Chapter 211: Progress is funny

"We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.”

C.S. Lewis

 

Edward swiped his key card in the door and it opened with a long drawn out beep alerting anyone inside that someone had arrived.  This time it had just happened to be me coming back in. Apparently I was coming home but that suggested that it should have been a good thing. That my mother would have made a spot up on the sofa with a blanket and a cup of tea and she would look after me just glad that I was alive. I doubt my mother even knew what had happened. When I first moved into Annie and Paul’s about six months previously they had had a plan all set up for my mother to see me but she only ever managed to see me twice before she gave up. She told Social services that she was too upset to see her last remaining daughter trying to hurt herself so she would not come again. Social services gave her a hand to hold a shoulder to cry on and the reassurance that her reaction was reasonable and that my behavior was not her fault but because I was “very sick.”  I had not seen her since or even had a phone call. She could have been dead. I could have been dead and she didn’t care. The fact that she still circled around inside my head suggested that I still cared for her more than I should have. Just under four months in the care of apple gate wouldn’t make it home. I had never had one, not really, so why would I start now.

 

I had been away for nearly three weeks. It had started with low blood sugar and a drip to boast it after I had refused to eat or drink anything and Emmet had followed through on a promise to make me no matter what Sophie had said. It turned into two operations, slit wrist, cut boobs, a life threatening overdose, an even more life threatening infection, rape a disclosure and at the very end of it all the tiniest slice of hope. I had no idea where it could come from out of all the rubbish and hate or how something so simple had turned into such carnage but maybe in its way it had to do that because even though those bad things happened I had also taken a step in the right direction.  Emmet new now, not everything but enough so I was no longer completely alone, after sixteen years there was someone else on the sideline who knew that games I had been playing against my will. I had made a stride backwards yet a baby step forward leaving me wondering if I had in fact fallen deeper into the bottomless hole or found a foot hold. Was it even possible to fall and rise at the same time.

     

I suppose you’re going to go and lock me in the ECA now.” I moaned trying to ignore the rattling that had signaled his arrival in my lugs, l had lived my whole life with asthma and it flared up from time to time without and warning. It was probably the heat and the stale air that made them react now. Or maybe it wasn’t even the asthma maybe it was because I was once again stuck inside walls that I didn’t want to be a part of maybe it was because Doctor Jordan promised me that apple gate house would help. That within six weeks he could at least know why I was like I was but I had been here around sixteen and all he had done so far was stick a tube up my nose and some tablets down my throat. Maybe it wasn’t the asthma but the panic that made my lungs squeeze.

 

“Are you feeling unsafe honey?” Edward asked concerned about my question about the ECA. Had he thought I had been asking to be put in there? I hadn’t been. Out of anywhere I had ever been few rooms had ever seemed or felt as bad as the ECA, and I had been locked in rooms before.  I had had unthinkable things happen to me in the corners of a box room but at least they had never claimed that they were safe. The ECA promised something that It could only ever really provide in the physical world. The monsters inside you could still rape your mind as the cameras watched on. 

 

“No, no! I am fine!” I assured him coughing twice to try and get rid of the blockage that hurt my lungs. It was defiantly asthma. The fresh new Lilly’s that I had only just noticed sitting on the waiting area table along with the outdated magazines had been what triggered it. I had always been allergic to lilies however I had forgot to mention it when they had asked me about allergies. It seemed unimportant, until now

 

“I can sit with you for a bit honey I’m not doing anything. I can get a head nurse to asses you as well if you want.”

 

“Who am I assessing?”  Emmet asked smiling as his giant sized feet thudded down over the stairs carrying a yellow hazard bag in one hand and sharps can in the other, and beside him Esmee shadowed in his footsteps holding  the hand of a girl shadowed. She had red eyes and was pale in the face with dyed red hair. She wore a black skirt with stripped tights and a black vest top. A black solid lace arm warmer snaked up her left arm to the shoulder and on the right bracelets covered her wrist and most of her fore arm in florescent colors. Apparently the right clothing and dyed hair wasn’t enough to endure a room search. We all broke underneath as yellow bags carried away everything we had and thought we needed.   

 

“I just got back with Mi. She mentioned maybe not feeling so hot and needing some safety measures put in place."
Did I also mention the fact that I had said nothing of the sort and was just asking a question and the Edward may have just been making mountains out of mole hills?

 

“Ok I can do that I just need to go and put this in the bin, book a few things in and write some notes before I forget,” Emmet said coming over and stopping by my side before he heard what I was hoping he wouldn’t have.

 

“Esmee seems I got my hands full can you take Mi to the clinic room and take Mi’s SATS and peek flow for me, I Will come and take over as soon as I can.”

 

“Yeah sure I can. You’ve met Edward haven’t you Ellie. Do you mind just spending a bit of time with him while I sort out Mi out? I will try to come back and check on you as soon as I can OK.” It wasn’t like she would have had a choice really anyway. It wasn’t Esmee’s fault of course but it was very easy to feel like you were being passed around like furniture in here however if Ellie felt that way she didn’t show it or she had felt it so often she didn’t care anymore. She shrugged it off and made her way into the day room. Edward followed her.

 

“Oh you do sound healthy,” Esmee commented sarcastically. “Let’s get you down to the clinic room.”