Prego and the Phoenix 🐇↩️✔

Arabella - Thirty

The lunatic is on the grass... The lunatic is grass... Remembering games and daisy chains and laughs... Gotta keep the loonies on the path.

-Pink Floyd, Brain Damage

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I walk into the mental hospital and look around at everything. One would think that it was a place for children to play but I guess it's to keep the calm. From what I read up on it, it wasn't a place for really crazy people to go, just people who had psychological issues to resolve and to calm down their nerves enough to at least get to some of them. The doctor assured me that there wouldn't be any random people screaming but I told him that was not my concern.
I go up to the counter at the check in and look at the receptionist who is talking on the telephone. She looks up and holds up her finger to hold on and then puts the phone down.
"Hello, how may I help you today?"
"Um, I called last night about visiting a 'limited visitors' patient. His name is Humphrey Carondelet."
"Yes, and your name?" she asks, typing his name into the computer and scrolling.
"It's Arabella Rickward."
She mumbles to herself and then shakes her head. "I don't see-"
"Oh, try Marquez. Arabella Marquez..." I say, still blushing at that fact.
I had decided that unless it was a legal document, I was going to be calling myself Arabella Marquez, because there would never be anyone else I was going to fall in love with. Bourne was the only one...
"Ah, yes, I see it here. Here is your visitor's pass and I will get Dr. Deep for you. It says that all visitors for this patient are to be escorted by a doctor for consultations and updates."
I nod, taking the visitor's card and waiting in the waiting room.
A couple minutes later, a short little man with white hair comes up to me and smiles.
"You must be Ms. Marquez." He says, shaking my hand.
I nod. "Yes, it's nice to meet you Dr. Deep."
"Yes." I stand up and we walk together down a long hallway.

**********************************

"Humphrey has made significant progress here, a little more responsive with the councilors than he was when he first came to us. How are you in relation to him?"
"Um... I know Alexis and am good friends with him and his brother, Lochner."
"I see, I see. I'm glad you mentioned that name. He seems to be a patient who has pinpointing traumas."
"What does that mean?"
"Unlike a lot of people, actions make them remember what happened but with Humphrey, names and objects make him lash out or breakdown. Lochner and Trevor are names to never mention around him, knives, rain, and ice cubes set him off. He doesn't like to be touched, especially in his stomach region. He keeps mentioning a friend of his though, all the time. Something about born... He'll never explain it other than that he is his best friend."
I look down as we exit a door and into the courtyard.
"That's the other way we know each other. Bourne was my boyfriend, we were very involved, and Humphrey was his best friend to the point of brothers. He thinks he killed him..."
"Ah, I see... May I ask how everything came about?"
"A fight in an alley. He was involved in a small gang and was trying to get out but the leader had him under his control. Bourne and the leader got into a huge fight and in the flurry of the fight, Humphrey went to break it up but another member shot Bourne multiple times. He felt that he should have been able to stop them and that it is his fault that Bourne is dead now. He felt it was he, himself that pulled the trigger."
"I see... what does that have to do with some of the objects?"
"Well, he then had to stab his leader to get from under his control as well as revenge. He had a tattoo of ice cubes on his hand and it was raining. It was all very flustering..."
"Hmm..."
"I hope this doesn't put him on any sort of list... It was in self defense, for his leader came after him..."
"That was over a year ago and I'm sure that things were already taken care of there... Here we are. Now, he is aware of things but one must talk to him like he is a small child. He doesn't like to be yelled at and he sometimes gets shy."
Dr. Deep opens the door and I stick my head in. I see Humphrey at a desk, humming to himself and grabbing crayons from beside him.
"He likes to draw a lot. I'll be right back if you'd like to talk to him. I want to show you the drawings that he does."
I nod and walk into the room. There is a superhero theme to the room, symbols of comic book heroes all of the wall. Humphrey's desk sits on the opposite side of the room and I swallow hard, walking toward him. As I approach, I notice he is humming a Beatles song and I take a glimpse of what he's drawing on the paper. It is a big picture of a grassy field with two stick figures on it. I lean on the desk beside him and put my hand on his shoulder softly.
"Humphrey?" I say softly.
He looks up and smiles, waving. "Hi!"
"Hello..."
"You're real pretty..." he says, looking back at his picture, blushing.
I smile a little and look back at his drawing.
"What are you drawing?"
"It's me and my best friend. We do everything together. He's the best." He says, coloring the sky blue.
"Ms. Marquez?" Dr. Deep says, from the door.
"I'll be right back, okay?"
"Okay..."
I walk over to the doctor and he hands me a box full of drawings.
"These are the ones we have collected so far. They have a similar theme to them, as you can tell."
I take out a handful of pictures and look through them. The common theme is Bourne. There are pictures of him and Bourne as stick figures holding hands with 'best friends' over them, ones with 'BOURNE' written on it colored in different ways, and many other things that all have to pertain to Bourne and the friendship that he shared with Humphrey. It's sad, really, that all of this is what's keeping Bourne alive in his mind. He just can't let go and I think that's the problem: he thinks he killed his own best friend and he just can't let that go.
"There are a couple of pictures that he has drawn that pertain to Bourne but are different. They seemed significant." Dr. Deep says, handing me a manila folder.
I open it up and am immediately met with a phoenix bird with red, orange, and yellow background for fire, an egg on fire, two birds fighting –one colored in blue and the other in red, then there was a little portrait of all of us together in stick form. I was in there, a circle for my pregnant stomach of course. Bourne was holding my hand and he had Lochner beside him and Alexis.
"If you wanted to visit with him for a few more minutes, I have some patients I need to attend to. Aaron will guard the door for you and just tell him when you want to leave."
I nod and he leaves as I look through the pictures again. I sigh and go inside the room.
I walk up to Humphrey and I lay the picture of all us down in front of him. He looks at it and then up at me.
"Who are all those people, Humphrey?"
"My friends..."
"Do you remember me? I'm this one..." I say, pointing to the stick figure. "Do you remember Arabella?"'
"Arabella... Arabella? We were friends..."
"Yes, that's right. I look different now. I don't have a big belly anymore."
Humphrey looks at my midsection and nods, understanding.
"I will draw another picture so you aren't fat anymore." He says, serious about it.
I smile. "Don't worry, I'm not mad. And who is this?"
"Oh, that's Bourne. He's my best friend."
"And this one?"
Humphrey looks at the other stick figure labeled 'LOCHNER' and frowns.
"I don't know why that's there."
"Don't you know who it is? It's written right here..."
"That's a bad name; I don't say that name."
"Why is it a bad name?"
"It makes all the bad dreams come and then they make me take yucky medicine." He says matter-of-factly.
"If it's a bad name, why did you draw it?"
Humphrey stares at me with wide eyes and then looks back at the drawing.
"I... I don't know..."
"Humphrey-"
"Go away. I don't like you anymore." He says, coloring his picture again.
"Humphrey..."
"I don't' like you. Go away now..."
I sigh and leave the room, telling the guard and go back home.

****************************

I open the door to see Lochner and Phoenix dancing in the living room to some sort of kid's show. Lochner is doing pretty well but Phoenix is just stamping his feet to the beat. I set my things down and then sneak up behind my son and grab him up. He squeals with delight and I give him a raspberry on the neck. He laughs loudly and tries to grab my face as I raspberry him again.
"Where have you been? I thought you said it was just going to be an hour or so? It's been about three..."
I set Phoenix down and smile sadly.
"I went to see him." Lochner's face drops and his color seems to seep away. "He's not good."
"Oh... why?"
"Because I wanted to make sure he was alright in there... Here... He drew this...." I say, handing him the picture I had forgotten I had kept.
Lochner took it and then wadded it up.
"He's crazy..."
"Well can you blame him? He's fixated on Bourne and his friendship. He has hundreds of drawings that just state the fact that he is your brother's best friend. Bourne's death snapped him, Lochner... I really think he needs to face that fact head on... I think he should be kept at home."
"Hell. Fucking. No. End of story." Lochner snarls, making Phoenix hug my leg.
He walks off and I sigh, looking down at my son. I smirk at him and then make claws with my fingers.
"I'm gonna get you!"
"No, Mama!" he yelled, running away.