Trigger warning: Self-harm with suicidal intent (past action) is alluded to.
Chapter Two
Elsa stood barefoot in the corner of the room. She ran her fingertips along the wall; it was solid plaster and not padded as she had imaged it might be. Disquiet had roused her from bed, less cosy now that it was bereft of blankets. The restraints too had been removed but Elsa was not sorry to see them go.
The atmosphere was dense, its suffocating stillness pressing down upon her. It was way churches felt to nonbelievers, or libraries to nonreaders. The reverence in the air was intended for the room's inhabitant; the bed played centrepiece, the altar to which people gravitated.
Merida had—after shooing Anna from the room with a series of well placed swats of the clipboard and threat of punishment over, 'breaking into rooms and sticking your hands where they don't belong'—apologised profusely for the rude awakening. The nurse informed Elsa that she was under 'temporary observation' and would be kept isolated until assessed by a doctor. Elsa tacitly understood this to mean she was once again under what the hospital had referred to as 'suicide watch'.
Even with the haze of Ativan wearing thin, Elsa felt exhausted. She pressed her back against the wall, shoulder blades jutting out against it like the stubs of ill-formed wings, and slid to the floor. She folded into herself, drawing her arms inside the shirt and wrapping them around her middle. The ever-present bandages were rough against her bare skin.
A key slid into the lock and turned. Every fifteen minutes Merida would appear in a clockwork system described to her as 'checks'. The first few times it occurred, Elsa had frozen up like a small animal tumbling into a state of frightened paralysis. She had grown to expect the intrusion but with each turn of the key, Elsa's nerves wound tighter.
Initially the nurse's eyes looked toward the bed (where Elsa had been lingering) and then down, skirting the edges of the room until she came across her patient rolled up in the corner like a vertical, albino pillbug. She crouched down a few steps away.
"Feelin' alright there?" she asked.
Elsa closed her eyes. She hadn't spoken since the episode with Anna—since the veil had been yanked away, acting as a catalyst to the inevitable awakening of awareness. Her stay at Central involved too many doctors and too many nurses with poking fingers and prodding questions.
And you signed yourself up for more of the same, how clever of you. Now there's nowhere to go.
Merida waited on her haunches. The job required patience; in Merida's case it was a virtue learnt rather than inherited. An adolescence of insolence made her appreciative of the peculiar and the patience made her willing to help. In psychiatric care, silence was as common as screaming. Questions were answered with questions, in word salads or with coherent clarity. They were answers of their own nature, often more valid and honest than 'fine thanks and how are you?'.
Elsa did not make eye contact but nodded her head. In the end, she could not ignore a direct question. She was far too aware of her own raw existence to slip away into nothingness, at least not without pharmaceutical aid. Her stomach churned, ill at ease with the company.
"Here," Merida placed a pair of white canvas slip-ons between, "these are for you. You can wear whatever you like here in terms of clothes but for shoes they can only have a light sole." She flipped one shoe over to show the white rubber underneath. "Everyone gets a pair of these but you don't have to wear them if you've brought somethin' else."
Elsa didn't know what she had brought. The bag that had accompanied her in the car was nowhere to be seen. The clothes she wore—a white t-shirt and grey, cordless sweatpants—were not her own, nor did she remember donning them. It was an unflattering ensemble that drained what little colour was left in her pallid complexion.
"Thank you," Elsa said, her chin almost resting upon her chest.
Though the young woman spoke little, her voice hinted at an intelligent and well educated mind. The type of person who spent too long dwelling in their own head, practicing to perfection their words before speaking. Merida felt that there was something contradictory, almost unsettling, about the aura Elsa radiated. It was both composed and fragmented. Calm yet turbulent. Living but long gone, like a shell washed up on unknown shores.
Intricate, cadaverous and beautiful, the shell would sit quietly wrapped up within itself until collected and pressed to an ear. From the sea spiral would whisper the ghost of an ocean; the hush of wind over water, the overwhelming vastness and incomprehensible depth. The uncontainable locked within something so small and fragile.
Merida smiled, "You're most welcome."
A chime composed of four ascending notes sounded over the PA system. There was no speaker box within the room but the sound rang clear just outside the door.
"That's the dinner bell," Merida explained, raising an ear to the music. "I'll bring you your meal in a bit, once the rush has cleared. Honestly, its everyone for themselves once those doors open." Elsa did not know what doors she referred to but Merida continued, "In the mean time, how about a wee tour of the place? There'll be no one around. You can see all the main attractions and no waitin' lines!"
The jest fell flat as Elsa declined to even raise her head to the suggestion.
"…Or not. But I've at least got to take you to the toilet. It's a mandatory visit, I'm afraid. Four hours awake and you've not been once."
Elsa felt like she was six years old again and being scolded by Mrs. Herbert for squirming about and holding her bladder. Elsa had had half a mind to tip out her tutor's tea in indignation. Presently, it seemed that being under 'observation' truly did mean observation. The humiliation was enough to evoked a glare.
"Come now lass, there's nothing here to fear. I promise you."
Elsa was at odds with herself. She knew that leaving the room was inevitable but had refused to acknowledge it, picturing the event as being on a very distant horizon. Yet there was something appealing about leaving the stagnant space, even if it meant going out there. She did not do well with new places and definitely not with open spaces.
In a snail-like fashion, Elsa's arms uncoiled from her body and pushed their way back through the sleeves of the shirt. She slipped the shoes on—they were surprisingly comfortable for something so simple—and took Merida's offered hand to stand. The middle two fingers held calluses. At the height of her work, Elsa too had found her skin roughening in places. But that was in the past and with the irrevocable damage she had inflicted, the past is where it would stay.
Her steps faltered, the bandages felt tighter and more binding than the restraints had. The door swung open and the light swept Elsa from her feet. She was walking without feeling, her legs jutting forward like a wind-up toy soldier. Is this how it's done? She could not remember how to walk with natural ease. Merida had hold of her elbow and was guiding her across the floor with care.
They had entered into a short corridor painted the colour of bleached oak and accent with pastel blue. The colour scheme gave the illusion of airiness. The bathroom was adjacent to her room and Merida ushered her in, assuring Elsa she would wait just outside in case anything was needed. Elsa could not imagine what she would require in a confined toilet cubical until she met her own gaze in the mirror.
She needed a brush. And a hair tie. Desperately so.
It was the same face she saw in the hospital; pale and drawn. Azure eyes carried dark circles below them. In certain lightening, like that of the bathroom, her cheeks would appear hollow as the shadows played upon her face. Oddly, perhaps in search of contrast, she thought of the girl from before. Anna, her name is 'Ah-na'. Anna with her soft face and easy smile, Anna with her bright eyes and warm felt both envious and a small swirl of attraction.
The soap from the dispenser smelt like nectarines. She washed her face, not caring that the soap was inappropriate for such a use, and rub vigorously with a paper towel. Wet hands combed through unruly locks until some sort of order was reached, though she thought it would still be better to have a hair tie. Would it be okay to ask for one? It's just a simple thing, isn't it? Would they give me one? Maybe there are some packed in the bag. I just have to ask for the bag. They can't deny me my own things, can they? They probably can…
Elsa pulled the door open and, upon seeing what was outside, immediately closed it again. All thoughts of hair ties and bags forgotten. A small knock echoed in response. Elsa leaned back against the basin and tried to steady herself; the number of red-heads outside had doubled.
And they say they're a dying breed.
"I'm sorry to have startled you." A low, calm voice called through the door. "I'm Doctor Sorgard."
After a moment the door opened slightly and Elsa stood awkwardly, one hand still gripping the inside door handle for a quick escape. Merida and a tall man, or Doctor Sorgard as he had introduced himself, stood a few feet back watching her. They both offered close-lipped smiles as though afraid showing bare teeth would frighten her away again.
The doctor was dashing in an old-fashioned way with neatly trimmed sideburns and a brown three piece suit that, while immaculate, was painfully out of place in the stark corridor. His face was long and angular; both the forehead and chin tapered out from the prominent cheekbones. Green eyes appraised her and she looked away.
Her judgement had arrived unexpected, smiling and clad in tweed.
Elsewhere on the fourth floor, Anna made her way from the service line to the table with a grace that would surprise all who did not know her well. Unfortunately where she chose to place her tray down at the end of the journey was a place already claimed by Kristoff's drink.
"Ughh!" He jumped up but was not fast enough to avoid the cranberry juice runoff. "Think about what you're doing!"
Anna scowled as she did every time someone told her to think or to use her head. It wasn't that she didn't think, in fact she thought a lot more than anyone who said those things to her.
"Don't put your drink half way across the table then!"
"It was fine until—Look, you just—" He struggled to find the words that would not result in an argument over spilt milk, or juice as it were, "Just watch what you're doing, okay? You didn't look at the table before you sat down. Be more careful next time."
Anna huffed, unravelled her plastic cutlery from the napkin and waved the paper square to Kristoff as both a literal and figurative white flag. He took it and pressed it against the splash pattern near his groin.
An uninvited voice taunted from the table to the right. "What's the matter, Rudolph? Spring a leak?"
"What did you say?" Anna snapped back, her voice more cutting than one would expect from such an innocent looking girl. The tone caught the attention of an orderly from the men's ward who shuffled off the wall he had been leaning against.
"I was talking to your boyfriend. But hey, when you guys fuck does he make you go on all-fours and grunt like an animal?"
Within a split second, Anna was on her feet with a jello cup clasped firmly in hand, aiming it at the speaker's head.
"Anna! Jesus!" Kristoff stood, towering over the small table, and grabbed her elbow before she could launch the gelatinous dessert. "Stop! Calm down. It's not worth it."
Anna tried to wrestled her arm back but Kristoff would not relent. "Okay, okay. Sheesh!" She let her arm droop like a wilted stalk.
"Crazy bitch," Muttered the tormentor before he tossed his head back and laughed. Kristoff had to grab Anna's arm once again and forcibly seat her.
"You told me they stopped calling you that." Anna said in a hushed voice, trying to prevent eavesdropping.
"Most of them have." Kristoff shrugged.
"Your nose isn't even red."
"That's not why they call me—"
"I know why they call you that." She cut him off. "But it still doesn't make sense. It's stupid. They're stupid."
Kristoff smiled. One of the genuine smiles that Anna loved.
"Yeah, which is why it's not worth getting sent to the box over it."
"I wouldn't mind, I could be neighbours with Elsa." The final vowel of the name caught in an updraft of deliberate dreaminess.
"Who's Elsa?" Kristoff asked, shovelling a pile of mash potatoes into his mouth.
Anna slapped the table in exclamation. "I was telling you in the line!"
"No, you weren't. You were talking about how you would prefer chocolate mousse and then you wandered off to choose a drink and didn't come back."
"Weren't you with me at the drinks machine?"
"No."
"Oh."
She had been talking to herself then. Anna peeled back the foil lid of the jello cup.
"Eat your main meal first," Kristoff instructed. "And who's Elsa?"
"She's new, came in this morning on a cloud." Anna placed her spoon down and took up a fork. "She's gorgeous, Kristoff. You should see her. She's like a Norse goddess or a valkyrie!"
"Did she have a sword?"
"No, she had a panic attack."
"Huh? Wait, you said she was out of it."
"Yeah, for most of the day. I think she was just sleeping though, not dosed up. I was checking in on her."
"In isolation?"
"She's in a quiet room, not an isolation room."
Kristoff rubbed his brow. The rooms were both in a section called the isolation unit and every room in the unit was locked.
"You and your keys to the kingdom," he muttered.
Anna flicked a braid over her shoulder and waggled her shoulders in pride. No one knew how she did it but a locked door was no obstacle for the twin-tailed girl. "Anyway, as soon as I saw her I knew that I was going to be there when she woke up." Anna often felt as though she 'knew' things, she called it intuition and Kristoff called it crazy. "And I was right. In between checks I looked in on her and she woke up."
"And then she had a panic attack?"
"Don't put it like that." Anna winced. "But, kind of? I mean, I got Merida and then went back. Then I kind of undid her restraints and then she had the panic attack."
Kristoff sighed. "Anna…"
"No, if this is a lecture, I don't want to hear it." She put her hands over her ears. Merida had already scolded her for the whole thing, but because it was Merida she had escaped without further punishment.
Kristoff pulled one of her hands away. "You don't even know why she's here. She could have been violent."
"She's not." Anna answered with absolute confidence.
"Why was she restrained then?"
It was policy to use physical restraint as seldom as possible; patient autonomy was highly respected at Stein. Anna thought of the bandages while Kristoff stole the steamed carrots from her plate.
"I guess they were worried she would wake up when no one was there."
Kristoff understood the implication. "She should have been on one-on-ones then."
"Yeah," Anna agreed, in her own way she had been trying to supply just that. The hospital couldn't spare a qualified nurse sit in a room all day. One of the sisters would have been adequate but they only visited the ward for a few hours each day, when they could afford the time. "She's okay though, I helped her calm down before it really got out of hand."
Eyebrows hidden behind golden bangs rose in surprise.
"What's that face for? And don't take my carrots."
"It's just…That's pretty amazing. I mean, she doesn't even know you."
Anna tucked a stray lock behind her ear and looked away. It was rare to see her so bashful.
"She just needed someone, I think. Someone to be there."
Kristoff nodded and look down at the half eaten vegetarian lasagna. The memory of his first night was still vivid in recollection; half immobilized and angry at everyone and everything. Isolation had not been an unfamiliar place for Kristoff.
"So," he skewered one of the stolen carrots and offered it back to Anna, "does this mean we're going to have to find a bigger table to eat at in the future?"
Hi, hi. I just wanted to say thank you for the follows and favourites, I hope this continues to be an interesting read for you all. A special thank you to Kayla for your review, you absolutely made my day and I was dancing around the house after reading it.