Her (14 page)

He led me to the kitchen with his hand wrapped around the back of my little neck. When we got to the kitchen, he shoved me away from him. I slowly raised my head up to look at the monster’s dark and rigid face. He was calm, but his expression was frightening.

He sighed and his expression began to soften. This was a look, not of the monster, but of a long time ago. It was my Dad. I almost saw him in that moment. I felt my heart flutter. A sweet, convincing smile appeared on his face. I wanted to believe it was him. I wanted to see my Dad. I missed him so much.

“Daddy?” I called out to him to make sure it really was my Dad.

That sweet convincing smile that Daddy would always give me turned into a grimace. His mouth opened.

He said, “Kristen, I really hate you.”

What was left of my Dad was gone. He had completely disappeared. A bolt of lightning had struck through my heart. It came out of his words. Thunder began to crash through my veins. Visions filled my mind.

I saw my Daddy dancing with me at the wedding. I saw my Daddy kiss me for the first time. I saw my middle school graduation where my Dad
said that he was very proud of me. I saw my Dad’s face when we were all in the room, watching, as the twins were born. I saw our family’s first picnic. I saw my Daddy holding me in his arms when told me that everything was going to be okay and that he loved me. It was the first time my Dad had ever made me feel safe. I saw the moment that my Daddy died. I saw the moment my Daddy was devoured by a monster. He was my Dad. He was a good Dad. He loved me. I loved him. I loved a man, and that man was my Daddy.

I let my blood drip slowly into the tub. Scalding, hot water made the pain worse. There were tears. There was hot mucus. Both drenched my face, my pajamas, and the knife that I had learned to use until I couldn’t cry anymore. It was like scratching the back of my neck. The itch wouldn’t go away until I bled. Mr. Sharp wouldn’t let me breathe until I saw blood. That was the rule. Hold my breath until I saw blood. I told Mr. Sharp that I hated myself, too. Jack wasn’t the only one. Mr. Sharp said that I should hate myself because I was useless and a loser. That was why
a monster had eaten Daddy
. That was why Daddy
had died.

Mr. Sharp lived in sharp objects. That night he’d come out of the steak knife. He’d introduced himself after the monster had said that he hated me. The monster was now Jack. Jack was the man I had met when I was six years old. Jack was the man who didn’t want to get to know me before he and Mom had gotten married. Jack was the man who had been at the factory, smoking a cigarette in the back. That was Jack. He was the man that I didn’t know.

I dropped the knife into the tub. Mr. Sharp picked it back up. He made me look at my arms and he made me find a place to cut. More cuts. You need more cuts. That’s what he said. I looked around the bathroom. I was scared. I couldn’t see this Mr. Sharp, but he had a voice.

“Stop it,” I whispered. “Stop it!” I cried.

I lost complete control of what I was doing, and Mr. Sharp took over. He started slicing away at my legs. I watched as my hands gripped the knife tighter. I could hear him screaming for me to die. I cried inside. Not one tear fell out of my eyes. Please, Mr. Sharp! Stop it!

“Stop it,” I said aloud.

The knife fell out of my hand and into the tub. I sat still, amazed. It was silent, and I was alone. I was afraid to look down, but I did anyway. My legs were covered in cuts. There was blood on my arms. Scared, I threw myself into the tub. The hot water burned, but it didn’t stop me. I let the hot water continue to run. I pulled my knees up to my chest, and hugged my wet pajamas.

“God, if there is a way, please make it stop. Make her see. Please make her see,” I whispered aloud. I closed my eyes, and a shadow of a male figure appeared. “No,” I said. “Please stop it. I am going to die.”

“No,” Mr. Sharp said. “You are not going to die.”

I looked up. Dr. Cuvo was staring at me. “Were you asleep?”

I couldn’t remember what had been the last word said. I wiped at my eyes. I was barely here. I felt like I was still sleeping. I was in the tub of hot water. The water was getting cold. It was cold in the room with Dr. Cuvo. It was cold in the tub with Mr. Sharp. My stitches! I had to get out of the water. I looked up at Dr. Cuvo.

I couldn’t get out of the water. Mr. Sharp stared at me from inside. He was laughing. My neck was itching. The knife was no longer in the tub. I couldn’t find it. I had no control over this dream. There was no knife, but Mr. Sharp was there. He wanted something. Getting scared, I opened my mouth to speak to Dr. Cuvo, but Mr. Sharp covered my mouth with his hand.

Dr. Cuvo saw that I’d started to say something. He couldn’t see that Mr. Sharp was making me stay quiet.

“What is it, Kristen?” he asked with concern. “What do you want to say?”

He was trying to help me. Mr. Sharp wanted me to stay in my place. He wanted me to be angry. Mr. Sharp never said anything to me. He wanted me to know what it was that I already knew, which was everything that he knew, but what he didn’t have to say. He dragged me out of the tub and made me stand in the room across from Dr. Cuvo in his office.  Dr. Cuvo saw that I was standing.

“It’s not time to go yet,” he said. “Please sit down, Kristen.”  Dr. Cuvo’s voice shook as he spoke. “What’s going on, Kristen?”

I had to say something. The only thing that came out was, “I want to go home.”

Dr. Cuvo sighed. He said, “You are not ready to go home, Kristen. We have a lot of things to work through.”

I wanted to say something to Dr. Cuvo. I wanted to tell him about Mr. Sharp, but I was afraid. I knew that the whole idea of another person - no, an evil entity -  in that room with the both of us would have sounded even more insane than what Dr. Cuvo had already thought I was. Therefore, I sat down and I let myself cry.

Mr. Sharp was starting to leave me alone. He hated when I cried. I hated when I cried. It felt like a weak way out. I would rather cut myself into a million pieces than cry as though I were feeling sorry for myself. Feeling sorry for myself was not allowed. I had to cry to get Mr. Sharp out of me. I had to cry to make that urge to cut go away. It was cold in that room. I pressed my hands between my thighs to keep them warm. Dr. Cuvo passed me a box of tissues. He thought I was crying because he wouldn’t let me go home. It was just as well, then. I wiped my eyes and tried to straighten myself up.

“You do understand? Don’t you understand, Kristen?” He was looking at me with concerned eyes.

I crumpled the snotty tissues in my hands, and put my hands back between my legs. I nodded silently at Dr. Cuvo while not making eye contact with his eyes. If I looked into those eyes, I wouldn’t stop crying.

“Are you okay?”

I nodded and wiped the rest of the tears from my eyes.

“There’s an anti-depressant that I want to start you on tomorrow. It is called Effexor. Have you ever heard of it?”

“I’ve seen commercials,” I said as I tossed the tissues into the trash can.

Dr. Cuvo laughed.

“Two medications…” I sighed under my breath. The overwhelming feeling came over me again.

Dr. Cuvo had either amazing ears or just very good senses. “It is going to be fine, Kristen. You are not the only person, especially in here, who takes more than one medication. Remember, you are doing this to get better. Sometimes we can’t do everything on our own. Sometimes it is okay to get help, and that is what you are doing. It’s a part of your therapy, and it’s a part of what is going to help you get out of here safely.”

The sympathetic look that his warm eyes gave me while he spoke made my insides tingle. I didn’t know how to handle the sincere kindness that he gave me.  I looked away from him.

“The nurse put in your chart that you had some concerns about your medication when you first started Risperdol. I just want you to trust me. I am not going to give you something that I know will hurt you. If you feel any kind of discomfort or irritation while taking these medications that you’ve never felt before, then let me know. I will do something about it right away. All right?”

“Why do you waste your time?” I couldn’t hold back.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“I mean why do you waste your time on me? All of that ‘trust me’ stuff, and the look that you give me. It’s as if you are feeling sorry for me. It confuses me, Dr. Cuvo.”

“How does it confuse you?”

“I don’t know. It just does.” I didn’t want to look at him. I felt his eyes burning holes into me.

He got out of his chair, came over, and sat next to me. I still wouldn’t look at him. But he wanted me to. “Kristen, what does this confusion feel like? How does it make you feel?”

“I feel-” I swallowed the tears. I swallowed that metal ball that wanted to turn in my throat. I was going to say how I felt, and he was going to listen. He was really going to listen to me, and he was really going to care, even though I didn’t. That was what confused me. I realized that. “I feel confused when you stare at me.” That was the only way I could get it out at that moment.

Dr. Cuvo put a hand on my shoulder. That touch made me look at him. Looking at him with that tender hand on my shoulder made me even more confused. I couldn’t read his face. I had never seen a look like that before.

Dr. Cuvo then asked, “Could it be also that you are not used to opening up this much to anyone?”

“For the most part,” I answered. “Especially not with a-” I made myself shut up.

“A what?”

“A man,” I said.

Dr. Cuvo nodded. His gentle hand squeezed my shoulder in a kind gesture. “I am a man. I’m your doctor. And I think it’s safe to say maybe even a friend.”

Looking into his eyes was nice, now that I had heard him say the word “friend”. I wanted to trust this feeling, but I was still scared. I saw Mr. Sharp’s face in my mind. He was my only friend. He was the only man who was my friend. Jack was my Daddy. Jack loved me. Jack was my friend.

My mind got away from me.

A sudden pain went from my lower abdomen to my lower stomach. It was almost amazing how cold it got in that hospital. My hands and my feet were ice cold, even though I had on socks and shoes. Again, I put both of my hands between my thighs to keep them warm. I wasn’t prepared for his next question. Of course, it was a part of his job to pry. I just didn’t want to go so deep so fast.

“Kristen, I know that your mother is divorced from your step-father. What about your biological father? Where is he?” Dr. Cuvo asked, removing his warm hand. My shoulder began to absorb the cold air.

“He’s alive,” I said. “He’s back home in California.”

“Do you miss California? Do you miss him?”

“California? I guess, I don’t know.”

“What about your father?”

I heard jack-hammering outside. The sound of construction work was loud. There must be roadwork going on. It was giving me a headache; also, a pain kept shooting back and forth from my lower abdomen to my lower stomach. It hurt more with the sound of the drills.

“Are they doing some kind of work out there?” Dr. Cuvo wondered as he rose out of the chair and went over to his window. He closed the curtains as though that would help muffle the sound of the construction. “I’m sorry about that, Kristen. It is really loud.” Dr. Cuvo returned to the chair next to mine. “I bet it’s hard with you all the way over here and him in California.”

I nodded to humor him.

“Does he know that you are in the hospital?”

“Probably not, unless my Mom told him,” I said.

The pain was sharp. I cringed as my lower stomach took its turn hitting the pain back to my lower abdomen. The pain felt as if the goal was to tear my insides apart.

“What is the relationship like between you and your father? How do you feel about him?”

The jackhammer must have hit something it wasn’t supposed to, because all hell seemed to break loose. I heard men shouting at each other outside. Something gushed out of me. I felt it push out of me with great pain. My stomach ached. I looked down at my hands that were between my thighs, and they were bloody.

Dr. Cuvo rose quickly from the chair beside me. “Kristen. Oh, my God. Ugh… umm… Just wait a second. Don’t move. Please, don’t move.” He looked like he was going to throw up.

I stared at him. Reality was setting in. I sat still as he had told me to, embarrassed.

Dr. Cuvo dialed someone from his office phone. I could hear Ms. Mosley on the other end. Dr. Cuvo was freaking out as if I were dying. He told her what had happened, and he asked her to come get me to take me back to the unit. He asked her to bring someone from maintenance. When he hung up the phone, he took a deep breath and looked up at me.

“Are you okay?” he finally asked me.

I nodded. I was too embarrassed to look at him, or to say anything to him.

Not long after he hung up the phone, Ms. Mosley knocked on the door. Dr. Cuvo told her to come in. Ms. Mosley saw me and motioned for me to come to her. I stood up and walked to the door. The maintenance man saw the blood on the seat, and he covered his nose and mouth. I’d grossed him out, too. I could have been perfectly fine being dead at that moment. Dr. Cuvo said good bye without the offer of a handshake. He told me to take care, and that he’d see me tomorrow.