I Plead Insanity, Your Honor
1366 Words
GWEN
TW: Hospitalization, Suicide, Dissociation
I come back to the world slowly—like I’m rising through fog-thick water. The ceiling swims into focus above me, white and humming with fluorescent light. Machines whir in soft, steady rhythms. My mouth tastes metallic, my tongue thick, and my limbs feel impossibly heavy, like they’re filled with sand.
I try to move.
That’s when I feel them.
Restraints.
My wrists jerk against them. A bolt of panic slices through my chest.
Why… why am I tied down?
A sharp breath rips into my lungs, too fast, too thin. I push myself upward—too quickly—and pain streaks down my ribs like something tearing.
What happened?
Where am I?
Why can’t I move?
My breath comes shallow and uneven. I turn my head—slowly, clumsily—as if my skull has doubled in weight.
Bruises pattern my arms. Deep, ugly smudges like fingerprints. Scratches burn across my knuckles. My legs—strapped too.
My stomach turns.
What did I do?
A voice—familiar—cuts through the sterile quiet.
“You’re awake.”
I force my heavy eyes left.
Jason sits there, massive frame curled forward, elbows on his knees. He looks wrecked. Scraped-up, bruised… exhausted in a way that makes dread curl under my skin.
Jay is next to him, asleep in a hard plastic chair, head tilted back. His chest rises and falls in soft, vulnerable breaths.
Jay.
Something between us feels sharp and fragile, like a cracked memory I can’t hold onto.
My voice scrapes out rough and sandpapered.
“What… happened? Why am I here?”
I lift my hand out of instinct—to rub my face, to ground myself—but the strap stops me. Panic jumps high, hot.
“Why am I tied down?”
Jason exhales, slow, like he’s counting to keep himself steady. His features soften into that expression I hate—the gentle, pitying one you give a wounded animal.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I snap, throat burning. “Just tell me.”
He hesitates. And Jason never hesitates. The pause is a warning all its own.
“You don’t remember?”
“I wouldn’t be asking if I did.”
He rubs the back of his neck. The scratches there look deep. Painful.
“The nurse should really explain this—”
“Jason.”
My voice cracks down the middle.
“Tell me.”
His gaze shifts—colder, steadier, resigned.
“You… had a fit of madness,” he says softly. “You ran into traffic. You tried to get hit.”
I laugh. A raw, choked, disbelieving sound.
“No. God, no—Jason, I would never—”
“It doesn’t matter what you think you’d do.”
“I don’t even think like that.”
“Blackouts don’t care what you think,” he answers. “You weren’t yourself, Gwen.”
The world tilts. The ceiling spins. My ears ring.
“Stop. Stop. You don’t know me.”
Jason doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink.
“No,” he says quietly. “But I know what I saw. And I know what I had to do to drag you out of four lanes while you fought me like you were trying to tear yourself open.”
My breath falters.
“No,” I whisper. “That’s not—no…”
“I’m sorry.”
Before I can force the words back up my throat, a hoarse voice croaks beside him.
“G…?”
Jay stirs, blinking awake. His hair sticks up in soft tufts, his eyes wide and terrified, like he’s seeing a ghost.
“You’re awake.”
He steps closer—slow, careful, like he’s approaching something fragile.
“Gwen, I—God, I was so scared.”
“Jay…” My lips tremble. “Tell me it’s not true. Tell me I didn’t do that.”
He doesn’t speak.
He doesn’t have to.
He leans down and folds me against him in the gentlest half-hug, mindful of the restraints biting into my skin.
“You scared the s**t out of me,” he whispers, voice breaking.
I try to hug him back, but the straps hold fast. My chest tightens unbearably.
“Why can’t I love you?” I choke out. “Why is every path we take a dead end? Why is everything—why is everything wrong?”
My breathing stutters, sharp and rapid.
The machines scream in alarm.
Footsteps pound.
Nurses flood the room.
Hands pull Jay and Jason back.
“NO!” I scream, thrashing as far as the restraints allow. “DON’T LEAVE—DON’T LEAVE ME AGAIN!”
White coats blur together.
Cold voices.
A needle’s sting.
Then darkness.
A soft, heavy, forced-darkness.
-----
~ ONE WEEK LATER ~
They release me exactly seven days after The Incident.
Seven days of therapy rooms and gently-voiced psychiatrists. Seven days hearing phrases like dissociative amnesia and trauma-induced psychosis. Seven days of being told I blacked out from emotional overload.
Seven days of me not saying a word about Sara.
Or her agency.
Or the surveillance.
Or the coercion.
Who would believe me?
Jason visits daily. Silent and watchful, shoulder still wrapped, bruises fading like storm clouds dissolving. He says nothing about the fight. Nothing about dragging me out of traffic. Nothing about the things I screamed.
Jay visits too. Every day without fail. Flowers. Food. Jokes. Warm hands. And eyes that show he’s breaking—quietly—for me.
Sara doesn’t visit.
Not once.
The part of me that cared tries to reach for hurt. But I push it down. Her absence isn’t an accident—it’s branding. It’s PR strategy. It’s distance. It’s calculated.
Release Day.
I sign my papers with trembling fingers. Jay waits in the lobby, anxiety all over him.
“Ready?” he asks.
“Not even remotely.”
He smiles. He takes my hand.
We step into the sunlight.
Cameras explode.
Flashes. Voices. Phones raised high.
Jay tenses. “s**t. Move.”
He pulls me through the crowd, shielding me with his body. We weave through sidewalks and side streets, and Jay keeps glancing back like someone’s hunting us.
Finally, he yanks me into Target.
Déjà vu slams into me so hard I almost stagger.
The red floor tiles. The bright aisles. The hat section.
A memory hits—quick and sharp—
Wind in my face. My feet pounding pavement. Jason’s arms around me, iron-tight. Horns blaring. Jay shouting my name—
Jay is babbling about disguises, grabbing hats and scarves like this is a fun little errand.
He doesn’t see me begin to shake.
But he sees when I stop walking.
“Gwen?”
He steps closer, fear rising. “Talk to me.”
“I remember,” I whisper.
Jay pales. “Okay. Okay—that’s good. That’s progress. I just—I only need to go sign one last form at TSI, and then we can leave LA together. I swear. Just one more signature and I’m free.”
The words fall wrong.
Dangerously wrong.
“You still haven’t signed it?” I ask, voice cracking.
“I didn’t want to leave you alone in the hospital—”
“So you stayed tied to them?”
“Gwen, let me explain—”
“No.”
My pulse spikes painfully.
“I know how this works. You were going to take me back there.”
“That’s not—”
“It’s exactly that. You promised you’d never hurt me like Sara did.”
“I know—”
“But you are.”
He flinches. Tears well in his eyes. He looks young. Lost. Desperate.
“Please,” he whispers. “Please don’t do this.”
I step back.
And freeze.
Jason stands at the end of the aisle.
Not looming.
Not advancing.
Just watching.
Concern etched deep into his healing face.
Jay behind me.
Jason in front of me.
I’m trapped.
“I have to leave LA,” I whisper. “Now. Or I never will.”
Neither of them moves fast enough to stop me.
I bolt.
- Writer
