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Annie Ryder gets so good at hiding the scars, old and new, on her arms, that she finally got a tad cocky. One day, she opens the door without a sweater on, expecting to find a package on her doorstep. Instead, it’s Eddie, her new sort-of boyfriend. He’s horrified and drags her to their little town of Bellevue’s mental health hospital. She protests the whole way, but he says it’s not natural or normal, implying that she needs to be “fixed.” Annie bites back that she’s already tried everything she can think of to stop, but to no avail. He asks if she ever thought about talking to a professional, and she grouses that she doesn’t believe in professionals.
That doesn’t help.
So, after an exam, and a long, mostly one-sided chat with a harsh woman psychiatrist who introduces herself as “Lily”, Annie’s admitted involuntarily to the hospital, being judged as a risk to herself.
That’s such bullshit, Annie thinks, but she doesn’t say it out loud. Maybe if she’s on her best behavior, she’ll get out in the 72 hours they mention. She’s admitted Wednesday night. On Saturday afternoon, after nearly 72 hours of bad food and terrible company, she goes up to the nurses’ station.
“Hello,” she says, full-voiced.
One of the weaselly aides, named Brady, responds. “What’s up, Annie?”
“I wasn’t talking to you, I was talking to her.” Annie gestures towards Virginia, the hard-nosed nurse. She may be hard-nosed, but she certainly has more authority than Brady ever will.
“She’s busy.”
“She doesn’t look busy,” Annie retorts, a little louder than she anticipated.
That gets Virginia’s attention. “No, you can’t leave yet. If the psychiatrist judges you safe to leave, they’ll do it on Monday or Tuesday.” The nurse doesn’t even look up from the paperwork she’s been doing, as if she’s given this answer a thousand times to people even crazier than Annie.
Annie stutters, “But...but they said 72 hours--”
“We don’t discharge on weekends.”
“Fuck,” Annie mutters.
“Language,” Brady warns. They’ve already yelled at her a few times for cursing in group therapy. There’s a lot of older folks in the home who aren’t huge fans of foul language.
Annie’s a huge fan of it, though. “Fuck you,” she whispers, before stomping away to look out the large, reinforced window in the back sunroom. There’s not much of a view. She rests her head against the window, sighing at the feeling of the cold glass.
Then he gets admitted about an hour later. An older man, older than Annie at least, with dark auburn hair and piercing blue eyes. He doesn’t say anything, to anyone, just sits on one of the couches, staring at his hands. Annie watches him, if only because he’s something new to look at. If he notices, he doesn’t look up at her or say anything to her.
Until dinner, when Annie goes to her usual lonely corner table, he’s sitting at it. He’s not even eating, just picking at his food. She sits down anyway. He doesn’t indicate that he doesn’t like it, too fascinated with his food.
Annie decides to be as friendly as she can be. “I’m Annie.”
He looks up at her and for the first time, they make eye contact. He seems impossibly tired, and his eyes are dazed. He murmurs, “Peter.”
Annie and her new “friend” sit and eat, not saying much to one another. But when mealtime is over and Annie goes to her typical spot in the sunroom, he follows. Annie presses her forehead against the window, again feeling the cool surface. It’s too warm in the hospital; they’re overcompensating for how cold it is outside, she figures.
Peter puts his hand on the window and flinches, but he keeps his hand in the same place.
Annie puts her back against the window, leaning against it casually. “So, what did they get you in for?”
Peter, in a flat tone, responds: “It was voluntary. Just wasn’t feeling myself.”
“Oh. My sort-of boyfriend...well, certainly ex-boyfriend now, got me thrown in here because of these,” and she rolls up one of her sleeves to show him the scars. If he’s disturbed, he doesn’t indicate it.
All he says is this: “So you’re here involuntarily.”
“Yeah. Fucking bastards won’t let me out until Monday or Tuesday, they say. No discharges on the weekends.”
“They’re just trying to help. They’re not bad people.” Peter says, softly, as if he’s repeating something someone told him a long time ago.
“What, you know them? Have you been in here before, or something?” Annie’s heard the phrase “repeat customer” bandied around by the meaner aides (Brady), but she hadn’t actually met one yet.
Peter just nods, hand still pressed against the window.
“And you came back?”
“Had to, that’s all.” Peter walks away after that, to his room. Lights out is called sometime later, and Annie trudges back to her room.
She never sleeps. She doesn’t feel safe sleeping here. Oh, she pretends to be asleep, so they won’t try and give her sleeping pills, but she just can’t get relaxed enough to actually rest.
The next morning, Sunday, Peter’s at her table, again. He’s not eating, still picking at his food. Annie tries to make more conversation. “Are you from here? I’ve never seen you before.”
“Bellevue’s not that small of a town.”
“I think I’d remember you.”
Peter looks up, clearly a little startled by that comment.
Annie realizes what she just implied. “I wasn’t flirting with you--”
“Of course not--”
“I just think I’d recognize you if I’d seen you before.”
“I mostly keep to myself.”
“Oh.” Annie eats her breakfast quickly after that and leaves Peter on his own. He doesn’t come to morning check-in. In fact, he doesn’t come to any groups that day. He just sits on the couch, staring at his hands, which Annie eventually notices are trembling, ever so slightly.
Virginia catches her focusing on Peter. “Annie, I need to talk to you.”
“Okay.”
Virginia escorts Annie to the nurses’ office. “The psychiatrist will likely order your discharge tomorrow. You’ve been a perfect patient. Other than the profanity.”
“Sorry. Not really that sorry, but--”
Virginia seems to be holding back a smile. “Try and keep the discharge to yourself. Not everyone’s as easy a patient as you.”
Annie nods and stands to go, but she’s curious: “Peter...the new guy, says he’s been here before? What’s his deal?”
“You’d have to ask him that. I can’t disclose patient information to other patients.”
“Why would he come back here, though?”
Virginia just shrugs.
Annie leaves the office and marches over to the couches, tapping Peter on the shoulder, which seems to snap him out of whatever trance he’s in. She motions for him to follow her. He complies. They go over to the large window, and she looks at him with an interrogative eye. “What’s your deal, dude?”
“Just wasn’t feeling myself, like I said.”
“Yeah, but you’ve been here before. That’s weird. Wouldn’t you just want to go to a different hospital? A better one?”
“Had to be this one.”
“Why?”
“Just had to be.” Peter’s getting terse, now.
Annie can feel she’s crossing whatever boundaries he’s put up, so she tries to lighten the mood. “I’m not supposed to tell anyone, but you seem like you won’t go batshit if I tell you. I’m getting discharged tomorrow, probably.”
“Good for you.” He says this flatly, although he does break his stare out the window to give her a tiny smile.
“Hey, is that a smile?” Annie smiles back.
“I’m depressed, not hopeless. It’s a good thing, getting out of here. So long as you feel better.”
“I feel fine.”
“Fine’s not better. Will you hurt yourself again?”
Annie doesn’t know what to say to that. She realizes she hasn’t thought about hurting herself because there’s nothing to hurt herself with around here.
“Your silence is very reassuring,” he says, dryly.
Annie looks up at him in surprise. It’s the first time he hasn’t sounded neutral since she met him...which was only yesterday, but in the hospital, a day feels like at least a week. But she finds her voice. “I don’t know if I will. Haven’t decided.”
“You shouldn’t hurt yourself. It only makes things worse.”
“You sound like you know from experience.”
Peter grunts, before rolling up his own sleeve. Not cutting scars but burn scars all up and down the inside of his forearm.
“Jesus, that’s hardcore.”
“Not really. It’s just pathetic.”
“I don’t think we’re pathetic.”
“Well, I fucking do.” Peter sounds angry now, and he stomps off back to his room.
Annie’s surprised. The typically distant man doesn’t seem so distant anymore.
The next morning, Lily the psychiatrist pulls her into an office and tells her she’s officially getting discharged that afternoon. They have no reason to hold her, Lily says.
At breakfast, Peter isn’t there. Annie eats at her table, alone. She kind of misses the morose man.
After breakfast, Annie packs her stuff quickly; Eddie didn’t bring her much, and she told him to leave her alone after he dropped off her overnight bag. There’s a knock on her door. “It’s open. It’s always open. Kind of the rule here.” She mutters that last part.
“I can’t come in,” Peter’s quiet voice answers.
Annie walks over to her door. “Come to say goodbye?”
“It’s official?”
“Yeah. Around 2.”
“Congratulations, I guess.”
“Thank you?” Annie isn’t sure how to take his half-hearted words.
“You’re welcome.” And he leaves, walking over to the couch. He goes back to staring at his hands.
Annie rolls her eyes and decides to follow him. “Hey.”
Peter looks up, startled.
“Do you have anyone in town who’d visit you? Seems like you’ll be here a while.”
“Not really. If you’re offering, that’s very kind, but--”
Annie cuts him off. “Not offering. Telling you. I’ll come in to say hi next time there are visiting hours.”
“Why?” He seems genuinely confused.
“Because you don’t have anyone, and I don’t have anyone, now that jackass is out of my life, and you seem like you need a friend.” Annie extends her hand.
Peter takes it, delicately. Annie shakes his hand.
“It’s a deal,” she says, triumphantly.
“Deal,” he says, still taken aback.
Annie comes back the next night, during visiting hours. This clearly surprises Peter, who looks shocked to see her sitting waiting for him.
And she keeps coming back, and he opens up, slowly but surely, until they’re chatting and laughing together like old friends.
Peter finally gets discharged three weeks later. Annie picks him up since there is no one else. For the first time since she met him, he seems scared.
“What if I...?”
Annie knows what he means. “You won’t. I haven’t yet.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t feel so miserable anymore. I have a friend now. A real friend. And so do you.” Annie nudges him with a smile.
Their breath shows in the cold, frosty air. “I’ve missed it. The cold. It’s too hot in there,” Peter says.
They go to his house, which is larger than Annie expected, and she helps him clear the house of anything he could burn himself with. She’s digging through a kitchen drawer he said there was a box of matches in when he comes over to her, shaking a little. He’s holding a lighter.
“I...I--”
Annie snatches the lighter from him. “I’ll throw it out.” She scrummages a little more in the drawer, finally finding the box of matches. “And I’ll throw this out.”
Peter smiles weakly. “Thank you.”
Later, she stands at his doorway, about to leave, when he stops her. “You’ve been very kind.”
Annie hugs him because, in the moment, it feels like the right thing to do.
“Thank you,” he whispers into her ear.
They break the hug, and she just grins widely at him. “I’ll be back, Peter. Maybe tomorrow?”
“I’d like that.”
With the promise of another day, the two part.
Annie always hated Bellevue, hated being born there, and then getting stuck there after high school. But now, she has one of Bellevue’s hidden treasures. A kind, gentle man named Peter, with the same problems she has. They can commiserate together, and mend, too.
That’s what they’ll do, they’ll mend.