Page 1 of Lonely
Ihad seen plenty of patients in my career. They came from all walks of life. Old and young. Rich and poor. Some were dangerous, others harmless. None of it mattered when insanity became a companion on the road to Hell. Some had been locked inside their decaying minds for decades; others were lucid enough to participate in group therapy and form shallow friendships.
Aware of the young man seated in front of me, I slipped on my reading glasses and opened the patient’s file on the desk.
“Mr. Carter.” I peered at him.
He was young. Twenty-three years and sixteen days, to be exact.
His unruly dark hair contrasted with his pale skin and piercing green eyes. Tattooed knuckles hinted at a rebellious nature. He was well-built beneath his generic outfit, I noted, as he studied the certificates on the far wall.
“Let me introduce myself, Carter,” I said. “I’m James, and I’ll be overseeing your treatment.”
“You have a lot of certificates,” he said, swinging his eyes in my direction.
I removed my glasses, set them carefully on the desk, and eased back into my seat. Autumn rain smattered the window to our left, and I let the sound unknot the tension in my shoulders. When I’d woken that morning, sunlight had streamed through the blinds. A rarity in that part of the country. But it hadn’t lasted. As I drove up the winding path to the asylum, heavy clouds had already begun to roll in and smother the daylight.
“I’ve worked here a long time,” I replied, and he let his gaze drift around the room while jiggling his knee.
“Do you know why you’re here, Carter?” I asked, interlocking my fingers on my lap.
It was late afternoon. A storm was raging. The gloomy weather darkened the room. I rose from my seat to shut the window. The nurse who had been in earlier must have opened it to let the room breathe. She always complained about the stuffy air.
It shut with a click, and I lingered for a moment, watching the rain punish the glass. Behind me, the young man’s outfit rustled softly in the silence as he shifted in the armchair. The nurse had given him sedatives to calm his anxiety, but he still fidgeted.
Most patients were agitated when they first arrived at Wellard. No one liked their freedom confiscated, especially not young blood like Carter, with all that raging testosterone.
“Do you know why you’re here?” I asked again, as thunder rumbled in the distance like a bowling ball.
When I glanced over my shoulder, he was looking down at his hands, rubbing his thumb over his tattooed knuckles. Another nervous trait. Veins mapped a network over his hands and forearms.
I stared a moment too long, thinking back to when I was a young man with energy buzzing in my veins. I used to be strong.
“Are you always this quiet, Carter?” I asked, leaning back against the windowsill.
A lightning strike filled the room with a brief silver flash, but it was gone just as quickly. Moments later, as he glanced at me, thunder rattled the window. The storm was moving closer.
Strands of curly dark hair obscured his brows, giving him a youthful look—an intoxicating mix of sexual maturity, strength, and naivety. I imagined plenty of young women had run their fingers through his hair. One thing was for certain: the nurses would gossip about this one when they thought I couldn’t hear.
The walls were thin. I heard everything.
“I’d like to talk about your parents.”
“No,” he said, dismissing me as he looked back down at his hands.
“No?” I asked, straightening up.
Another lightning strike streaked across the clouds, and he flinched.
I studied him as I walked closer, noting the breadth of his shoulders and the dark scruff along his jaw. He looked too big for the armchair. His frame swamped the deep green leather.
“Why don’t you want to discuss your family?”
He finally looked at me, his nostrils flaring. “It’s none of your business.”
Touché.
I circled behind his chair, hands in my pockets. It wasn’t unusual for patients to take time to open up. Time and patience. After all, it took trust to admit the horrifying truth: the world was full of horrors, but there was no place darker than the mind. And no truth was harder to swallow than the truth of who we were at our core.
With time, this young man would have to face himself and what he had done to those three men he killed. But not until he was ready.
