Page 94 of A Brush with Love
“Will I be discharged soon?” she asked, trying to infuse calm into every word when her hands were itching with the anxiety to get back to her textbooks, disappear into the pages, work away the all-consuming shame that was drowning her. She needed to get away from this hospital bed. Away from Dan. Away from everything.
“Fairly soon,” Dr. Ross said with a casual nod. “We’re just waiting on the hospital psychiatrist to make a stop and ask you a few questions.”
Harper’s head jerked back, and she tried not to wince. “A psychiatrist? Why?”
“Your elevated blood pressure and the events preceding the fall indicate it wasn’t caused by syncope. And with your history of mental illness, it’s more indicative of a psychogenic blackout. The psychiatrist will want to make sure you’re getting the help you need.”
Harper was stunned. Her stomach turned itself inside out, a queasy, pulsing dread coursing through her. The words sounded so dirty and pathetic. “I don’t need help,” Harper spat out. “I’m not crazy. I’m not sick.”
“No one’s calling you crazy, Harper. We just want to make sure—”
“Where did you even get this ‘history,’” she said, cutting him off and giving him a piercing look.
Dr. Ross shot a nervous glance at Dan, who sat in the corner, his face ashen and drawn.
“Fromhim?” Harper said, her voice rising. “He doesn’t know my medical history. He’s in no position to be reporting on me.”
“He simply indicated you have a history of anxiety attacks and we—”
“Well,I’mtelling you I’m not mentally ill.I’msaying I do not want, nor will I participate in, a useless conversation with a psychiatrist. I don’t have time to be here and play these stupid games.”
“Harper.” Dan’s voice was soft, barely even a whisper, but it drew her attention like an alarm bell. He looked at her with tenderness, with worry. But all Harper saw was pity. The disgusting pity of a normal person looking at some sort of untamed, unwell creature, wary of its next move.
She wanted to lash out; she wanted to scream. How could he share that with someone else? That tiny piece she’d been so afraid to admit to anyone—how could he expose that to the world? It was like the more people who knew about her diagnosis, the more power the disorder would hold over her. The firmer it would attach itself to her, panic and shame gluing the label of mentally ill to her chest like a scarlet letter.
“What?” she spat out. “I don’t. I don’t need to be here.” Her heart pounded, each beat like a sledgehammer to her sternum. The traitorous monitors revealed its frantic rhythm.
127 bpm
129 bpm
133 bpm
The numbers kept ticking up and up, revealing the chaos in her chest.
Harper took a deep, calming breath, trying to grapple her pounding heart into submission. She used all her effort to give the doctor a kind smile.
“I’m sorry. It’s been a long day. It was an accident, and all I want is to go home and rest like you said.” She met Dr. Ross’s eyes, trying to hold them with a steady serenity that she didn’t feel. He stared back at her for a moment before glancing back to Dan, searching for an answer.
And there it was. Damn him. And damn men. Damn the labels and the stigma that she’d been running from her whole life. This was what she hated. That label, that shameful fucking label. Mentalillness. As soon as that was attached to a person, they lost validity in society’s eyes.
“Don’t look at him,” Harper snapped. “Look at me. I don’t want or need to speak with a psychiatrist. As you said, it’s a concussion from a freak accident, and I want to be discharged. Do you understand me?”
Dr. Ross stared at her, weighing his options. He could keep going back and forth, wasting minutes that were so precious to every doctor, or he could wash his hands of it. With a sigh, he nodded. “I’ll have the nurses gather your discharge papers,” he said, making one last note on his clipboard before clicking his pen shut and swooping from the room.
Silence pressed around Harper and Dan like an amorphous weight threatening to crush them. Harper wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. She hated being such an embarrassing mess. And she hated that Dan looked at her like that, with a stare she couldfeel.
A look that whispered,It’s okay to be a mess, you can be a mess with me.
Because a part of her so desperately wanted to believe that. She wanted to let out her ugly and trust that he’d still be there. But if she did that, she’d be weak. If she softened even a fraction, she’d crumble. She instinctively knew it. Her survival depended on control.
If she broke now, it would all be a waste. Her mother’s death,the pain of losing her, the years of loneliness and fear—it would all be for nothing.
“There’s no shame in getting help. In going to therapy. I think it could be really good for you,” Dan said, breaking their silence.
Harper wanted to laugh. No shame? There was nothing but shame.
Shame saturated her so profoundly, permeated her so acutely, that she could drown in it. She was supposed to be strong. Smart. Independent. But she wasn’t any of those things if she accepted that sometimes her mind was outside her realm of control, her emotions these unwrangleable creatures that chewed her up and spit her out. There was no greater shame than admitting that.
