Come Closer Read online

  “I’m glad you’re here,” she says, laying a palm on my chest. “Billy’s having some sort of break with reality. Dr. Tillman and Dr. Heaton are in with him now.”

  I ignore her touch and look down at Billy’s chart on my tablet. “We don’t know of anything specific triggering this, right?”

  She shrugs helplessly. “With Billy, you never know.”

  I nod. “His episodes don’t always have triggers.”

  It’s times like this I wish I had a veteran mental health practitioner to rely on. When Joanne hired me, she said that between my experience and Heaton’s, we could handle anything. But treating mental illness in an emergency room is much different than being a long-term caregiver, and I don’t always agree with Heaton’s approaches.

  “He’s locked down?” I ask Sara.

  “Oh, yeah.” Her eyes widen.

  I turn to go into the room, and she calls out to me again. “Hey, are you going to the staff cookout this weekend?”

  “If I’m around.”

  “Oh . . . well, I hope to see you.”

  “Yeah . . . maybe.” I give her a tight smile.

  I’m definitely not going. I wish I could get away for a long, solo hike this weekend, but if I did that, Tillman would have to miss the staff cookout. I’m planning to cover for him here so he can attend. I went to the cookout last year and regretted it. Sara got drunk and confessed her feelings for me. I’m not sure she even remembers, but it was uncomfortable for me.

  Hell, it would be nice if I had any interest in hooking up with a nurse here to work out my sexual frustration. But I don’t. The only woman I want is strictly off-limits.

  I enter the code to get into Billy’s room and see him curled up in a fetal position on the floor. Billy is one patient I wish I could do better by. Being a schizophrenic and an adolescent to boot has to be hard as hell.

  Heaton is sitting in a chair, legs crossed. Tillman is sitting on the floor next to Billy, talking to him. He’s using a soothing tone and a language I don’t understand. Then he switches to English.

  “We’re at Hawthorne Hill, Billy. I’m Dr. Tillman. I gave you medicine to relax your body. You’re safe. Take some deep breaths and let yourself sleep.”

  I’m momentarily stunned. Billy’s eyes are locked on to Tillman, but they’re starting to droop as he fades. Tillman is doing exactly what I’d be doing—maintaining enough distance to keep Billy from feeling threatened, but calming him.

  Tillman speaks in the other language again, and this time, I recognize it as German. Billy reaches over and wraps his hand around Tillman’s, and Tillman holds on to his hand until Billy drifts off to sleep.

  “Help me move him into his bed?” Tillman says, turning to look at me.

  “Sure.”

  Together, we lift Billy’s limp body into the bed and cover him up. When I see the dark circles under his eyes, I wish I’d been called overnight to approve a medication order.

  “He’ll be out for a while,” Tillman says in a low tone.

  “Meet you in the hallway,” I say, heading for the door.

  “I need to update his chart, and then I’ll be out.”

  Heaton leaves the room first, flashing me a dark look. She’s still pissed I canceled her sessions with Allison. Why, I have no idea. Probably because she doesn’t like not getting her way. But I’m not signing off on three hours a week of unproductive sessions that are stressful to a patient.

  When Tillman walks out of the room, I give him a nod of acknowledgment.

  “You handled that well,” I say.

  He doesn’t look flattered by the compliment. “I’m thirty-nine years old. I’ve been practicing medicine longer than you have. And I’d appreciate you not being surprised that I’d handle a patient well.”

  I resist my urge to bite back. “You’re right. But I’m thirty-five, not fresh out of med school. I can admit, though, that I didn’t need to come up here.”

  The bitter expression fades from his face. “I get that you’re in charge here, but I’m capable. I was taught that sedation can protect patients from themselves, and I’m working on being more progressive about that.”

  “So you need me to back off.”

  He nods. “I’ve been waiting for that since I came here, but it never happens. You’re here seven days a week. When you go on those weekend camping trips with patients, you still round on Saturday morning and you come check up on me Sunday night. Weekends are supposed to be mine here.”

  I have to admit to myself that he’s right. I do tend to want to know what’s going on with the patients every day. And I also tend to believe no one knows them and their needs as well as me. I’ve probably been a little too hard on Tillman.

  “Okay,” I say, forcing the reluctance from my tone. “I get that. I’ll start taking weekends off completely unless you need me.”

  “Thanks.”

  I sigh heavily. “And just so you know, it wasn’t about you. This place is my way of keeping my mind off things sometimes, but I can see that I’ve been overstepping.”

  “You were also checking up on me.”

  His astute observation makes me smile. “Yeah, that too. But I can admit when I’m wrong.”

  “I think you need to have a talk with the Level Three nurses,” he says. “Billy shouldn’t have suffered through that manic episode for so long without medication. They should have paged one of us overnight.”

  “I agree. But why don’t you handle it?”

  “Okay.”

  “I had no idea you spoke German.”

  He shrugs. “Took it in college. I’m passable.”

  “I didn’t know Billy spoke German, either.”

  Tillman’s eyes widen. “He doesn’t. Billy, that is. But whichever personality that was apparently does. The human mind is fascinating.”

  “What was he saying?”

  “Just now? He was asking me not to kill him when I first sedated him, but once the meds kicked in, he asked me not to leave.”

  “I got another email from that doctor at a university in California asking if they can come do research on Billy. You think it’s a good idea?”

  Tillman shrugs. “I can see why they want to study him. We’ve documented eighteen distinct personalities. It would depend on their methods and his tolerance for them.”

  “Something to think about. We’d need to discuss it with his parents, too.” I turn toward the elevator. “See you around.”

  When I get back down to the main level, I walk out a back door to see if Leonard’s working on his garden. He’s growing tomatoes because he thinks the government is collecting information on people’s DNA through the ones we serve here.

  There’s no reason to lie to myself. I’ll talk to Leonard for a few minutes if I see him, but I’m really taking a long route to my office to avoid seeing Allison. Every time my eyes meet hers, I have thoughts I feel guilty about soon after.

  I’ve never struggled with feelings like this for a patient. When I worked in LA, I’d occasionally notice if a female patient was attractive, but I never would have acted on it, even when I was single. It’s different with Allison. I’m drawn to her physically, but there’s also something more.

  That something more is what keeps me up at night thinking of her, and it’s what’s making me crave a shot of whiskey right now. I need a physical burn to overshadow the emotional one she makes me feel.

  No matter how many days, months, and years I’m sober, I never forget the instant satisfaction my first drink of the day brought me. It was physical, mental . . . hell, sometimes it felt spiritual.

  Yeah, if I had a bottle within reach, I’d be passed out drunk by nightfall.

  The man everyone here thinks is strong definitely has his weaknesses.

  FINALLY, MY THIRTY DAYS BACK at Level Two are over. Morgan comes into my room the first morning and whoops with excitement when she sees me back in my regular clothes.

  “You got paroled! Let’s celebrate.”

  Her
idea of a celebration starts with curling my hair. She carefully wraps it around her curling wand in pieces and then runs her fingers through it until it satisfies her. I don’t look in the mirror to see how it turned out, because I never look in mirrors anymore. I’ve become adept at avoiding every mirror at Hawthorne Hill since every time I’d catch a glimpse of myself in one, I was reminded of my sister.

  Morgan knows how much I missed horseback riding, so we go on a long ride, taking a wooded path that crosses the creek in a shallow spot and leads to a meadow of wild flowers.

  I can’t get enough of the sun and fresh air. It clears my mind of all the noise. Last night, I had the dream again, and it felt so real. The voice was more insistent than ever, urging me to come clean.

  I’ve managed to move what happened from the front of my mind, but it’s always there in my subconscious. No matter where I go or how long I’m silent, I’ll never outrun it. It’s a crushing, overwhelming feeling.

  “You excited about going camping with Dr. D this weekend?” Morgan asks me when we’re almost back to the stable.

  I nod and smile at her.

  “I’m going too,” she says, releasing her horse’s reins to clap with excitement. “I traded weekends with Leonard so I could go with you. Dr. D only takes one or two people at a time.”

  She starts talking about Billy McGrath then, and I zone out. From what I’ve heard, Billy has lived at Hawthorne since he was a young child, and he’ll probably live here his whole life. He’s the son of a famous musician who put him here and never comes to visit.

  I get sad when I think about that. Is Billy connected enough to reality to know his parents are apparently ashamed of him and don’t care if they ever see him? Part of me hopes not.

  My first night back at Level One, I’m everyone’s favorite person because the head chef makes chocolate mousse for dessert. When I approach the table in the dining room where Morgan is sitting with Daniel and Leonard, I feel Daniel looking at me.

  It’s been a month since he’s seen me out of the Level Two scrubs and in my own clothes, so maybe that’s what has his attention. Or maybe it’s my hair. I hope Morgan doesn’t have me looking like a 1980s pop star.

  The next day, I’m reading in the great room when I feel someone looking at me again, but the sensation isn’t pleasant this time. Dr. Heaton is staring at me so hard it’s unnerving. Much as I want to bury my face in my book again, I hold her gaze. I’m not scared of that bitch, and I want her to know it.

  Though I’m sure I could be diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, I’m not mentally ill in the way many patients at Hawthorne are. And the thought of Dr. Heaton pushing people in fragile mental states the way she pushed me that day . . . well, it enrages me. She’s on a power trip of some sort.

  As soon as she’s out of sight, I go to my room and write a note to Daniel, folding it in half and taking it to his office immediately.

  I expected him to be rounding on patients, but he’s in the chair behind his desk when I walk into the office, wearing his reading glasses and typing on a laptop.

  “Allison . . . hey,” he says, closing the screen. “Come on in. Have a seat.”

  I wonder if Daniel knows how much it means to me that he treats me like a normal person. He doesn’t make my silence into an awkward issue or make it his mission to solve it. This is how doctors should make patients feel.

  I pass him the note and then sit down in a chair in front of his desk. There’s a mischievous gleam in his eyes as he looks at the folded paper and then up at me, but he quickly clears his throat and schools his expression into a more serious one.

  As he opens the note and reads it, I read it back to myself in my head.

  I’m ready to go back to my sessions with Dr. Heaton now. Thanks for letting me take a break.

  He pinches his brows together and looks at me. “You don’t have to do that. If those sessions aren’t working for you, you never have to go back.”

  I point at the note, resolved. Daniel nods, folds it in half again, and sets it aside. “Okay. I’ll arrange it.”

  I stand up and turn to leave the office.

  “Hey, is there anything else you want to talk about?”

  That makes me smile. He laughs and runs a hand down his five o’clock shadow.

  “I mean . . . as we talk, you know? You can write, or pantomime if you want. Interpretive dance, maybe?”

  My smile widens. He’s a giant of a man—his shoulders have to be twice as wide as mine, and he’s around six and a half feet tall—and that makes his soft side dangerously cute.

  I shake my head and he leans back in his chair, looking relaxed. “So, for our camping trip tomorrow night . . . pack light. Our campsite’s a five-mile hike. I’ll have all the essentials in my pack.”

  Just the thought of a night in the woods makes me smile. It’ll be a first for me, but then, everything else at Hawthorne has been a first for me, too. I don’t think I could keep breathing if my new life wasn’t different in every way from my old one. The memories cut deep even when they’re just buried in my heart. Other reminders would ruin me.

  “Guess I’ll see you in the morning,” Daniel says. “I won’t make it to dinner in the dining room tonight because I have reports to finish.”

  Our eyes lock and I lick my lips, my mouth suddenly feeling dry all over. We don’t always share a table in the dining room, but there’s something about him telling me he won’t be there tonight that I like. But not as much as I like the idea of spending two days in the woods with him. And of course, Morgan. For a second there, I completely forgot about her.

  “HE SAYS I can’t go on the camping trip.”

  Morgan is near tears when I walk down the main staircase the next morning. She’s sitting on a couch in the great room with one foot on the coffee table.

  Daniel is standing next to the coffee table, his arms crossed. His expression is a mix of concern and amusement.

  “I really think I’ll be fine,” Morgan says, putting on a confident smile. “It feels much better now.”

  “That’s because your weight’s not on it anymore. It’s definitely sprained, Morgan. You can’t even walk across this room right now, much less five miles into the woods.”

  “But I want to go. I traded with Leonard so Allison and I could go camping together.”

  “There’ll be other times,” Daniel tells her.

  She sits back against the leather couch and huffs out a sigh. “This sucks.”

  “It does,” Daniel says. “But considering that you fell down the entire staircase, I’m just glad you didn’t hurt yourself any worse.”

  He looks over at me as I join them. “She was carrying her backpack downstairs, and she missed the top step. Scared the sh . . . uh, crap out of me.”

  “You can say shit, Dr. D,” Morgan says in a sulky tone. “This is definitely an occasion for the word shit.” She looks up at me from the couch. “You should still go. Don’t stay here just because of me.”

  I sit down next to her and wrap my arm around her shoulders. She leans her head on me and sighs heavily.

  “I know it’s disappointing, Morgan,” Daniel says. “How about if we hike all the way to that waterfall you like when you’re able to camp again?”

  She lifts her head. “Yeah? Okay. When will that be?”

  Daniel looks down at her ankle, which is swollen to twice its usual size. “Well, let’s see how it goes. Dr. Tillman will come take a look when he finishes rounding.”

  Sara, the nurse who has the hots for Daniel, comes out of the kitchen with an ice pack and hands it to Daniel, deliberately brushing her hand across his.

  “Anything else I can do to help?” she asks sweetly.

  Daniel bends down to put the ice on Morgan’s swollen ankle. “Yeah, will you find Leonard and ask him if he still wants to go camping? Tell him we’re moving out in ten minutes.”

  “Sure, no problem.”

  Ugh. She’s so bubbly and compliant. I immediately dislike h
er. I guess it might have something to do with her obvious feelings for Daniel.

  What if he’s seeing her? The thought makes my stomach roll. But he lives in the middle of nowhere at a mental hospital, so his options are very limited.

  I’m still stewing when Sara returns a couple minutes later.

  “Leonard says he can’t go because he’s helping at the stables this afternoon.”

  “Oh.” There’s a note of disappointment in Daniel’s voice. “Okay, thanks.”

  “Anything else you need?” Sara asks him, putting her hand on his back. “Anything at all?”

  I roll my eyes at her overenthusiasm. Daniel shakes his head, not looking at her from his seat on the coffee table.

  “Morgan, do you want to stay here or go back to your room?” he asks. “I can carry you to your room if you want me to.”

  Morgan shrugs. “Might as well stay here.”

  “Can you have someone bring her breakfast out here?” Daniel asks Sara, standing up.

  “I sure will. What about you? Did you have breakfast? Can I get you something?”

  “Nah, we’re good.” Daniel looks over at me. “You ready?”

  I nod and give Morgan a quick hug.

  “Guess I don’t have to worry about you making me jealous with stories about how great it was,” she says with a weak smile.

  “Bye, guys,” Daniel says, picking up a giant backpack and swinging it over one shoulder.

  He’s wearing a T-shirt and dark cargo pants, and the muscles on his arms ripple as he settles the second shoulder strap of the pack. Sara is practically drooling, and I can’t say I blame her.

  With his inked arms and hiking boots, Daniel doesn’t look like a doctor today. He looks more like a hot lumberjack I’d like to get lost in the woods with.

  The chances are slim, though. He knows these woods like the back of his hand. As he leads me deeper into the forest and Hawthorne Hill disappears from view, I feel a rush of excitement over being alone with him here, in the place he loves most. He doesn’t even have to say it; I can tell he’s most comfortable in the outdoors. He moves differently here. His expression is open, the weight of responsibility gone.