Chapter 14

CHAPTER 14

She has no idea what day it is. The passage of time is an exhaled breath on a winter morning, a rapidly dissolving vapor trail, impossible to follow. It’s nighttime outside the windowpanes of her room, but which night? Her thoughts are swaddled in weighted blankets, unable to get up and come together. She could ask someone, but words are impossibly heavy, too onerous to speak.

She was in the ER for a couple of nights, possibly more, before being transferred to Garrison. A private mental hospital. A looney bin. The nuthouse. She can’t say how long she’s been here. Or why. Her existence feels vague and blurry, as if her head were filled with pudding, too thick to figure anything out. And without her phone, she’s completely untethered from the real world.

Is this real?

She’s wearing gray sweatpants, drawstring removed, an NYU T-shirt, no bra. She shares the room with another girl about her age, maybe a year or two older. Maddy doesn’t remember her name. The girl tried to kill herself. Pills. They pumped her stomach, “irrigated her bowels.” She’s astonishingly skinny and reeks of cigarettes. She’s been here before. She’s biting her nails and pacing next to her bed. She does this for what seems like hours.

Maddy’s no longer swept up in the urgent quest to get to Taylor Swift’s Rhode Island house, High Watch.

Was that real?

She thinks about the possibility of a DM from Taylor.

I hope you’re okay. No worries. Let’s reschedule!

The thought is a spark that wants to light her brain on fire, but the drugs in her system are like a SWAT team on high alert, and her heartbeat is the tell that gives her away every time. Tickled by the thought of the DM, her heart rate skitters, and the whistle is blown. The quiet pills swarm in on the thought, wrestle it to the ground, and smother it.

Spark extinguished.

Heart rate restored.

No firestorm.

Nothing.

She stares out the darkened window. She can see a square lot of tiny cars illuminated by streetlamps in the distance. She must be on a high floor. However long she’s been on whatever floor this is, she’s sure Thanksgiving weekend is long over, and she’s missed a bunch of classes and assignments. Finals are soon. She has to get out of here. She needs to study. She needs to ace her exams.

SWAT team.

Spark extinguished.

Nothing.

She turns her head. Her mother and Emily are sitting on putty-colored chairs side by side against the wall. They’re both wearing winter coats, which is crazy because it’s a million degrees in here. Her mother says something, but Maddy’s head is full of pudding and smothered thoughts, and she can’t decipher what. Maybe her mother is talking to her scrawny roommate.

Maddy looks to see if her roommate responds, but she’s no longer pacing and isn’t in her bed. She’s not here. Maddy gazes into the night beyond the windowpanes and gets lost in the dark nothingness.

She turns her head to see her mother and Emily, but they’re not there. The two putty-colored chairs are empty. Did she imagine them here? Is she imagining all of this?

Is this real?