Chapter 263 : These little Persuasions

Esmee

I couldn’t think straight after I ended the phone call with a shaking hand. I didn’t know what to do. The truth was I didn’t think about what happened to me when I was a child that much anymore. I Had done the opposite of what I told others to do and put my abuse in a million boxes and tied it up with chains and bolts but for me it had worked up until that point … Hadn’t it? I noticed that scars up my bear arms and shuddered at the thought that I might have been wrong. I could never erase the marks. They were permanent as the ones left inside of me but with my voice I could give them some meaning, with my speech I could heal  the ones that still mattered. The ones that hurt still after all the time.

I had forgiven Julie though. Made peace with the fact that she had did things to me what were not right and surly she had already paid the price that she could offer for her sins. I was still alive and she was the one dead and I had a daughter and a family… and an unnatural fear of locked toilets or wetting myself to the point of panic attacks… I was 30 years old and living in her shadow. It was years on and I was lying to my husband to keep her safe, ruining everything that I had and loved.

I roughly moved my hands over my face and tied my bed tousled hair up into a pony tail at the back of my head trying to get the itchy hair off of me face, trying to create some room in my now uncomfortably filled head for the things that I wanted to feel, to do the things I wanted to do. Emmet and I had recently decided that we wanted to start fostering again soon and I wanted to get the rooms ready as I knew as soon as our names hit the books are phone would ring off the hook with disgruntled social workers looking for emergency care but things wouldn’t budge. They needed… persuasion.

My eyes routed over to the cupboard above the sink before I could shove my body out of the room and away from the danger that I knew it had over me. My thighs still had newer scars then the rest of my body and I still remembered clearly Leo patching me up with thread. It was too soon to bow to its need again. Just slightly over two weeks, some of the marks still had partial scabs over them. If I hurt myself again I could throw the recovering title out the window and welcome myself back to the life of a current cutter. I would need to buy more dressings… and try to re-master the art of stitching myself up. I would have to lie to my daughter and to my husband. Any intimacy between Emmet and me would begin to hurt like hell. There were a hundred reasons to run for my life away from the cupboard, a hundred good reasons and only one bad one to cut… but it felt so good when the metal broke my skin… when blood found the surface and trickled warm down my arms.

I reached for the cupboard telling myself that seeing the blade would make me wake up, that I would decide not to cut but it was all a lie to try and protect myself. I had already made my choice. I only got the blades out the packet if I was going to break skin. 

Going onto my tip toes I found the familiar metal butterflies of the box with the tips of my fingers and nudged it to the front of the cupboard so I could wrap my hands around it and pull it out. I had managed to ignore the bright yellow box that was next to it or the box of dressing and tape. I defiantly tried to ignore the two suture kits. I wouldn’t need them anyway, I was a lot stronger then to get carried away…yeah right 

Chapter 262 : Circling the drain

Mi

*Very distressing, read with care

Things had changed when Emmet walked back into the ECA again. I felt no immediate rush of relief that I was no longer lost to grey foam I felt no need for him to be sat next to me or for him to hold my hand. I had wanted all of those things before because I had wanted him to make the pain go away and now it had. I knew what had happened I knew where I was and how things were going to go but I was numb to the world and its attacks. I did not feel pain or sadness… or love or hope or joy. Emmet was just a generic man to me. Six foot six. Muscular with tattoos. He had jade eyes. He wore old blue jeans that where scuffed at the knees and feet and on top he wore a short sleeved grey t-shirt that pulled at the stitching on the sleeves that stuck  to his biceps. Alice – who had followed him in - was the same just a bunch of features with no centre , no soul. Everyone had died without me knowing. I had watched the end of the world from the corners of a padded room and had nothing to feel about it. 

“I’m sorry that I left you Mi. That wasn’t Particularly nice thing to do but I wasn’t quite sure how to react to what you were saying  and I feared that I might have been putting you in danger,” Emmet said as he walked past me and over to the concealed door in the side of the room before sliding his card through the reader and letting the room open with a pop the groaning of the extractor fan filling the ECA. I felt my heart thud strangely in my chest as I comprehended what the gesture meant and some sort of diluted feeling temporarily infiltrated my blood stream before it died down again. I was sure he was doing to try and be nice to hand the power over to me that had once been taken away. He was trying to ease a pain that I couldn’t feel anymore. “I have also asked Alice to come and sit in with me because of some of the things that you were asking me to do. I think it is important that we have a female with us while we talk to protect us both.” He meant to protect him. To make sure that I didn’t spill dirty little lies about him having sex with me that could compromise his position. He didn’t feel sorry for me he thought I was a freak that would push for sympathy and attention at any cost and it … hurt?

“Has someone done all those horrible things to you before Mi?”  Emmet asked

A thousand different times flashed though my head in less than a second. Most where of them where fragmented, just brief glimpses into the situation before my brain close the curtains to the horror show so not even I could remember it. Maybe none of it was real. Maybe I watched too much TV or read too many books. Maybe my whole life was just a nightmare and I would wake up soon somewhere else.

“It’s OK to tell me.  I won’t get mad or make you explain anything to me that you don’t want to. I know that you must feel very scared.”

“I don’t feel scared,” I muttered quietly as I gazed directly forward not bothering to make eye contact with Emmet as I spoke. I wasn’t sure how I even found the words to tell him about my lack of feeling but somehow he needed to know. It was like I was proud of it, though it all I still had the means to become uncomfortably numb.

“OK, maybe you could tell me how you do feel. Before I left you described feeling very intense pain which was actually quite clear to see by the way you were reacting. You don’t seem to be experiencing those fillings with such intensity now.”

“I don’t feel anything now. There’s nothing left. It’s hard to explain, there’s just …”

“You’re feeling a bit numb? Is that better or worse or are they about the same?” Emmet asked as he sat down next to me on the floor and offered out his hand for me. Less than half an hour ago I would have squeezed them as tight as my hands would have let me but I could only stare at them now, like I was confused what he wanted from me. He removed the offer with a small sigh and placed them down by his side and remained silent waiting for the time to tick away. He had no answers and neither did I. We were lost.  

“They all happened, repeatedly. I was three years old the first time. Fifteen when it stopped.”

“Was it someone you knew, did they live in the house with you?” It was just his way of asking for a name. Someone he could point at and blame and a name he could drag through the courts while I appeared on a video link in a pretty pink dress and told them about all the times he touched me or kissed me or fucked me. I would have to convince twelve strangers in suites that I wasn’t making up lies. That I didn’t want attention, that I didn’t lay down in lace panties and bra and beg him to fuck me.

The idea made the feelings come back. Another series of images flashing in front of my mind of the times he had not made me numb, the times when he had woken me up and made me feel everything. The thing is they weren’t all bad, sometimes with the ripping came the wired pleasure too. The feeling that would make my body rive is something other than pain. It was his excuse. He said I enjoyed it too that when he was gone I would one day wish that someone else could fuck me like he did.

I felt joy, I felt pain, I felt fear, I felt sadness, I felt anger, I felt dirty and disgusting… everything.

I got to my feet without speaking anymore as I tried to gasp air into my lungs that was no longer in the room and stumbled around disorientated wondering what part of me to hold together first as my arms legs chest stomach and head pulled in different directions. I could feel vomit rise in my mouth at the same time as urine ran down the side of my legs and into my PJ bottoms while my head kept snapping through a hundred snap shots a second that tried to take me to the floor. I wanted to scream but I couldn’t. I wanted to run but I was trapped.

“Mi, it’s all right, you’re safe here, it’s OK try and take some breaths,” Emmet tried to say calmly as he watched my out of control body fall apart. He fort with himself too as he watched on. A part of him was desperate to reach out and conceal the avalanche of emotion inside of his arms.  It was like if he could take the impact of the snow drift of feelings he might not survive but I would, however he was now more than ever very aware of what he was. A man.

“Step in,” he barked at Alice who was still standing by the door even if she now looked horrified at what she was seeing. It was a cruel demand of her, she had no better idea of what to do then he did. Her only advantage she really had when it came down to it was the fact she had boobs and a vagina.

Finally after what felt hours of no air and no sound my lungs worked out hot to take a gasp of air and my tears broke through with the screaming. My legs stumbled towards the bathroom as there point of call. I wasn’t sure why they felt that was where they should go. Maybe it was because it was the only open door and there was a bright light on behind it. It could have signified escape. It could have meant that I was a dirty diseased infested fly that was attracted to the light.

I heaved hard over the toilet allowing the vomit to splash into the bottom of the below at the same time as blood began to pour from the end of my nose to mix in the toilet which for some reason made me cry harder. My body was disintegrating and I had lost all control over its actions. It was terrifying and it felt like I was going to die from the pressure and pain that pressed on every atom of me.

After I was sick again I fell to my knees and crawled with my last energy to the corner of the bathroom doubled as wet room and smashed the button making the hot jets of water burst into life and soak my cloths before I lied down on the floor in a tight ball and watched as the water turned red before circling the drain  

Chapter 261 : Broken promises mixed with lies, but he can’t know the secrets I hide

“Esmee…. Emsee are you there?”

“Yes, yes or course I am sorry,” I had no idea how long I had gone away for inside my head but it was long enough for me to have been ignoring Emmet and now I had no idea what he was saying. My flash backs where rare now and had got increasingly less over the years of my adult life and normally I could keep them at bay with the help of an elastic band and a strong will, but some memories still hurt too much; still lurked under bolts and chains at the back of my head waiting to be discovered. It had been years of my life since I had felt such pain, since I had been… abused. The trouble was I could still not see it properly, could not quite use the word abuse and link it to myself. My mother and father had warned me of the dangers of strangers and told me men were not allowed to touch me in places that where meant to be private. I was prepared and I was warned. They had read the books on how to keep me safe from paedophiles but they had not considered - and why would they - that there best friends teenage daughter would be the one to steal my innocence. They dropped me off into her hands more times than I could count and I let her play her “games.” After all strange men were not allowed to touch my private area but nothing was ever mentioned about woman and least of all “auntie” Julie.   I just thought that it was OK and once I learned that it wasn’t I could never find the words to say. No one new about Julies times with me. She was considered a loving helpful girl that would do anything for anyone. She was paid little for looking after me and my parent’s loved her like there second daughter. We all cried at her funeral after she had taken the overdose of her mother’s sleeping Pills and not came out of her comer; even I had. What was worse I still couldn’t really say with any confidence or conviction that I hated her for what she did and what was even more stupid, was even after 16 years  not being baby sat by her I could still not tell a living soul on planet earth about what she did… not even my husband. That didn’t mean I couldn’t remember every horrific detail.

“What do I do with her Esmee? How can I help? She thinks I am going to abuse her, rape her even. She asked me to do it. I mean can I even work with her at all now from a professional point of view or am I a threat now?”

“She knows who you are Emmet. Her asking you to do that is her way of asking for comfort. When most kids get a cuddle when they are little to make the pain go away she got abuse. Children can’t process that in their heads so they just become numb to it. She associates the abuse with not feeling anything and when you are feeling everything so intently, what could be better?

“I should walk away. I should sign off her case cover my back and make sure only females deal with her,” Emmet said in a matter of fact way, his logical mind coming in to try and protect him from the absolute devastation of the circumstance. It was not him. He wanted to do something different. To leave Mi now, to not try and make it OK would kill him inside.

“So that’s what you should do. Now what do you want to do Emmet? What makes you human?”

“I want to wrap my arms around her and tell her that it’s going to be OK now. That no one will hurt her like that again,” I could hear the solidness in his voice forming again as I allowed him to chase away logic with what he felt. He was so much more sensitive then he looked and he liked to admit, another reason why I could never tell him what happened. I might have been the one that was … abused… but it would be him it destroyed and what would that achieve? Would he even look at me again, or touch me? What would happen if I was no longer pure in his eyes? Would he/could he even love me if he found out I was soiled goods?

“Hold your head up. Stop destroying the foliage, go back inside and get a female NA to come with you but go back and see her.  I know this sounds crazy but open the bathroom door for her as well. It’s strange but I guess if you have suffered that sort of abuse looked bathrooms would be terrifying. They were utterly sickening. There was a reason none of the bathrooms in our house had a lock. After that give her that cuddle, let her know she’s safe. It’s what she wants and needs. To know that it isn’t her fault, that she is still worthy and whole.”

“You terrify me with your knowledge. Promise me… promise me that no one’s ever hurt you like that darling.”  I had to hold the phone away from me and press my hand over my mouth to stop the sob that stretched up from my chest with my tears and out of my mouth before running over to the sink and urging twice trying to budge the agony of what I was going to have to do. I was going to have to lie to him. Not just avoid the question like so many times before but actually deceive the man who picked my broken body off of the streets and made a home with me, a life, made a person out of a wreck.

“I just read the books and got what they meant Emmet. Woman’s intuition or something like that I guess. No one has ever done that to me. Now, go and see Mi, she needs you.”

“I love you Honey.”

“I love you too Emmet. Whatever happenens always remember that.” 

Chapter 260 : Another shrub bites the dust

Esmee

I scowled at the phone on the kitchen wall as it burst into life just as I had sat down to sip at my coffee. I was still tired from my night shift before and if I had my way would probably still be in bed but Leo and Lenny had to drop Mia off before they both started there late shifts in the A&E and on the ambulance’s. There was no one that would have possibly been phoning me apart from a cold caller asking about double glazing or loft insulation as all family and friends new when either myself or Emmet where working nights and didn’t phone. I glanced menacingly at our eco double glazed windows as I slipped off my seat and made my way to the phone ready to tell whoever it was that some people worked nights and I wanted to be sleeping.

“Hello,” I groaned answering the phone before smashing the loud speaker button and dragging it back over to the table where my coffee called to me.

“Hi my love how are you doing? I didn’t wake you did I?”

“Emmet, no, no of course not it’s fine. I am up waiting for the return of our darling daughter anyway. Apparently she has spent the morning finger painting with Lenny so I expect to be greeted by some sort of green goblin at any moment but other than that it’s fine,” I laughed as I fingered through a magazine that I had left on the table until I came to a countdown of what was considered to be the sexiest woman. I smiled as I noticed Emmet had crossed out number one and wrote my name instead. The beautiful thing was- even though it was mad – in his head he meant it.

“That’s great,” Emmet gulped his voice sounding funny as he spoke, like somehow he was trying to fit the words around something that was stuck in his throat. He was tearful. He was trying not to be. He was trying to be the big brave six foot six man that we all saw but he was struggling.

“Where are you too Emmet? What’s happened?”

“I’m just outside the unit, getting some air. I think I might have killed a few of these shrubs as well. I’m OK I just wanted to hear you voice and Amelia’s if she was home, make sure they you were both OK and that you knew that I love you.”  I could hear him beginning to weep properly as he struggled to end his sentence on the same tone as he had started it. He didn’t want me or anyone else to know of his distress and anyone else might have ignored the subtle changes in his voice but I knew him inside out. I had studied every movement of his body and scrutinized the sound of his voice and every emotion. I knew him better then I knew myself.

“Honey talk to me properly,” I said turning off the loud speaker and pressing the phone to my ear. It was stupid but in some way it made me feel closer to him which was where I wanted to be. “you can’t hide away from me. I know you’re upset. Why are you outside the unit?”

“I had to find somewhere I could vomit without having to fill in an infection control form. As I said I think I might have killed the shrubs though.”

“Well bugger the shrubs Emmet, what’s made you sick? Has someone hurt you? Have you got a tummy bug? If so get your arse home here and I will look after you but I doubt it’s that because that doesn’t explain the weeping. Talk to me, “ I demanded.

“Mi’s just asked me to kick her around the floor till I break her ribs, or to load her on water then Jack off in the corner while she was desperate to Pee. She also said if I preferred it violent I could hold her by the throat and fuck her until she bleeds, or I could shove a knife up her Vagina.” Emmet said the words in a rush and then went quiet as I heard gagging noises in the background. It seemed more than one shrub was going to die today as he tried to comprehend what had been explained to him.

“If I ever… ever meet the man that did this too her… I swear to god I’ll…I’ll”

“Rip their fucking head’s off, I know, I know. You would have to wait your turn Emmet.”

“She just a child,” He moaned his anger turning back to the tearful lump that he tried to speak around. The anger didn’t have as much power as the revolution in his head. He like me could now see the abuse playing out in his head, hear the predator’s laughter and moans as he watched the child he found so, seducing preform for him. 

  I pinged the elastic band that was around my wrist to try and centre myself back in my kitchen as my mind threated to retreat back to another time…

“Come on Esmee don’t be a baby, we are just playing a game,” Julie laughed as she watched me with wide eyes as I began to cry.

“But I really need the bathroom and it hurts,” I whined twisting me legs against the pain in my tummy. “I’m four now, I am a big girl. Mummy will be really cross if I wet myself Julie. I really need to go.”

“Well you will just have to hold it then won’t you.”

“But I can’t, I really can’t,” I whined the pain throbbing inside me as I pulled at every muscle. I didn’t understand what she was doing to me or why. There was a toilet just under the stairs and there was no one in there.

“Why don’t you let me help?” Julie asked as she crawled across the room on all fours and put her hand up my skirt…

Chapter 259: Emmets a weapon

* Very distressing bits read with care 

I took two tablets of Lorazapam. I wasn’t sure why. I had protested that I didn’t like Bezo’s but Emmet was persistent and I didn’t like the look of the needle Elizabeth brandished if I didn’t swallow the blue pills with a paper cup of water. I was told that they wouldn’t make me sleep just relax me slightly but I knew that was a lie. It seemed like good idea really though. If you wake up and find that you can’t deal with anything you might as well go back to sleep again. The trouble was I never wanted to wake up so when I felt the outlines of consciousness inside my head I tried desperately to stay under. After all Emmet would be gone too now, he would have crept out when I was lost somewhere to unconsciousness. I could feel the tears coming back before I even opened my eyes and my bottom lip quivered no matter how much I tried to stop it. I rolled my body up tighter on the mattress and tried to float away again before I could remember anything else. Like how the walls of the ECA looked or how I didn’t even have control over the lights. How I weighed over nighty pounds and now had something alien shoved up inside of me… I could feel the tears escape under my closed eyes.

“Please don’t wake up,” I whispered to myself begging my senses to become numb again, for the Lorazapam to have a last minute sedating effect, for my lungs to stop forcing the air in and out of me or for my heart to wither and die. It wasn’t so likely anymore now though, I was bigger and things where working, death seemed farther away - unless I did something about it.

After another five minutes I stopped fighting and I let my body open my eyes to the world.  After I had taken the tablets I had started to fall asleep propped up in the corner of the room but Emmet had led me over to the mattress that I now took up a corner of. I had moved in my sleep from one end of the mattress to the other witch scared me. The movement had been out of my control and I didn’t like it, what else had I done.

“Are you feeling a bit better now honey?” I jumped startled by the sound of his voice in what I assumed would be a deserted room and twisted around on the mattress so I could see him. It made no sense for him to still be there. I was glad that he was but he should have gone like Esmee had and almost strangely I wanted that at the same time. I didn’t deserve him, or her, or anything.

“I’m doing paperwork,” Emmet explained obviously noticing something in my face as I watched him, “Esmee said that it was a good place to get things done. She caught up on all of hers last night when you were sleeping.  I have done quite a bit too.”

“Can I sit next to you?” I asked stupidly the words spilling from my mouth before I engaged my brain. There was something about him that made me feel safe. He should have gone, he shouldn’t have been wasting his time on me, but I was selfishly happy. He eased my pain but it wasn’t something that I could understand not even after all the time I had been there and that made it hurt. If he had turned around and pushed me around or kicked me to the floor, or even fucked me against the wall I could have understood it. It might have even helped. I could then become numb. There was only one thing that was worse than not feeling a thing, and that was feeling everything.

“Of course you can. I even have another one of those hands to hold if you want it,” I moved from the mattress slowly and took my position next to him taking hold of his hand in mine. I tried to breathe steadily to stop more tears from taking me. I wasn’t even completely sure why I wanted to cry just that I did. I always did but no matter what he said tears caused trouble. It scared people into sedating each other. I could still feel the heavy stiffness in my muscles and the sedation to my brain like it was trying to work in grey smog.

I sniffed involuntary as the great waves of repressed tears made me shudder. Everything was too much – I had to stop it at any cost, even his. I took a deep breath and squeezed by bad hand hard around Emmets, the pain swelled inside me as every nerve ending sent a message to my brain that I was being hurt by someone and my eyes told me that Emmet was doing it. It was what I needed for him to hurt me, for him to hate me. I understood the barriers of abuse, of rape and of hate. I knew so easily how that relationship worked and how it felt beside my body. Kind words and gentle hands never had made sense, however I selfishly and confusingly liked the kind words and the hugs and the cuddles but that didn’t always feel OK.

Emmets face twisted from confused to horrified then angry and as he wrenched his hand from me and held it against his chest like somehow I had hurt him, I breathed hard with a smile on my face the pain causing black dots to explode against my vision. The only thing I felt was physical throbbing, nothing hurt anymore and I didn’t want to cry. Emmet also made sense for the first time. He had hurt me – I saw it.

“That’s enough of that! Don’t you dare use me as a weapon to hurt yourself with!” Emmet shouted regarding me with shock as he got to his feet and walked to the ECA door with his key card ready so he could leave. The emotional pain won again but not enough to completely get rid of the physical and it left me in pure agony giving me no choice but to scream which caught his attention just before he left so he turned around letting the ECA door click closed again.

“Mi, I don’t know what to do to help, I want to but if you’re going to use me as a weapon to hurt yourself with I am what is making the ECA un-safe and I have to leave. It’s either that or I restrain you and I inject you with another dose of Lorazapam. Talk to me, tell me how it feels. What you need from me.”

“It feels like I’m on fucking fire. It feels like my brain is pulling itself in ten different ways and its ripping apart along the fault lines. It feels like someone has got in there car and is running me over repeatedly. Someone has put there had through my chest pulled out my heart and squeezed it while another person is using my intestines for a skipping rope and my bladder for a trampoline and I don’t know what to do to stop it!” I yelled before breaking into sobbing and clutching at my tummy where the pain seemed to intensify the most. 

“Well that’s really horrible and I am really sorry that you feel like that but unfortunately I haven’t got a pain killer that will make it all go away. Mental health doesn’t really work like that honey. Still that is not an excuse for you to use me as something to hurt yourself with. Now if there is something I can do. Something to distract you…”

“How about you kick me around the floor until you break my ribs, or hold me by the hair and bash my head against the wall, or if that isn’t to your taste, how about we get a little more perverted. How about you force feed me water or coffee then not let me use the loo so you can jack off in the corner while I squirm and cry until I pee all over myself, or how about we forget the games and you just hold me against the wall by my throat and fuck me till I bleed. Of course you may like it violent, how about shoving a knife up me” I remembered every time it happened before so clearly inside my head and I remembered not liking it but there was no feeling, only a numbness which was what I needed. Emmet made me feel too much, even if it was a good expense, even if he was good.

 I had been three the first time Joe had loaded me up on juice then locked the bathroom door and told me to hold it or I would be a very bad girl. He had got such a thrill he then did it every week till I was ten; sometimes twice. He came back for a brief encore when I was fourteen after he had got all he could from my mother. He had watched for six painful hours as I begged him in agony; he then rubbed my face in it when my body’s instincts won over. It was brain who liked to watch me chock at his hands while moved violently inside me. He would finish off when I was passed out on the floor then I would wake up disorientated and sore minutes later. He only every used a knife once, I bleed too much and it scared him. He liked the thrill but he didn’t want to be imprisoned for my murder. I prayed for death. 

“So come on Emmet pick your poison because frankly right now it would hurt less than this. I wouldn’t feel it at all and I want the pain to go away, I want it to go away,” I sobbed harder as I watched Emmets face which only served to break my heart further. He was now pale and shaking as he swallowed hard trying to move the tears in his eyes. I had not thought before I had spoken. I had been to hurt to consider his Feelings to. Emmet was nothing like them. He was good and the thought of hurting me the thought if anyone going that to a child made his soul bleed.

“Mi, I have to go for a few minutes OK,” He finally said, his voice sounding strained somewhere in the back of his throat as he talked with his hand in front of his mouth. “I’m not angry at you and I am not abandoning you and I promise I will come back in less than then minutes but I have to step out for a bit.”

With that he was gone. I had finally got exactly what I always wanted. I was alone in the world and I didn’t feel a thing. There was only one thing worse than feeling too much and that was not feeling a thing. I couldn’t win.

Chapter 258 : All roads lead to Lorazapam

 My body betrayed me. I wanted to hold y breath as soon as the plastic moluded to my cheeks but the physical me had other ideas and sucked in huge lung-fulls the oxygen that swirled around the mask but still I could not stop the tears like I had hoped it would. I wasn’t sobbing no more, my body couldn’t produce the sobs without my head feeling like it was going to rip apart so it simply stopped but the silent tears that stung my eyes and then dripped off of my nose where worse. They were tears of defeat. I wanted to scream and sob, at least then it felt like I was rebelling against the depression that was swallowing me whole. At least I was telling it to go away not waiting till it finished playing with me.

“Deep breaths,” Ava encouraged gently, as she watched my chest rise and fall still to rapidly an effect of the left over crying. “Try and stay controlled,” she added going to an almost wired hypnotic softness, like somehow she was trying to lure me in before she attacked ripping at my flesh with her fingers and tarring me apart. I winced away scratching the mask off of my face so I could curl up with my head tucked in to my chest and my arms over my head. My lungs protested making me try and hack them up. Eventually my stomach protested at my lugs protest and I had to give up my barrier reluctantly so I could scramble to a seating position and expel a frothy clear substance into the bottom of one of the cardboard dishes. All three of the nurses acted immediately grabbing for more bowls apart from Ava who pulled my hair off my face. In the end Emmet was the one who, got the task of holding the bowl stable so I didn’t throw the condense of my stomach over the floor and as always he didn’t mind even if I did.

As soon as I was done with vomiting I curled up again to Emmet’s protest and hid my face with my hands so my greedy body wouldn’t get’ its own way as it tried to root towards the mask that Emmet tried to shove over my mouth again. I could almost hear his silent groan frustration – it was as loud as mine, there was no logical reason why I shouldn’t have had the aid of the oxygen to make me feel better. I was just unable to accept it. Ava and Edward just looked lost.

“I am meant to be doing morning meds,” Emmet said with a groan turning his attention away from me towards Ava. My heart did a summersault and shuddered before the defeated crying turned back into a sob. He was going to leave me too he said he would always come back but it wasn’t the point. I couldn’t stand him leaving at all right then and I didn’t care who missed there “happy pills”

“I can cover the meds. She knows you batter then me and she might talk to you about what has happened. Maybe Edward should vacate for a while as well it must be overwhelming to have us all here while she is so distressed.” I could have hugged her. It didn’t matter how stupid it was or how much she was unaware of it. She had just saved me from being internally ripped apart again.

 

“I am meant to be taking over in the camera room anyway,” Edward confirmed with a nod agreeing with Ava as they both moved off of the floor and got to their feet.  “All you have to do is yell if you need anything.”

“Will do but I think we will be fine.”

“Well I hope you start to feel better soon Mi,” Ava said patting me once on the arm before both Edward and herself took five steps across the floor and let themselves out with ease using the simple key. The simple key that I did not have but Emmet did. He could leave whenever he felt like it and leave me behind like them and… her. My body ached sending another spasm of pain up my body as I tried to repress the frantic tears.

“It’s just me now honey, Edward will turn the sound off on the cameras and pay us no attention unless things get out of control and I need some help getting it back for you. You’re perfectly safe so there is really no need for this barricade of arms and legs you’re hiding behind and I promise I won’t force you to have this mask over your face unless the numbers on the monitor goes under 95. I would really like to see you properly.”

I looked up slowly and uncurled my legs. It was harder then it seemed, every instinct was telling me to be small to not show the shameful tears that dripped from my eyes and down my neck before soaking into my old PJ top. I was meant to be strong still. Staff had learnt that I wasn’t but that didn’t stop the thought in my head that demanded that I was always in control of the entire world. I yelped trying to keep the tears silent. I didn’t understand my reaction or why the thought of Esmee made me want to scratch my brain out of my head. Every time I saw her face in my head it was like being run over by a car repeatedly my ribs never getting time to heal inside my chest.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. I know sometimes you can just feel a bit crap but if there is something that has done this and you need someone just to listen or to vent at I am your guy, also if there is anything that I can do to help this situation just let me know.

I wanted to ask him to hug, to press his arms around mine and hold me safe and secure away from everything that could happen. I wanted him to wash away the ECA the foam, the entire unit and I wanted him to remove the crazy bit inside my head or at the very least make me safe from her, but… I couldn’t ask for a hug it was so stupid, juvenile… healing. I cried harder, pressing my hands over my eyes as my shoulders shook.

“Can…can I hold your hand?” I sniffed trying to control myself with gulping breaths. It wasn’t want I wanted but it was easier to ask for then asking for him told me like his two year old daughter again

“Yes of course you can, that’s an easy one.” Emmet lent out both his hands in my directions and spread his fingers out offering them to me. “You can have either one, or both.”

I took his right hand in my good hand and rested my bad wrist into his left letting him wrap his fingers around the splint and my fingers while I squeezed his right hand hard. It left me unprotected to hide but he meant more in some ways. I could tell my tears affected him though he tried to hide it in his face He didn’t mind them, they didn’t make him uncomfortable but he hated the fact he couldn’t dry them.

“It’s going to be OK honey. You are going to have one hell of a head ach at the end of all of this but you are going to be fine, try not to be scared of this, it won’t last forever”

I sobbed harder. I would have thought I would have been impossible but it wasn’t, my whole body rocked backwards and forwards with the motion. My head screamed and so did my lungs the alarm on the monitor also agreed after a few seconds as the numbers reached 94 and I became very aware of the mask that was still laying at Emmets side. I stole my hands back from him and scrambled away off of the mattress and into a padded corner, detaching the monitor from my finger. 

“Ok, Mi I’m going to take control of this situation if you can’t give me a yes to one of these options, I’m going to step in and force some treatment Ok, because you are under a section 3 here and you are not considered to have capacity I am allowed to do that Ok. So you can allow me to put this oxygen on and see how it goes and if it comes up we can wait until this runs its natural course, or I can get some lorazapam and you can take that for me. If you are unable to do that for me I will inject you with the Lorazapam, even if we have to use physical restraint. I understand that this makes me look like the bad guy and you may hate me for a little while but I have to do my job… even with you.”

“It hurts Emmet,” I moaned not knowing the answer he wanted from me. I think the truth was I wanted him to step in because I couldn’t or wouldn’t make the choice.

“OK I’m going to make the pain go away Mi. I’m going to make the choice and I’m going to give you some tablets to take OK.” I nodded once through my tears letting him know that I would take whatever he wanted and do anything he had planned and Emmet turned around preforming a strange dance for the camera and making motions to turn up the volume.

“I’ve got Elizabeth on the case Emmet. She’s going to bring oral and intravenous. Also got C&R on stand bye.” The voice of Edward announced “We’ll get it sorted out.” 

Chapter 257 : Oxygenated battle

Edward came back as he promised along with a tall thin nurse called Ava. She was in her early twenties, had Ash blond hair that went down to the middle of her back in tight ringlets framing an oval shaped face. Her eyes where no distinctive colour but resembled a grayish blue and she wore golden eye shadow and a shiny clear lip gloss the made her plump lips stand out. I had seen her around the unit before but had never really had much to say to her even the times she had hovered around me in my times of observation she didn’t offer any conversation just a body to make sure I didn’t hurt myself.

“Edward told me you weren’t doing so well.” She said sweetly in her high pitched voice that would have suited a child as she bent down beside me and placed a mixture of different things on the floor the included my morning tablets and an oxygen cylinder with mask already attached to it just in case. I shivered hoping that it was intended for another patient or being used as a strange form of decoration.

“I just want to put this on one of your fingers.” Ava half smiled at me battering her mascaraed eyelashes twice as she unravelled the lead of a hand held oxygen monitor and clipped it onto my finger. It took a little while but soon the beeping of my fast pulse filled up of the room with life, my life. Without this pulse the pain wouldn’t exist. The void wouldn’t matter. I tried to convince them that there was no reason for me to stay around. What real life was I living when I had to literally be kept in cotton wool?

 “You seemed to have got yourself in quite the pickle here,” Ava said as she took the opposite wrist into her hand and looped her fingers around my skin finding the spot in my wrist that I had searched for many times before just with a different intention. I had craved the spot to end my life. She craved to find it to preserve it. Ava smiled at me again as she finished her counting and I tried to return it. I normally hated people that acted like Ava, she had all the features of a paediatric care bare. She would have fitted well in the bright colours of the skylight ward; even her tee shirt had a sketchy drawing of Bambi on it from the Disney film. If she hadn’t worked here in the middle off all this madness and desperation I would of swore that she never knew mental illness existed let alone chose to get her hands dirty with it but because she did, was the reason I actually liked her.

“Esmee said that you had a rough night too but she finally managed to get you off to sleep at around 4am” My stomach lurched as I heard her name and I wasn’t sure why but I couldn’t stop the retching noise rippling up my throat. Why didn’t she just wake me up and tell me she was going? It would have all been OK if she told me. The world would have been fixed of all its issues if she had stayed. Stupid idiot even you know that that is a lie.

“Do you think you are you going to be sick?” Ava asked sweetly as she finished getting the information from the monitor and turned to the oxygen tank twisting the knob on the top of it and placed the mask subtly by my chin. At least that grated me the answer to her question. I could feel the vomit push against my throat and I gagged moaning that I was going to throw up.

Edward sprang to his feet in one fluid motion and rushed off to the side of the room opening the bathroom with his card key. He reached inside and grabbed a pile of cardboard dishes off of the only shelf then returned to me placing one into my lap. I chocked hard twice as I curled my hands around the cardboard lip but I brought nothing up.

“This will make you feel a lot better at least physically if you let me hold this properly to your face Mi, All tis crying are really giving your body a work out and your lungs are struggling to keep up.” Ava smiled, showing her teeth this time, allowing me to see that they were neatly concealed behind a layer of train track braces; it made her look very young. “Maybe you could hold this mask to your face or let me, or Edward if you would prefer, I know you know him a little better than me.”

I grimaced at the thought of the supple plastic sucking itself to my cheek bones, at the slight anti septic taste the air had as it swirled in my mouth and made tracks down into my greedy lungs. I needed it and I wanted it but a barrier that contained no logic blocked the only path to it.  I wailed harder in the desperate confusion before reaching out to take the mask then backing away before I reached it. I bashed my head hard against the mattress trying to knock the thoughts out.  

“Mi you need this and that it OK,” Said another voice entering into the room before scooting his giant body in between Ava and Edward his jade eyes looking directly into mine. “You need some help right now and that is OK. There is no price to pay and I can promise there will be no repercussions. Trust me. I did there was no way I couldn’t and  immediately I removed my hands away from my face and let him press the mask up against my mouth.