Heartstone Psychiatric Hospital – my home for the next four weeks – is a very small private facility located in the Middle of Nowhere, New Jersey.
Fine, it’s located in the scenic town of Heartstone, and is surrounded by woods and ugly open grounds on all sides.
Okay, fine. Not ugly.
It pains me to say this because I want to hate everything about this place and I do, but the grounds surrounding Heartstone are pretty and spacious. The perimeter is lined with tall trees and brick walls. The grass is a sharp green shade, like the color of my family’s eyes and unlike the color of mine.
I haven’t seen so much space in my entire life. You don’t find something like this in the city. And neither do you find taller and blacker metal gates that keep the Outside world, outside.
I remember seeing them for the first time when my mom drove me up here. They opened on their own when she spoke into the intercom, like something controlled by dark magic. Slowly, they revealed the vintage-looking Victorian style building with a red pointed roof and white bricks, making me wonder how something so pretty, something that might belong in a fairy tale, could be so scary and hellish.
The moment we passed through the gates, I knew. I knew in my heart, in my soul that I’d spend the rest of my life here and even if I did manage to get out, I’d never be the same.
I wanted to make a run for it.
But, of course, I didn’t run. My mom would’ve had a heart attack, and I love her too much to do that to her. With my illness and now The Incident, I’ve already put her through enough as it is.
Besides, I’m getting out in just four weeks. No matter what my overactive imagination makes me believe. Four short weeks and I’ll be out of here. On the Outside.
Away from this stupid hospital that creaks and shakes at night when the wind blows and the rain batters the roof. Well, what else do you expect from a building that was built in the early 1900s?
In any case, Heartstone is way better than the state hospital where I stayed for forty-eight hours before they transferred me here. The staff over there, the patients, the smell of bleach, everything was the stuff of nightmares.
At least, this facility is pretty to look at.
According to history, this was a house long before it was turned into a hospital. The original owner had it built for his mentally ill wife. He’d loved her more than life itself and he hated the little town of Heartstone that shot his beloved wife wary looks. So he said fuck it, I’m gonna build my wife a castle and he did.
This I’ll admit – without any sort of pain – that I find romantic. Kind of epic, really.
A man who builds castles to keep the woman he loves safe. Whoever she was, she was pretty fucking lucky.
This castle has three levels, sixty-seven rooms that house about forty patients, and two separate wings, east and west. I’ll never understand why they needed so many rooms but whatever.
We live on the second level. It’s a long corridor, running from the east wing to the west, flanked by rooms on either side, with a nurses’ station at the end. It’s simple and straightforward, and very white and beige-y.
The third level is what everyone calls ‘The Batcave.’ They usually put patients who require extensive monitoring up there. I don’t know very many people from the upper level. But every time I see someone from The Batcave with their checked-out looks and almost translucent eyes, I try not to make it obvious that I’m staring.
It’s not polite to stare. Ask me. I’ve been stared at a lot ever since The Incident.
My favorite place – relatively – is the ground level. All the offices, dining hall, rec room, TV room, all sorts of rooms are located on this level. Basically, it’s a hub of activity and is the loudest of all the levels.
It’s where I hear the name Simon Blackwood for the first time.
I’m in the dining hall, waiting in line for a breakfast of watery oatmeal and cut-up fruit when I hear it. The name, I mean.
It comes out of one of the nurses talking and keeping an eye on the long breakfast queue. For some reason, these lines are a breeding ground for meltdowns, so they always have someone watching them. I have yet to see it, though, and I pray that it never changes. Just the thought scares the fucking crap out of me.
“By Blackwood, you mean, The Blackwood?”
“Yup,” says one of the nurses as I trudge my feet past them.
“Oh geez. Like I needed more problems in my life. I bet he’s got a huge ego.”
“I know.”
“Ugh. I don’t wanna deal with him. I was only now getting adjusted to the long hours they put me on two weeks ago. Why’s this Simon Blackwood coming here? Is it permanent?”
“Who knows? Beth is super hush-hush about it. Which I don’t understand, by the way. We’re the ones who have to deal with him, not her. She’s gonna be locked up in that big administrative office of hers, while he’ll be roaming around the floor as if he owns the place.”
“Exactly! Why are the nurses last to know about these things?”
“I don’t know. Like we don’t matter, right?”
Then they start bitching about the fact that they were last to know the changes in their yearly vacation days. As if nurses aren’t overworked as it is.
And just like that, it’s over. The topic of Simon Blackwood.
A little thing about me: I’ve overheard a lot of conversations in my life. During family gatherings and at school. I’m an expert eavesdropper. I don’t do it intentionally. It’s just that I’m kind of invisible and a weirdo, what with my pale, almost translucent skin and silver hair. People don’t notice me or don’t take me seriously if they do notice me.
So they talk and, well, I’ve got ears. So I listen.
Generally, I forget about these conversations as soon as they occur. Not this one, though.
Nope.
It sticks in my head.
Not the conversation itself, but the name.
I don’t know why. I’ve never heard it before. I don’t know who it belongs to, except that whoever he is, he’s coming here. And Beth, the administrator, isn’t telling the nurses about it, and they are pissed.
Whatever.
Time to forget it and move on. So I do. Move on, I mean.
I don’t forget though. I remember the name for some very strange reason.
Floorboards creak under my bunny slippers as I get my breakfast and walk over to the table by the large windows. They overlook the gray skies and the wet grounds.
Ever since I got to this place, it’s been raining every day. Maybe it’s the universe’s way of making me even more miserable.
It’s no secret that I hate the sun; I burn too easily. Rain’s my only respite. I love the rain. I love the water droplets crashing into my body, sliding down, clinging to my skin, washing me clean, making me new.
It’s raining now, more like drizzling, and I wish I could go outside and feel it, but I can’t.
I put my tray onto the Formica-topped table and plop down on my seat. Plucking a strawberry from the fruit bowl, I pop it into my mouth.
I’m sitting next to Renn Deschanel, my red-headed neighbor.
She was the very first person to talk to me the day I arrived here two weeks ago. She saved me from the creepy stare of a guy who lives on the other side of the hallway and is here for some sort of addiction. I don’t know his exact diagnosis though.
At the time, I was panicked, angry and completely devastated that my own family thinks that I’m crazy enough to be locked up. I thought they’d believe me when I told them that I didn’t need to be here.
Anyway, Renn as usual, is staring at her crush of the week. Her crushes come and go, and she has a type. Silver fox – her words, not mine. This week, it’s Hunter, one of the techs, who’s probably closer to her dad’s age than hers.
I shake my head at her. “What’s the damage?”
She sighs. “I’m guessing at least twenty-five years. He’s like, a couple of years younger than my dad. I can’t believe I didn’t notice him before. Like, this guy’s been around forever. How did he not catch my eye?”
Yeah, forever is right.
Renn loves Heartstone. She loves it so much that she keeps coming back.
I think this is her fourth time on the Inside. Every time she comes in for a couple of months, has the time of her life – according to her – and gets out to come back in again.
This time she’s in here because her dad is getting married and she can’t stand her new step-mother. So, in her infinite wisdom, she made herself throw up and she’s severely anorexic. When her dad found her passed out in her bathroom, he did what he always does: sent her on the Inside.
She knows everything and everyone. Nurses are her best friends. Techs can’t get over how pretty she is. Renn’s the queen bee.
I pop another strawberry in my mouth and say, “Could be the fact that you didn’t know he was married until last week.”
“Hmm.” Renn drums her fingers on her chin. “You might have a point. I like a challenge. It makes me feel better about myself if I can get an unavailable guy to like me. It’s my pathetic self-image.” She stabs her fork into a piece of watermelon. “Maybe I should somehow try to get Hunter as my escort after meals. Imagine the things I can do to him while he’s watching me with those dark eyes.”
After every meal, a tech stays with Renn for about an hour to see that she’s keeping her food down. She’s known to give them the slip and throw up every chance she gets. She’s super proud of her pokey bones and the fact that you can count all her ribs.
“Or you can shut up about it and not force us to listen to what is clearly one of the most inappropriate things ever,” Penny chimes in, glaring at her from across the table.
She’s got a book in her hands and up until this second, her eyes were glued to it and her lips were moving as she muttered the words to herself.
Penny, aka Penelope Clarke. She was the second person I talked to after I got here. Actually, all we did was say hi to each other after Renn introduced us, and Penny went back to doing what she always does: read.
From what I’ve gathered in my time here, Penny loves reading. I love reading too so I definitely get that. But her love and my love are vastly different.
For Penny, reading is oxygen. She can’t live without it. She needs to be reading something or I’ve seen her get shivery.
On the Outside, she read textbooks; she was a pre-med. On the Inside, she reads all the cookbooks that she can find in the small library. She says it’s to keep her mind sharp and active for when she gets out of here in fall. A few weeks after me.
Penny suffers from crippling anxiety with a touch of paranoia mixed in there. When she failed one of her classes, which she claims was a set-up against her, she broke down. Renn told me she tore pages out of her biochemistry textbook and ate them. Literally.
“Um, hello. How’s liking someone inappropriate?” Renn turns her focus on Penny.
“He’s a tech and you’re a patient.” Penny flicks the page angrily. “Not to mention, he’s married and older. You’re not supposed to like him.”
“Well, as Willow said, I like him because he’s married. It’s a sickness. My heart happens to beat for him, okay?”
“Oh please.” Penny rolls her eyes. “Last week your heart beat for that homophobe with homicidal ideation from The Batcave.”
“Roger isn’t a homophobe. He was assaulted by a man. Excuse him for not liking it up his ass and being angry about it!”
Penny’s ready with a retort and I’ve had it. I know if I don’t stop them, they’ll go on for hours. That’s what Renn and Penny do. They fight.
I don’t like fights. It’s bad for my inner equilibrium and everyone’s peace. And I’m the peacekeeper and the avoider of confrontation.
So I raise my arm in the air like a referee and blurt out the very first thing that comes into my head. “Simon Blackwood.”
“What?” Renn turns to me, frowning.
“If you guys stop fighting, I’ll tell you,” I say.
“You have gossip.” Renn’s eyes widen.
Shrugging, I say, “I might have some, yes.”
“Oh my God, tell us!”
Again, Penny rolls her eyes. “Really, Willow? I didn’t know you were interested in gossip. I thought only Renn was the blabbermouth.”
“Hey, don’t call me blabbermouth. Let her talk,” Renn admonishes.
“Don’t fight.” I stab my finger at both of them. When they both nod, I say, “So I heard the nurses saying that a new guy might be coming in. I mean, they didn’t sound very happy about it. Beth never told them and they’re like, nurses are always the last to find out and –”
“Oh God, who’s coming?” Renn stops my rambling.
“Right.” I clear my throat. “Someone named Simon Blackwood.”
Simon. Blackwood.
I roll that name around in my head.
If names were an indication of someone’s personality, then this Simon Blackwood would be strong, masculine, and regal. But then, names aren’t everything.
Take me, for example. Willow clearly, isn’t the name for me. Although, I can’t imagine what else could be my name.
“Is he like, The Blackwood?” Penny asks.
“What is The Blackwood? What does that mean?” I ask.
“How can you not know what The Blackwood means?” Renn’s face scrunches up in disgust. “He’s the guy who founded this place, Willow. Dr. Alistair Blackwood. Well, you know, along with Dr. Martin. I bet Simon Blackwood is related to him in some way.”
Dr. Martin is the psychiatrist in here who oversees things. I’ve only met with him once, when I first got in and thank God for that. I generally spend my time with a therapist or in group therapy.
Doctors are the worst kind of people. Pretentious, arrogant, obnoxious. Most of them have a God-complex. They think everyone needs saving and they are the only one who can do it.
They think that they can ruin your life whenever they want to. Turn your mom against you because they really think you’d benefit from in-patient treatment.
Fucking assholes.
I shift in my seat, feeling embarrassed. “Well, I just heard the nurses talking.”
Renn sits back with a smile. “Oooh. Do you think he’s a doctor too?”
“Could be.” This comes from Penny.
Damn it.
If someone new is coming, I don’t want them to be a doctor. This stupid hospital doesn’t need another evil overlord.
Renn widens her eyes before craning her neck toward the door, as if whoever Simon is, he’s gonna come striding in. “Oh my God, I’m so intrigued. Oh, please let him be handsome. And older. Like, at least ten years older. I’ve got a thing for older guys,” she informs us, like we don’t know.
“Or maybe he’s not a doctor. He’s a patient. Not everyone follows in their parents’ footsteps,” I say.
“Whatever. I just want him to be older.”
“Yes, let him be older,” I agree and Renn fist-pumps. And then, just to tease her, I add, “Oh, and wrinkled. Yup, a wrinkled old man who farts twice every hour.”
Renn flips me the bird and my smile widens.
“Why don’t you guys want me to eat?” Penny pushes her tray away in disgust. “If he’s a doctor, then this kind of talk is inappropriate.”
“How about we bet on it? We can play for lime jello.” Renn grins.
On the Outside, I hated lime jello. It looks like puke, tastes like puke. It’s plain puke. But on the Inside, it’s all I ever wanna eat. I don’t know why.
Could be the meds. They started me on a new cocktail as soon as I got here and that’s always a disaster. My first week here wasn’t pretty what with all the withdrawal-like symptoms that I went through after being taken off my old meds. They say my drugs aren’t addictive but still, it felt like I was attacked by a stomach bug.
Meds have fucked with my life a lot. My body is thirty percent me, and the other seventy is what meds made me. I wouldn’t be surprised if they fucked my palate too. Renn calls it The Heartstone Effect; fuckery of drugs and psychotherapy.
Penny thinks about Renn’s offer. “Fine. My money’s on a new doctor, only five years older than Renn,” she says, before picking up her book and resuming reading.
Renn sticks her tongue out at her, before turning to the fourth occupant of our table. “What about you, Vi? You want in on this?”
Vi, aka Violet Moore. She doesn’t talk much. In fact, she’s the one I’ve got a lot of things in common with. She’s quiet. She’s more or less invisible. People pass her by without noticing.
But unlike me, I think she chooses to be invisible. It’s because she’s grieving. Her fiancé died a few months ago and she might as well have died with him. No one knows what caused his death, not even Renn, and I haven’t had the courage to ask Vi.
I wish I could.
I wish I could ask her what she thinks about when she stares out the window. She clearly isn’t watching the rain like me. I wish I could ask her why she always has an empty chair next to her. Is it for her fiancé? Is she waiting for him as if he were alive and might walk over any second to take his place?
When Renn calls her name, Vi turns away from the window, bringing her flat brown eyes to us. “I’m with Renn. He’s a handsome new doctor with at least fifteen years on us.”
“Perfect. I’m so excited,” Renn squeals.
Just as Renn sets out the rules, Beth enters the hall. She’s Dr. Martin’s wife and the hospital administrator.
Usually, she has a smile on her weathered face but today she looks a tiny bit frazzled. “Happy Monday, everyone,” she begins, her greeting sounding less than enthusiastic. “Hope we’re all doing well and enjoying our breakfast.”
At this, she gets cut off as a couple of people boo her. It doesn’t deter her, though. “I tell you this with a very heavy heart, that…” She sighs. “Friday night, Dr. Martin suffered a sudden heart attack and had to be hospitalized over the weekend, and…”
She swallows, trying to gather herself, as a shock wave runs through the room. “And, well, he’s doing fine right now, and he’s expected to make a full recovery. But it means that he won’t be able to come back to work for a few weeks.”
The murmurs and boos that had died down before Beth started talking come back to life, louder, more agitated.
Even though I’m not the one contributing to the ruckus, I’m kind of shocked, too. He was fine the last time I saw him. He smiled at me in the hallway, his white mop of hair glinting in the afternoon sun that was filtering through the big window in the TV room. He was chatting with a few patients, who all looked at him like he hung the moon. For them, he probably did.
He is super popular with the patients and the staff.
I remember thinking, how can you love your doctor? I mean, he’s a doctor. A psychiatrist, no less. Someone who prescribes you meds and arranges your life in a series of therapy sessions. But even I wouldn’t wish any harm on him.
Beth manages to calm people down with the help of techs and continues, “I know you guys are upset and I understand. Of course I do. I’m upset, too. Some of you have been very close to him, and I promise you he’s fine. I’ll let him know how much you guys love him. He’ll appreciate that.”
Smiling sadly, she takes in a deep breath. “But for now, I’m here to tell you that we’ve been very fortunate to have found a replacement for him. He’s due to arrive today and he’s an excellent doctor. I’m sure you guys will love him, and everybody will get along in this difficult time, okay?” She shoots a couple of pointed stares around the room. “If you have any questions, come find me or any of the staff members. We’re all here to help you.”
She’s ready to leave when Renn calls out, “Hey, Beth! Who’s the new guy? The one we’re supposed to love and get along with.”
Beth turns around and raises her eyebrows. “Right. Thank you, Renn, for shouting out that question. The doctor you’re supposed to love and get along with is Dr. Blackwood. Dr. Simon Blackwood. He’s coming to us from Boston. Mass General, to be specific. They have one of the most reputable psych departments in the country.” She throws a pointed stare again. “As I said, you’re in more than excellent hands.”
With that, she leaves, and noises recommence.
Renn murmurs, “Well, we already guessed the doctor part. Ugh. Is he age-appropriate for me to fantasize about or not?”
Penny spits back, “He’s a doctor. All talk about his looks is off-limits.”
They begin fighting but I tune them out. I’m frozen, trapped by the sound of a name.
Simon Blackwood.
Dr. Simon Blackwood.
He’s a doctor.
Actually, no. He’s an excellent doctor.
And he’s coming here.
Damn it.