Outings
It’s noon. Callie sits hunched over on a bench residing on one of the sloped planes surrounding the asylum. Allan Young sits next to her, patiently trying to explain that ‘asylum’ isn’t the proper term for the ancient Victorian buildings towering over them like a fort.
Callie isn’t listening. Bending over, she picks a straw from the neatly trimmed lawn, and strokes it absent-mindedly, fingers working the straw into a tangled, ripped mess. It has been two months now and yet the lack of a lighter and a pack of smokes in her pockets continue to surprise and, at times, infuriate her. Mostly she feels de-energized. Early on in her therapy sessions with Allan, he offered her a deal that basically involved bribing her with cigarettes in return for answers. Callie refused. The thought of being someone’s lapdog, especially someone like Allan, was a thought disgusting enough to overpower the need for her hourly fix. Now she spends her time trying to fill the void, but finds it a tough task in a place where her stubbornness is treated as an illness, where society has manifested itself in white lab coats and charts poking and prodding at her psyche.
“He’s not coming,” Allan remarks from beside her, and she needn’t look at him to know what he’s talking about. It’s true that she is scanning the grounds, hoping to maybe catch a glimpse of the only friendly face she knows in this place; despite being well aware that Allan is right. Alex isn’t coming. That much she has figured out during these past two months. Their outings have obviously been deliberately scheduled at different times to keep them apart, she thinks, and it’s a depressing thought to say the least.
Two months now and the only contact they’ve had are hurried, almost panicked phone calls, each of them too wrapped up in their own misery to really take note of each other’s pain. There is really no way around it, she needs to see him soon, if only to witness that he is alive and breathing. She knows what this place is doing to him and what it could potentially do to him in the future. She might be receding in here, having developed a chronic tremble of the hands due to her lacking intake of nicotine, and she might be more than a little unnerved with all the strangers surrounding her, but Alex… Alex won’t survive in here, she thinks. She doesn’t want to think about how much damage has already been done to him, knowing it’s bound to be a lot after two months. Another straw breaks under her fingers.
Allan has remained silent since his last remark, but now he turns to look at her, and instead of jumping for joy at the opportunity to analyze why she’s vandalizing the lawn, his expression seems to soften.
“I want to help you, you know that.”
She knows it’s not just another bout of psycho-babble, that he’s being sincere for once, but she can’t bring herself to respond. He doesn’t understand, nor is he ever going to understand. There’s a part of her that wishes she could just let loose, tell him everything and maybe then he’d be able to gather the pieces and assemble them correctly, but she knows that would be a waste of time. She wouldn’t know where to start. And explanations would come off as excuses and she damn sure isn’t going to stoop to that level.
“Save it for someone who needs your help,” she finally bites, giving him the nastiest look she can muster, in hopes of it closing the conversation for good.
Allan doesn’t respond, instead he removes his glasses, produces a small cloth from his pocket and starts polishing them. Without the lenses obstructing his visage, Callie notices the dark rings that have begun to form around his eyes. Done with the meticulous task, he puts the glasses back on and stands, directly facing her.
“I hope you’re aware that making this harder than it should be isn’t going to benefit your case. If I can’t present any kind of progress to my superiors soon, they’ll simply replace me with someone else. And I can’t guarantee that that won’t be someone who’s only interested in getting good points on his record. Is that what you want?”
Callie stands too, shoving her hands in the pockets of her grey jumpsuit. No smokes. She fixates him with a glare.
“And what makes you so special?”
The psychiatrist merely smiles, one hand adjusting his glasses. “Nothing. This is my job. But I believe that, if you’d let me, I can be there for you.” As he says this, one of his hands settles on her shoulder and, surprised by the sudden direct contact, Callie shakes it off violently, her jaw clenched tight.
“Don’t touch me,” she shrieks, flushing red. Aside from the physicals at Penn State and during her first week here, the last person to touch her was Alex. And when he wasn’t jabbing her in the shoulder whenever a yellow car passed their own, his touch had always been comforting, slightly awkward in the beginning but comforting nonetheless. While Allan might have meant for the gesture to be comforting, it was anything but.
“I’m sorry,” he starts, looking slightly alarmed by her outburst, and then glances at his wristwatch, “That’s it for today anyway. Marcel will take you back to your room,” he waves at one of the guards monitoring the grounds, “and I’ll see you tomorrow.” If Callie had wanted to respond, she doesn’t get the chance, as Allan barely waits for the guard to join them before he walks off. She tells herself she doesn’t care.
On the way back they pass the medical ward and Callie silently prays that Alex is somewhere else and not strapped to a gurney in there being experimented on. From the muffled cries she hears through the barred doors, she can’t be sure.