Chapter 13

CHAPTER 13

Maddy’s arms are strapped to the cold metal rails of a hospital bed. They removed all of her bracelets before they did this. That bitch nurse with the rancid breath probably stole them and is wearing them right now. Then someone drew blood. Then everyone left.

How long has she been imprisoned in this curtained-off closet? It feels like hours. She doesn’t have her phone. She doesn’t have time for this.

“HELLO?!! Someone get me out of here! I’m not supposed to be here! I have to GO!!”

She’s going to miss her chance. She thinks about Taylor waiting for her, her cat Meredith Grey purring in her lap, checking the time, searching for headlights out the window, worried.

Maybe Taylor’s writing a song about waiting for her. Maddy smiles, tickled by the thought of being the inspiration for Taylor Swift’s next hit single.

But maybe Taylor is annoyed. Fed up. Maybe she tried to reach out. Maybe she DMed her.

Where r u Maddy?

“LET ME GO!! I need to get the fuck out of here!! What you’re doing is against the LAW!”

She can hear a bustle of activity just beyond the curtain. She can see shoes passing by below it. They can hear her.

She screams until there’s no more air in her lungs.

No one comes.

Her heart races at the speed of light. If her heart had legs, she’d already be in Rhode Island. There has to be a way out of here. She’s the star of this movie, the hero captured by the evil villain, and this is the scene where she escapes. She summons all her might against the restraints and is surprised when she doesn’t possess the supernatural strength to muscle herself free. She writhes, whips her head, kicks her free legs, and screams.

They can detain her, but they can’t keep her here forever. She is going to Taylor Swift’s house tonight. She’ll walk to Rhode Island if she has to. She can hitchhike. Why didn’t she think of that earlier? Going home really stressed her out. Her mother was all over her, interrogating her about clothes and Thanksgiving and fighting over the keys, distracting her. She wasn’t thinking clearly.

She suddenly realizes she’s not wearing her black-and-gold blazer. She doesn’t remember when or why that came off and doesn’t see it anywhere in the room. That bitch nurse probably took it to wear with her new bracelets. Showing up to meet with Taylor for the first time in only a black lace bra and jeans isn’t the professional writerly look she was going for, but it will have to do.

She looks down at her feet. She’s only wearing one boot. Where did the other one go? It must’ve slipped off when she was kicking, but she doesn’t see it on the floor on either side of the bed. Fuuuuck! She can’t walk to Rhode Island wearing only one boot.

This is the part of the movie where the odds feel insurmountable and the audience worries that all hope is lost, but the trapped hero comes up with an ingenious plan and saves the day. She thinks. How long has she been here? It feels late. She pictures Taylor giving up, turning off the lights, and going to bed, deciding that she’ll have to go with another writer, and Maddy’s heart loses its mind. She screams, her vocal cords anguished and raw, her heart pounding on the prison walls of her ribs.

“HELP!!!! Somebody, help! I need help in here!”

The curtain parts, and a doctor enters. He’s older than her mother, probably not as old as Phil, short in a long white lab coat. He has salt-and-pepper hair, big round eyes behind round glasses, the face of an owl. He smells of hand sanitizer.

“Hi, Madison, I’m Dr. Friedman. Let’s talk about what’s going on.”

His voice is gentle, soft and slow, a guided meditation overlooking a still pond. She snickers, not buying whatever bullshit this boomer is selling. She will not be lulled into submission.

“What’s going on is I was brought here against my will and I have rights and I don’t have time for this and I demand to be released right now.”

“You want to tell me why you tried to steal your mother’s car?”

“Who told you that? Did she tell you that? She’s being totally overdramatic. I wasn’t stealing anything. I was borrowing it to go see a friend.”

“You smashed up the front of your brother’s Jeep.”

“What?! I barely clipped it by accident trying to get out of the garage. This is all just a big misunderstanding. If you could just undo these.”

She clenches her hands into fists and shakes them emphatically against the restraints.

“The officer who picked you up has been on the force for a long time. You’re lucky you didn’t get a rookie; you’d be down at the police station.”

“Yeah, this situation feels real lucky.”

“Tell me why you needed your mother’s car. Who were you going to see?”

She can’t tell him. No one can know she’s writing Taylor Swift’s memoir. It’s imperative that her authorship as ghostwriter remain top secret. Even the existence of the book in progress can’t be known. They need to control the title, the cover art, when it drops. It will all have to be carefully coordinated and choreographed.

“Just a friend from school.”

“Not Taylor Swift?”

Her heart freaks the fuck out, escapes her chest cavity, and is now lodged at the top of her throat. Choking on her heart, she tries not to blink or betray any hint of astonishment in her eyes. How did he know? Who else knows? Who told him? Is this room bugged? Is he able to read her thoughts? Is someone following her? Is he recording this conversation?

She tries to swallow her heart back into her chest.

“No, why would you say that? I don’t know Taylor Swift. I mean, I know her like everyone else in the world knows her, through her music and videos and social media. I’m following her but just like millions of other people follow her. And I know that she grew up in Nashville and my older sister, Emily, went to Vanderbilt in Nashville but they never met which is my sister’s fault but she doesn’t care because she doesn’t get it. But she’s fine. She’s better than fine. My sister’s life is perfect for her and perfect for my mother but that’s not my life. And this is basically a life-and-death situation here. I really need to go.”

Dr. Friedman says nothing. It’s clearly his turn to speak, but he remains still, his eyes pinned on her, and two seconds of silence feels like an eternal oxygenless year of empty space, terrifyingly vast and inhospitable to all living things. She can’t tolerate the agony of the void.

“I barely tapped his stupid car, okay? I just glanced it. He didn’t even buy it. Our stepfather Phil bought it for him. Phil bought Emily’s car too. But I don’t have a car because I go to NYU and live in the city but that’s not really fair if you think about it. They all have cars and Emily lives in New York now, not Nashville anymore, but I don’t have a car, so if I need a car, I have to borrow one. That’s just math. It’s two plus two equals four. Every time. And that’s totally fair. It’s not stealing if it’s your mother’s car. I don’t know what they told you or what you heard but I just tapped the Jeep and no one’s hurt, so it makes zero sense for me to be here. If you could just undo these things, you could let me go and I could let you go and you could go help actual sick people with broken bones and cancer and shit. I’m totally fine. I can prove it. I can do cartwheels for you right now if you’d just set me free.”

“We did a tox screen and you’re clean. No drugs or alcohol in your system.”

“See?! I told you I’m good to go!”

His gaze lands on the skin of her bare forearms above the restraint cuffs.

“What happened to your arms?”

“Nothing.”

“How did you get those marks?”

“I have a cat,” she lies.

Dr. Friedman nods, expressionless.

“Look,” she says. “You seem nice, and this was fun, but I really have to go.”

He studies her. She tries to remain still under his scrutiny, a professional model posing before a portrait artist, but there’s too much fizzy energy whizzing through her body, and the effort to contain it fast becomes unbearable. She bends her knees and stamps her feet on the bed like a tantruming toddler.

“Fucking let me GOOOOOO!”

Dr. Friedman waits until Maddy stops.

“Are you on any other medications? Anything at all?”

She hesitates, vibrating. Maybe if she cooperates, gives the little bug-eyed bird a breadcrumb or two, her warden will check the boxes and sign her release.

“I was on an antidepressant.”

“Do you remember the name of it?”

“Celexa.”

“How long were you on Celexa?”

“I don’t know, about a month.”

“How long ago?”

“I don’t know.”

“Were you taking Celexa this month?”

“Yeah.”

“Why did you stop taking it?”

“I didn’t need it anymore. I feel great.”

“Before you started feeling great, how long were you feeling depressed?”

“I don’t know.”

That feels like ancient history. Irrelevant.

“Do you see a therapist?”

“No.”

“Who prescribed the Celexa?”

“The school health center.”

“Okay, you’re going to stay off the Celexa. If you have any more pills at home, do not take them. Okay?”

“Yeah, that’s fine, I wasn’t taking them anymore anyway. Good, we all good now? I’m all good and I’ve answered all your questions and I need you to take these off me. I really need to go.”

His stupid owl face and body don’t move.

“I need to go RIGHT FUCKING NOW! You are RUINING my life, you stupid fucking idiot!” she spits, her voice shaking with vehement desperation.

“I hear you and I see that you’re upset and want to leave. I want to give you something to help you calm down and feel more centered.”

“What, what do you want to give me?”

“I’d like to give you a benzodiazepine for anxiety and another pill called quetiapine to help you settle down. And then we can remove the restraints.”

She’d like to point out that she’s anxious and loud because he’s detaining her against her will and violating her human rights, and by making her now unconscionably late for her top secret meeting with Taylor Swift, she’s in jeopardy of losing this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and possibly her entire future as a writer. These doctors, they want to medicate what they caused, charge her for it, and then declare themselves God for saving her. She stares Dr. Friedman down. They both know she doesn’t need medication to cure her anxiety and screaming. All she needs is what every woman since the beginning of time has needed. Autonomy over her own body.

“And then I can leave?”

“We’ll do a couple more things, and then yes, you’ll get to leave the ER.”

Do what the man says. Whatever the owl wants. Let him think he’s won. She’ll play his game, be the prey. She’ll play the good girl, take his quiet pills, and pay his hush money.

“Okay, deal.”

Two little pills, and she’s out of here. She can swallow that.