Lost in the Shadows
Laura
Disclaimer: Own Maggie.
Note: I really have researched all of this. Some of it I've taken poetic licence about, but a lot of this is true. My research was done thoroughly. I hobbled around the library bent double with the weight of about fifteen books about panic attacks, suicide, schizophrenia and the paranormal.
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I finally found a mirror. Some God has left me a mirror. Actually, I think it was one of the undergrads or something. It's really just a compact. I threw out the powder and the little poofy thing, but now I have a mirror. They don't let us have mirrors here, mainly because some people see things other than themselves in them, they are glass and can be broken to make sharp objects, and lastly, because it might damage our self-image. Well, as for the mirror's verdict, my cuts are beginning to heal. I look much better, considering the last time I looked in the mirror I had one hell of a shiner, a split lip, a cut on my nose, a cut on my cheek, by my eye and a big bruise on my temple. Oh, and I was limping, but I didn't need to look in a mirror to tell that. My shiner was gone, the split lip was healed. The only think really still there was the big gash on my cheekbone next to my eye. It was still this red, puffy scar. But everything else was a lot better, mercy for me.
I was still on their drugs. It made me slow and sluggish in the afternoons, when it really started to kick in. Group therapy was hell. But, on the good side, I got bumped up to a Level Two, which means I can go to the vending machines down in the lobby. Now I can live off of Twinkies and soda instead of the horrible slop they call a hot meal here. I'm sure the folks down at the soup kitchen would love it, and frankly, they can have it. I just want a burger and fries. And I want a beer. I miss beer. I miss my cigarettes.
I was sitting in group therapy, thinking about how I never get any decent food in this place, when I heard an interesting vein of conversation. It was about food, so I perked up and listened.
"What do you all feel about eating?" asked our counselor. I snorted.
"It would be a lot easier if you guys fed us real food instead of pig slop," I said caustically.
"Do you still eat it?"
"Yeah," I said with a shrug. "What else am I going to eat? Twinkies from the vending machine? Give me a break. Does anyone not eat here?"
"I don't," whispered Maggie. All eyes turned to look at her, and how every bone in her body seemed extraordinarily pronounced. She didn't eat. What a surprise. "I can't eat it. It makes me gag."
"That's right, Maggie," said the counselor encouragingly. "Why does it make you gag?"
Maggie's eyes opened wide, crazy wide. "Because...it's...SHIT!" she shrieked. "Have you eaten it?"
"Those are expressive words, Maggie. That's extremely progressive of you. I'm so proud."
I rested my chin on my hand and looked at her without seeing her. She was the only girl here, other than the orderlies, that was anywhere near my age. Somehow that got me thinking about Rachel. I missed the opportunity to go for her. I pushed her right into Dave's arms. I was a jerk. A real jerk. She didn't trust me, and had good reason not to. I was a genius, and it threatened her. I was also insanely jealous. I wanted Dave to leave, even though he was my friend. I wanted him to get as far away as possible so I could try for Rachel. I don't even understand it now. Or do I? Or am I on too much medication? All I can remember is how pretty Rachel was, with her long reddish hair all fanned out on the gurney as we tried to bring her back. Desperately, in terror. Damn Dave. I almost had her that first time! And the second time! I was going to be hero, but then Dave stepped in and did his little mouth-to-mouth resuscitation act while I tried to find a way to get her out of this. It was pure luck that Dave managed to get her back. I could have gotten her. The second I saw Dave bent over her like that, like he was so completely...enrapt...that he could barely breathe, it was the closest I came to crying in so long...
"What about you, Nelson?"
SLAM! Back to earth for me.
"What do you think about Maggie's eating habits?"
"Uhhh," I grasped frantically for an answer. "The food does taste like shit. But maybe...some effort should be made or something."
Saved. I get a good mark from my teacher and a personal tidbit about Maggie. This is how it works here. Like kindergarten. Maggie's favorite song is Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. The irony does not escape me.
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"It really is shit, isn't it?" whispered Maggie. I jumped as she sat down on the bench with me. I nearly spat out my mouthful of instant mashed potatoes.
"Today isn't so bad," I said. "Why don't you try some?"
She shrugged. "They'll feed me through a tube anyway, whether I tell them I've eaten or not."
I gestured helplessly at her. "Is that why your voice is always..."
"Like I've swallowed gravel?" she finished. "That, yes. So, Nelson Wright..." she said slowly, looking up at the ceiling. "Do you think you're insane?"
"That's a question for someone you've only spoken to twice."
"There's no time in here," she said in her slightly husky voice. "Any day now the meds could just make us kick off. Life speeds up and slows down at the same time."
"Well, in that spirit, here's my Cliff Notes. Nelson Wright 101." I chuckled and poked at the mashed potatoes. "I killed a boy named Billy Mahoney when I was nine. I was taken from my parents when I was nine as well, and sent to a private schooling facility. I grew up there. I have no family. I have not seen my parents since I was nine. I died twice. I had the shit beaten out of me by the spirit of the kid I killed. So, Maggie, in light of that, I think I have every right to be perfectly insane."
"I see ghosts, Nelson. They talk to me. They touch me. They beat me. I should be insane. But I'm not. I'm just doped up all the time."
"So why me?" I asked, shoveling in a mouthful of potatoes and gravy. "Why not someone else to talk to? Is it the whole spirit-beating thing?"
"No," said Maggie, tracing her thin finger in patterns on the table. "It's the whole new thing. You haven't labeled me Crazy Maggie yet."
"And I'm Crazy Nelson," I said carelessly, holding out my hand. "Nice to meet you. I killed when I was nine and nearly killed myself and three other friends."
She put her tiny hand in mine and I shook it. "So you believe me?"
"I'll believe anything."
"He says he doesn't want to hurt you any more," said Maggie. "He just wants to watch you."
I shivered. "Is he always there?"
"He's there a lot."
"Is he there now?"
"No."
I turned away to take a sip of my water and collect my thoughts. "Does he hate me?"
"No."
"Why does he want to watch me?"
"I don't know." Maggie sighed. "He's the only one here that's nice to me."
"That's great," I said. Wonderful. Brilliant. Magnificent. The only person more screwed up than me, here, is pals with my past sin. I hate living here. I ran my fingers through the floppy bits of my hair that always hung down on my forehead. Then I looked at Maggie curiously.
"Do you have to have short hair here?"
She nodded morosely. "A girl hung herself with her hair last year." She sighed deeply. "I still see her sometimes and she cries. She cries so loud!"
Maggie pressed her hands to the sides of her head as if she could hear the screams at that moment, her gaunt features twisting and contorting with an ageless pain. Then she let her hands drop, shrugging her bony shoulders with an exaggerated drop. She drummed her bony fingers on the table, her fingernails bitten down to teeny tiny nubs.
"They committed me for suicide watch," I muttered. "They committed me because of suicide watch, self-battery, intent to harm others, and sociopathic tendencies."
Maggie smiled widely. I hadn't seen her do that before. "They said I was suicidal and had schizophrenia. I'm not schizo, I swear I'm not!" she cried, her voice husky and slightly garbled from the effects of the drugs. "I'm not hearing voices that aren't there, I'm not seeing visions and stuff! I really see them! But that's what all the real schizos say too. I am suicidal, I know it!" she exclaimed, throwing her hands up, and then I noticed the satiny scars crisscrossing the inside of her wrists. "I don't want to live when they won't leave me alone, and especially here! I know they want me to help them, but I can't when I'm in here, and they put me in here, so they shouldn't get mad and beat me up!"
I watched her as she waved her arms around during this little speech. She was a very animated person, Maggie. What with the way that she moved and talked, and especially her past history and what she claimed, I could easily see her labeled as Crazy Maggie. I barked a short laugh and patted her shoulder. I could feel the bones sticking out, barely covered by her thin skin.
"I know, Maggie," I said. "It's a vicious cycle."
"It is!" she cried again, her eyes growing impossibly wide. They were brown, and her eyelashes were a dark black. The way she looked straight ahead when she opened her eyes wide made them look exaggeratedly large, and black rimmed, like something a child would draw. A great big black circle with a little brown dot in the middle. She sniffed and drew her forearm over her face, wiping tears away from her eyes.
"I just want them to leave me alone. I'm not crazy."
I couldn't blame them for thinking she was crazy. Hell, I was beginning to. But if there was the slightest chance that they had misdiagnosed her, then she was wasting her time here. Suddenly, right then she began gasping for air. She pounded the heel of her hand on the table and gasped again, the raspy sound frightening me. It sounded like there was something seriously wrong.
"Drowning!" she choked. "Can't breathe! Going to have heart attack!"
She clutched at her chest frantically and a large tear squeezed out of each eye. I put my hand on her shoulder, trying to make her look at me straight.
"NO!" she shrieked, jerking away from me. "Don't touch me! It makes my skin crawl."
The last words she spoke in a kind of dark hiss and recoiled, still gasping desperately.
"Maggie!" I snapped commandingly. "Listen to me!"
She kept panting, her breath rasping in her throat like a rake scraping against concrete. She swayed back and forth and grabbed the table as if she was going to pitch over. The lyrics to an old song abruptly flung themselves into the forefront of my mind. I feel the earth move under my feet. I feel the sky come tumbling down, tumbling down...
"Maggie!" I said again. The other patients were starting to stare, their jaws dropping with blank surprise. I tried to ignore them. Maggie looked at me with wide, terrified eyes. I leaned my head wherever hers dipped and bobbed. I figured this had to be a panic attack. "Maggie, I want you to breathe deeply."
Hell, she sure was acting like the earth was moving under her feet and the sky was "come tumbling" down on her head! I've never seen the kind of raw fear in her eyes in any other human being. My fellow death seekers were pretty scared whenever any of us went under, I would go as far to say they were scared shitless, but I had never seen them when they were facing their demons. Labraccio later told me the look in Maggie's eyes most of the time was the one I had expressed in the truck when I had been attacked by Billy Mahoney.
Maggie sucked in a deep breath and tried to steady herself on the edge of the table. I put my hand on top of hers and grabbed her chin with my other one, forcing her to look straight at me.
"Maggie, look straight at me," I said calmly. "You're not going to die. You are not going to have a heart attack. You are not falling. You can breathe perfectly fine."
She looked at me as if she suspected I was lying, but took an experimental breath. She still stared at me skeptically, but at least she was making an effort to breathe.
"Breathe, Maggie. Breathe."
I HATE THIS PLACE!
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