They Chose Her Over Me—Then Begged Me to Remember Them Chapter 04
I froze on the spot.
Footsteps came pounding down the hall. Mom got there first.
“What happened?!”
Blood streamed down Della’s forehead, tracing the ridge of her brow bone before dripping onto the floor.
“She slammed my head into the wall! Mom, I’m so scared!”
Mom pulled Della into her arms and spun around to glare at me.
“Rosalind! I am so disappointed in you!”
Desmond rushed over to check the wound, and when he stood back up, his eyes were red.
“Rosalind, you played nice for ninety-nine days just to fool the exam, and the second you’re out, you go right back to hurting her?”
I was crying now, desperate.
“I didn’t do anything! She did it herself—”
“Enough!”
Mom’s voice sliced through the air.
“You’re a complete psychopath. Intermittent episodes—you’ll lose control in an instant!”
“I’m the Chief of Psychiatry. I’ve seen more cases like this than you could imagine!”
Della leaned into Mom’s shoulder, sobbing.
“I only came to tell her I’d cook for her once we got home…”
“I never thought she’d suddenly just—”
Miles stood in the middle of the hallway, looking from me to Della, saying nothing.
I stared at him. “Miles, believe me—I never touched her!”
He lowered his eyes and took a step back.
Like he was backing away from someone deranged.
Mom pulled the freshly signed discharge form from the nurse’s hand.
Right in front of me, she tore it in half
“I was a fool to think a hundred days in here would teach you anything.”
She turned to Dr. Whitman.
“I don’t accept your findings.”
“I’m the Chief of Psychiatry. Nobody understands my daughter’s condition better than I do.”
“This is textbook intermittent episodic behavior. Her presentation during lucid periods means nothing.”
Dr. Whitman opened his mouth, about to argue.
Mom shot him one look. And he closed it again.
Desmond scooped Della up and carried her out, not even glancing at me as he passed.
The door shut.
The hallway went quiet.
I slid down the wall and sat on the floor.
Mom’s last words kept looping in my head.
“Don’t contact us again until she’s really learned to behave!”
She had no idea what it would mean if no one came for me today.
She thought locking me up long enough would make me admit fault. Make me bow my head.
She didn’t know I wasn’t going to get that chance.
That night, I didn’t sleep.
This was the last night I’d have a mind of my own.
At dawn, an orderly pushed the door open.
“Rosalind Calloway. Come with me.”
I sat up. Didn’t fight.
I changed into the surgical gown. Lay down on the gurney.
Just like all the others before me, I was wheeled through that door.
When the anesthesia mask came down, I closed my eyes.
When I opened them again, I couldn’t feel anything at all.
No pain. No injustice. No fear.
A nurse came for rounds. She told me to take my pills. I took them.
She told me to sleep. I slept.
She told me to go sit in the common room. I went and sat.
Sat there from morning to night, watching TV, no idea what was on.
Patients spoke to me. I nodded. I smiled.
I had no idea what they’d said, or why I was smiling.
I was very well-behaved.
More well-behaved than I’d ever been.
A nurse wrote in the log: [Mood stable. Recovering well.]
One month later.
A nurse came to tell me: “Your family’s here to pick you up.”
I followed her out to the common room.
Three people stood there.
A woman with her hair pinned up, wearing a dark coat.
A young man, smiling wide at me.
Another man, holding a bouquet of flowers.
The woman came forward, eyes a little red.
“Rosalind. Mom’s here to take you home.”
The man with the flowers smiled.
“I already booked the tickets to Iceland. We leave next week.”
I looked at them and tilted my head.
“Who… are you?”
