Beautiful Nightmares (The Asylum Trilogy) Read online

  Now the smile I was wearing fades from my lips.

  I slouch down in my chair.

  And I’ve never felt so alone in such a happy occasion.

  “What’s wrong with you?” I snap. “This is wonderful news and you’re acting like I’ve just given you a death sentence.”

  He doesn’t make eye contact, but instead looks at his watch. The silver band gleams beneath the kitchen lights and I find my eyes drawn to it too. It distracts me for a moment, but then I blink and keep my eyes centered on Elijah’s face. He folds his arms and drops his gaze to the floor. “It is wonderful news,” he comments. But his voice has a somber tone to it and to me that indicates that he’s anything but happy.

  “You’re lying.” I get up from my chair and take two strides, coming to a halt in front of him. “Look me in the eye and tell me you’re as excited as I am.”

  He doesn’t. He continues staring at the floor. I watch him. His gaze seems lost. It’s like his eyes are floating a top the white and black tile floor. It seems like if I don’t offer him a life-vest he’ll sink. “I am happy,” he reassures me, but his voice sounds like anything but reassuring.

  We rarely fight and if we do, we make up minutes after. But this is something worth fighting for to me. “I can’t believe you!” I raise my voice and before I can control myself, I’m screaming, “I get the best news of our lives today and you’re acting frigid about it!” I poke him in the chest with my pointer finger. “We’re going to be parents. It’s a beautiful thing. Please snap out of this foul mood and embrace it. Please try and be happy about it.”

  It’s at that point that he makes eye contact with me. “You don’t understand.” His voice is low and there’s grit in it and I know that he’s angry.

  “What do you mean I don’t understand?” I bark back.

  “You don’t understand what my childhood was like, I—”

  At that point I cut him off with, “You’ve got to be kidding me!” I stomp my foot. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” My childhood was a living, breathing hell. To this day, I don’t know how I survived it. He might have issues with his father, but to me, that’s no excuse for his childish behavior.

  “This discussion is over,” he yells, straightening up.

  “It’s far from over!”

  I’m emotional.

  And hormonal.

  And I at least want him to pretend to be happy.

  I at least want him to pretend to be happy for my sake.

  “Elijah, please,” I plead. My voice is barely above a whisper.

  “I said it’s over!” he shouts.

  Then he brushes past me, stomping past me and leaving me alone in the kitchen.

  Chapter Eight

  ~After~

  There are days where I miss the feeling of having a warm body lying next to me.

  To be honest, it’s been so long that I can’t remember when the last time this occurred.

  Has it been months?

  Years?

  My veins have been filled to the brim with so many drugs on a daily basis it’s a miracle that I even remember my name.

  It’s Adelaide Watson.

  Right?

  Right?

  At least that’s what the staff tells me.

  Well, I take that back, sometimes they mistake me for Adelaide Carmichael and I have to correct them.

  I found a few crayons. A blue one, a green one, and a red one. I’m thinking they used to belong to Aurora. I have moments where I wish I knew where she was. I miss her. I miss her quirky behavior. I miss the way she always responded in a sing-song voice. I miss her carefree attitude. I’ve thought about asking some of the patients about her, but then ended up not doing it. I’m not friendly with very many people here and I don’t feel comfortable enough to talk about personal things with them.

  I have moments though…

  When I’m by myself…

  In my cell, using the crayons that used to be hers.

  I hide under my bed, with the red crayon and color all over the wall.

  I draw hearts.

  And circles.

  And squares.

  Stick figures.

  And tear drops.

  My mind runs away with me when I swear I hear the springs on the cot behind me squeaking. It’s almost as if my ex roommate is here with me, rocking back and forth and back and forth on her cot. I close my eyes and I can picture her. She’s blowing a red curl out of her face, her nose is bunched up, and she’s hugging her knees.

  I continue coloring and I have another moment where I swear I can hear her singing. “Blood red walls, blood red walls, blood red walls.”

  The soft sing-song words and the squeaking of mattress springs feels and sounds so real that for a minute my spine stiffens, my lungs clench, and an uneasy feeling circles my gut. I drop the red crayon I’m holding, in the midst of coloring in a heart and cast a wary glance over my shoulder.

  I gawk at the cot positioned horizontally across from my own and let out a sigh of relief.

  There’s no one there.

  Sliding out from under my bed, I stand then plop down on my cot. The springs creak and moan from me pressing my weight on them and when the noise dies down, I tuck my legs underneath my bottom, sitting Indian Style. White walls fill my gaze and temporarily blind me until I can’t look at them anymore so I blink a few times then drop my gaze to the floor.

  I feel so alone.

  And lost.

  And hopeless.

  I feel like someone has shoved the hose of a shop vac down my throat and sucked out my soul.

  I feel like I’m hoping and wishing and praying for absolution and answers that I’ll never receive and more than that, I feel like a lifeless vessel. Like I’m wandering and wandering and wandering down a never-ending road with no destination and zero purpose.

  I have moments when I talk to myself.

  It’s like I split myself in half and have conversations with myself on the weather, the ins and outs of Oak Hill, the patients in Oak Hill…

  Over the passing months, I’ve somehow learned to become my own best friend.

  I’ve somehow learned through time and struggle that at the end of it all, sometimes the only person you can rely on is yourself.

  I lie back on my cot and stare at the ceiling. My eyes shift and center on the window. Slices of sunlight cut through the glass and dance along the edges of metal at the end of my cot. There’s no clock in my cell, but I can tell by the way the sun is shining that it’s almost noon and almost time for my afternoon meds.

  I’ll take them like a good girl.

  I’ll choke them down with a Dixie cup full of water.

  I’ll let them dissolve in the pit of stomach and let them work their way through my nervous system, dulling me and numbing me like they’re supposed to.

  I’m thinking that maybe I need to change my course of action. I’m thinking that maybe if I become the good little psycho that they want me to be that maybe, just maybe I’ll be able to find the answers that I’m looking for.

  I need to be cunning, smart, and obedient.

  It’s the only way.

  It’s the only way.

  It’s the only way I’ll be able to glue together all the pieces of my fractured past. And deep, down inside, I know the only way I’m going to find those pieces and put them together is if I retrieve them myself.

  Chapter Nine

  ~Before~

  The human heart is fragile.

  So delicate that it should be protected, taken care of.

  Nurtured and swaddled among piles of blankets like an infant.

  Because once it breaks…

  It’s broken forever.

  After your heart breaks once, it never heals quite right.

  There are always cracks, or chipped pieces. And depending on what kind of person you are and what kind personal strength you have, sometimes after your heart breaks it can feel like you’ve never had a heart at all.

  Or t
hat it’s hardened.

  Turned to stone.

  Then…

  You change.

  Become a different person.

  You become bitter. Cold. Distant. You start to hate things. And people. Pretty much everything around you. You hate the sun for rising every day. You hate the moon for illuminating the night sky. Hate, hate, hate. It consumes you. It eats you alive from the inside out.

  Until…

  Hate is the only thing you know.

  And pretty soon your days stretch on and on and are never ending decades of nothingness. You forget what it’s like to feel. You forget what it’s like to love. And more than anything you feel like you’ll never deserve the kind of love you once had.

  I’ve been there.

  I’ve been full of hate.

  I have had my heart ripped from my chest, feeling like it was hidden somewhere with malicious intent and I was on the biggest scavenger hunt of my life trying to find it again.

  I felt the emptiness spread through me like venom.

  I beat myself up over the fact that Damien gave up his life for mine. I wished and hoped and prayed that I could have taken his place. I wished and hoped and prayed that I was living the worst nightmare of my life.

  But I wasn’t.

  What happened was real.

  I watched the boy I loved hit his knees and die, thanks to the blast of a gun from my brutal and tyrannical Daddy. I slipped through my loves’ blood and insides and held him in my arms until he took his last breath. Until the warmth seeped out of him and his body turned cold.

  It took me awhile to nurse my broken heart back to health after that. Part of me is convinced that I’ll never be the same. But I have been fortunate that I’ve been able to find love twice in my life and I’ll be damned if I let my heart break a second time.

  There’s been something going on with Elijah.

  He’s been detached, distant.

  Ever since I told him I’m expecting his child, with every passing day I feel him pulling farther and farther away.

  And I feel like there’s nothing I can do to keep it from happening.

  “What’s wrong?” I’ll ask him.

  “Nothing,” he’ll answer with a soft smile. Then he’ll kiss my temple and leave the room. And I’ll be left alone in our room with heightened emotions wondered why he’s retreated into his cold, blocked self.

  He works a lot too. Stays over after his shift ends. My head suspects the worst, a possible affair, but my heart refuses to let me believe that. After all, I know better than anyone that it’s much easier to live in denial. To live a fantasy world where everything is so so perfect and beautiful when deep down inside I know it isn’t. And it’s all of these thoughts, these feelings, these hormones inside of me that finally make me break. I snap, losing the logical part of myself that tells me I need to trust this man, my husband, the father of my child.

  The hospital is quiet when I arrive. The halls are deserted. Fluorescent lights flicker over my head and dance along the cream colored ceramic floors. I start walking down the narrow space and stop twice, talking myself out of acting crazy. I trust him. I trust him. I trust him. I hear the words inside my head, but can’t believe them until I see for myself exactly what is going on. So I walk again. I walk until I come to a fork in the hall and stop in front of the nurse’s station. No one is sitting behind the desk, but standing at the end is Elijah.

  And her.

  Gretchen, with her curvaceous figure, illustrious blonde hair tucked beneath her white cap, and her ruby red lips.

  Gretchen has always had a thing for Elijah. I’m not sure if it began before or after me, but every time I’ve been around her she’s thrown herself at him.

  In front of me.

  For everyone to see.

  And doesn’t hide how bad she wants him. How she secretly wishes that she was in my place, I’m sure.

  She’s giggling. She slaps Elijah’s shoulder and I hear him let out a low throaty laugh. The exchange sickens me. I’ve been cooped up all alone carrying his child and this is what he’s doing while he’s at work? I don’t know if it’s the hormones or not, but right now I want to claw her eyes out first and his not too long after. I watch their flirtations continue for another minute before I clear my throat. Gretchen notices me first, her hazel eyes widening as she stares at me before turning back to face Elijah. Then he glances over his shoulder. “Adelaide?”

  I can’t even move from my spot. My emotions are scattered all over the place.

  I want to scream.

  Want to cry.

  I want to punch him a million times in the chest.

  Then he moves away from Gretchen, strolling over to me before stopping and place his hand on the small of my back. “Is something wrong, Adelaide?” A spark of concern flashes in his eyes and his gaze drops to my stomach. “Are you feeling alright?”

  I’m doing my best to keep myself together. I’m taking deep breaths and closing my eyes to keep the room from spinning. “I need to talk to you,” I tell him quietly.

  “About?”

  “I just need a minute of your time.” It infuriates me that I’m speaking to my husband like I would a professional or a colleague, but I don’t want to cause a scene in front of Gretchen.

  Elijah narrows his eyes, studies me, then looks over his shoulder at Gretchen. “I’ll just be a minute.”

  I flash Gretchen an icy look then follow Elijah as he guides me down hall. He opens the door to a supply closet and motions for me to step inside. I do and Elijah flicks on the light, joins me and closes the door behind him. He stares at me with intent, a flash of concern present in his eyes. His eyes drop to my stomach then find my face again. “Is everything okay with the baby?”

  “Yes,” I say. “She’s been moving like crazy.” There’s a joyful tone in my voice.

  Elijah shakes his head. “You don’t know that it’s a girl.” I smile wide. I know the sex of my child isn’t something I can be certain of, but I have this gut feeling that I’m having a girl.

  I feel a kick and laugh. I reach out to grab Elijah’s hand. I want him to feel. More than anything I want some kind of positive reaction from him. But the second I reach for him, he pulls away from me. I frown and place both my own hands flat on my bulging belly. I laugh again when I feel another kick. “I don’t understand you,” I tell Elijah. I glare at him and point to my stomach. “I’m having your child. That is a beautiful thing and you’ve been nothing but frosty about it.”

  He straightens his posture and smooths down the front of his white coat. “I have not been frosty about it.”

  I roll my eyes and look away. That’s not true. At home, he steers clear of me a lot. I can count on one hand how many times he’s gone to the doctor with me. And even less than that that he’s touched my stomach. I don’t understand it. I don’t understand why any man wouldn’t be interested in his unborn child.

  Elijah checks his watch. He’s impatient, sighing and moving toward the door. “Is this why you came here? To try and get me to feel your stomach?”

  I almost snap at that moment. “No.” My voice is low, raspy. Almost chilling. I gaze up at the white plaster ceiling and take a deep breath. “I came here to ask you why you’ve been spending more time at work than at home with me and your unborn child because I can tell you this, Elijah. I’m getting tired of it.” He looks at me shocked. “I would really appreciate it, if you’d start taking an interest in your child.” With that I brush past him, exit, and leave him standing alone in the utility closet.

  ~ ~ ~

  Elijah is always so reserved, centered, and focused.

  There have been times where I’ve wanted to ask him questions.

  Questions like; do you ever have moments where you feel like your mind is screaming so loud that you’re not sure how to silence it? Or, do you ever have days where you feel like you’re falling apart and you’re not sure if you’ll be able to put yourself back together again?

  I have tho
se days all the time.

  I have days when my emotions are a mess, my mind is in shambles, and I go through phases where I feel unsure of how to function like a normal human being.

  I could blame it on the hormones, but the thing is, I felt this way sometimes before I was pregnant.

  I find one of the things I love most about my husband is that I never get an uncertain vibe from him.

  He’s guarded.