Saving Memories
Amanda Heller did not want to die. She was only seventeen. But her very survival depended on making this suicide attempt look as authentic as possible. And that meant slicing the artery. She had done her homework as best she could. She knew how to find the artery. All she had to do was cut deep enough.
To ensure her attempt was not successful, she stood outside the emergency room. She had already scouted the hospital, knew exactly where she would end up. Well, not exactly. If she could just remember the room number or anything about the room, she wouldn't have to go through with this potentially deadly charade. But she couldn't, so attempting to kill herself was her only option.
She checked her pocket to make sure she had the fake ID. Being identified as Amanda Heller, a minor, would get Child Protective Services involved and blow her whole plan apart in a heartbeat. But as nineteen-year-old Amanda Cummings she would be just another statistic.
In truth, even the name Amanda was an alias of sorts. Her real name was Jennifer Amanda Heller. She had started going by her middle name not long after the escape. She had also done her best to change her appearance, dying her hair from dark brown to blond. She hoped it was enough. Being recognized would also blow her plan apart.
She held the razor blade between her lips as she rolled up her sleeve. She leaned back against the wall, out of sight of any passersby, bent over, and braced her forearm against her thigh. With her other hand she retrieved the blade, felt for her pulse, and held the sharp edge against the rhythmic beating.
Before she lost her nerve, she took three quick breaths and swiped the blade across the artery.
“Fuck!” she hissed between gritted teeth.
She walked in a tight circle, holding her wrist and trying to overcome the pain.
She could feel the blood gushing against her palm. She looked down to see dark red covering both hands, dripping steadily from her fingertips. The sight of blood had never bothered her. But this much of her own blood made her nauseous. She dared not remove her hand from the wound.
She took a deep breath and tried to compose herself. She was already starting to feel light-headed. Through the dizziness, Amanda rushed toward the doors of the ER, a trail of blood in her wake.
Someone must have seen her coming. The second she stumbled into the emergency room, a nurse was there to keep her upright.
“I need a gurney!” the nurse yelled out.
She pulled Amanda's hand from the cut and slapped a stack of bandages over it. “Keep pressure on it,” she ordered. “And keep it elevated.”
Amanda did as she was told.
The gurney appeared, and the nurse helped her onto it.
Amanda was grateful not to be standing anymore. Her lightheadedness and dizziness were getting worse.
“What's your name?” the nurse asked as she tied a rubber tourniquet around Amanda's forearm.
“Amanda.”
“Hi, Amanda. My name's Betty,” she said. “Can you tell me what happened?”
“I slit my wrist.”
“Why did you slit your wrist, Honey?”
“I had to.”
“All right,” Betty said. “We're going to get you all fixed up.”
“Am I going to die?”
“No, you're not going to die,” Betty said. “You might pass out, but you're not going to die.”
“Good,” Amanda said and passed out.
* * *
Amanda woke slowly. She did not know where she was at first. Or when. The room was bright. So bright that it hurt to open her eyes fully.
She heard a soft beeping coming from somewhere, but she was too groggy to care about it. She was in bed. But it was a strange bed.
A woman she recognized sat next to the bed. She tried to remember how she knew the woman.
The nurse. Betty.
Everything came flooding back to her.
She eyed her wrist, lifting her arm slightly to inspect the damage. The movement caused pain to shoot up her arm.
It also drew Betty's attention.
“You're up.”
“Yeah,” Amanda said.
“How're you feeling?”
“I've been better.” She looked at her bandaged wrist again. “You stitched me up?”
“Not me personally,” Betty said. “You have Dr. Harper to thank for that.”
“Were you there?” Amanda questioned. She studied Betty's face for her reaction.
“For most of it.”
“Did he knock me out?” she asked in near-panic.
“Amanda, take it easy, Honey,” the nurse said. “No, he didn't knock you out. He used local anesthetic.”
Amanda did not bother to hide her relief.
“You passed out. We tried to wake you but couldn't. Everything checked out okay, so we determined you were just exhausted. You've been asleep ever since.”
“How long have I been out?”
“About ten hours,” Betty said.
Amanda winced as pain again shot up her arm.
“Dr. Harper said I could give you morphine for the pain if you needed it.”
Amanda shook her head. “No meds,” she said. “I have a bad reaction to medication.”
“All meds?” Betty asked, surprised.
“Pretty much,” she said. “Anything that screws with your head. If it screws up your head, it really fucks mine up.” Again she shook her head. “Not a pretty sight.”
Amanda was not being completely honest. When she was doped up and awake, she could usually control it. But if the drug caused her to pass out or fall asleep, that's when all hell broke loose.
“Okay, no meds.” She stood and marked it down in Amanda's chart.
“What's going to happen to me now?”
Betty sat back down and took Amanda's good hand in hers. “Every suicide attempt requires a psychiatric evaluation. That means a mandatory seventy-two hour stay in the psychiatric ward,” she said.
“That's why you're still here. Isn't it? To make sure I don't try again?”
Betty nodded. “Just until a bed opens up upstairs.”
Amanda smiled and nodded her understanding. “Well,” she said and squeezed Betty's hand, “I'm glad you're the one watching over me.”
“Is there anyone I can call? A family member? Or a friend?”
Amanda shook her head. “If there were, I probably wouldn't be in this mess in the first place.”
Amanda found it annoying but understandable that Betty had to be present while she used the restroom, showered, and got dressed. Most of her clothes had been ruined by all the blood. Only her underwear and shoes had survived, so she was forced to wear hospital scrubs.
Amanda remained quiet most of the morning, and Betty did her best to respect that by reading. Amanda was especially thankful that Betty never asked her why she tried to kill herself. She would have had to lie, and she did not want to lie to this sweet and caring woman.
A young doctor came in just before lunch. He took her medical history and gave her a basic physical exam, noting everything in her chart.
Lunch was something that resembled roast beef, mushy carrots, and wilted salad. Though she was starving, all she did was pick at the meal. She did not know if she could handle three more days of hospital food. But if everything went according to plan, she would not have to.
Just after lunch, they got the call that there was a bed available in the psych ward.
* * *
The elevator opened onto a small, unfurnished lobby. A single door provided access to the ward.
Amanda peered through the door's security glass as she and Betty were buzzed into the medium security psychiatric ward. She noted that the button that allowed them entrance was located behind the counter of the nurses' station, a good ten to twelve feet away from the door. Hopefully, she wouldn't have to use it.
Betty held the door as Amanda stepped onto the ward. Amanda was tense. Her nervousness must have showed.
“It will be all right,” Betty said and led Amanda to the nurses' station. She handed Amanda's chart to one of the nurses behind the counter.
“This is Amanda,” Betty told the nurse.
The nurse's warm smile helped alleviate some of Amanda's anxiety.
“Hi, Amanda,” she said. “My name is Naomi.”
“Hi.”
“Did you bring anything with you?” Naomi asked.
Amanda shook her head. “My clothes were ruined by all the blood.”
Naomi smiled her warm smile. “That's all right. We have plenty of scrubs.”
“I have to get going,” Betty said. “There's a bed in the on-call room with my name on it.”
Amanda threw her arms around the woman who had saved her life. “Thank you so much, Betty. For everything.”
“You just get better,” Betty said and gave her one final squeeze before she was buzzed out the door.
Naomi was flipping through Amanda's chart. “I see you've already had your physical exam and medical history,” she said. “So all we have to do is your strip search.”
“Strip search?”
“It's standard procedure for all new admissions,” she explained. “Just to make sure you're not trying to bring anything dangerous onto the ward. It's for your own safety and the safety of everyone here.”
“It's also humiliating and degrading,” Amanda said.
“I know, and I'm sorry,” Naomi apologized.
* * *
As it turned out, the strip search was worse than humiliating and degrading. Not only was Amanda forced to take off all her clothes and stand there in the buff, but every inch of her skin was also inspected and every bruise, cut and scar documented. Her clothing was also inspected for anything deemed dangerous. The laces were pulled from her sneakers and the underwire removed from her bra. The worst part was that every orifice of her body was also visually checked to make sure she was not trying to smuggle in any contraband.
“That wasn't so bad, was it?” Naomi said while Amanda was getting dressed.
“Yeah, nothing builds self-esteem like having to bend over and spread your ass cheeks for a stranger with a flashlight,” Amanda quipped.
“Come on,” Naomi said, motioning her to follow. “I'll give you the tour, and then you can get settled in.”
Amanda finished pulling on her shoes and followed the nurse.
“Meds are distributed from the pharmacy next to the nurses' station. The only television in the ward is in the common room, which doubles as the arts and crafts room. Group therapy sessions are held in the smaller room across the hall. The cafeteria is off limits except during meal times. For safety reasons, patients have to check out utensils. The two pay phones are next to the cafeteria. Calls are limited to ten minutes (but that rule is almost never enforced). And the offices where patients meet one-on-one with their assigned psychiatrists and therapists are through that door,” was the gist of the tour.
“Am I going to be in here with the really crazy people?” Amanda asked. “The dangerous ones, I mean?”
Naomi shook her head. “This floor is for nonviolent patients who have trouble dealing with life,” she explained. “People who are depressed, bipolar, delusional, or have attempted suicide. Things like that.” They turned down a side corridor. “This is a medium security floor. The doors to gain access to the floor are kept locked, but we don't lock patients in their rooms at night.”
“Where are the dangerous patients?”
“The high security ward is located one floor up,” Naomi said. “It's highly secured, heavily guarded, and monitored twenty-four hours a day. You have nothing to worry about.”
“Good,” Amanda said.
They stopped before a random door.
“This is your room,” Naomi said. She knocked on the frame of the open door and walked in.
Amanda followed her inside and saw a girl of fourteen or fifteen lying on the bed.
* * *
Marilyn was reading Rise of Endymion on an ancient tablet. She had read the book several times before, read the entire Hyperion Cantos, actually. So when she heard the knock on the open door, she stopped reading mid-sentence, set the device aside, and looked up.
Naomi was already walking in with a wide-eyed girl in tow.
“Amanda, this is Marilyn,” she said to the new girl. “She'll be your roommate while you're here.”
“Hi,” Marilyn said. She rolled onto her back and sat up, pulling her legs under her.
“Hi,” her new roommate said.
Marilyn had been on the ward for almost two years. She'd seen roommates come and go. Her last roommate, Rachel, had been here for only a week. And from the bandage on Amanda's wrist, she figured her new roomie's stay would be even shorter, the standard three days.
“Go ahead and make yourself at home,” Naomi said. “If you need anything, ask Marilyn. She knows the ropes. Right?”
Marilyn nodded.
“Good,” Naomi said. On her way out the door, she added, “Group in an hour.”
Marilyn rolled her eyes at the nurse's back and turned her attention back to her new roommate.
Amanda sat down on her bed. “How long have you been here?”
“Since I was twelve,” Marilyn answered. “I'm fourteen now.”
“Mind if I ask what you're in here for?”
Marilyn smiled at the question. She liked when people came right out and asked why she was here. She didn't mind talking about it. Wasn't ashamed of it. And she would much rather they ask than assume something that wasn't true.
“They say I'm delusional,” she said.
“Well, are you?”
Marilyn grinned even wider. “Probably. But when you think about it, pretty much everyone is. I mean, take religion. Religion is nothing but a mass-delusion.”
This time, Amanda smiled. “I never thought about it like that,” she admitted.
“When you've been here as long as I have, with the docs and the therapists and the nurses all telling you something you know is true really isn't, you learn how to shut them up real quick. Otherwise, you'll start believing them.”
“Why do they think you're delusional?”
“Because I can walk through walls,” Marilyn said.
“Really?”
“Yep,” she confirmed. “Like they're not even there.”
“You really are delusional,” Amanda said with a smile.
“That's what they tell me.”
“So why don't you just walk out of here?”
“I can't,” she said. “The meds they have me on kind of screw me up. It's hard to explain.”
Amanda smiled. “I get it. Meds fuck me up, too.”
“Why did you try to kill yourself?”
“What makes you think I tried to kill myself?” Amanda asked, suddenly on the defensive.
“The bandage on your wrist.”
Amanda examined her wrist. “Oh. That.”
“So what happened?”
Amanda thought for a moment. “Let's just say that life threw me a curveball,” she said. “And trying to kill myself seemed like the best option.”
Marilyn nodded her understanding. There were times she felt the same way. But not about life, per se. Her struggle was with her sanity. And her suicide wouldn't be a literal thing. No, her suicide would be admitting to herself that the doctors were right and she was batshit crazy. It was a battle she fought every day.
“That must've been some curveball,” Marilyn said.
Amanda took a deep breath. “The truth is, I did it to get in here.”
Marilyn was shocked. “Why on Earth would you want to get put in here?”
“Someone very close to me is upstairs on the high security ward,” Amanda replied, deadly serious. “And I have to save her.”
“Wow! And I thought I was crazy.”
“Will you help me?” Amanda asked.
“Of course,” Marilyn said. “What do you need?”
* * *
Amanda walked with Marilyn to the common room. She had seen a few people roaming the halls during her tour with Naomi, but the corridors were definitely more populated now.
“Group therapy starts soon,” Marilyn answered her unasked question.
Most of the people they passed were friendly. A few ignored them, consumed in their own realities. Marilyn said hi to almost everyone and introduced Amanda. One older man called them painted whores and stormed off.
Amanda smiled as he passed her. She wasn't even wearing any makeup, and she'd been called worse.
The television was on in the common room. A man sat staring at the screen. Amanda had no idea what show was on, but then, why would she?
Across the room, four people sat around a circular table playing cards. They were laughing and giving one another a hard time. One of them, a man in his early twenties, looked up when he noticed them enter.
“Hey, Marilyn,” he called. “Who's your friend?”
“This is Amanda,” she answered, walking toward them.
“You play poker?” he asked Amanda.
“Depends,” she said, following Marilyn.
“On what?” he asked.
“On what's at stake,” she said.
“Sexual favors,” he shot back.
“Isn't group in a few minutes?” she asked. “Not a lot of time for sexual favors.”
“I've got all the time in the world,” he said.
Marilyn seemed shocked by the sexual banter.
“Yeah, well, I don't,” Amanda said. “And neither does Marilyn.”
At the mention of the fourteen-year-old's name, he seemed to sober up. “Just sit in for a few hands.”
“Actually, Zach,” Marilyn spoke up. “We need a favor.”
“Anything, Kiddo,” he said.
“Amanda needs to get upstairs,” Marilyn said. “To the high security ward.”
“Why on Earth would you want to do that?”
“My kid sister is up there,” Amanda lied.
“There's only one way in or out of this ward,” he said.
“And you have to be buzzed through,” Amanda finished the thought. “I know.”
Zach nodded. “I guess we could create a diversion so you could sneak out of here,” he said. “But getting through security and onto the high security ward would be up to you. And getting out, of course,” he added.
“Have you been up there?” Amanda questioned.
“No. Why?”
She shook her head. “I was just wondering about the layout,” she said.
“All the floors in the hospital are pretty much the same,” the guy sitting to his right said. “I don't see why the high security ward would be any different.”
“Phil. Raj. Sadie,” Zach introduced the others at the table. They were all in their twenties. Raj might have been pushing thirty, but she wasn't sure.
Phil had spoken.
“Does anyone know if the doors up there have windows in them?” Amanda asked next.
“I would think so,” Zach said. “Every door down here does.”
Amanda hadn't realized it until now, but even the doors to the patients' rooms, which were always open, had small shatterproof windows set into them. It seemed the doctors, nurses, and orderlies wanted to be able to see what they were walking into. Down here, it might just be a precaution. On the high security ward, it was probably an absolute necessity.
“All right,” Amanda said. “If you can create a diversion, I'll take care of the rest.”
Zach raised an eyebrow. “You sure?” he asked. “It sounds like a suicide mission.”
She smiled and held up her wrist. “Won't be my first.”
“So when do you want this little diversion?” Phil asked.
“Tonight. Between two and three,” Amanda said.
Zach looked to the others at the table.
Raj shrugged. “Why not? At least it'll be some excitement.”
“I'm in,” Sadie said.
“I'll be up anyway,” Phil said.
“Looks like you got yourself a diversion,” Zach said.
“Thank you!” Marilyn almost screamed, and threw her arms around Zach's shoulders.
Amanda nervously looked around, but there was no one around.
“Now,” Zach said. “Sit in for a few hands.”
Amanda looked to Marilyn. “What about group?”
“It's not mandatory,” Marilyn said and dragged a chair from a nearby table.
Amanda shrugged and did the same. “So what are we playing for?” she asked. The table was bare except for the cards.
“Nothing,” Phil said. “None of us have anything that's worth anything.”
“We used to play strip poker,” Sadie said. “But the boys didn't like that.” She broke into a wide grin. “I was the only one having any fun.”
“Plus the staff kind of frowned on it,” Raj said.
“Okay, then what game are we playing?”
“Your choice,” Zach said.
“Five card stud,” Amanda said.
Zach dealt the cards. She noticed that they were a mix of at least three different decks.
“So what's it like around here?” she asked as Zach finished dealing.
“Boring,” Sadie said.
“Yeah,” Raj agreed. “There's nothing to do but play cards and masturbate.”
“Okay,” Zach said, calling their attention back to the game. “The bet goes to Phil.”
Phil looked at his cards. “I fold.”
* * *
The screaming started just after two o'clock. It was primal, the screaming of panic and terror and absolute pain. And it would not stop.
The younger nurse got up to find the source of the heartbreak. A few seconds later, she ran back down the hall to get the older nurse and the orderly.
The screaming was so authentic that Amanda wasn't sure if it was the diversion Zach had promised or if something terrible had happened. Either way, with the nurses' station abandoned she decided to make her move.
“Good-bye, Marilyn,” she said and threw her arms around her friend.
“Bye, Amanda,” she said through the tears. “Will I ever see you again?”
She took Marilyn by the shoulders, held her at arm’s length, and looked her in the eyes. “I don't know,” she said, “but stay off your meds and get the hell out of this place.”
Marilyn could only nod that she would.
And with that promise, Amanda was out the door.
There were others in the hallway, drawn to the screams that had rousted them from sleep. A few discussed its possible source, wondered who had finally snapped. Most just wanted to return to their slumber.
Amanda did her best to avoid them. Which was easy enough. All their attention was focused farther down the hall, on the screaming and where and who it was emanating from. She was headed in the opposite direction, toward the nurses' station and the way out.
Amanda had no doubt her plan would work. She could have escaped at any time. The whole reason for doing it now, in the middle of the night with the nurses and orderly occupied, was so that no one saw her use her ability. Her ability was the reason she had been institutionalized in the first place.
When she was twelve, she had had a grand mal seizure. She had never had any type of seizure before, so her parents had rushed her to the hospital. By the time they arrived at the emergency room, the seizure had stopped but she was unconscious. When she woke up, her mother had explained what had happened (which at twelve years old only scared the shit out of her) and had explained that the doctors wanted to keep her overnight for observation.
Eventually, her parents went home for the night, leaving her scared and alone in a strange place. She woke up in the middle of the night, not sure where she was or what was going on, which frightened her more.
She was lying there with the covers pulled up to her chin, on the verge of freaking out. All she could think about was how much she wanted to be in her own bed, in her own room. She could remember closing her eyes and wishing she was there. And when she opened her eyes, she was.
She had somehow wished herself from the hospital room to her own bedroom.
Her parents assumed she had run away from the hospital. When she told them what had really happened, that she had wished herself home, they were convinced she had been sleepwalking. But after weeks of insisting her story was true, her parents sought help for her.
At first, it was a therapist. After a single session he recommended a psychologist. Amanda met with the psychologist a handful of times before being referred to a psychiatrist. And the psychiatrist saw her exactly three times before he advised her parents to have her committed.
Of course, they all asked her to wish herself somewhere else. But she could not. They used her failure to try to show her that she was delusional. It did not work. She continued to adamantly swear that her story was true, which was how she ended up on the high security ward.
She now knew that that first time had been dumb luck. Back then, she had not yet mastered her new talent. Now she could jump through space and time at will. All she needed was some sort of connection to where and/or when she was jumping to. This time, she had jumped back four years to save her younger self from hell.
She stopped at the only door onto or off of the ward. She looked through the shatterproof glass at the small elevator lobby beyond. She no longer had to close her eyes, no longer had to wish. She had jumped so many times that now it was second nature. One instant she was looking at the lobby, the next she was standing in it. Simple as that. Her connections tonight would all be visual. All, that is, except one.
She pressed the up button for the elevator and waited. If she ran into anyone, she hoped the scrubs and her youth would help her pass for a young nurse, despite her lack of identification.
The elevator came quickly. She rode it alone. One floor up.
The lobby to the high security ward looked the same as the one she had just left. As she stepped off the elevator, she saw the darkened bubble of a video camera watching the lobby. She walked toward the door.
To prevent escape, anyone trying to enter or exit the high security ward had to be buzzed through two doors. Between the doors was a guard station enclosed by shatterproof glass. She assumed the guards and not the nurses controlled the doors. The two guards on duty sat before a bank of video monitors. One was eating lunch, the other reading a magazine.
Amanda hoped to do this as stealthily as possible. But being seen on camera did not bother her. It wasn’t like she would be sticking around for the consequences. And if anyone was alerted to her presence, then the more chaos, the better. In which case being seen jumping between locations would be a bonus. What she was afraid of was getting physically caught. She could still jump, but anyone holding onto her would jump with her.
Looking past the guard station, she saw that the nurses’ station was also enclosed. Being able to see the nurses’ station meant that she could bypass the guards altogether and jump directly onto the high security ward.
If the guards were paying attention, they would see her on the monitors. But they hadn’t yet.
She jumped just out of sight of the nurses’ station. The first thing she noticed was the noise. If she thought the medium security ward was loud at night, this place put it to shame. Patients howled, screamed, and beat on the locked doors to their rooms. She didn’t remember the noise. Didn’t remember much at all about her time here.
She suspected there was at least one more guard roaming the halls, possibly two. She could not see into the nurses’ station, had no clue when or even if they did rounds, or how many nurses were on duty. She knew that looking like she belonged was the key to pulling this off.
If all the floors in the hospital had pretty much the same layout, then the side hallway her room had been on downstairs was her best bet for finding her younger self. The cacophony grew louder the closer she got.
She rounded the corner and saw a nurse and a guard at the other end of the hall. She quickly backpedaled and flattened herself against the wall. She held her breath. She did not think they had seen her. A few minutes later, they left the side hallway. Amanda watched their backs as they headed farther down the main corridor.
She slipped down the side hallway. She peeked into each room through the small windows in the doors.
Most patients were sleeping, or trying to. One man lay on his back howling at the top of his lungs. Several took turns screaming. And two patients beat on their doors with fists, feet, and even heads. She screamed herself when she looked through the glass in one door and saw lunatic eyes staring back at her.
She found her younger self, Jennifer Amanda Heller, in the last room down the hallway.
She jumped into the room. Tears filled her eyes as she surveyed the scene.
Jen was strapped to the bed. Her eyes were closed. There was a pained look on her face as she tried, even in drug-induced sleep, to fight for control. But it was a losing battle.
Her body flickered and flashed into and out of existence. She had no control. She was jumping between here and some unknown place.
Fucking drugs. Fucking doctors.
Amanda put a hand on her arm. She tried to stabilize the girl in the here and now. It was harder than she expected. Jen kept trying to jump away. But Amanda did notice the pained look melt away from her face.
Making sure to stay in contact with her, Amanda freed her of the straps. She dragged Jen’s legs over the side of the bed and pulled her by the arms into a sitting position. The younger her weighed nothing. Amanda bent down and threw Jen’s arms over her shoulders. Amanda smiled as Jen instinctively tightened her arms around her neck. Next Amanda hugged her around the torso and awkwardly stood.
As soon as Jen was clear of the bed and Amanda was sure they weren’t going to fall over, she jumped them both out of the hospital.
* * *
They jumped to the hallway outside Grace Benson’s Manhattan apartment. Amanda knew the apartment and Grace well. She had lived here for the past four years. It had become her home.
She had considered jumping into the apartment itself. But it was three in the morning, and the Grace of this time did not know her. She only hoped she had dreamed of their arrival.
Grace saw the future in her dreams. Or as she liked to say, she saw many possible futures.
Ordinarily, she would have knocked. But at this time of night she had to wake the older woman up, so she rang the doorbell.
She was surprised when the door was immediately pulled open.
“Amanda,” said a bright-eyed Grace. “It’s good to see you again.”
She was caught a little off guard. As far as she knew, this was the first time, the earliest, they had met.
She set the thought aside. Supporting Jen’s dead weight was starting to take its toll.
“Hi, Grace,” she said. “Would you mind giving me a hand?”
“Oh. Of course,” she said and rushed to Amanda’s side.
Together they laid the girl on the nearest sofa.
Free of the burden, Amanda collapsed onto the opposite sofa.
Soon, the pained look returned to Jen’s face and she started to flicker and flash in and out of the here and now.
“Is she—I mean, are you all right?” Grace asked. She was concerned for both of them.
Amanda nodded. “She’ll be fine once the drugs wear off. It will probably take a couple days.”
Grace nodded. “I ordered a pizza earlier. Pepperoni and pineapple. I wasn’t sure when you’d arrive, so it’s in the oven.”
“Thank you.” She was starving, and pepperoni and pineapple was her favorite.
“I also made up your room,” she said. “She can stay on the sofa. I’ll watch over her tonight. You get some sleep.”
She stood, gave Grace a big hug and a kiss on the cheek, and shuffled off to the kitchen.
* * *
Amanda woke late the following morning, feeling refreshed. The burden of saving herself from a life of potential horror had been lifted from her shoulders. The timeline was back on track.
In the living room, Grace sat with the still-unconscious girl. She had pulled her chair up to the sofa.
“How’s she doing?”
Grace looked at Amanda. “She seems to be doing better,” she said. “Her flashing has stopped for the most part. In the past couple hours, she’s started to thrash around a bit. And every once in a while, she’ll talk in her sleep.”
“What does she say?” Amanda sat on the edge of Jen’s sofa.
“She just mumbles. I can’t understand her.”
Amanda reached out and took the girls hand. She was calm, truly resting.
“I tried that last night,” Grace said, gesturing at their hands. “It was a …strange experience.”
Amanda nodded. “Try being a twelve-year-old girl with no idea what’s going on.”
“I only got a glimpse at what you went through,” she said. “Your actual thoughts and feelings? I can only imagine.”
Amanda was caught off guard as the girl tried to flash away. She was almost pulled away with her, but managed to hold them in the here and now.
“How often does that happen?” she asked.
“What?”
“She just tried to jump away.”
“Really? I didn’t see anything.”
Amanda explained her calming influence on the girl.
“She hasn’t done that in almost an hour,” she said.
“And before that?”
Grace thought for a moment. “Half hour, forty-five minutes.”
“Okay. Thank you, Grace.” She bent forward and kissed her on the cheek. “Now, go get some sleep.”
“I will,” she said. “After you take a shower.” Amanda was about to object, but Grace put up her hand to silence her. “And while you’re getting cleaned up,” she continued, “I’ll make you some breakfast.”
She got out of the shower to the smell of bacon and eggs. She found a pair of jeans in her size and a T-shirt sitting on the bed. She dressed and dragged a comb through her wet hair.
Grace was setting two plates onto the table when she walked into the kitchen.
“Is she still all right?” Grace asked.
“She seemed to be.” Amanda sat down and dug into her meal.
After the hospital food, she took her time and enjoyed real bacon and real eggs. “I think I met Marilyn Clark while I was there,” she said around a mouthful of eggs.
“Who’s Marilyn Clark?”
She swallowed and shook her head. “Sorry. I forgot you haven’t met Clark yet.”
“No. I don’t think I have.”
“He runs something similar to the underground railroad, getting altered out of harms way and to safety,” Amanda explained. “Marilyn is his daughter.”
Grace nodded her understanding but said nothing.
Amanda finished the last of her glass of orange juice, cleared the table, and got last night’s leftover pizza out of the fridge.
“If you’re still hungry, I can make more,” Grace said.
“It’s not for me. It’s for her. She’s going to be starving when she wakes up,” she said. “Now go to bed.”
Jen woke a few hours later, but she still wasn’t clean of the drugs. Her eyes were glassed over. Her face remained expressionless, almost catatonic.
When Amanda asked if she was hungry, she merely opened her mouth, waiting to be fed. Amanda didn’t mind feeding her. But the idea that she had been a zombie for so long that she equated the hospital’s feeding routine as open-mouth-insert-food both infuriated and saddened Amanda.
On the same note, Amanda made sure Jen was seated on the toilet before asking if she had to go to the bathroom. As long as they were there, Amanda decided to give her a sponge bath and tried to brush her disheveled hair.
Amanda then led her back to the sofa, where she curled up and was soon fast asleep.
The following day, she seemed to realize that she was no longer in the hospital.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“I’m a friend.”
Jen looked around at her surroundings.
“Where am I?”
“You’re safe, Honey. You’re safe.”
On the third day, she awoke with the sun, stretched, and smiled.
Amanda could tell she was free of the drugs.
Jen saw Amanda watching over her.
“Who are you?”
Amanda smiled. She had wondered how to answer this question and the questions to come for the past week. She hadn’t wanted to lie to her younger self, but at the same time, she hadn’t wanted to confuse the shit out of her either. But in that moment, she realized she did not have to come up with the answer. All she had to do was remember back four years, back to this very conversation.
“My name is Amanda.”
“I dreamed about you.”
“That wasn’t a dream.”
“You look like me,” she said.
“That’s because I am you.”
Confusion contorted the girl’s features.
“I’m you in about four years,” Amanda said.
Amanda then told Jen everything. That she wasn’t crazy. That she could jump to other places. And even to other times. The words spilled from her. It was like Amanda had been waiting to bare her soul to someone, anyone. Now she could. And she did.
Jen’s smile grew wider with every word Amanda spoke.
Grace walked into the room.
“You’re up,” she said, smiling.
“Yeah,” Amanda said. “She’s up and free of the drugs.”
“Who’s she?”
“This is Grace Benson. Grace, meet Amanda Heller.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Amanda” Grace said.
The girl once again looked confused. “My name’s not Amanda. It’s Jen.”
“Not anymore,” Amanda explained. “The hospital and the police are going to be looking for you. It’s safer for both you and Grace if you go by Amanda from now on.”
“Why Grace?” she asked.
“Because you’re going to be staying here with her for a while.”
“How long?”
Amanda smiled. “At least until you’re seventeen.”
She eyed Grace warily.
“Don’t worry,” Amanda assured her. “She’s harmless. And you can trust her with anything. She knows all about what I can do, and she’s going to teach you how to do it, too.”
This seemed to satisfy the girl.
“What about Mom and Dad?”
“I’ll take care of Mom and Dad,” Amanda said. “I’ll let them know we’re both safe and not to worry.”
Amanda stuck around for a few days to make sure new Amanda was comfortable with Grace and her new home. She moved onto the sofa while her younger self slept in her new bedroom.
On the third night, Amanda said her good-byes.
“Thank you, Grace. For everything,” she said. She kissed the older woman on the cheek and threw her arms around her.
“You just take care of yourself,” she whispered into her ear. “Bad times are coming.”
When the embrace broke, a single tear ran down Grace’s cheek.
Amanda then turned to her younger self.
“Will I ever see you again?” the girl asked, tears in her eyes.
“You are me.”
“You know what I mean.”
Amanda nodded that she knew. “I’ll stop in every once in a while to check up on you,” she said. “Just stay away from drugs and alcohol, listen to Grace and you’ll be fine.”
And then she disappeared.
* * *
It was a beautiful fall day. The sun shone in a cloudless sky. There was a bite to the air, a warning that winter was coming. The leaves had turned and were starting to blanket the Heller lawn.
Her parents were there, rakes in hand, bundled against the chill, trying to get a jump on the leaves. It was a ritual they would continue every Saturday until the first snow. Amanda used to help them. It was a family affair.
Of course, like all children, she used to complain about it. Why do we have to rake every Saturday? Why not just wait until all the leaves have fallen and then rake? she would ask every Saturday as the chore began. But by the time the last leaf of the day had been bagged, she hated to admit, even to herself, that she had had fun. That she’d enjoyed spending time with her parents.
Amanda watched as her parents struggled with the leaves. She could tell that now, for them, too, it was just a chore. The joy of their family ritual was gone.
She was nervous. The last time she was home, she said some pretty horrible things, though that had not happened yet.
As she approached she called out, “Hi, Mom.”
Her mother instinctively looked up at the sound of her daughter's voice. “Jennifer?” she said, confused.
“Yeah, Mom. It's me.”
Her mother started to say something, perhaps to scold her for escaping the hospital again. But she caught herself and took a closer look at the young woman approaching.
Her father started to walk toward his wife.
Amanda was now close enough for her mother to see it was really her.
“My God,” she said. “Is it really you?”
“Yes. It's me.”
Her mother threw her arms around Amanda. “You've grown up. Gotten taller. And your hair.”
“Who's this?” her father questioned, pulling off his gloves.
Her mother let her go, leaving Amanda to stare into her father's eyes.
“Hi, Dad.”
She could see the recognition on his face. But clearly he was having trouble equating the thirteen-year-old daughter he knew with the young woman standing before him.
“How?” he asked. “How is this possible?”
“Can we go inside?” Amanda asked. “I'll try to explain everything. But can we please get out of this cold?” she added with a smile. In truth, she wanted to tell her parents in private and preferably while they were sitting down.
Amanda followed her mother into the kitchen while her father put the rakes and the bag of leaves into the garage.
By the time her dad entered the kitchen, Amanda and her mom were seated at the table.
“I—I can't believe this,” he said.
“Remember that night?” Amanda asked her parents. “The night I said I wished myself back to my room?”
“Of course,” her dad said. “That was the night this hell began.”
Amanda took his hand. “I wasn't lying. I really can jump from one place to another. I can also jump from one time to another.”
“Jennifer, we've been through all this before,” Mom said. “I'm going to call the hospital and let them know you're here.”
“Why do I look four years older? How do you explain that I grew almost six inches?”
“I don't know, Honey. But there has to be a logical explanation.”
Amanda took a deep breath. “I'll prove it to you.”
“And how are you going to do that?” her mom questioned.
“I'm going to disappear from this chair,” she said. “And three seconds later, I'm going to appear in that one.” She pointed at the empty chair across from her.
“Don't be ridiculous,” Mom said.
“And when I appear over there, Mom is going to be screaming bloody murder.”
“Oh? You can predict the future, too?” her mother asked.
“No. But I can predict you,” she said. “And the second I disappear, you're going to start screaming at the top of your lungs.”
Her mother was about to say something when Amanda jumped.
What for Amanda was an instantaneous jump from one chair to another, lasted almost five seconds to her parents. And when she appeared again, her mother was indeed screaming like a banshee.
It took a few minutes for her mother to calm down.
“The seizure,” her father said.
“Yes. I'm not sure what it did, but somehow it re-wired my brain.”
Amanda then told them about the hell her younger self had gone through at the hospital. Her parents were appalled.
“My God,” her father said. “If we had known...”
“I know, Dad,” she said. “You thought you were doing what was best. I just wanted to let you know that I helped the younger me, your Jennifer, escape from the hospital.”
“Well, where is she?”
“She’s safe,” Amanda assured them. “She’s with people like her, people who can do amazing things.”
“Can we see her?” her mom asked.
“I'm sorry,” she said. “And I have to ask you not to look for her. She needs time to learn how to do what she can do.”
“Will we ever see her—you again?”
Amanda smiled. “I'll try to stop by every once in a while,” she said. “In a few months, thirteen-year-old Jen is going to show up here. She's going to be mad and say some horrible things. I just want you both to know that seventeen-year-old me understands why you put me in that hospital.”
“Can you ever forgive us?” Mom asked.
“Of course, Mom,” she said, hugging her.
“If you can travel through time,” her father said. “Why not go back and warn us beforehand not to put you there?”
“Because that's not the way I remember it,” she said. “I remember being rescued by an older version of myself, by me. Plus, that hospital is one of the reasons I am who I am today.”
“And who’s that, Honey?”
“A good person, Mom. A good person,” Amanda said. “I help people, people like me.”
###