The War for Love- a Collection of Short Stories

Sleepy - Ryan

A/N: Here's our newest character in the cast- Ryan! I hope y'all love him as much as I do!

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        April 28th

    "Okay, let's bring Ryan back, please." Dr. Bellami spoke softly as if she was afraid I would lash out. "I am Ryan." I'd said this no less than twelve times this session, but she always seemed to believe that I was a personality- even when I'd told them, again and again, I didn't have another personality inside of me. 

It's just me in here.

And me.

SHUT UP!

    It was automatic, something I couldn’t control anymore. I flinched upon hearing his voice, echoing in my head, no matter how many times I’d begged the doctors to make him go away. 

    His voice sang, gloating through my pain. He was the reason I was stuck here, in this room, this place. Dr. Bellami’s pen scratched against her papers, the sound so loud I thought my eardrums would tear apart. My hands flew up to cover my ears, and I curled into a tighter ball. My muscles ached from the cold of the office and from being pressed into the smallest space I could possibly take up for the last two hours. 

    Dr. Bellami smiled at my reaction, saying in that annoyingly low voice that was still too loud, “Welcome back, Ryan. Do you remember me? I’m-.” “Dr. Bellami, yes, I know you- I’ve been here the whole f*****g time!” My angry whispers made her dart her eyes to the side and I knew what was coming next. 

    Blake.

    I heard his pounding footsteps coming from the back of the room, where he always stood “to protect the doctors” from me.

Even though I’ve never hurt them…

    He shoved a needle into the vein that ran along my shoulder, holding tight when I jumped at the sting. “Do you carry these for every patient or just me?” I hissed, my voice cutting through my hands, which were still pressed over my ears in a poor attempt to block out all the noise. 

    He clapped my shoulder, painfully pressing on the injection site. The drug concoction, which was an anti-anxiety and mild sedative, began to trickle through me. My muscles relaxed, but I stayed as I was. Everything was so loud, but I took my hands down, curling them in my lap like the younger kids did when they were tired. The drugs didn’t affect me, not anymore, but if they caught on, the doctors would change the mix and I would have to build my tolerance again. 

    Dr. Bellami smiled at my act. “Good, Ryan. Doesn’t it feel good to be calm?” she seemed to have only one mode of speaking, in that stupidly soft voice. I nodded slowly, sighing as if I was getting tired. “Okay, we’ve been talking for a while. Why don’t you go out to the general room until dinner time?” I looked up, blinking slowly and whispering, “Can I go to my room? Or the library?” She tucked a piece behind her ear, nodding. 

    “Of course, Ryan. You can go to the library, but not to your room. I want you to try and socialize with some of the others, okay?” She rested her hand on top of mine, and I met her eyes- filled to the brim with false sympathies. I nodded, extra slow to emphasize how the drugs were making me feel for her. Blake had gone back to the corner of the room, and I could hear is snicker- he’d caught on to my act months ago, but the docs were the only ones with the power to change the medications.

    I stood carefully, faking a stumble and tucking my hands up into my sweater, which I’d earned for good behavior, and left Dr. Bellami behind. The moment the door closed and I was alone with Blake, I curled my shoulders in, away from him, shuffling down the corridor to the library. “You can leave me alone now, there’s no one out here for me to hurt,” I muttered to him, to which he laughed heartily- too loud for the sleepy spring afternoon.

    "Except yourself," he said, whistling as we walked. He left me at the library doors after scanning his card, and I caught the eyes of Madam Sayana, the petite Hindu bookkeeper at Twilight Woods. "Home for the mentally f****d with money." I murmured, smiling at Madam Sayana and walked toward the towering bookshelves in the back, finding where I was almost immediately. 

    Since being allowed in the library, I decided to read the shelves from right to left, top to bottom. I started on the uppermost right corner and was now entrenched in the M's. The Hundred Year Walk was next in my list, by Dawn Anahid MacKeen. Running my hand across the dusty tops, I watched as the motes floated in the light of the electric fireplace, reaching to grab the title off a shelf above my head. 

    Smiling slightly when my chair in the corner was open, I hugged the book to my chest and shuffled toward the creaky, cracked leather lounge. Curling into the seat, I brushed the dust off of the cloth cover and began to pop the spine as I read through the first pages. 

    I'd always found it easy to lose myself into the pages of a book, the ink staining my fingers and paper leaving small cuts along my palms as I immersed my volatile mind into a new world, a different world. One where I could pretend to be almost normal, where he wouldn't bother me and I was fully myself. A world where I never smiled at the drops of blood that welled on my hands or had to control my thoughts when someone else was injured. 

    Sighing, I closed my eyes, wiping the drops of blood onto the chair, continuing to read to the sound of Madam Sayana working, the fireplace's recorded loop of crackles, and the occasional shift of another patient. Falling into the place that MacKeen had created, I forced myself into a fitful peace.

    A couple of hours later, I was wrapping another chapter when I heard the electronic clicks of the door locks opening, clear on the other side of the library. Checking the time from the antique clock behind me, I knew who was coming in and was excited to see my friend. Craning my neck, I saw her long dark hair swish past Madam Sayana, who paused her work to sign hello to Blaire, who waved back before spying me in my chair. Moving toward the back of the seat, I motioned for her to join me with a smile.

    Running, much to Madam Sayana's displeasure, toward me, Blaire bounced up into the seat and snuggled into my side. The others joked that we were dating, even though I had never, and would never, see her like that. She was only thirteen. 

    I left the book open, balancing on the back of the couch so I could talk to Blaire, who would only answer to Pigeon. She'd spent three months teaching me and a handful of the staff ASL so we could talk to her. "How was your session? Did you get Bellami or Reynaud?" I asked, mentioning another doctor here. "Reynaud. He's just an asshole." she signed quickly, pulling her sweater over her knees and tucking her chin into the small space. 

    Her eyes swirled when she rolled them, and I muffled a laugh with my hand as I tried not to stare at the fresh tan bandages on her wrists. 

She tried again.

I can't blame her.

    "At least it's mail day tomorrow, Carter said he's sending me some new pictures and candies." She kept talking, drawing me out of my shell better than any of the so-called professionals here. "Yeah, Mom said that Sophie got a medal in her gymnastics competition and drew me a picture of it so I would be able to see her with it... I just wish that I could've been there to see her win it..." I sighed, signing slowly as I thought of my little sister. 

    She was almost six, but people were already teasing her about me. Asking her if I was coming home, or if she was going to come to join me in the loony bin. Every time Mom or Dad visited on Family Day, they wouldn't bring her, or Willow, who was still a newborn. 

    Blaire must've seen my eyes darken as I thought about my sisters- the one who barely knew me and the one I'd never met- because she pulled on my hand firmly, her different eyes full of fire. "it's not up to you, and it's not your fault. You're the sanest person here, and for f**k's sake-!"

    "Watch your language, Blaire!" Madam Sayana had followed her back here, putting away books as she watched us wearily. She didn't like that we sat so close, but they'd stopped pulling us apart when Blaire made it clear that she was going to do whatever she wanted, when she wanted, and as she pleased. 

    They were always afraid I would hurt her. 

    Everyone was afraid I would hurt someone, that he would hurt someone.

    I couldn't even blame them- how could I, when I was scared of it too?