Chapter 31: Twenty Nine - Walls

Walls

Darren:

The girl’s wide hazel eyes regarded him thoughtfully before she answered. “I’m okay, thanks.” He couldn’t help but notice the way she studied him, as if she was determining whether or not she should answer him; whether or not she could trust him.

The knot in his gut was a clear sign that he wanted more than anything for her to trust him. It was irrational; he shouldn’t care too much about it, but he did, nonetheless.

“Good.” He answered simply, clearing his throat as he gestured for her to sit down. She sat as he pulled out a small tape recorder, pressed the record button and set it on the bed next to her. “How have you been keeping yourself busy in here?” He asked, making idle small talk before he had to get to the heavier matters.

She made a face. “Making like a goat.” He felt his eyebrows furrow in confusion and, seeing this, she laughed. “Ruminating. Thinking. Posing philosophical questions that require hours of deep thought.” She explained, waving her hands about as she spoke. “Not much else to do here besides.”

Darren couldn’t help but laugh. “Good point.” She smiled, but said nothing as she plucked at an imaginary stray strand of thread on the sleeve of her t-shirt. He studied her for a few seconds, noting that even though it wasn’t really the color for it, the peach hue of her shirt brought out the swirls of green in her eyes. They were usually more brown than green, but not today. Maybe it’s not the shirt, he thought after another glance at her face. He couldn’t help but notice that she seemed, somehow, lighter than she’d ever looked before.

“What?” She asked self-consciously, noticing his scrutiny.

“Nothing.” He shook his head and pulled out his notebook from the breast pocket of his jacket. “Let’s get started, shall we?”

She nodded apprehensively.

“Have you been having any more nightmares?” he asked, flipping to a blank page.

“No. No new nightmares.” She said, shaking her head. He felt her eyes on him as he scribbled a few notes onto the page. “That’s a good thing, right?” She asked; he didn’t look up. “It means the medication’s working, doesn’t it?”

He paused and looked up at her. “Do you think it’s a good thing?”

The warring looks of uncertainty and sadness flitted across her features. After a few seconds of mental battle, she shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“They’re tricky.”

“They?” He asked before understanding what she was referring to. “Oh. The voices?”

The girl nodded. The steely look in her eyes told him that she’d heard the skepticism in his words. Rational about everything except the voices, he wrote neatly on the blue-lined yellow paper. October truly believes the voices are real and not a figment of her imagination; yet she displays no other symptoms of Schizophrenia.

“You’re talking about the time just before the accident?” He asked.

“Yes.”

If her short answers are any indication, October still refuses to bring down the walls she’s built around her. I’ve only had three sessions with the girl so far, so it’s possible that I’m expecting too much too soon. She seems to trust me enough to be honest about what’s going on in her head, but not enough to willingly talk about her problems without being urged.

“I was going through your file last night and I noticed something you’d forgotten to tell me about in our earlier sessions.” In front of him, October raised her eyebrows in confusion. “The week after your uncle and aunt died, your parents had to have you admitted in the psych ward after you jumped out of a window in your house.” He saw the color drain from her face instantaneously. “When I asked you if you’d ever tried to commit suicide, you told me no. Why did you lie?”

“I didn’t lie.” She said. “I wasn’t trying to commit suicide that day.”

“The doctors and your parents thought you were. You were depressed because of the accident, you hadn’t been eating, you barely spoke to anyone and you locked yourself in your room all day, crying. If it wasn’t a suicide attempt, what was it?”

“It was an accident.” She mumbled.

“That’s what you told everyone else that night.”

“I was trying to escape…” She scratched a spot behind her ear absently, the curtain of her thick brown hair swishing over to one shoulder as she tilted her head. “I didn’t see the window.”

Darren felt his eyes widen. “That’s not what you told everyone that night.”

“Yeah, well. I didn’t think anyone would believe me.” She replied with a slight shrug.

“And you think I will?”

“I’m hoping you will.”

Darren digested this before nodding. “You said you were trying to escape. What did you mean?”

She decided to trust me with a secret she’d lied to everyone else about. Maybe she’s starting to take those walls down after all.

A heavy sigh prevented him from continuing with this notes. He looked up from the notepad to see October running an uncertain hand through her hair. “The voices were chasing me.”

“The voices?” He repeated, leaning towards her. Out of curiosity, he told himself. “But I thought they were just that? Voices.”

Another sigh. “They are. Most of the time.” She answered. “Sometimes, when they really want to screw with me, they become these wisps of light; white, ghostly shadows that fly out of nowhere at hammer me, screaming and shrieking for me to do things for them.”

“Things like what they asked you to do at your uncle’s party?”

The girl shook her head. “Worse.”

He felt a chill go down his spine, but shook it off. As much as he wanted to believe that the girl wasn’t suffering from some sort of distress due to the trauma she’d face; as much as he wanted to believe she was one hundred percent completely sane, he couldn’t let himself believe that the voices she heard were real. How could they be? It wasn’t possible. It went against all his beliefs.

He didn’t believe anything that science couldn’t prove. And the only thing October’s ability to hear voices that no one else could proved was that her mind wasn’t sound. The girl was troubled, and despite how much he wanted to believe otherwise, she needed help.

“Like what?”

She didn’t answer. The determined set of her face and the thin line of her pursed lips told Darren that no matter what he said, she wouldn’t answer. This wasn’t a question she was ready to answer yet.

“Okay.” He sighed. “So they were chasing you? Is that why you were running?”

“Yes.” She agreed. “They were chasing me down the hall, and one of them flew in front of me suddenly and disoriented me, so I didn’t see the window.”

“And you just ran into it?”

“Yup.” Her expression now had a sheepish quality to it. Apparently being chased by voices that constantly tormented her on a daily basis didn’t take away the embarrassment of falling out of a window.

“I see.” He nodded, scribbling a few more things down. “Why did you tell your parents and the other doctors that you tripped over a loose floorboard?”

“Because I didn’t want to tell them the truth to have myself thrown into a nuthouse, that’s why.” As if suddenly realizing what she’d said, she took in her surroundings, her expression wry. “Look how that turned out.”

Clearing his throat uncomfortably, Darren shuffled his feet and flipped to a fresh page just as his phone beeped once, signaling the end of their session. He exhaled heavily and reached over and stopped the recording. “I guess that’s it for today.” He told the girl, putting the recorder into his pocket. If she’d heard what he’d said, she didn’t show it. She was too busy staring at the closed door behind him, apparently still thinking about how she’d been committed despite her various attempts to prevent it from happening.

Frowning, he tucked the notebook into his jacket pocket. “We’ll continue this conversation tomorrow, okay?” She made no response. “Take your medication tonight, and try to get some sleep, okay?”

She nodded inattentively, mumbling a soft, “yeah, okay.”

Inhaling deeply, Darren turned to go but something within himself snapped, and before he could even realize what he was doing, he turned back to face October. He took her chin between his fingers and said, in a hushed, urgent voice, “You are the most guarded person I’ve ever met.”

What are you doing? His conscience demanded. Let go of her.

“Let me in, October. Please.” He said, ignoring the nagging voice of reason in his head as gazed pleadingly into the wary hazel pools that were staring back at him. “Please. I want to help you.”

Once the words were out of his mouth, he let go off the girl’s chin and quickly turned to leave, taking the wooden chair with him as he went. He rapped on the sturdy door twice, and when the nurse opened it, he dashed out of the room quickly.

The last thing he saw before he shut the door behind him was October staring at him; her eyebrows raised in bewilderment and her eyes asking one question:

What was that all about?