Page 10 of Inside the Maelstrom: Part One
Finally, he turned those bright blue eyes that saw too much back to me. “So it looks like Sampson was right. Not so beige after all.”
My body was still so stiff that my muscles were beginning to ache. The mention of his asshole friend, and that kiss, was like pulsing electricity through my body. “What do you want, Hendrick?”
“I’m bored.”
“The go fuck the nursing staff. Or hell, Esther van Wold is in here, and she’s been eyeing you like you’re a popsicle she’d like to deepthroat.”
A laugh burst past his lips. “You have a dirty mouth, Viva. I like it.” He watched me for a few more seconds, and then faced back toward the non-denominational pulpit. “You leave in a few days, liberated early for good behaviour. What are you going to do?”
I shrugged. I knew what I wanted to do, but I wasn’t going to tell Hendrick. “Go back to school, probably.”
“Mmm, predictable.” He stood, petting me on the head like I was a wayward poodle and not a human being. “Good luck, Viva.” He snorted. “The irony though, right? Viva means ‘long live,’ and you tried to kill yourself. Life is a funny thing.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Hilarious.”
He just chuckled and left, leaving me in the silence of my thoughts. Fucking Hendrick, he was in my head now. Standing with a sigh, I left the chapel and went to the phone room. We got five minutes a day, and it was about time my parents were waiting for me to call.
I waited for the guy in front of me to finish with the phone. He wasn’t doing anything but grunting occasionally, but I pretended to fuss with my book to give him the illusion of privacy, even though he stared at me the whole time.
Finally, he ran out of time, slamming down the phone without apparently saying anything to the other person on the line. He continued to glare at me until he left the room, and I went over to the phone. You had to lean in real close, because the cord couldn’t be long enough to… you know.
I dialled my parents’ home number, the only number I knew off by heart. They answered on the second ring, which told me they’d been waiting around for my call.
“Hello?”
My mom’s voice was always like a soothing balm to my soul. “Hey, Mom.”
“Aviva! How are you doing, baby?”
It didn’t even matter that we had essentially the same conversation every day. “I’m doing good. Excited to leave in a few days.”
I heard my dad’s low hum in the background. “Not as excited as we’ll be to have you home. Just in time for the new semester too. Get back to normalcy.”
I hesitated. “I don’t think I’ll go back this year, Dad. Just give myself some time to figure out what I want to do.” I paused, the idea I’d been formulating all week on the tip of my tongue. “I thought I might travel a little bit, find out… I don’t know. Find something.”
There was a long, silent pause on the other end of the phone, making me wonder if it had disconnected. No, the silence was way too loud. I could almost see my parents looking at each other, having a silent conversation about me. I’d seen it a million times.
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea, Aviva,” Mom said gently, like giving me the slightest bit of bad news was going to send me back into a manic episode.
Past Aviva would have let it go at that, not wanting to burden her parents anymore. Hell, even now I had to resist the urge to tell them that it was okay, it was just an idea.
But no, I really wanted this. “I was thinking about doing a tour around the world, uh, like a literary tour or something. You know I like books.”
A choked noise came from the other end of the line. “Where do you suppose we’d get the money for that? We already took out a second mortgage so you could get the help you needed to find yourself in there.”
“Thomas,” my mom chastised, but guilt was already washing over me like a wave. They’d given up so much, working twice as hard now to cover the bills.
“No, Mom. Dad is right. You guys have done enough. It was just an idea.” I cleared my throat. “Tell me about Dr. Stefan. How’s his wife? Has she had the baby yet?”
Mom, bless her heart, grabbed the conversational olive branch and ran with it. I listened to their lives for another four minutes until I ran out of time.
“I love you guys. You know that, right?”
They wasted no time echoing it back to me. As I hung up, sadness washed over me. They were right though—it would be better if I got back to my life. Leave this whole thing behind, with the joy of a good antidepressant and a smile.
I handed over the phone to the next person waiting in the room, a girl who was in one of the other group therapy sessions so I didn’t know her name. I stepped out of the room, looking up and down the hallway.
I thought I saw a flash of Hendrick’s gold hair in the rec room, so I turned and went the other direction. I didn’t need any more headfuckery from that asshole. Moving down the labyrinth of halls toward my room, I didn’t meet anyone’s eyes. My room was empty when I got there, and I breathed a second sigh of relief. It wasn’t that I didn’t like Tova, my roommate. Well, actually it was exactly that. Her parents thought she was an addict, but really, she was just an asshole. She hadn’t come down at all, so obviously she was either still getting high in here, or she was just a selfish jerk with no morals.
