SCATTERED
by
Sandra Madera
Edited by Susan Blevins
EBOOK EDITION
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PUBLISHED BY
SandraMadera.com
Scattered
Copyright ? 2013 by Sandra Madera
Ebook Edition License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be altered, re-sold, or given away to other people. This story is FREE and does not require payment. If you're reading this book and did not download it from SandraMadera.com or other legitimate online bookstore, please download a legitimate copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.
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Twisting a tissue in her hands, Rebecca Ardsley looked up nervously. "I think I am ready to go home," she announced as she sat upright on the brown leather couch, fidgeting.
Dr. Nathaniel Miller sat across from her in a tufted chair which was positioned at the perfect forty-five degree angle thought to be conducive to therapeutic communication. However, Rebecca thought such tactics were translucent. His open-ended questions were designed to elicit her inner feelings, but she found them tedious.
Wearing a brown suit that matched his chestnut hair, Dr. Miller was young compared to the other psychiatrists in the facility, appearing no more than thirty years old. His age made him less intimidating and perhaps easier to talk to than most. Rebecca often wondered if that was why they assigned Dr. Miller to her case. His ability to be relatable and, yet, professional was a designed advantage, inspired to get her to talk without fear. But her memories were trapped somewhere deep in her mind, and she refused to let him experiment on her with the pseudoscience known as hypnosis.
His eyes bore into hers. "That is the first time I have heard you say those words," he responded calmly, looking her over before settling on her hands.
Looking down, she realized that twisting the tissue in her hands could be seen as a sign of tension by the doctor. Placing it on her lap, she tried to sit as still as possible, positioning her palms flat on the sofa to avoid looking stressed or defensive.
Dr. Miller was silent. The long pause was supposed to give her the indication that it was her time to speak. It would allow her to rattle on and on freely so that he could analyze her words rather than depend on her mannerisms.
However, she focused on his kind face. He had the bluest eyes she had ever seen which were similar to the color of the Caribbean ocean. However, he covered them with spectacles that made him appear smart. His skin had a natural sun-kissed complexion, but it was deeper now. It was the color of caramel as if he had been relaxing on a white sand beach somewhere. He was tall and lean, standing at about six foot three inches. He didn't look like the type that would burn the midnight oil studying over textbooks in medical school. No-she pictured him on a surfboard in his spare time.
Rebecca looked at the psychiatrist awkwardly. "It is the first time I have felt this way," she said, beginning to rock her foot, back and forth, which did not go unnoticed.
"What makes you feel that way?" he asked, shifting back in his seat and leaning his chin on his upright fist.
Deciding to make a conscious effort to stop fidgeting, she tried to do her best to relax her muscles, but they felt like a coil which was about to be released. She had all of this energy brimming under the surface, and it needed to be expelled. Lost in her thoughts momentarily, she found herself rocking her foot once more and watched as the doctor scribbled something in his notepad.
The silence was deafening, and she knew that she had to volunteer some information or risk being labeled as uncooperative. "I don't know," she answered calmly, stopping herself from rolling her eyes at the obvious ploy to make her talk.
"Really?" he questioned with quiet disposition that was nerve-racking.
"Maybe I just want to be normal," she responded, giving him something to analyze. "My old friends have returned to school. I would like to enroll this year while there is still time."
Dr. Miller's eyes stared blankly into hers, remaining as still as a statue in an attempt to expunge more information. When it was clear that she was finished, he put down his legal pad on a side table, leaning forward in his seat with apparent newfound interest. "Tell me, what makes you think you are not normal?"
Uncomfortable, Rebecca shifted in her seat. "Being here," she replied, regretting that she had said so much in the first place. "Not being able to do what others my age are doing. Going to college is a very important milestone that I am missing out on, is it not?"
He smiled and nodded. "Yes, it is," he confirmed before collecting his legal pad and flipping through notes from our previous sessions. Leaning back in his seat once more, he seemed to find what he was looking for and asked, "Has, your boyfriend, Dane come to visit you since you have been here?"
"Brandon," she corrected, knotting the tissue in her hands once more. "I called him by his last name, Dane, because I thought it was cooler."
He nodded, appearing as if he wanted her to talk more about it.
Refusing to go on about the subject, she paused and answered his original question. "No, he has not."
"Has, your brother, Taylor?"
"No, he has not," she answered, suddenly feeling as if this were more of an interrogation. "My father didn't think it was a good idea before."
Dr. Adam Ardsley was the director of Brookshire which was the mental health facility that Rebecca had been calling home for a year. Since it was a conflict of interest, he could not treat her himself, but he was abreast of her progress although he never seemed to interfere with Dr. Miller's treatment plan.
Removing his glasses, Dr. Miller rubbed his temples momentarily, showing his exhaustion. "I am well aware of your father's stance on the topic, but I want to know your feelings on that. Does it bother you to be so estranged from those you care about?"
"No," she answered abruptly, trying to think of a way to dodge this conversation.
"You don't?" he asked, surprised.
"I mean... I miss them, but... my brother and I are a year apart and don't have any similarities. We have never been close. As for Dane, I don't think we are even dating anymore."
"How does that make you feel?"
"I don't feel any particular way about it," she answered, suddenly feeling emotional.
Dr. Miller backed off, making some notes.
It was so silent that Rebecca could hear the strokes of his pen on the paper as he wrote. The sound was unbearable. Her mind raced with all sorts of questions. What was he writing? Did he think she was crazy? Her heart began to beat erratically in her chest, and her breathing quickened. She could feel a white hot ball of anger rise from her gut, but his soft voice brought her out of her thoughts, bringing her back to reality and extinguishing the fire.
"I think our session is over," he announced with a warm smile as someone knocked on his door.
Dr. Ardsley, Rebecca's father, peeked his head inside the office, nodding in his daughter's direction. He was handsome for his age, sharing Rebecca's same black hair and pale skin. Dr. Ardsley was tall, standing at just over six foot, but his frame was lanky. His long hours at the facility were stressful on his body, causing him to develop deep frown lines around his eyes and mouth.
Appearing uncomfortable, Rebecca's father announced there was a staff meeting in five minutes. Without waiting for Dr. Miller's response, he disappeared down the hall.
With her attention returning to her psychiatrist, Rebecca felt unsure about his position about her idea to return home. "Dr. Miller, you didn't tell me if I could go home."
Getting up and walking over to his desk, he put his notepad on the wooden surface and leaned on the back of his chair with two
strong hands. "You realize this is the first time you have opened up in a year... and even that progress was slight," he responded, looking at her concerned. "You have to trust me, Rebecca. Your father and I have only your best interests at heart by keeping you here."
Shaking his words out of her head, she held her hands up in a mock surrender. Feeling as if the walls were closing in on her, she began to hyperventilate. With her heart racing, she wondered what she could say to him to make him understand. "I want to get better. I really do, but I don't remember anything," she told him, her voice cracking under the weight of her overpowering emotions which she held inside.
Appearing to take in her words, he walked back across the room, reclaiming his seat and placing his hand on hers. "Maybe a trip home might trigger those memories," he told her.
"That is a good thing, right?" she asked with a deep sigh, feeling relieved that he was actually considering her wants.
"It can be... but I believe the best treatment for you is slow and steady steps toward recovery. Enrolling in school might be too much for your already fragile mind," he told her, giving her hand a comforting squeeze. "I will run all of this by your father and see what he thinks. Then I will make my decision."
Exhaling slowly, she felt the tension in her muscles drain away, and she was able to feel her body relax. "Thank you," she said, having more hope of returning to her life than she had all year.
Sitting by a large picture window, Rebecca spent the rest of the morning in the dayroom, knowing the importance of spending time with other patients. As the daughter of a respected medical professional, she was well aware of what she needed to do to get by and bide her time until she was released. She couldn't count how many times her father had come home for dinner, appearing frustrated as he discussed former patients that isolated themselves in their rooms and refused to interact with the "crazy people" in the common areas. It was his belief that those patients, which refused to integrate themselves, were denying their own psychosis and, in turn, rejecting the treatment plan that could have brought them back into society. Those patients, who were labeled noncompliant, were lost to the system, entering state facilities without hope of release.
That was not going to happen to her. She was not going to wear a sterile hospital gown and walk around the halls without a purpose for the rest of her life. Wanting out of the monotony, she was going to play the part of a compliant patient who fell in line with the treatment plan and that meant that she had to spend her mornings in the dayroom with the other troubled girls who called the facility home. Although she didn't know any of the other girls by name, she knew what was ailing them.
Some cases were easier to identify than others, but it didn't take long for her to know the girl who sat in the right corner of the room was a cutter. As she sat hunched over in her seat with her messy dark tresses hiding her face, Rebecca's eyes traced the marks on her arm which must have been deep gashes before they were stitched. They told a tale of sexual abuse and insecurity that went back to the girl's childhood.
The sixteen year old girl who sat at the round table across the room drew pictures all day. Her crayon art seemed like happy family portraits to an untrained eye, but once anyone found out that her parents died in a car accident when she was a young girl, they would realize her emotional growth was stunted. Without the coping skills needed to adapt with grief, she was still that eight year old girl who watched her parents die slow and agonizing deaths while she survived.
The eighteen year old girl who paced in the opposite side of the room was schizophrenic, and although that was a condition which could be treated as an outpatient, she had developed negative signs of the illness like flat affect, paranoia, delusions, and... stabbing her parents to the point of near death. It was possible she thought they were demons that came to drag her to hell, but she couldn't articulate that. She hadn't said a word since before Rebecca entered the institution a year before, but that hadn't stopped her parents from visiting her once they were recovered, hoping to bring her back into reality.
Rebecca's family, however, never made a visit to Brookshire. Her father thought it was not a wise idea considering her emotional state in the first few months, but now, they chose to keep their distance, sending only cards when an occasion called for it. Her father seemed distant as well, barely spending more than five minutes a week talking to her. Yet, she did have one frequent guest by the name of Detective William Bennette. His visits were often frustrating since he couldn't tell her anything about the incident that caused her to be institutionalized, but he stopped by with frequency to pry any information he could out of her. However, he often walked away dissatisfied since her memory hadn't cleared.
Lost in thought, she didn't realize her father was standing at her side until he called her by name. Jarred out of her thoughts, she looked up at him in time to see a flash of concern in his hazel eyes.
"I have been calling you, sweetheart," he said in a rare moment of tenderness as he adjusted his gray blazer, appearing suddenly uncomfortable.
Running her hands through her dark hair, she wondered how she could have been deaf to his calls. Could she have been so lost in thought that she didn't notice the outside world around her? "I am sorry, Daddy."
"Dr. Miller and I wanted to have a word with you in his office," he told her, helping her up to her feet and guiding her towards the doorway.
As Rebecca and her father walked through the hall, her father cradled her shoulders and whispered words of encouragement meant to put her mind at ease; however, they seemed to have the opposite affect. Her father hardly made an effort to speak before so his words of kindness increased her tension about what was to come.
Walking along the corridor, they passed another patient of the illustrious institution. Her name was Eliza. She was fourteen years old who was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder. Rebecca knew her name, because it was constantly being called in her fits of mania when she would strip down and run through the corridors naked. Once the nurses were worked into a frenzy by chasing a teenage girl down the hall, their name sticks with you. Her sexual fixation seemed to be focused on Dr. Miller as most of her manic episodes would take place while he was in the common areas. As a result, Dr. Miller chose to hand off her care to Dr. Ardsley.
Entering Dr. Miller's office, Rebecca realized he was not alone. Det. Bennette was seated on the same brown leather couch that she had occupied earlier. Upon seeing her, the detective rose from his seat and smiled awkwardly. "Nice to see you again, Rebecca."
Standing at just over six foot, Det. William Bennette appeared to be in his thirties and had the build of someone who was used to physical activity. His wavy chestnut hair and chocolate eyes gave him the appearance of being kind and trustworthy, but he was a cop and such notions of trust were unfounded. He did not have her confidence, and he never would.
Taking her seat between Dr. Miller and Det. Bennette, she nodded in his direction nervously, flattening the creases in her hospital gown.
With her father moving a chair from the other side of the room, he joined them, motioning for Dr. Miller to begin.
Dr. Miller nodded and then turned to her. "Rebecca, we have been considering your wish to return home, and Det. Bennette thinks it might help to recover your memories which, in turn, will help him with his case."
"His case?" she questioned, raising an eyebrow.
They all glanced at one another, making it obvious they had to watch their choice of words.
"Yes, my case," the detective said finally, leaning forward in his seat. "If you can remember anything about that night, it would be helpful."
"Bennette," Dr. Ardsley warned, flashing his hazel eyes at the detective. Her father sat as still as a statue, overseeing the meeting with apparent disapproval. However, for the most part, he remained silent.
Watching her father's reaction, her heartbeat began to quicken its pace as her eyes danced from one man to the other, searching for answe
rs. "Did something... criminal happen?" she questioned in a shrill tone, glancing from Dr. Miller to her father. "What exactly happened? Did someone die? Do you think... I had something to do with it?"
Dr. Miller shook his head. "Do not agitate yourself, Rebecca," he said, reaching over and giving her hand a gentle squeeze. "Concentrate on going home. You are getting what you wanted. We are releasing you. Of course, we will continue to work with you as an outpatient so that you can get the care you need, but the point is that you are going home."
Watching her hands twist the ends of her gown, Rebecca nodded hesitantly, wanting to believe that going home would be a positive experience. "What can you tell me about the night I can't remember?" she asked, looking at the doctor through her dark lashes. "The months afterwards were such a blur. If I knew what happened, maybe that information might jog my memory."
"No," Rebecca's father said sternly, shaking his head firmly.
Dr. Miller concurred. His blue eyes met mine, giving me a sense of stability in a crazy world. "Such a thing could send you into a downward spiral," he told me, his tone soft. "It is best for you to remember naturally."
She agreed, wondering what information could possibly be unlocked and if it was worth another breakdown to remember.