Janes pov
Tick, tock, tick, tock. I could hear the clock through the thin walls of my room. Tick, tock, tick, tock, it sang—like a torment. Like a timer for my only chance at escaping. Tick, tock, tick, tock.
It's almost three am, two hours since Mattheo left. Two hours since he fell for my sleep act. Two hours I've been plotting the fall of Birch Asylum—a franchisee of mental health organizations that are supposed to help us. That are supposed to make us feel better, medicate us, aid us. I've always found it weird, really. Mental illness was about this lack of touch within ourselves, and the development of our minds doesn't evolve in isolation, but in interactions with others. I knew that much, so why did people insist on isolating ones that needed the opposite?
Still, the multi-billion organization is known to be the country's leading operation. They are known for their humanity. They're known for cherry-picking their employees, for teaching a new style of aid, for their infinite stocks of medication that no other hospital have. They're known for their lack of cracks in their perfectly painted picture, known for the perfect facade—dressing us up in pretty dresses, taking pictures all to portray an image. From the outside, everyone thinks that we're perfect. That they're just helping. That we're getting better. But the rose-colored glasses are out of fashion, the wallpaper in this perfect institution peeling.
The people that are given Nobel prizes are the same people that have drugged and sedated me to the point of death, who have forced my consent, who have lied and deceived me, who have burnt me over and over again—each time stronger than the last just to see how much I could take before it finally leaves a mark.
Their only public announcement? In court, they stated one thing. It isn't an act of dehumanization if they were never human to begin with. That's what they said in Jamie's files, and that's what they're saying in mine. I hear a creak in the cell—the room, sorry—next to me and I know it's 2:27 now.
No one cares that I never hurt anyone. No one cares that I've never had any control over it. No one cares that I'm just a little girl who was never taught to be human, trying to be just that. All to fit in. All the time. That's all I've ever wanted—to be normal. No one cares, though. No one cares that I want to die, that I hate myself more than they ever could. No, they don't care. Not if someone with a pretty doctorate degree says otherwise. Surely someone who studies the impact of humanity has the most inside them.
No, Henry was right. If the world wants to see a monster, what's the point in being anything more than that? He had said. They were never satisfied, all the times I've tried to show them I can be normal—nothing could change their minds about me. It was written in stone, black and white; Jane Ivers is a monster. I'll make them suffer for what they did to you, I can hear him say. But now that he wasn't here, I would. Because I. Couldn't. Take. It. Anymore.
It's 2:30 and all I can think about is revenge. I'm sure it wasn't normal, but then again, was anything about me ever normal?
It's 2:34 am, and I can hear the shuffles of light footsteps, but I know they're not the nurses. It's the guard, the one that Mattheo assigned to guard my door. I can't tell if he's guarding them from me, or me from them.
It's 2:36 am, and I can hear tapping. Light tapping against my door. I want to get up, to go check, but I'm scared they'll hear me. I'm scared they'll see the knife I stole, afraid they'll see me as the thief I am.
2:40 am, I close my eyes, but the rhythm keeps me up. It goes tap tap pause tap pause—it sings, it comforts. The guard taps tap, tap, tap, pause, tap, pause, tap, tap—I like to think of it as a secret language; morse code, almost. .. / -- .. ... -.- / -.-- .. --- he taps tap tap, pause, repeat. The guard repeats the same rhythm and I know it's unconscious, I know it's not what I think it is, I know that he's not even spelling correctly but I read into it anyway. I-m-i-s-k-y-i-o, he taps over and over again.
YOU ARE READING
𝐁𝐮𝐫𝐲 𝐀 𝐅𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐝
Romance"You're atheist," I remind him. "You don't believe in god." "I believe in you," He murmurs, letting the cigarette hang from his lips. "I believe in whatever you believe." He says, letting the confession roll off his tongue as if it were that simple...
