The slot in the door opened. But it didn't come with the clickclickclick of heels on a stone floor, so she knew it wasn't the Woman come to smile and gloat. Only dinner. Still she couldn't stop the sudden, sick lurch in her stomach as the slot snicked back, expecting that face with the slick, dark hair and the gleaming eyes and the triumphant smile. That smile made her want to rage and scream and act as mad as they said she was. Instead, she forced herself to calmly pad over and take the tray, and the slot closed.
Dinner was always the same: sandwich — they didn't trust her with utensils anymore, ever since she'd worked a plastic knife down to the nub, trying to unscrew the grate over her window — box juice, an apple. For the past few…days? …though it had been just been the juice and the apple, since the last time the Woman had visited and declared she looked 'insubordinate.' And the pills. Blue and white ones, in a shallow plastic cup. She tipped them into her hand, rolled them gently on her palm. She should count tonight. It had been. . . time since she'd counted. She might have enough.
She set her tray on her bed and went to dig out her store of pills from where she'd hidden them all around the cell. A few behind the sink, and in her mattress, and under a loose tile in the floor. She'd buried them wherever she could think, in case they did a room search. They did, sometimes, when the Woman came to get a look at her and decided her look was 'obstinate.' She tried to pile the pills in front of her, but they slipped through her fingers, rattling too loudly on the floor. It froze her for a second, certain that someone must've heard as the pills spilled out like a blue and white mosaic. But no one came, so they must not have heard. She let out a slow breath and, quietly, started raking the pills up, knowing as she did that she wouldn't have to count. This had to be enough.
This was it, then. She'd get out of here, one way or another.
She'd prefer it not to be 'another,' if she had the choice. She'd take it, if there was nothing else, but the plan — the hope — was to get out. And there was an out. She knew there was. They'd taken her there once before, back at the start of…a dark time. Very dark, though the odd thing was that she remembered feeling so quiet, and calm, and sane, right up until the point she'd went to the wall and quietly, calmly, and sanely smashed her head against the bricks, again and again, until they'd had to come in and pull her away. There had been quite a lot of blood, so they'd taken her out of the cell, down a hallway and up a set of stairs, to somewhere brighter, and open, where they'd strapped her down on a bed while a doctor stitched up her head. She hadn't seen it for the opportunity it was, she'd been too far gone at that point, screaming and straining against the straps. It was only later that she'd remembered about the doors, with handles on both sides, and the big, proper windows with no grates over them, and a dozen other things that could've meant escape.
She had a little bit of time before they came back for the tray. She wasn't sure how much. Some — but time was slippery here, and it was always more, or not as much, as she thought it would be. She wasn't even sure how long she'd been here, in the dark, in this room, with its 127 concrete blocks and the toilet in the corner and the door with the slot in it so the Woman could peer in at her and smile. She tried to remember sometimes, but it didn't seem to have a beginning. It needed to have an end.
Her heart clutched in her chest. One way or another.
How many would she have to take? Enough to make her sick, sick enough that they'd have to take her out of here. But how many were enough? How many were too many? The sick, twisty feeling wouldn't leave her chest, and her hand shook as she tried to get the straw into the box juice. It didn't work, and she had to simply tear at the top with her teeth. I don't want to die.
Then stay. Pitch the pills down the toilet, forget about this, and stay. In this cell. Forever. Let the Woman peek in through the slot and smile because she's won. Let her win. And stay here, alive and a coward.
She didn't want to die, but this wasn't living. And being afraid wasn't a reason to stop. Live or die, she could at least be brave. She could try.
She closed her eyes and swallowed the pills down, one by one.