The next morning, I woke up and went through my normal routine. I got a shower, took my meds, had breakfast in the great hall, and came back to my room to read a book. I wasn't sure when the detective would come back, but I felt like everything was normal and that nothing out of the ordinary would happen. Then I got the knock at my door telling me I had visitors. Wait, visitors? Plural? Why would the detective bring more than just himself?
I walked out into the greeting room and was shocked at who stood before me. It was Nicole and Ashley. How strange that I would get a visit from my high school best friends for only the third time since the start of my time in here. "Hey." Is all I could muster out of me with all the shock, curiosity, and confusion meeting my paranoia.
"Hey, Sam. Long time no see." Nicole tried to make light of the situation. But I could tell they were here for a reason. One thing you pick up in a mental institution is body language. You can spot emotions from a mile away before they even come to the surface. Nicole tried to give me a gentle smile, but I could tell it was a wary one.
"Yeah! It's so good to see you!" Ashley came in for a hug. I wasn't expecting that, but I hugged her back to be polite. "How have you been doing?" A furrow found it's way between her brows. Yep, something was up. But what?
"I've actually been doing pretty good. Until yesterday..." I waited to see if they would catch on to my tone and emotions like I did with them. They exchanged worried glances with each other. Then, they turned back to look at me as if to tell me to explain a little further. "I was told that there is a new detective in town stirring up some old dust with Lucy's case?" I didn't mean for it sound like a question, but it came out that way for some reason.
"Yeah... I guess that's sort of why we're here." Ashley turned her body inward and shifted her feet. Right.
Of course that's why they were here. Why wouldn't my so called best friends visit me under any normal circumstances? "And?" I started to walk away, but they didn't know whether to follow me or not. "You coming, or are you just gonna stand in the lobby all morning?"
Nicole smiled and started after me. "Same old Sam, never one to mince words with people." I lead them into the great room and we all sat down. "Well, we just wanted to come warn you about him, but I guess he must have already beat us to it." I decided to sit us away from everyone else so we could have some illusion of privacy. "When did he come?"
"Yesterday. My doctor, Dr. Miller came to talk to me about it and..." I paused. I could feel my cheeks getting hot with embarrassment, "I fainted." Those felt like the worst words that could come out of my mouth in all of my life. Then I started to laugh, and the other two joined in.
"You fainted?" Ashley looked amused. "That is so like you!" We were all laughing pretty hard now. It was a sound I haven't heard in a long time. Laughter. I don't think I've heard it come from my own mouth in such a long time. We finally quieted down when we realized that the whole room stopped what they were doing to stare at us. "So..." Ashley paused for a moment. "Are you going to, or are you allowed to-"
"What, talk to the detective?" Ashley and Nicole nodded. "Yeah. Dr. Miller thinks it's best I cooperate. I think it would be better too, because if I don't then they will want to lean on the 'crazy girl in the insane asylum' even more." I rolled my eyes.
"Come on Sam. You're not crazy! I don't even think you still belong in here." Nicole looked around with a look of disgust on her face. They never understood. They couldn't understand unless I explained.
"You still don't get it do you?" They looked at each other, then back at me and shook their heads. "I want to be here. It's easier here. I don't have to go on pretending like everything's fine when I know that it's not. My parents wanted to do everything possible to get me to forget about Lucy and to not focus on her case. But what they didn't realize, was that I felt responsible."
"But you weren't." Ashley looked confused. "You weren't responsible for anything that happened to Lucy. She made her own choices. Good or bad. You weren't responsible for any of it." Ashley had this way about her that made everyone around feel so peaceful. I envied her optimism. But I'm a pessimist. I don't look at the glass as being half full like she does. The glass is half empty, just like me. "Sam I-"
"Just stop." I cut her off, and she took the hint. We sat there in silence for what felt like an eternity. I finally broke the ice, "Okay so you came here to warn me about the detective. Well, I already knew, so why are you guys still here?"
"Oh come on Sam!" Nicole practically yelled at me, but then lowered her voice when a few orderlies turned to look at our table in concern. "Sorry, I'm just... I don't know. We wanted to at least talk to you and make sure you were okay." She was hiding something.
"Okay, and?"
"And... and we wanted to make sure that you would stay quiet about the plan." She rushed through the sentence. She was nervous.
"Ah." I get it now. "So, I can talk to the detective, but I can't tell him everything?" Nicole and Ashley shook their heads. "Of course." They wanted to protect themselves. I mean, it would protect me too, but to even have the guts to ask this of me. "I wasn't going to say anything anyway. We made a promise, remember?" They nodded their heads. They felt relieved. So strange that I can pick up on that.
Dr. Miller always told me that I was too empathetic for my own good. I picked up on things before anyone else ever did. I always knew when a patient was going to overreact to something, or when someone was contemplating suicide, or when someone wasn't taking their medications. He would just look at me in wonder. He always felt like I had a gift of empathy. I called it a curse. He thinks that was why I took Lucy's death so hard because I always felt things so deeply. But I told him... I touched Lucy's casket at the service and couldn't feel anything. It was like someone turned out the lights. I couldn't even feel my own emotions, and I wanted to die. I thought maybe in death, I would feel something more than this pit of blackness. It wasn't until three months later that the lights started to come back on. I started to feel my own emotions again. Then that's when I let it all out.
I was angry. I was sad. I was everything under the sun all at once. All of my emotions came in like flood gates had just opened up inside me. I destroyed my room. The orderlies came in to try to detain me, but Dr. Miller told them to let me have it out. I was finally allowing myself to feel. I could see for the first time in 5 months. I could feel for the first time in 5 months. And Dr. Miller was right, I needed to get it all out. I finally stopped and fell to the floor sobbing. Dr. Miller came over to me, knelt down on the floor beside me, and just smiled. Then he said, "welcome back, Samantha." Welcome back. He somehow knew that I couldn't feel anything. Maybe it was all of our therapy sessions. Or maybe he was sensitive like I was.
A few hours had passed, and we got to catch up on life. We ate lunch together. I asked them what they were doing now, and they regaled me with all the details. I was surprised to find out that Nicole went into law, but not so surprised that Ashley is in fashion. They caught me up some things that were happening in their lives. Boyfriends, friends, scandals at Nicole's work, and all the other things. Then, before we knew it, it was dinner time and visiting hours were over. I didn't know how much I missed having them around me. It was like this detective gave me my friends back. Maybe even my life back. In a way, I'm thankful that Lucy's death could bring something good into my life other than freedom.