Where you belong by Samantha Thomas (best short novels .txt) 📖

are your thoughts Miss Hart?”

I was stunned into silence. I couldn’t think my brain just shut down in its cowardice embrace. I was so out of my element, my league and undoubtedly alone. I was alone. As always.

But wait… wasn’t I always alone? Had I ever really had anyone ever in my life?

Why was now any different? I don’t think I’ve ever missed my mother more than I miss her right now. And suddenly I was so mad she left me, I was so mad I started to shake. My teeth were chattering, and I just stared on at Dr. Prashant Jha never wavering, never blinking. Locked on, twitching. I swallowed hard when the filthy lump made its way into my throat, and it wasn’t easy but I stuffed it down, down deep. Something has to be done something has to change, if I’m going to survive in this impossible back stabbing sickly twisted son of s bitch world, I need to start looking out for me. There’s no hope, no helping hand, no white knight to save my darkest day. Its all come down to this, and if I’m going to live any kind of outside life, that isn’t having me strapped here to a hospital bed pumped with drugs then I need to get my shit straight.

I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and swore this all. That this was the last silent word of oath to myself, my eyes rolling back into my head I held onto all I was feeling. Cupping it with every fiber of my being, squeezing, crying, clutching, then I just let it all…go. My arms held out wide I leapt off backwards off the highest cliff inside my mind free falling so fast, I swear I felt my hair flutter, and I opened my eyes leveling directly on a waiting Dr. Prashant Jha.

“Ok,” was all I said.

I don’t know if he saw my battle with hell and Satan himself, but something changed in his eyes, something I’m still not quite sure what exactly it was, but he was clearly taken aback, and he too nodded. “Alright. Shall we begin again Miss Hart?”

“yes,”

“Lets start off simple. What was your childhood like?”

Simple? Simple? Are you crazy?

“It was great, the best childhood any kid could want,” Dr. cocked his head at my sigh of happy reminiscent, laced with the seething.

“Yeah, if you count your dad starving you, beating you, screaming, putting you down, blaming, killing you slowly painfully in every way every day he could. He stole from me, to fuel his drug and alcohol addictions. He fucked his girlfriends and random whores in front of me, and instead of teaching me how to ride a bike he taught me how to cook the heroin on the spoon and shoot it up, after you’ve tied your arm off of course, tight.” I said with as much disgust as I could muster and my body and head shook at the last word. My teeth were grinding over and over again, and then… I just stopped and met the Dr’s eyes once more.

His eyes fell ever so slightly, and he shifted back in his plastic chair, as if not expecting that at all. He quickly recovered as if nothing had happened. “I see… I’m very sorry to hear that, truly I am. Maybe that isn’t so simple as I had previously thought… hmm… what of your mother?”

“She’s dead, didn’t really know her. Aneurism when I was two.” I shrugged my shoulders, as if indifferent. What can you do? Its all different now, it has to be.

“Mmm hmm I see. Maybe we should leave those things for another time, is that all right?” he asked voice all soft. “Sure why not?” I said again with indifference.

“Well, may I ask you of how you’re here at the hospital? Well actually how you got to be here at the hospital these days?” he asked. I looked over at him and nodded, not speaking. He reached down into his pocket and got a new pen, and turned up a new page on his notepad on the clip board and began jotting down.

“Pretty typical. One night stand, but it wasn’t an everyday thing for me, it was my, my um..” I trailed off completely embarrassed suddenly and I felt my face ignite in fire engine red. He looked on at me I could clearly see him through my peripherals, he shifted again in his chair and as the silent grew, I became more and more humiliated. And then it dawned on him, he cleared his throat uncomfortably, and then again, and again. “Ok, alright I see. So, from there-I don’t need the details.” he said not quite meeting my eyes when I finally turned to face him, well sort of I just looked on at the stupid picture hanging just beyond him.

“Well it was that one and only time. And um, that was it, I guess. I got pregnant.” really there was no story there, but on he nodded and asked, “Ok, do you want to talk about it, how that made you feel?” I felt the heat ignite my face again worse then the last time, was this perv really asking me that? I swallowed hard and panicking because I didn’t want to go back to before my pact and lash out irrationally, I took a deep sad creeped out breath and answered, “Um, it hurt like a lot at first-” he began what I’m pretty sure was another nod, but then he stopped mid way, as I continued on and his head cocked uncomfortably to the side. “- but as he um, went on, it got um, better? Um look I cant do-” “OH! Oh God no! Not that!-” he was turning red himself now and he jumped out of his seat, his voice raised uncomfortably saying ‘No not that, not how that made you feel,’ how I was probably ‘not really ready for this after all today,’ and that he ‘should, and is going to leave.’

And with that he left quickly. I was left stunned once again, disgustedly humiliated and undeniably embarrassed. I felt the single tear shy from my eye, and that was when the security guard returned. I would not let him see me this way so I quickly reached up and swiped away the tear as he turned to take his usual seat. He didn’t notice a thing, I don’t think. He tossed me a sneer, and I turned my head away averting my gaze, and stared at the wall instead that housed the nursing schedule. I had to compose myself, this is how I needed to be now, this was it, this was me.

I plopped my head back down against the bed and closed my eyes and thought. If I couldn’t be anywhere but here, then I would take myself to somewhere else, anywhere else, as long as I could think it, it was real. That was true.

I was safe here, inside myself. “For now….” I heard myself whisper.

“What was that?” the security guard snarled out.

Think of Greece, the white houses on the mountain top, all along the cliffs. Think of bright lemons growing, on the lemon tree’s. The music, the nasty cheese. All the pictures in the school library books. Think of what it would be like to arrive there, see the clear bright blue oceans waves curling in on the white sanded shores. The water calling you in inviting you for an afternoon swim, lapping up at your feet.

I can almost hear the waves, smell the salt. Hear the laughter, the foreign music…

“Stupid little bitch,”

Ignore it. Reach down and pick up the sparkling shell there. Go ahead pick it up, hold it in your hand, watch it glisten. The pearlescent shimmering in and out of the bright sun light. Sigh, as you soak up the beautiful breeze, the hot sun rays caressing your arms, shoulders, and face. Squint your eyes from the light, your toes wiggling in and out of the hot sand, your hair fluttering in the breeze. The laughter again, from the other beach goers.

And that was how I spent most of my days. As the days went by and by, not much truly changed except… for being ’freed.’ now that’s a very loose term, because I was still in the hospital but in another unit on another floor. And by freed, well that meant that I was no longer strapped to the bed, catheter and all, was all gone. I could move around in my room, and finally I had my own bathroom, but by no means was I free. Really all this was happening within I say two weeks tops, I hadn’t really seen or heard from Dr. Prashant Jha and didn’t really care either. What didn’t change was my security duty, but the good thing was it wasn’t the same guy who was harassing me, maybe he was on vacation or something whatever it was, I was thankful.

It seemed to me that every time I awoke, I found something new in my room, like a book, or a magazine. Today when I awoke it was actually flowers. They weren’t spectacular by any means but they were pretty awesome. Just some died daisy’s but they were really fun and a fresh treat. I just wish I knew who was leaving me all these little things, and maybe I was thinking to much of it all, maybe it was just the nurses.
I flipped through the standard channels on the TV even though they were amicably available to me, there were something’s I just could not watch. Those being MTV’s 16 and pregnant and Teen mom, for my own personal reasons and not a thing to do with hospital restrictions. I just couldn’t stomach it, just didn’t have the strength, and if I’m going to uphold my pact, then corners needed to be cut.

I ground my teeth together, after having dodged that bullet, and settled for Cheaters, their drama is always a comic relief. Not long later a nurse came in delivering my breakfast and soon left after that. Ahh! this mornings bounty is delicious! Blueberry pancakes, side of coffee and OJ, a thick slick of banana bread some scrambled eggs and sausage. This is most definitely a feast, I swear I’ve never eaten better in my entire life then since I’ve been here at the hospital. I dug in and after the first bite of each little addition I savored, I wolfed down the rest of it in a matter of seconds.

I was done and felt like I could either sink to the bottom of the deepest ocean or float high above the earth, I wasn’t sure. I was on my way out of the bathroom and planning on reading the rest of the classic tragic tale of ‘Go ask Alice’ when upon exiting the restroom I walked smack into the security guard. I looked up and into his face. “Well look who got let loose. I thought you escaped, but it turns out, here you are, mmm hmm.” he said at first as nasty as he could but then something god knows what dawned on him and his tone took on a menacing perverted tone with his ‘mmm hmm’ as his beady creepy blue eyes roamed the length of me standing directly in front of him, toe to toe.

“Well, what do we have here? It’s pretty nice, if you ask me,” he said referring to me-my body-as it. He leaned his head down closer to my face, and sniffed the