Well, darlings, as you can see from this and the previous chapters, I've picked this story back up again. I can't tell you why, because I don't have a solid reason. Perhaps it's just because I don't want to study from my finals? Who knows. Anyways, I know in the year-ish that it's been, I probably lost all my readers, but hey, you're reading this so it means you've found my story. I really appreciate reviews. (Like really, really appreciate them... Oh, please, don't make me beg because you know I will.)
Enjoy!
My fingers trembled uncontrollably as I read the letter, my eyes roving the page at a pace I thought them incapable of. Upon my first and second readings, I drew very little from the text, to agitated to properly absorb the words. Making a concerted effort the third
Mr. and Mrs. Diamantopulous,
Recurrence of panic attacks, while certainly alarming, is no indication of ineffectual treatment, especially in a case of Hysteria like your daughter's. I firmly belief Drusilla to be rehabilitated, and well on her way to being a well balanced, sane functioning member of society. It is important to remember that she has been taken from the safety and comfort of the institution and thrust back into the real world. Road bumps of are bound to accompany such a massive adjustment. In short, to answer your question, sending your daughter back to Vienna is not only unnecessary, but potentially dangerous to her proper re-assimilation into her former life. Your patience is of the essence and utmost importance during this delicate time in Drusilla's treatment.
However, for the sake of her safety, as well as those around her, I must insist you keep me updated should the outbursts continue. I shall be spending the winter in New York this year, and in the case of continued panic attacks, would be more than happy to continue her treatment in a less aggressive fashion away from the institutional style we used this year. I feel it best to continue with the psychoanalytic procedures implemented during her time here at the institution in a more casual, weekly setting, while eliminating her electric shock therapy.
Best Wishes,
Dr. E. Jones
I felt numb, letting the paper slide from my fingers onto the floor. With the lifting of one worry, another filled its stead. Rather than my future treatment, I now had the perhaps more delicate issue of a hurt and infuriated Liza. No rest for the weary.
Knowing that with Liza the fight would not end without a heaping serving of bitter emotion, I felt depleted at the thought of it. Unable to cope with the current situation, I felt myself withdrawing. I passed the next several hours, wandering the flat aimlessly. I picked up seven books, read the first paragraph and tossed them aside. I tried to pick up an incomplete embroidery, promptly tangled the threads hopelessly, and discarded the piece as carelessly as the books. I sat at the piano, and pattered out a few notes the unmelodiously resounded with the affects of a year without practice before abandoning that too. Wandering into the kitchen, I took bites out of the dinner a cook I didn't recognize was preparing until she shooed me out. I tossed myself onto the sofa in the formal living room, as a pang of guilt hit me while watching a maid pick up the clutter I'd left in my neurotic wake. Still my predominant emotion was a desperation to find any activity that would take away from the persistent thought of Liza's tear-filled eyes as she left and the image of her several floors above me, sobbing in her bed as I suspected she was doing.
Having run out of past-times, I stood, resigned and left the apartment. Waiting for the elevator, I began to prepare an apology for Liza and my acceptance of her apology. The words weren't forming as I would have hoped, but as I stepped into the elevator and felt it rising, I knew I was running out of time. It was seemed I would have to give a candid apology, rather than appeasing Liza's dramatic side. Yet, when I reached the door of her apartment, I was told by her mother than Liza had left just moments before, claiming to be visiting friends. "I suspected she'd be going to your apartment. She certainly doesn't have many other friends." She said, both meanly and matter-of-factly. My blood always boiled when Mrs. Bedeau was so unkind towards Liza. Her daughter's vivacious personality and consequential unpopularity were her greatest disappointments.
Holding my tongue but sure my eyes spoke of my anger for me well enough, I departed. I knew exactly where she had gone.
I caught a trolley heading for Duane Street easily as dusk was falling quickly. They came often, and I hoped I was only one train behind Liza. Catching a glimpse at shockingly blonde curls after getting off my own curly, I saw my hopes had not been in vain. Trailing behind her, she approached the Newsboys' Lodging House. She crossed the final street just moments before I caught up to her. A surge of traffic came down the street before I could cross, separating me from her. After the series of wagons and carts had passed, she was already inside.
The light was falling rapidly around me, but through the bay window I could see her dimly lit silhouette and that of a teenage boy. I squinted, recognizing the boy to be Kid Blink. Instantly I understood why she had come. She had to break his heart. As she approached, his arms spread to embrace her. They enveloped her briefly, but his demeanor instantaneously changed when she put her hands on his chest rather than wrapping around his lithe frame. He looked down at her, smiling with waning hope. Taking her face in his hand, he bent down, as if to kiss her. Yet, she pushed away, shaking her pretty curls sadly. He looked confused, until she lifted her small hand to show the diamond adorning her finger. A beat of what I could only guess to be disbelieve passed between them before he swiftly turned his back on her. His hand massaged his forehead angrily as she dissolved into tears, reaching her hand out to touch his back. She hesitated, but after a moment, she did make contact. His only reaction was to jerk his head up, still looking at the wall opposite of Liza. He mouthed a singular syllable, presumably "Go," and with that she tore from the building. She barreled across the street, looking up to see me through watery eyes.
"Duffy," she croaked before falling into me and weeping. I held her, supporting the bulk of her weight. She shook violently. "He knew it would happen, he knew. I told him from the beginning. I told him, he knew." She repeated herself over and over, as if it would fix the situation, as if all of the pain would stop if she just made me understand.
I promised her he would understand someday quietly and pet her hair. She sunk to the ground, and I followed. Sitting on the curb, she looked at the Newsboy's Lodging House is with same pathetic eyes as a puppy forced outside. The world was quieting, as were her sobs, though the tears still streamed freely down her face. As the lights in the windows of the lodging house snapped off, an exhausted Liza leaned her head on my shoulder, having worn herself out with unbridled grief. "I love him, Duffy. I really do."
"Let's go home." I said softly, as yet another trolley rolled past. She shook her head to protest, and I abided by her desire to stay. She began to talk, spilling her every thought. "Duffy, I shouldn't have gotten close to him, but I can't even regret it. He made me so happy. He's the happiest person I know. I doubt that he was ever mad about losing his eye." She chuckled sadly. "He showed me how to be happy when I thought I'd never smile again, when you left. I was so worried and beside myself, sick because I'd never helped you. He saved me. I wish you could have known him after what happened last summer, Duff. He would have saved you, too. I don't think he can help himself from helping others." As she spoke, I realized how in love with him she was. She could have gone on forever about this one trait, to infinity about him. I never believed love like that existed. "And here I am. The girl who broke his heart, the girl who ruined him. I knew this would happen, but didn't stop it. I've never felt so wretched." She looked up at me. "I thought I'd lost you today too. I'm so glad you came. I'm going to stop being so selfish. I'm coming to start being kinder. When I get to South Carolina, I've got a second chance. That's why I said yes more than anything. Of course, my parents would have thrown me out had I said no, but still, I said yes because I can be better there."
I looked at my friend, in all her romantic wreckage. Broken like I'd never seen her before, she was still a vision. A fallen angel in the grunge of a Manhattan slum. "I always thought you were just perfect here."
Another trolley approached and I helped her get on. Looking out the window, back at the house, I saw something I certainly hadn't expected. The girl, the one who had infuriated Skittery the night I met him, stealthily was leaving the lodging house. As the driver argued over fare with a man at the front, I watched her put on the shoes she had carried, probably to avoid making noise within the house, and take off running in a scandalously tight dress. A beat after she was invisible in the darkness of an alley, Skittery stammered clumsily and desperately into the street. Running his hand through his hair in frustration, he looked around. "Natalie?" He yelled. "Nat, come back!" He sunk on to the stairs of the front stoop looking defeated as we pulled away.
There you have, darlings. What'd you think? Should I give up and go drown in a bucket of Jell-O or did you think it was decent? Review, you jackasses.