.”
I cringe inwardly as he obviously has the idea that I’m some selfless little niece who caters to her aunt instead of a lying fakeazoid. Yes, I said fakeazoid because I’m feeling that fake is just not a strong enough word at this point.
“Are you here to visit your mom?” Did I really just ask that? Why else would he be here? I secretly hope that maybe he spent the night as intrigued about me as I did him, perhaps that’s why I ask a question that I already know the answer to.
He nods. “Yeah, I’ve already seen her this morning.” I watch as the smile that seems to come so easily for him slips into tight lips.
“Is she doing alright?” I ask, my voice soft, even though there is nobody else in the room but the two of us.
“Honestly, I don’t know.” He looks down and plucks absently at a loose string on the hem of his shirt. “I want to hope that she is going to get out of here, but I’m beginning to think that hope is for those who don’t know any better.”
My eyes widen slightly at his candidness and I see in a moment that he realizes that he has just been quite open with a virtual stranger.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to get all deep and emotional on you. I don’t really know why I told you that.” He’s staring at me now and his eyes seem to be searching for something; acceptance, understanding, or reassurance that he hasn’t freaked me out. I don’t know what he sees, but I hope it’s all of those things.
“Sometimes things just build to a point inside of us that there is no way of stopping them from coming out, no matter who happens to be in proximity.” I hope that my words let him know that I don’t judge him. I mean really, who am I to judge, I’m the girl who cuts on herself when she can’t cope with her own crap. Granted, I was not about to share that little tidbit with him no matter how badly I feel the need to verbally vomit.
I watch as that easy smile returns. He chuckles as his head shakes. “I guess that’s true.”
We’ve reached that place in a conversation where an end has come to the previous topic and a new one has not been brought up. So those involved just sort of wait and hope that they don’t look like they are desperately searching for an un-lame, or at least only partially lame, topic. What he finally said, I was totally not expecting.
“You want to get out of here?”
Son of a biscuit, I did not see that coming. His words felt like a slap to the face, though it wasn’t his fault. He had no idea that I was an inmate, not a visitor. He had absolutely no way of knowing just how badly I wanted to get out of here and yet I was terrified of that very idea. Maybe I needed to reconsider this little endeavor to keep him in the dark about who I was and why I was here. We hadn’t been sitting here fifteen minutes and my brain already hurt from trying to figure out ways to get around his should–be harmless questions.
“Tally?”
I blinked and realized that once again I had been sitting there staring at him, not seeing him, while he waited for an answer. Okay, so I might not need to worry about keeping him in the dark about me if I keep doing totally mental things like that. Add some drool to the absent stare and the absolute wacked-out look is complete.
“Um….” Yep, that was my brilliant reply, um, I mean seriously, who leads with that? As I grapple for some way to turn him down without turning him off, I hear the doors behind me slam open. I turn abruptly in my seat to see Candy rushing in. She sees us and grins. I recognize that grin. I saw it in fourth grade, a week before school was out for the summer. Tommy Mitchell, heartthrob of Ms. Tubb’s class had that same grin as he came strolling down the hall. We found out later that day that Tommy Mitchell’s grin was a result of the five baby pythons he had put in Ms. Tubbs’ desk drawers. It was hard to believe that a fourth grader would have access to a baby python, let alone five of them, but it turns out his dad was some sort of reptile expert and his house was lined with glass aquariums full of different reptiles. So yeah, Candy’s grin was totally I set baby pythons loose on your ass worthy.
“Hi,” I clear my throat as I catch myself and remember to add her fake title, “Aunt Candy, everything okay?”
“Everything is excellent, just brilliant,” she tells me breathlessly. “What are you two kids up to?”
“Oh, well, Trey has just invited me to go out,” I emphasis the out hoping she will catch the significance of it. My hope fizzles out when I see her eyes narrow and her mouth quirk up in a saucy smile.
“Want to show my niece your tee-pee, hmm?” She says grinning from ear to ear.
I slap my hand to my face ignoring the pain I register a second later. I shake my head as my eyes close and pray that at any moment the earth will open up and swallow me, and Candy for that matter. I hear Trey chuckling and try to focus on his deep rumble instead of my intense embarrassment.
“Actually, I just thought she might like to go get something to eat,” Trey tells her.
Candy’s face drops into a frown. “Oh, well that’s not nearly as exciting.”
“The point is that he wants me to leave,” I pause, “as in walk out of the building.” I don’t look over at Trey for fear of seeing the look on his face. He has to think that I am an absolute looney tune, no the irony isn’t lost on me considering where I’m sitting. I can tell by the lack of acknowledgement that she isn’t even listening to me. Her head is cocked to the side, her eyes narrowed, listening to whatever was happening beyond the door.
“I know how you get anxious when I leave Aunt Candy,” I grit my teeth as I talk and resist the urge to stomp my feet and yell pay attention you crazy old bat. “I want to make sure that you are okay with me leaving you here, in the mental hospital…alone.”
“Ohhh!” Her eyes light up and I can see the light bulb flicker.
Finally
“No, no, no!” Candy begins shifting from f
oot to foot. She is wringing her hands and her eyes begin to look wild. If Candy did anything well, it was turn on the crazy. “You know I’m not good when you aren’t here. I feel lonely when you aren’t here and I worry that I might do something dangerous like blindfold Paranoid Pete and poke him with sharp objects so that he thinks he is being probed by aliens. You remember what happened the last time you left me during the day, I…,”
I begin making a cutting motion across my throat, trying to signal her to stop. I glance over at Trey to see what his reaction is to her confession and I have to give it to him, he’s handling it pretty well.
“Okay, Candy,” I cut her off before she can say anything that might send Trey running. “I’ll stay here.”
Just as I begin to ask Trey if he would be interested in staying here, a loud crash rattles the walls just beyond the closed doors. The doors Candy had just come rushing through.
“Um, Candy, why exactly were you in such a hurry when you came through those doors?”
She smiles at me innocently as she glances down at her fingernails as if they suddenly need a good grooming.
“Oh, I don’t know. I might have played a teeny, tiny prank on dear Ms. Sheila.” The glow in her eyes tells me that it’s more than just a tiny prank.
My eyes grow wide as my insides begin to squirm. “What exactly did you do?”
She shrugs nonchalantly. “Nothing she doesn’t deserve, the thieving old biddy.”
“Candy…,” I warn.
“I may have…traced my hand shooting her the bird on her desk with permanent marker, and then maybe I glued Xanax pills to the top of the desk as the outline of the hand.” she laughs, “Man I wish I could have stuck around to watch her try and pick them up.”
I can’t help the snort of laughter that bubbles out of me.
Candy grins at me. “And I left her a message with the pills.”
“I’m scared to ask.”
“Underneath the hand I wrote ‘Xanax is for nutters, silly rabbit,’ think she’ll understand the reference?”
I glance over at Trey to see his reaction to her and to my relief, instead of looking on in horror; he is smiling, obviously enjoying himself.
“Probably not,” I answer. “The hair coloring fumes have more than likely fried her brain cells.”
“Who is Sheila?” Trey asks.
“Oh, she’s the nurse who passes out the medicine to the patients,” Candy explains, “but she has a bad habit of slipping a few into her pocket when she thinks no one is watching.”
“Has someone reported her?”
Candy shrugs. “They know.”
Trey frowns. “And they don’t fire her?”
“Not many nurses want to work in the crazy house, Tonto.”
I feel my face heat up as I close my eyes and shake my head. “Could you please refrain from derogatory comments for, oh, I don’t know, like ever?”
“Psht, quit your whining. Trey is a big boy, if he doesn’t appreciate my humor then let him be the one to speak up.”
Both our heads swing over to look up at Trey.
He shrugs. “It takes a lot to offend me.”
“There, you see, he’s not going to run crying and hide in his wigwam.”
“Ugh!” I groan as I grab Trey’s arm and begin pulling him towards the doors. “Okay Aunt Candy, we’re going to leave you to your pranks. Try not to get put in the strait jacket today okay?”
“Are you leaving?” She asks as her brows rise worriedly.
“No, just going to have a sit outside.”
“Zeke is at the back door, so you might want to go that way. He won’t ask a lot of questions, if you know what I mean.” She winks meaningfully.
“Right.” I wave over my shoulder as I tug Trey through the doors and turn right to head to the back door. I hear yelling in the direction of the front of the building and realize that it’s Sheila shrieking about how that woman needs to be locked up and not allowed to roam free to, as she so kindly says, drive everyone bat shit crazy. I roll my eyes at her words and secretly commend Candy on her antics.
My mind is racing and my heart beats against my chest like steady drum. I know the pounding rhythm is partly because of the tall guy walking with me and partly because I’m going to somehow keep Zeke from outing me as a patient. For one brief instance I wonder if going through all the trouble to keep Trey in the dark is worth it, then I glance back over my shoulder to look at him. I catch his eyes and see his lips quirk up in a sexy smile. Yes, yes, it is definitely worth all the trouble and a whole lot more.
Zeke is sitting in a metal chair, and though to an average size person the chair would have looked normal, Zeke makes it appear as if it was built for a toddler. His massive hands hold a magazine and, on closer inspection, I see that it is a about crocheting. Since living in the mental hospital I’ve learned not to questions things, not even about the staff. I figure we all have to cope somehow and if crocheting is Zeke’s thing then more power to him.
“Hey Zeke,” I say, and realize too late that I sound a tad manic.
“Oh, hey Tally.” He looks up from his magazine with a warm smile and then his eyes land on the figure behind me.
Before he can say anything more I blurt out, “This is Trey and we are just going to sit outside and talk. You know how Aunt Candy doesn’t like me to leave during the day, even though I come and visit her every day. We aren’t going any further than the bench there.” I point to the wooden bench across from the doors. Zeke’s eyes keep jumping from my face to Trey’s. I’m pleading with my eyes for him to just go along with my story. I guess my face must have conveyed my desperation because he finally answers, “Alright, if Candy, or anyone else, happens to ask for you I’ll just let them know that you haven’t left for the day just yet.”
I let out a quiet sigh of relief and mouth, “Thank you.”
Zeke gives me a slight nod of his head and then turns back to his magazine and as I push out of the door I can’t help but notice the slight smile on his lips.
Chapter 6
“Have you ever wished you could fast forward? As I stare into her blue-grey eyes, all I can think is how I wish we were beyond the awkward phase and to the part where I have the right, the privilege to hold her, to kiss her, to call her mine.” ~Trey
I know that I must be making her feel uncomfortable as I stare at her, but all I can think is how I want to memorize every feature, every facial expression, so that I can bring her perfectly to mind later when she is no longer before me. Creepy much, Trey, I think to myself.
“So you just moved here?” She asks me as she sits down next to me on the wooden bench.
“Yes, we moved here from Arizona.”
“You like it?”
I smile slightly as I look into her eyes. “More and more each day.” I love the flush on her skin. I love how she isn’t sure how to take compliments, no matter how subtle.
“You don’t beat around the bush do you?” She asks coyly.
I even love how she calls me out. Yes, I have it bad and it’s only the second time I’ve talked with her.
“Not when I see something I want. Life is too short, and too unpredictable, to leave things to chance.” I watch her closely, needing to see her reaction to my words, wondering if I’m pushing to fast and too hard.
“I guess I can understand that,” she finally answers.
“So what’s your story, Tally,” I let my words trail off as I hope that she will give me her full name.
“Baker, Tally Baker.”
I notice her voice shake just a bit and watch as she twists her hands in her lap. Have I asked the wrong question? I wasn’t trying to pry, but I desperately wanted to know more about her.
“I’m not trying to be nosy,” I tell her hoping she will hear the sincerity in my voice.
“It’s alright. I…well,” she stops and takes a breath letting it out slowly. “I’m seventeen and will be a senior this year.”
Okay, vague, but at least it’
s something.
“Do you have any hobbies or a job?”
She grins. “I use to be an assistant pet photographer.”
She must see the question on my face as she lets out a small laugh.
“Basically I dressed the dogs, or cats, up in cute little outfits and then posed them for the photographer to take pictures of them.”
“People really brought their pets to you for these kinds of pictures?”
She nods her head. “Yep. Mostly really rich people with no kids.”
“Did you enjoy it?” I ask.
She thinks about it for a second before answering.
“Yeah I did. It was fun, and I really enjoy animals. Do you have a job? She asks as she leans down and plucks a piece of dead grass from the ground. I watch in stupid fascination as her small hands play with the blade. Something so insignificant, and yet all I can think about it how I wish her hands were on me instead of the lucky little piece of grass.
“I actually just got a job as a ranch hand.”
Her face lights up and I feel my breath catch at the sudden ray of light that she has bestowed upon me.
“So you get to be around horses and stuff?” She is nearly bouncing in her seat.
I chuckle as I nod my head. “Yeah, but it’s not as glamorous as you are thinking. I will be mucking out their stalls.”
“Still, you will get to see horses.” She says wistfully.
“Have you never seen a horse?”
She shakes her head. “Not up close. I mean I’ve seen them out in pastures when driving out in the country, but I’ve never gotten to touch one.”
I realize then just how different our lives must have been growing up. I had grown up around horses. We had several on our reservation. In fact, horses were considered sacred to our tribe as they had served our people for generations, taking them through dangerous times and often saving them when traveling on foot would have meant death or capture.