Page 36 of Deranged
A brown woman with long black hair poked her head into the room. “Are you decent?”
I stared as she squeezed between the slightly open door instead of opening it wider. She closed it behind her and faced me. “Hi Kory. I’m Dr. Moirai.”
“My new babysitter, I assume.”
She noticed the piles of books and started to weave her way through them as she read the titles. “If you like. I don’t think I’ll be here long. But long enough for sure.”
“Long enough for what?”
She shrugged and crouched down to pick up a copy ofZadigby Voltaire from the top of a pile. “Have you read this one?”
“I’ve read all of these books, several times.”
She nodded, her red lined lips folded in. “Ambitious.”
Who was this woman? “Thanks?”
She stood again and crossed her arms under her breasts. The arms of her white coat stretching tight around her biceps. She was taller than me no doubt, and curvy under the lumpy shape of her coat. She looked to be of Indian descent, but I couldn’t tell and it was always rude to ask.
“Do you need anything? The nurse tells me you’re not eating.”
“I’m not hungry.”
She cocked her head to the side and studied me. “Okay. Anything I can do to help with that?”
I wasn’t about to talk about Ash or the way every part of me longed to see him. “Nope. I’m good. I’ll take some ice water, though, since you’re offering.”
She nodded and glanced down at my books again. “I’ll check in on you later and get that water to you shortly.”
No forced therapy. No diagnosis. Maybe my mother finally found someone who would sit back and babysit like she paid for.
She left my room in a sweep of satin black hair and closed my door behind her.
It didn’t take long for Styx to barge right in. She shoved a plastic glass toward me, and the water sloshed over onto my wrist as I took it from her.
She watched me. “You going to eat today?”
I shrugged.
“You are still acting like a child. What do you think not eating will get you?”
“I’m just not hungry. I’ll eat when I want to eat.”
She eyed my untouched oatmeal on the desk and then the water cup in my hand. “You have until the end of today, and if you don’t eat, I’ll be in here with an IV and some restraints. Don’t make me tie you, young lady. And don’t test me. I’ll do it.”
I had no doubt she would. Her hard stare cut away, and I felt released once she left the room too. I sipped the water and stared at the book I was reading. I didn’t have any interest in it at all but I also didn’t want to do anything else. Staring at the wall would likely get me heavy medications but I couldn’t bring myself to pick the book back up and feign interest in anything.
I balanced the cup on the edge of my bed and leaned my head back into the wall. Might as well sleep until Styx came later to force feed me.
A shadow woke me, and I jerked hard away from the wall. It took me a minute to realize he was in my room. I whispered his name. “Ash.”
He shifted through book stacks until he reached my bed and sat a tray down on the blankets. Toast and oatmeal.
I couldn’t look at him. It hurt too much. Along with breathing, thinking, existing when he sat so close to me, and I couldn’t touch him. When I couldn’t call him mine. “What are you doing here? Don’t you have another job to report to?”
He shifted higher onto the bed, and by sheer force of will, I didn’t shift away from him. It would have sent me off the end, of my sanity and the bed.
“Nurse Styx told me she couldn’t get you to eat? Why is that?”
