Chapter 232 : Chasing the sun

Before it really registered what she was planning on doing Esmee came to a roundabout in the road and turned all the way around heading back to where she came from. For a moment I thought her car had turned into Herby and acquired a life of its own because the driver looked almost as confused about her actions as I was. It was only a second of doubt though before her features became smooth again; the tiny little crinkles at the top of her nose and the side of her eyes flattening out to nothing.

 “You were going the right way for the unit Esmee,” I said pointing out something she already knew.

 "I know. You said that you didn’t want to go back there yet. I’m going to take you for a drive instead if you want, what the unit doesn’t know won’t hurt them.” I turned my nose up at the preposterous idea. If she was caught she wouldn’t stand a chance. She would be out of the unit before I could have a say, before I could stand up and scream that she wasn’t trying to abduct me she was trying to rescue me and even if I did they wouldn’t listen. Her nurse’s license would be used for kindle for a higher ups fire no matter how much I shouted. That was unacceptable for some reason. Apple gate would cease to exist without her, or at least my presence as something human inside the walls would.

 Do not get in trouble for me Esmee. I mean it. I could do without that guilt to deal with as well,” I said anxiously shuddering. It wasn’t really the guilt I was worried about though. It was more selfish than that. What worried me was how I could stay in one piece after she had gone.

 "I promise you I will not get into trouble. I will make sure it goes all above board when I get back to the unit with you. I am the head nurse on shift you where green observations and there are no doctors to make the decision for me, there is nothing in writing in your flies either saying that I can’t. It’s just a load of tedious paper work and it’s worth the trouble.”

She was wrong. I was never worth the trouble. Not when there was another breathing soul on planet earth would I be worth any kind of trouble… not even then. She wouldn’t listen to that reason though so I had to think of another to make her see it.

 “Well that’s great but what about your family Esmee, your husband and your daughter need you more than I do. Look I was only whining to myself when I said don’t take me back, I know we have to, and there really is no point in delaying the inevitable. It’s fine Esmee.” I tried to say the words in an upbeat fashion and I tried to mean them even but my very soul yelled at her to keep on driving; to head as far away as we could passably go from Apple gate house and never look back. Maybe if she went far enough, I could finally out run myself. If I was very luck I could even catch that strip of light in the distance.

 “Would it make you feel better if I told you I was doing this because Emmet and I desperately needed the overtime money this month, and you are actually helping us out?” Esmee asked turning the heating down on the dial and clicking the stereo on just enough to give some background noise even though the band and song could not be defined.

 “It would help if you meant it but you don’t,” I groaned

 “Look I’m not going to force this on you, if you want I will turn around as soon as I can and take you back to the unit however you have had a bloody hard day with a million and one things happening to you so I am offering to take you down by the sea for a little while where you can calm down and chill out before hopefully when I do take you back to the unit you can go right to bed and sleep right through the night until either Emmet or myself wakes you up in the morning. Mi I don’t do this job for the money and I never will. If I am being honest I like to think that if I could still support my family I would still come in and do my shifts if they stopped paying me. I do this because I want to help make the bad unbearable times bearable. So how about you let me? Come with me to the sea and we can sit and talk or just stare at the sky if you want. It has to be better than that building.

 "It would be nice to have a breather,” I sighed gently still looking out the windscreen, the last strip of light on the horizon had almost completely gone now, it appeared we never would get there in time to remain in the sun.

Chapter 231 : Unit bound

A few hours later after the tail end of the sedatives left my body and I kept down a rather soggy hospital sandwich an older fairly ugly looking doctor did a few random test and let me leave the hospital giving me a follow up appointment in the fracture clinic for a months’ time and a box of Codeine which was entrusted to Esmee.

 Outside the A&E the remaining daylight was ebbing away into the blackness and with it the heat that still remained reluctantly giving away into the cold making my body shiver.

 “I should of picked up your coat,” Esmee said catching my shiver out the corner of her eye as we started walking towards the car park closest to the A&E. “it’s getting chillier in the evenings,” Esmee said shivering too pulling her arms in close around her chest before staring up into the sky and smiling. It appeared to her the world could be beautiful, that she saw something more when she looked up into the sky other than blackness. I had no idea how she did it. How she had turned her life from overdoses to appreciation of night.

 “Hay here’s the old girl,” Esmee said after we reached the car, patting the boot of her Honda Jazz. “She does me well bless her,” she smiled, “and she has a bloody good heating system which I am pleased about.” She laughed, clicking the door open with the remote and letting us both inside of the car.

 “It will warm up soon” Esmee confirmed rubbing the top of her arms roughly after turning on the engine and twisting the knob for the heat up to the red. “Well let’s get you back to the unit shall we?” She pulled out of the parking space carefully and headed out to the main entrance to bounce me back to the unit again.  My head protested as well as my heart. I knew the roads between the gate and the general hospital too well. After all the time I spent yo-yoing back and forth I could describe them all with such detail but they would never feel right. My soul called to me from the right, from the tiny strip of light that hadn’t yet disappeared yet. The light wouldn’t save me from anything. I was already too lost but it did feel nice to know that it was still there, visible to me even if it wasn’t achievable.

 “Don’t take me back there again.” I whispered more to myself then to Esmee as my body ached in its silent protest “Please don’t make me go back there.”

Chapter 230 : Simple logic

Mi

 

 

My eyes rolled around uncomfortably in the back of my head trying to find the surface above the blue and purple haze that still gathered there. I did not particularly want to wake up. I craved for more drugs to trickle their way in under my skin so I could not fight the haze but every second it escaped further away allowing the voices and shapes of the world around me to greet me again. I groaned in my annoyance. I didn’t want to be part of the real world.

 “It‘s all right Mi,” someone said in the background as they tickled the side of my check with their finger nail. I mumbled again, uncomfortable, before finally my eyes rolled in the right direction and I opened them to a swirling room and intense nausea bubbling angrily before whirling up my throat to just under my gag reflex.

 "I feel sick,” I moaned trying to pull my body up into a seating position but landed up just rolling in the wrong direction and bashing my side into the railings of the bed making my ribs protest at the pain.

 

“Wowah honey,” Esmee said leaning over and steadied my body while she hit the bed control button and my body began to go slowly upwards until I was slightly elevated and she put a dish into my lap. I debated whether to be sick for a while. It would have been so easy to force the bile upwards but I was just too tired.

 “What are you doing here still?” I moaned resting my head back up against the mattress and closing my eyes to try and stop the room from spinning around me.

 “I wouldn‘t just leave you after what happened sweet heart.”

 "You have a family Esmee, you should be with them eating Ice cream and watching TV or something like that. I mean what is your new foster son going to think.” I moaned pressing my fingers into my eyes and wincing as a sharp shooting pain bolted through my splinted wrist.

 “Careful honey, you got a little fracture in that wrist, try and be gentle with it.” I groaned lowering my hands until my fingers caught against the plastic of a mask that was stuck over my nose and mouth. I scratched it off of my face without thinking snapping the elastic against the back of my head so it pinched at the skin.

 “I think for a few more minutes we are going to keep that on just to make sure your lungs are getting all the things that they really want.” Esmee smiled before reaching over and taking the mask off of me and putting it back on over my face with a smile. I rolled my eyes.

 “You know I would fight you off about this but my head still feels like it’s rolling down the street after stomach so that probably isn’t such a good idea right now.”

 "You’re learning,” Esmee smiled.

“ugh, I think we just reached the bottom of the hill. Is there somewhere I can throw up around here?” I leant forward and dry heaved once trying to persuade my body that me not throwing up was the best idea but as always it didn’t win and the second time around I threw up bright orange into the bottom off a cardboard dish that Esmee had held under my mouth.

 “That will be the sedative. Give it twenty minutes and you will start to feel human again.”

 “I really am a pain in the arse. I’m really sorry; you do so much for me. You stand in front of my mother and all I do to thank you is go a bit insane and throw up what looks like battery acid. I really hate myself. I doubt that you will understand that but I do. I don’t want to keep waking up after having to be sedated. It would be easier if I could sleep forever. Why do people keep saving me? I don’t understand why they don’t let me go.” My voice caught in my throat as the tears forced them self’s into my eyes. I wanted to go back to sleep again it didn’t hurt there.

 "Do you want a list of reasons why I think that it is good why you are alive, on how strong you are and why you shouldn’t hate yourself. Or would you rather I came and gave you a hug?”

 “I don’t want either. I want you and everyone else to let me go. I don’t care whether my feelings aren’t logical it just feels bad.” I whined the tears overflowing from my eyes that I tried to wipe away with the fingers of my one remaining good hand.

 “I’m not such a huge fan of logic today either. I don’t think that it is all that it’s cracked up to be all of the time. Esmee got to her feet in one fluid motion and perched on the side of my bed and with a sigh she put her arm out and pulled me in closer to her so my face was lost somewhere in her soft deep red waves that hung so perfectly about five inches under her shoulders. “Emotion has just as much right as Logic. Don’t let anyone ever tell you that your feelings aren’t logical like it’s an excuse for you not to feel them. If it hurts it hurts. You can’t get much more logical then that. .”

Chapter 229 : Of love and logic

Esmee

 

“You had better way have some answers!” I turned to Leo fuming with him after I watched Mi’s body lose its fight against the sedative that Leo had put into her arm.

 “Well if you tell me the question Esmee maybe that would help.”

 "What the hell was that you gave her Leo?”

 “I gave her a sedative, however you know that I think the answer that you really want is why I gave it to her.” I growled at him before I could stop myself, the sound actually coming from somewhere deep in my throat making me sound like a wild animal. It had been instinctual, a warning sign to back off or face the rage of an extremely ticked off mama bear.

 “Did you actually just growl at me?” Leo mocked with a smile even though I wasn’t sure why he thought I was finding the situation funny. “You did, you actually just growled at me. You realize the only way you could be any cuter was if you started stamping your feet right?

 “I am not trying to be cute Doctor Fish and if you don’t tell me a good reason as to why you felt the need to drug the patient I will start stamping on your face.” I hissed

 “Mrs. Bear, because of your incredible short ass-ed-ness you couldn’t reach my face if I lied down on the ground for you.”

 "Bears eat fish Leo and trust me you’re not a too big a meal for me to turn away now seriously explain yourself!”

 “Seriously…”

 “Seriously!” I yelled as my face because red and annoyingly I started to feel the backs of my eyes stab with tears of anger and god knows what else. I had failed again in the very path of my job, and more times than not I did. I lost battles and I wanted a win so badly that it hurt. I understood that there were constant lows. I understood that not everyone could get better in the end of it all. That some people were so hurt that a nebulizer was a mountain to climb and they felt like they did not deserve the oxygen that filled and exited their lungs. We lost as many as we saved. they slipped out the back doors that we hid from view, and slivered into long term units were they wound not see that light of day again for many years, if ever. Any genius could see that was where Mi was heading. I shouldn’t have cared. Not as passionately as I felt it inside me anyway. But I did. There was something that was too important to lose, like she was connected in some way to me, like maybe I would lose a peace of myself that was buried inside her heart if I let her slip away.

 “Ok… chill out Esmee. Seriously, I did what I had to. She was extremely anxious in a very dangerous department and she wanted to hurt herself which could have been easily achieved if she got physical in her attempt for a tool.  That isn’t  mentioning  the fact that her heart rate was at 140 BPM and her oxygen was getting lower and lower. She must have been in physical pain and as a doctor I am meant to try to stop pain and even more importantly to stop medical problems from getting worse and that includes tachycardia. I dealt with the medical problem at hand with the use of moderate sedation.” Leo spoke the words in a stern and critical way and I felt my shield of nails and steel break down slightly. I hated it when he became Doctor Fish and not our friend but I had made him get like this. It was another thing that was my entire fault today.

 “Look,” Leo said again, his voice getting softer as he saw the chink in my armor.   “If you can guarantee me that she would have calmed down with the help of some ice, or a pack of playing cards, or drawing on herself with red pen then I will apologize now Esmee and admit that I was in the wrong entirely. The thing is though honey, I like to think that you have taught me enough about self-harm to know that, that wasn’t really a likely outcome.

 I sighed defeated. He was right. She would have thought for a bit longer maybe but the fire that was engulfing her would consume. It started in the veins then spread to the mussels and the skin. The bones would bleach from the heat and skin would try to split apart. She would heave her guts up to try and expel what was so bad but it wouldn’t quite work and then her soul would fall making her react, making her find something to use and then the sedative would have gone in just from a different area. With me laid on top of her screaming for her to stop. It was textbook how, it worked I just wished that it could have been different. I just wished that I could have made it OK.

 "Do you like it when you’re right Leo? Does it make you feel good?” I snapped flumping myself back into the chair that was next to Mi. At least she looked peaceful.

 “Not really Esmee. To upset you doesn’t make me feel good at all really.  Those tears that are pricking at your eyes, you can’t hide them from me like you can the others. Emmet told me the signs. He’s also talked to me about this little thing here becoming a bit of a problem in your lives. Seeing you with her I can sort of see what her means - it easy to form a too emotional attachment to a patient.”

 "He said she was a problem,” I shouted feeling the anger flair again as I leant forward in the chair ready to spring if I had to. It almost worried me how I reacted. She was nothing to me. I looked after her on a unit full of people. I was her nurse. I was meant to treat her wounds and returned her to health then I let her go back to the healthy world. I should not have felt any deep set emotions.

 “That reaction is the problem,” Leo said like he read my mind “Look I know your job is different to mine, I know you have to be passionate about your work to the extreme or you would get disheartened. I know you have to have compassion in bucket load as well. The rules are there to be bent and I’m not reporting you or going to recommend action, but destroying yourself will not save her Esmee. You have the power to switch off of her case and I will give you the same advice as Emmet. If that’s what you think you should do. That your logical head tells you to do then you should do it. There is no place for emotion in medicine.”

 “You may be right, but I’m not in medicine.” I smiled as things began to click inside my head making my choice for me. “I am a psychiatric nurse. I deal with emotional disturbances. I have spent my whole life dealing with my own emotional disturbances. I spent exactly eleven months, 5 days and eleven hours inside the walls of a psychiatric unit filled with logic filled nurses and doctors trying to cure me and I barely noticed a change. Then a person with one stupid emotion found me and I got better. One emotion made me better. One emotion set me free. Love.

Chapter 228 : Razors and lullabies

Welcome to Cutters paradise… everything in the major’s room was a weapon to use. Sharp corners, a lose metal screw in the chair, pins from the notice board, scissors from the work station and maybe scalpels, the yellow sharps box, a bed to cut off fingers. I clocked them all instantly working out exactly how much time Esmee and the rest of them would have to be distracted for me to get to each one. A few seconds for the pins and the lose metal screw sticking out of the chair, maybe thirty seconds for the sharp corners  because it would take a while for them to go through skin. A minute for the scissors and the scalpels, maybe two for the sharps box but their gifts would bring greater relief.

 “Not going to happen honey,” Esmee smiled grabbing one of my arm as my instincts dragged me towards the supply’s trolley, apparently she had already summed up the “Gifts” ticking them all off on her mental risk assessment.

 

“Please.” I asked my voice braking as I glanced over at her and then down to my arms swearing that I was going to see the skin bubbling and blistering from the acid that now seemed to be running through them. “Please,” I whined my breath shaky as the tears danced in front of my eyes. “Please.” I know I sounded like a fool but I wasn’t above begging if begging was all that I had left to stop me from going insane. I was not like the noble hero in films and books. I was the one that ran for cover and hid in the cupboards. I would be the one that the viewers scoffed at.

 

"It will feel better honey, we will work on this with you and we will get through it but not by cutting yourself.”

 

Esmee was so confident that she could achieve imposable things I found it almost crazy. Nothing would calm me now; nothing could make me feel better. I had no idea why she saw such hope in the hopeless. No matter how much I wanted her to be - no matter how hard I tried to believe in her I knew she was not enough to defeat the monsters inside me.  

 

“Esmee; I have too.” I whined again my feet walking automatically forwards to where the storage unit was but of course she caught me, her arms making me immobile for a second like roots rising from the ground to paralyze me. If I hadn’t felt so bad, if I hadn’t been sure that I would die I wouldn’t have minded too much. To be still because I was locked in with Esmee wasn’t sure a horrible idea.

 

“You don’t honey. Lie down on the bed Mi, curl up tight; it will help.” I looked at her suspiciously from under my eyelashes. Lying down wouldn’t help me, she had no idea.

 

“Trust me honey.”   

 

It was stupid but I did it, I had no argument to go against what she said and no power to find my own way out alive she was all there was in the end.

 

I brought my knees up to my chest and curled my arms around them and prayed to find relief like Esmee had promised, but they ached with the excess blood that pressed against the surface of my skin It would be so easy to let it out. I yelped. Esmee tried to hide a wince behind a soft smile.

 

“Is there something I can do Esmee? My prescription pads yours right now, the doctor named Leo said softly. He came closer to my side and took my hand into his pressing two fingers against the throbbing of the blood pushing forcibly under the surface of my skin. I had to pull it away from him before he was done counting. It was uncomfortable to feel how close my blood flowed next to the skin yet how it was so hopelessly hidden underneath its protective layer. It hid to survive, but I just didn’t care.

 

“I don’t want to use a sedative yet Leo, I’m not saying it wouldn’t help right now but we can deal with this anyway without drugs” Esmee said confidently with a smile. “What you could do is get me some ice cubes a bright red pen and maybe a magazine if you have one, or a book, or a pack of cards.” Esmee came over to the bed and tried to detach my teeth from the flesh on my hands. As a result she mostly just got drooled on; I had gone into hamster mode and I was not letting go for anyone. She gave up in the end deciding that my teeth were a sacrifice she would have to make on this one even though I could tell that she was not happy about it.

 

“Sure thing, I will get a nurse on the case right away but first off can I just put this one on your finger please?” Leo asked me, as he pulled the cramped up fingers on my right hand out of their ball. I hissed as the pain made its self-known again, pulsating up my wrist into the for-arm.    

 

“Was that painful?” Leo asked, examining the limb.

 

“That’s the original reason why we are here,” Esmee answered for me knowing that there was no way that my vocal cords would let me do anything other than scream or shout at that stage. “She hurt her wrist back at the unit. Emmet and I had a look and we both think that there is probably a fracture in her far right metacarpal but as we don’t have ex-ray vision and Mi has osteoporosis we decided that here would be the best bet to treat her.”  

 

“Good call,” Leo nodded before taking my other hand into his and brushing his eyes over the both of them. In the end he attached the clip to my good hand. “It does look a little swollen. Have you been sent through for an X-ray Esmee?”

 

“Yeah we are just waiting for the results; it doesn’t help that the nurse wouldn’t give Mi any pain relief.”

 

“Why the hell not? Fractures hurt like hell.”

 

“She has overdose status on the records. They have blocked the nurses from handing out drugs.”

 

“Ok… so she has poor Liver function,” Leo reasoned to himself  while Esmee  shook her head with a smile touching her lips like what she was saying was part of an inside joke.

 

“Then why the… Look it doesn’t even matter. I will prescribe some Codeine. In the meantime Though Mi you really need to try and calm down. Your heart is doing a Samba in there from all of this stress.”

 

He said it like he was easy and in a way it would have been. If he gave me what I truly needed which wasn’t ice, playing cards or bright red pens I could have calmed down for him in time. I could open my mouth and talk to him without the fear of screaming in his face. I could and would become half way to human again. The razors kiss was all that was needed to destroy and save me in seconds.

 

“Please Esmee! Please!” I begged again as my lungs felt like they swelled even more against my ribs. I twisted in my ball gaging into my hands trying to shift the sick feeling that was sitting at the top of my tummy. Vomit would have been a poor substitution for the red gold but I couldn’t scoff at it then. It was something.

 

“Are you going to be sick Mi?” Esmee asked, pulling the hair out of my face as she propped a bowl under my chin and rubbed big circles into my back as she tried to sooth me with her words even though I couldn’t understand what she was actually saying. Everything hurt too much to be healed by what she said anyway.  She was amazing and I knew that but self-harm overshadowed her by a long shot.

 

“This is fucking ridiculous!” I growled rocking my body back and forth on the bed as fast as I could as I dry heaved over and over again into the bowl paying that something would make the pain go away. “It hurts to much! I want it to stop now!” I protested.

 

“Ok Mi, you need to stay still for me for thirty seconds, I’m going to make the pain go away, I promise,” I heard Leo say softly from the side of my bed. I stopped moving just long enough to feel the sting of a needle going into the top of my arm and I smiled. I never liked sedation but it felt like he might have just saved me. There was no way out of that one without blood or drugs and Leo had chosen the one that would hurt them less and stop my pain. He really had done me a favor.

 

“What I just gave you was a sedative OK?  You are going to start to feel sleepy really quickly but there is no need to be scared. We are going to keep you safe in the hospital here with us until the effects wear off. Are you starting to feel sleepy yet darling?” I nodded at Leo unable to speak as the heavy haze started to cut the intense feelings off from around my body and send me into a sleep.  “Ok, it’s going to be fine. Have sweet dreams honey. It will all be over when you wake up.”