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Peripheral Vision

Hezzlie

Early morning sunlight burns my eyes as the morning nurse, Abbott, who isn’t quite as rude as Nurse Roberts but won’t be accepting her nomination for sainthood anytime soon either, pulls open my blinds.

I squint and try to lift a hand to rub my eyes. Then I remember I’m restrained and give up. I’m at her mercy now as she says, “Morning, Hensley,” and walks over to unstrap me and take the doohickey that monitors my heart rate during the night off.

I stopped correcting her when she got my name wrong months ago. “Good morning.”

She unstraps my legs, and I sit up quickly, throwing back the thin blanket and straightening the hospital gown I have to sleep in when I’m being monitored–which is essentially every night now.

“You know the drill,” she tells me, walking toward the door. “See you in fifteen minutes.”

“See you in fifteen.” I head to my bathroom, which doesn’t have a door, and relieve myself. As I’m peeing, I reach over and turn the shower on because I can reach the knob from the toilet, and I know the water needs that entire fifteen minutes to heat up.

I strip down and rinse off, using their poor excuse for shampoo to do… something. I’m not sure what. With no shower curtain–because I could, what, strangle myself with it?--the water goes everywhere, and anyone could just walk into my room and see me naked at any time. That’s happened more than once. I’m used to it.

Today, I’m able to get as clean as possible under the chilly dribble of water and grab the thin towel I’m allowed only for these few minutes to dry off before I make my way back to my room to put on my sweats. Here, we are only allowed to wear clothing with no ties, buttons, or zippers. I put on one of my two pairs of socks and slip into a pair of slides.

My long dark hair looks like an untrimmed hedge. I used to attempt to run the measly excuse for a brush they’ve given me through it, but I don’t now. It’s beyond tangled, and I’d probably snap the thing in half and be told I was making a schiv. The toothbrush isn’t any better than the hairbrush, so I run some toothpaste over my teeth with my finger and spit into the sink. I’ve got this down now. I have six minutes to sit on the edge of my bed and contemplate my life’s choices before I have to be at breakfast. If we are late, a nurse will show up and yank us down the hallway by our collar. If we are unruly, it’s a shot of the booty juice.

Absently, I rub the spot on my arm where the port is located so I can get my nightly sedatives. They used to just poke me in the ass when I had an “episode” at night, but Dr. Bolton changed that.

Dr. Bolton. He was here last night. I remember hearing his voice. He’s different from Dr. Tanner and the others. When he looks at me, I see kindness in his eyes. He really cares about his patients. I think, if things were different, and I wasn’t going crazy, he’d be the kind of guy I wished was my primary doctor.

Not that Mom could afford to send me to the doctor much. Just picturing her in my mind makes my eyes begin to water. It’s been so long since I’ve seen her. I’m only allowed to talk to her for ten minutes a day, and the hospital is so far from our house she can’t come for the weekly visitation because our car broke down a few days before my worst episode–the one that ended me up here.

The scars on my arms and legs are mostly healed now, but I’ll always see them.

Six minutes is up. I stand on shaky legs and make my way to the cafeteria for our morning gruel–eggs out of a carton, dry toast, and burned bacon. We have the same thing every morning, along with a cup of orange juice with the pulp in.

I hate the pulp.

“Who’s ready for our morning feast?” Kyla asks, rolling her eyes as she picks up the Styrofoam tray on top of the pile and slides down to follow a kid I don’t recognize. People come and go in here so often, I lose track. Kyla and another girl named Mia are the only ones I remember.

“Let’s pretend it’s french toast today,” I tell her, getting my own tray.

“With warm maple syrup.” She closes her eyes and moans, getting a giggle out of me. Her short blue hair is beginning to fade in color. We all look like swamp rats in here. That’s how you know when you’ve made a friend. They don’t care what you look–or smell–like.

We take our trays to a table near one of the windows that’s so high we can’t actually see out of it and have a seat. “Where’s Mia?” I ask as I shovel in the bland eggs. We don’t eat again until noon, and then it’s some kind of mushy meat in what’s supposed to be gravy. Six hours is a long time to go without eating. I’ve skipped this awful breakfast enough times now to know it’s not worth it.

“Booty juice,” she says around a bite of toast. “Last night was rough.”

A shiver goes down my spine. I missed a few breakfasts from having rough nights, too. I rub my arm again. All my scars are from home, but still, I’ve been manhandled in my sleep and in a waking stupor enough to have bruises.

I’m almost finished eating when Nurse Abbott steps into the doorway. “Stone!” she shouts, summoning me.

I catch my breath and Kayla’s eyes. “Before meds?” she asks.

Shrugging, I stand and push back my chair with my knees. It is unusual for her to call a patient out to see their doctor before we’ve even gotten our morning medication. I used to get nervous going into the doctor’s room for “therapy,” but I’m comfortable with Dr. Bolton, so I don’t mind so much. “See you at lunch.”

“If I’m still here,” Kayla jokes. When she laughs, the bright fluorescent overhead lights catch the scar on her neck where she tried to slit her throat over four months ago. She’ll still be here.

I walk over to Nurse Abbott who says nothing as she pivots and heads down the hallway. I follow her to Dr. Bolton’s office. The door is open, so she gestures for me to go inside.

He looks up from his desk with a warm smile, and any tension I’d carried with me is relieved as I sit across from him.

“How are you today, Hezzlie?” His voice is calm and relaxing, like a lullaby.

“Fine.” It’s not a lie. I couldn’t be “good” or “well” since I’m stuck in this place, but “fine” is better than the alternative.

“Good. I know you had a bad dream last night,” he continues, his light brown eyebrows scrunching above his hazel eyes. “How was it?”

I shake my head. “I don’t really remember it.”

His eyebrow twitches slightly as he asks, “Are you sure about that?”

He knows I’m lying. It’s a big part of his job to know when I’m not telling the truth. I take a deep breath and remind myself that this is Dr. Bolton. I can tell him what I remember about the dream without having to worry about ending up in a more restrictive environment. “I was in the woods, looking for something,” I begin. He nods encouragingly. “I couldn’t find it. All the trees started to shrivel and get black. The sky turned ominous, so I tried to turn and run, but that’s when I realized I was strapped down. That’s basically it.” I shrug nonchalantly.

Dr. Bolton’s hazel eyes are boring into my forehead because I’m not looking at him. When I finally lift my eyes, he picks up a pen and makes a few notes. “Anything else?”

I shake my head.

“No… wolves?”

Sucking in a deep breath, I try to push the words out. I’ve gotten so used to denying that I keep dreaming I’m a werewolf that it’s difficult for me to say it–even to this doctor that I respect. I finally manage to make my head rock back and forth a little.

A slight smile spreads across his lips. “Got it.” He writes that down, too, but he doesn’t say anything else. Dr. Turner used to try and convince me that I wasn’t a werewolf–as if I thought I really was one. It’s all so fucking stupid. I know I’m not really capable of turning into a wolf.

Are you sure about that?

The voice that’s been in my head since I turned seventeen sounds off, but I ignore it. Yes–I know I’m not a wolf.

Dr. Bolton closes my folder and his laptop. He leans down and lifts up a bag that appears to have a pair of jeans in it–not sure what else.”Take this back to your room and get dressed,” he tells me, sliding the bag to me.

My forehead puckers as I instinctively take it. “Why?”

Looking me dead in the eyes, he says, “Because we are leaving.”

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