Sugar Baby Beautiful(74)

She gave me a fake smile. “I’ll make a note of that in your chart.”

“Thank you. When can I talk to someone who doesn’t have a medical license? Like friends? I have letters I want to send.”

“I’m sorry, Ms. Ford, but no contact with the outside until your first twenty-one days are over.”

I wanted to scream. But instead I took out my notebook and pen and I wrote. I doubted he would ever get my letters, but I’d promised away. So I wrote anything I could think of. However, because of the new medication, my hands started to shake halfway in. Dropping the pen for a moment, I hugged my hand to my chest.

“It hurts, doesn’t it?” Glancing over to the couch, Mark laid there, reading one of the magazines.

“You’re not real,” I replied, looking away from him, but Cleo appeared in the bed right next to me.

“What is real? If you can see us, if you can feel us, then aren’t we real?” she asked me.

Shaking my head, I tried to concentrate. “Please go away!”

“Felicity, we don’t belong here, and you know it.” Mark sat up. “You aren’t crazy. Everyone else is.”

“No. Stop. Go. You are not real. Neither of you is real. Why are you here? I took the meds!” I screamed at them. I felt sick. I couldn’t go anywhere I wanted anymore. I couldn’t dance or drink or walk along the beach because I kept seeing them! I gave it all up so they would go away, and here they were, torturing me again.

“Felicity, clam down!” Cleo jumped off the bed, rushing to me, but I pushed her away. What was worse was that I could feel her flesh. She still felt real… like me. “If you don’t calm down, they will come—”

Just as she said it, two nurses showed up, walking to me slowly like I was some animal! Like I would jump at them.

“I’m fine.” I tried to remain calm. “I have a headache, and I’m a little frustrated that I can’t talk to anyone.”

“Would you like us to call your doctor? I’m sure he would be happy to speak to you.”

“No, it’s all right. Thanks,” I muttered, getting back on the bed. Cleo and Mark sat on either side of me.

“The moment they know you see us, you know what will happen, right? More drugs, more shaking, more of this room. You’ll end up living here forever.” Cleo sighed, but I would not answer. If I stopped talking, maybe they would leave.

“It’s not that easy,” Mark replied, placing his arm on my shoulder. “And this place can’t help.”



Day Fourteen

12:10 p.m.

“Felicity, can I see what you’re writing?” my doctor, Dr. Butler, asked, but I shook my head, not even bothering to look up from my desk.

“Why?”

“It’s the one thing that’s for me. The one thing no else gets input on. No one can judge it… so no.”

“Is that what you think we’re doing? Judging you?”

I spun around in the chair and smiled, though I didn’t want to. “Yes. You are. You’re trying to see if I’m normal. Do I still have hallucinations, am I about to have a breakdown. You write it all down and judge, and based on that, you decide whether I’m like everyone else or I’m defective. All I’m doing is writing a letter to a guy. I have no one else but this one man, and I can’t talk to him and I can’t see him and I can’t give him these letters, but I’m going to write them anyway because I’m leaving here next week.”

“Felicity—”

“My throat hurts from talking so much. Excuse me for not answering.” I glanced back to the book in front of me.

“He’s going to need ice for that burn.” Mark laughed and tried not to smile.

“Felicity, you won’t be able to leave until we start to talk about your issues.”

“My issues were a lack of medication, and we’ve talked about that, so I think I’m good,” I said.

“This guy really can’t take a hint.” Cleo played with the blinds. “You remember that teenager at the high school who kept coming up and asking you for a date, what was his name?”

“Andrew.” Shit, I answered her.

“What’s that? Who is Andrew?” Dr. Butler asked.

I shook my head. “I said aren’t you. As in aren’t you going to check up on your other patients? Someone was yelling before.”

“Does the yelling bother you?”

I stopped wanting to ask if he was joking.

“Seriously? Who gives these people their licenses?” Mark laughed. “Of course yelling bothers her. It’s yelling, you moron!”

I nodded in agreement… fuck.