"I guess I was getting a little out of control, you know? The drinking. A lot of people drink. A lot of kids, even. That doesn't excuse me, I know, but it helps. I didn't think it was bad. Then I woke up one morning slumped over the bathroom sink, blood and glass everywhere. Cuts all up and down my arms, all over my face, blood on everything, and all I could think was 'oh fuck, mom is going to kill me.'
"I didn't remember much of the night before, which wasn't that unusual. I don't remember how I got to the bathroom, but I remember what happened once I was there. I was standing, looking in the mirror. Blinking. Watching myself blink. Thinking about something or another. Life. Death. What the fuck I was doing. And I got that shivery feeling, like when someone's watching you. All the hair on the back of my neck stood up.
"I snapped. I remember looking in the mirror and having no idea who the fuck was looking back at me. Me? Or just someone with my face? I freaked out completely. Who knew what was looking through the other side? Who knew what was on the other side, what could come through? It was like a gateway. And glass is a pretty fucking fragile barrier for trying to trap something somewhere. I seriously thought something was coming through the mirror to get me.
"And man, does saying it out loud make me sound crazy or what, but Jesus – Jesus fuck. I don't think I was ever more frightened in my life than at that moment. And obviously I'm crazy too, or I wouldn't be here. Alcoholics are a dime a dozen these days. Why wouldn't we be? Alcohol's cheap, easy to get. And legal. Can't forget legal. Hallucinations – those are something special. The doctor in the ER bandaged me up after the infamous Hitchcock vs. Mirror incident, decided I was schizophrenic, and shipped me here. Good old Everworld Institutional.
"Guess that's what you're here for, huh? To find out exactly what kind of crazy I really am?
"Let me lay it out for you. I lie a lot. Not as much as I could, but more than I should. I drink a lot. I have a lot of girlfriends I generally don't care much about or spend much time with. And I've been hallucinating. And I believe these hallucinations. Even as I sit here telling you there hallucinations, there's a tiny part of my brain jumping out and screaming – Believe! And I want to. I can't help it. Of course, if you hallucinate and just ignore it, that's not really a problem is it?
"Mostly it's voices. Quite a few voices, actually. Most people only have one or two. Not me. Lucky, lucky me. There's a guy named Fenrir, and one named Thorulf and one named Galahad. Girls named Brighid and Athena. Women. I mean women. They yelled at me for calling them girls, do you believe that?
"They only come out sometimes. They usually they don't speak all at the same time, a notable exception being when I smashed the mirror. When I get really drunk – Fenrir and Galahad and Athena egging me on, Thorulf calling me a wuss, Brighid always disapproving.
"That new kid, David. He gets under my skin. The voices like him. Galahad and Athena do anyway. Is that a good sign or a bad sign, imaginary voices liking people? Being crazy's complicated. I mean, the voices like Jalil, mostly. Same with April. Galahad's half-way in love with her, actually. They're afraid of Senna. That should have been a sign, don't you think?
"Okay, that's talking crazy. Listening to the voices. I really am nuts. It wasn't the alcohol.
"So I'm a little crazy. I can accept that, really. The voices aren't telling me to blow up things or that my dog is the representative of God or anything. It was probably the alcohol more than the voices. I think I've learned my lesson. And I'm not just saying that to get out of here. I do want to get out of here, don't get me wrong. But I actually think I'm ready for it."
"I don't want to be perfect. I'm going to just throw that out there because that's what everyone thinks. That I'm anorexic because I want to be perfect. I don't want to be perfect, or what I think is perfect, or what people think I think is perfect. I look at my body, I realize how skinny I am. I'm a layer of skin away from being a fucking skeleton. You think I don't know that? I'm anorexic, not blind.
"I don't binge. I don't puke anything back up. I just can't eat. I put it in my mouth and I can't swallow. What I do choke down comes right back out.
"At first the doctors thought it was physical. Some sickness or hormone imbalance. Problem with my thyroid, or pituitary. Eventually they said it was all in my head and told me to start eating, sent me to a session with a shrink. If you looked at my wrists you'd see how well that went. I'm better now, as far as the anorexia goes. It's still hard to eat. They've got me drinking these nutrient shakes. Tastes like shit, but I look a little less like a scarecrow.
"Like I said, it was never about being thin. I don't like being anorexic. I don't get any joy out of it, any sense of accomplishment. I used to like cheeseburgers. Fries, with ketchup or gravy and cheese. And pizza – I miss pizza. I walk past it. I smell it. My mouth waters. But I go to take a bite and my stomach throws a coup d'etat.
"So what do you want to talk about next? Where to start, right? I'm a bundle of fuck-ups. Issues. My dad, I bet you'll want to talk about him. About how he left my mom high and dry, and ran off to a younger, better family. You probably want to talk about Donny too. People like you always do. Or maybe you just want to talk about my BPD.
"You know what it is so I won't bore you with the particulars. To me, it means I can't function. I hate my family. I hate myself. I get angry then I can't remember why. I get depressed then an hour later I'm out partying with people I've never met before. I don't understand it. I can't get a handle on it, no matter how hard I try.
"I've tried to commit suicide twice. My mother covered it up the first time, but the second was a little more public. A little more messy. No hiding that one, so straight to the loony bin with me. My mom, she's just glad I'm gone. She hasn't cared about me in a long time. Once dad left she stopped caring about a lot of things. Dad stopped caring too. Or maybe that's just why he left in the first place.
"I don't hate my father. Not really. He left because he didn't want us anymore. Everyone understands that feeling. The not wanting, the not being wanted. You can understand it, I bet. Old family. New family. One with baggage, one all new and shiny. It's just how it works. You always want the upgrade.
"Right, right, back to me. When I was younger, a counselor at this summer camp I went to… he molested me. You know that too. It's all in your little manila file, in black and white and clinical terms. I bet you think that's suddenly manifesting itself ten years later and making me all kinds of crazy. Which I think is bullshit. It fucked me up for a long time, yeah, and I don't like people touching me and I'm still not overly fond of the dark, but realizing that life fucks you over a little earlier than most people isn't what made me like this. It can't be.
"Christopher. I don't know about him. We got in a fight a few days ago. You know that. About Senna, which seems stupid now. Another one of my obsessions, I bet. Senna, I mean.
"Yeah. I thought that's what you'd think. I'd agree this time. It was intense. Stupid. I knew she wasn't… good, I guess. But I was drawn. Do I want to be wanted? Or am I afraid of it? Afraid of really being interested, so I waste my time?
"Probably both. All. Yeah. But now I'm afraid of something else. I'm afraid I'm getting obsessed with Christopher. One, the fucked up factor on that one is a new height even for me, and two, how do I know what's feeling and what's me fucking up again? I don't want to fuck up. That's the last thing I want. I don't think it's even because of Donny. Or really even has anything to do with him. I think… I don't know what I think. I never used to care, you know? I had a lot of girlfriends. I had a lot of boyfriends. A lot of people. They wanted, and I gave. Maybe that's because of Donny. Or maybe it's because of my father. Just wanting to be wanted. The only person who I've ever really wanted back is Christopher.
"That's probably a good sign. Jesus. Everything these days reduced to good signs, bad signs.
"I didn't want to come here. Really, I didn't. Now I don't want to leave, almost. It feels almost like my head's on straight for the first time in my life. And I want that. I want my own life. Because I get so angry sometimes. And most of the time I'm just empty. I'm so fucked. I'm not needy – I need nothing. But I want to need. I want something for the space. I want something for the emptiness. Even pain."
"I'm here because I swallowed a bottle of my mother's Valium and the stomach pumping took.
"His name was Ganymede. Beautiful old name, beautiful young guy. When he spoke, it sounded like angels singing. When he sang – Jesus, when he sang, it cemented itself in you forever. Struck you right in the heart and lodged there. I'll never forget it.
"Yeah, I slept with him. Yeah, he was my teacher. But he was twenty-six, not forty-six, and it wasn't like there was a wife and kids at home wondering where their daddy was. I wasn't getting A's for blowjobs. He wasn't buying me sparkly, expensive things. It's just that sometimes you're playing Tristan and Isolde, or Mimi and Roger, and you carry it off stage. That's what actors are like. What musicians are like. What artists are like. You get caught up in a feeling you don't want to end, so you take it a bit further. That's all. I liked him, don't get me wrong, but I respected him more. Great actor. Fabulous singer, in that folksy, pure style that's all but dead these days.
"When he died, I felt like all the jilted lovers I'd ever played all rolled into one. Juliet, Ophelia, you know. Every story has a logical conclusion. It has to be played out to the end. It doesn't take anything to keep on living. I had to show he was gone somehow.
"I know I didn't die, but it's enough to have tried. Not actually dying, it's almost more poetic, don't you think? Going crazy is a pretty logical conclusion too. It was either this or a nunnery, and I haven't been that devout a Catholic for awhile."
"I make you nervous, don't I? I can tell. It's because you understand. Because you know exactly what I am. You'd lock me up and throw away the key if you had the choice. Guess it's lucky for me you don't. We've been going back and forth for a month now, Dr. Loki, and you've got nothing. I'll be out of here soon. You can't keep me for long and you know it. I'm not a threat to myself. Not a threat to anyone else – or at least no more than any other woman in the history of the world has been.
"I'm a white girl from suburbia, doctor. Who would commit me? Not for being a psychopath. Anorexic, alcoholic, nymphomaniac – you might get away with those. But psychopath? Me? Please. My mother abandoned me when I was just a little girl. My sister just tried to kill herself. I went a little crazy. Nothing wrong with a little crazy. Everyone goes a little crazy sometimes.
"Take David, for instance. He wasn't born crazy. Nothing so simple as that. Someone that fucked up, relationship-wise, had to have some similarly fucked up parents.
"You don't have to say a thing. I know I'm right.
"David. Hmm. My poor little lost boy. Like Peter Pan looking for Wendy instead of his Lost Boys. But Wendy's really Hook, and there aren't any crocodiles, if you get my meaning. There's no Never-Never Land for people like David.
"Then there's Christopher, who had the distinct pleasure of fucking himself up. Christopher is weak. Funny, and fairly smart, no matter how well he tried to hide it or sabotage it. Amusing. Willing to please. But ultimately useless. No killing instinct.
"But Jalil… oh, Jalil's my favorite. Trapped in a cage of his own making – his brilliant, brilliant mind. A cage is a cage, no matter how perfect and pretty and bright. He'd try to kill himself, if he wasn't so afraid he'd have to wash his hands while doing it.
"They're so stupid, all of them. Remember last week when Christopher punched David? That was me. I did that. Boys, playing at being men. Fighting over a trophy they can never hope to win. And April? Don't get me started on her. Spineless bitch. Sleeps with her drama teacher – guts there, I'll admit, but then she tries to kill herself. With pills, no less. Can't get any more pathetic than that. And the nurses you've got working here? Etain? Hel? A cheerleader and a woman who has more right to be here than I do?
"You can let me out, or I'll find a way out. I'm not about anything, Loki. I think you know that."
"I have Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Pure O type. It makes me want… need to wash my hands. Seven times. Mostly when they're dirty. Sometimes when I feel dirty. Or confused. Or angry. When I can't deal, I wash my hands. I get it. I understand why I do what I do. It just doesn't make any difference. If I can't wash my hands I'll scrape at them. Try to get everything off, including skin. Or muscle, if it gets that far. In the six months I've been here I've had my hands bandaged seven times. Ironic, don't you think?
"The drugs don't help. Paxil made me suicidal, Zoloft and Prozac gave me the tremors, Luvox worked only at dangerously high levels, and Clomipramine fucked up my CNS. What mental capabilities I have I'd like to keep. You understand that, I'm sure.
"You're releasing me soon, aren't you?
"Yes. That's what I thought. Being here isn't going to make me any better. This isn't something that goes away or gets "taken care of." But then, I always knew that, didn't I?
"It's my parents that need convincing.
"Does this happen a lot – people here not because of their problems, but because people can't accept them? Is that the only reason any of us are here?"
Senna. Loki's never heard the name before. There's a plant – senna latinus, small and prickly. And Senna herself is a small and pointed, dangerous to everyone near her. She's a psychopath, quite frankly. Fits the criteria to a T, or would, if she was a man. But Loki's seen her kind again and again. How she slides up to someone, manipulates and twists to get whatever she wants. No guilt. No regrets. Completely cold-blooded, like a snake. She's like something out of a movie. A female Patrick Bateman, Kazuo Kiriyama in a dress. Loki's not scared of too many things, even in a hospital full of people with homicidal tendencies. He's smarter than them, generally speaking, and he thanks God for it. But Senna? Senna he's only kept one step ahead of so far, and it's making him nervous.
But he can't prove it. Not until she does something. And technically she hasn't. The fistfight between Christopher and David might have been further proof of Senna's machinations, or just simple jealousy. Giving April the Valium shows a lack of judgment, but no obvious scheming. Senna's charmed the male aides into palming her drugs, but she's not the first and she won't be the last.
He's watched Senna pit David and Christopher against one another – again, nothing he can prove, but there are a lot of things about mental illness you can't put hard evidence to. They smartened up, but it was almost too late. They let Senna get between them because they were afraid of having nothing there. David afraid of being wanted. Christopher afraid of wanting. They might get through it, just like they might get out of here. Out of Everworld. He hopes so. He really does. He hopes April gets better and goes back to the stage. He hopes she'll sing again. She's too talented not to.
He likes David. Like him in a way he shouldn't. Ethics, for one thing, and common sense for another. He likes his job and he wants to keep it. And he's vain enough to want someone on his own terms, not just because he could have them.
He's a doctor, he reminds himself. He'll help them get better, all of them. He'll keep tabs on Senna for as long as he can.
It's all anyone can do, really.