The Wave by Kristen Crusoe (smallest ebook reader txt) 📕

roiling in her mind, words and images tossed like pebbles caught in the white water as it merged with the sand. Adam eating the cheese toast, her driving to the cove, the water, cold, clean, healing. Oh, to be back in that space and time where everything made sense.

‘Are you OK? Can you find your way back to your room?’ Jet asked.

Clair, jolted from her reverie, nodded, rose from the chair, hands pressing down on the chair arms, feeling her way, bone against muscle against flesh.

‘I’ll be OK,’ she said, voice tremulous.

‘I believe you will too, Clair,’ Jet said. ‘But we have a lot more work to do. Will you join group today? I think it will help you.’

‘Maybe,’ Clair whispered.

‘Well, that’s better than no.’ Jet opened the door, allowing Clair to pass through.

Patients, bleary eyed from medications and too much sleep, stood with backs against the wall, waiting to be told what to do, where to go. One woman was running on a treadmill set up in a corner of the hallway, the rhythm of her footfalls creating a downbeat to the sounds of morning.

Clair caught the eye of a young man, his head lifted, mouth moving silently. Rather than being repelled by these fractured souls, she felt a closeness, a kinship. Having broken a universal taboo, the taking of another’s life, even though she failed, she had earned her place in this purgatory. She walked past patients and a few staff standing sentinel, into the community room where morning group was held, and found a seat in a corner, next to a long, wide window overlooking a wooded area. A residual smell of microwave popcorn from last night’s movie activity and old coffee from breakfast sitting in urns on a side table lingered in the still air.

Sun streamed in and, like a cat, she curled into the chair, wrapping her arms around her legs, eyes finding a spot on the horizon to fix upon. A patch of green, a meadow at the top of the woods, two deer grazing. Letting her body warm in the gentle heat, her thoughts settled there, with the deer. For a moment, she allowed herself to drift towards that meadow in the woods. Then a sound, harsh and wrenching, brought her back.

The woman sitting opposite Clair was crying. Big, gulping breaths, head held between hands, chipped nails, red polish creating patterns like blood splatter. Her hair hung in lank strands between long, slender fingers, dark roots showing through yellow. Clair felt that the woman consumed all the air in the small space, already dank with body odor, sweat, dirty feet, and fear.

‘Barbara, do you need to take a break?’ Jet asked.

Clair marveled at how calm her voice was, without showing any of the frustration or annoyance she must be feeling. Well, she is the therapist, Clair thought. Of course, she doesn’t show her true self in these group sessions. Or, in our private ones either, she considered. Clair wondered about Jet, about what she was really like. Maybe in another world, another time, we could have been friends.

‘No,’ Barbara murmured, getting hold of herself. She shook her head, making her body rock like a dog shaking off water. ‘I’m OK, I’ll be OK.’

Sitting, observing, Clair watched as the patients opened themselves up, baffled at their sheer lack of restraint. First Barbara, depressed. Then Rick, manic, speech like a firecracker barrage. Gabe over in the corner, hearing inner voices, tuning out everyone else’s. Three new admits overnight. Two young women, one with gauze dressings around her wrists, and an older man, eyes vacant and scared. It took a lot to get admitted to this locked unit, Clair knew. Back before, she had a couple of grad students end up here for treatment of depression. And now, here she was. A danger to herself and others. Well, one other.

Jet continued going around the room, for morning check-in. Each person had to rate their emotional and physical well-being on a zero to five scale. And the confidentiality statements, the respect for others, and on and on. Clair had heard it every morning for the past five days now, since joining morning group, sitting quietly, not sharing, not disrupting, just getting through it, waiting. For what, she wasn’t sure.

When Clair’s turn came, she passed. She had nothing to say to these people. In her misery, she couldn’t abide with those who only thought they knew what pain was. How she envied Gabe, living in his own world, where nothing could reach him. Sure, he had demons, but he could medicate them away. Or not, but at least he couldn’t love, not really. Unable to feel love, he couldn’t feel loss. And Barbara, what a waste, Clair mused. She has it all, or had it all before she threw it away. If only, I could go back, she thought. To before. To before I had anything.

She brought her attention back to the group. Jet was talking about something called ‘radical acceptance’. It was a way of making peace with themselves when they couldn’t control the events in their lives. It isn’t about condoning what has happened to us, to derail our lives and land us in a psych unit, but about accepting that it happened and move on. Move into a future that can be different from the past. The key, she said is to focus on this one moment, and then the next, and so on and not think too far ahead. Clair thought about this, about how she might use this information to get out of here. To finish what she had started and failed at. This time, she wouldn’t try and cover it up as anything but what it was, a revenge killing. She could accept that. She began to feel something besides despair, anaesthetized, frozen. A stirring inside her belly, a quickening of heart, breath, so much like the first time she felt Devon. A thing so small she almost didn’t notice. Hope.

She thought