Stay with me

Chapter Twelve

“The inescapable truth is, we are destined for this.

No matter your resistance, our hearts are relentless.

Each time we drift, we’ll only collide once more

Over and over again in inescapable truth:

You and I belong together.”

—Oliver Masters

SOLITARY CONFINEMENT WASN’T as bad as Dean Lynch had threatened it to be. He should have used forty-eight hours of being stuck in a classroom with Dr. Kippler as punishment. I didn’t mind solitude. I preferred it.

All in all, my two days in solitary were more like a vacation. A security guard brought me breakfast, lunch, and di

Being locked in the room only temporarily repaired the scar that was ripped open, and even though I managed to stitch it back up and subside my anger spells, the ghost of the memory still lingered.

It had been over ten years since I’d thought about my night terrors. I couldn’t remember why I’d had them to begin with, or why my mother had thought it was her fault, but I could no longer care to put the pieces together. The paralysis set back in, the walls rebuilt strong and sturdy, and solitary confinement was just what I needed to feel like my normal self again. Dr. Conway tried to push me to talk about what had happened, but there was nothing to talk about.

Everything had happened so quickly. Ollie had insisted it was him who had destroyed the bathroom as Stanley yanked me from his arms. Other security guards had been called in to control Ollie as threats against him ricocheted off the tiled walls. Bullets had fired from their mouths in all directions as I’d stood with my hands behind my back, shivering against the wall near the door. I couldn’t comprehend their threats, but it was enough to compel a belligerent Ollie to a standstill with defeat in his eyes as Stanley took me away.

Ollie had made multiple attempts to speak to me when I returned to my regular schedule on Wednesday, but I’d brushed him away after thanking him for my vacation over the last two days. If it hadn’t been for the weekend with Ollie, my mind wouldn’t have been so fucked up. I wouldn’t have cared enough to go to Zeke’s side, which resulted in the memory of my mother. A memory I physically and mentally wasn’t prepared to face. I couldn’t blame Zeke for what had happened; he hadn’t known what he was doing, but Ollie sure had.

Ollie had known exactly what he was doing.

But I’d found peace with it all.

I was back to Mia.

Many confused my disorder with depression or anxiety, but it was far different. To be depressed, you had to feel hopeless or sadness. I felt neither and nothing—a black hole. My defenses surrounded me as I continued to fall through the emptiness. Ollie’s door I’d carved had led me to believe there was an escape hatch, and a part of me had drifted to his door and held on by a finger. I’d felt the pain of what holding on did to me. It had started in my heart. The color of red had slowly replaced the black darkness from the inside out. The burning in my chest, the dozen candles flickering, its wax dripping through my veins, and I’d remembered why I’d shut it all out in the first place. It had taken the forty-eight hours to slowly rebuild those walls back up without the damn escape hatch this time before jumping off the ledge.

Now, I was falling once again through the hole surrounded by my new fences in total peace.

I arrived at group therapy early and found my seat. As others trickled through the double doors of the large, useless room, I turned my attention over to my cast, using a Sharpie to scribble music notes across the white bandages of a tune stuck in my head—the things I would do for my headphones this very moment. Music had always been my excuse to avoid conversation, my reason to escape an uncomfortable situation. I would put my headphones over my ears, and everyone seemed to leave me alone. Ta-da. Magic.

Someone cleared their throat.

I glanced up from my cast to find Arty’s wide white eyeballs peering over in my direction. After snapping the Sharpie closed, I twirled it between my fingers. Ollie sat across from me like last time, and he looked different—tired, even. His hair wasn’t in its normal perfected wave, but instead hidden under a gray beanie.

Jake snuck a small wave to feel out my current mood.

I flashed my fake smile.

It was the only one I had left.

“We’re going to do something a little different today,” Arty said, passing sheets of paper and pens around the circle. “I want each of you to write down two truths and one lie. We will take turns going around the room, guessing which one is the lie. And please, let’s keep this PG-thirteen.”

As I stared at the blank paper, I continued to twirl my Sharpie in my good hand—well, better hand. Fresh cuts extended from one end of my knuckles to the other, leaving new scars from my manic episode.

You could tell who was finished by the way they fell back and relaxed in their chairs, small sighs breaking the silence. After five minutes, I still hadn’t written a single letter.

“Okay, time’s up. I’ll start it off,” Arty said and glanced down at his paper. “I’m originally from Egypt, I have six brothers and sisters, and when I was a boy, I wanted to be an astronaut.”

Him having six brothers and sisters was the lie. Many factors from the way his tone changed when he said it, the fact it was the most boring of the three, and the exact number he used put up a big waving-in-the-air flag.

The group called out him being from Egypt was the lie, but I stayed quiet.

“Actually, I have nine brothers and sisters,” Arty said with a smile. “Okay, Isaac, let’s hear yours, and we will continue clockwise.”

Isaac shifted in his seat before he listed off his three sentences, and as the truths and lies continued around the circle, disbelieving remarks followed shortly behind.

Ollie straightened his posture when it was his turn. The battle in his eyes was evident as he looked down at his paper. He crumbled the sheet in his fist and stuffed it into his front pocket before saying, “I have died and come back to life, I’ve given up a life, and I’ve saved a life.”

Silence.

A cough.

Then the comments came.

“Ollie hasn’t given up a life. He wouldn’t even kill the earwig crawling up his arm.” Bria let out a giggle. “Remember, Jake? How he lifted it off with the leaf and brought it over to the tree?” Another laugh.

Ollie’s attention remained on the floor before him. He stuffed his hands deep into his pockets. The fact he used the term “given up” told a silent story of his past only he knew. “He hasn’t saved a life,” I said so low, I was surprised anyone heard me.

“Mia, why do you say that?” Arty asked.

“I just know.”

Arty looked over to Ollie, and Ollie nodded. “She’s right.”

Jake’s two truths and a lie stayed light-hearted, making sure everyone knew he was gay.

When my turn came, I glanced down at my blank paper and leaned back in my chair as my mind spoke for me. “I can play any song on the piano, I don’t eat meat … and …”—both Arty and Ollie are going to hate me—”I had sex with Liam last Friday.”

Gasps and laughs immediately followed, and I lifted my head from my blank paper to Ollie, whose hands were now out of his pockets and over his chin. His elbow bounced over his nervous knee.