“What?” she spat out. “I don’t. I don’t need to be here.” Her heart pounded, each beat like a sledgehammer to her sternum. The traitorous monitors revealed its frantic rhythm.
127 bpm
129 bpm
133 bpm
The numbers kept ticking up and up, revealing the chaos in her chest.
Harper took a deep, calming breath, trying to grapple her pounding heart into submission. She used all her effort to give the doctor a kind smile.
“I’m sorry. It’s been a long day. It was an accident, and all I want is to go home and rest like you said.” She met Dr. Ross’s eyes, trying to hold them with a steady serenity that she didn’t feel. He stared back at her for a moment before glancing back to Dan, searching for an answer.
And there it was. Damn him. And damn men. Damn the labels and the stigma that she’d been running from her whole life. This was what she hated. That label, that shameful fucking label. Mental illness. As soon as that was attached to a person, they lost validity in society’s eyes.
“Don’t look at him,” Harper snapped. “Look at me. I don’t want or need to speak with a psychiatrist. As you said, it’s a concussion from a freak accident, and I want to be discharged. Do you understand me?”
Dr. Ross stared at her, weighing his options. He could keep going back and forth, wasting minutes that were so precious to every doctor, or he could wash his hands of it. With a sigh, he nodded. “I’ll have the nurses gather your discharge papers,” he said, making one last note on his clipboard before clicking his pen shut and swooping from the room.
Silence pressed around Harper and Dan like an amorphous weight threatening to crush them. Harper wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. She hated being such an embarrassing mess. And she hated that Dan looked at her like that, with a stare she could feel.
A look that whispered, It’s okay to be a mess, you can be a mess with me.
Because a part of her so desperately wanted to believe that. She wanted to let out her ugly and trust that he’d still be there. But if she did that, she’d be weak. If she softened even a fraction, she’d crumble. She instinctively knew it. Her survival depended on control.
If she broke now, it would all be a waste. Her mother’s death, the pain of losing her, the years of loneliness and fear—it would all be for nothing.
“There’s no shame in getting help. In going to therapy. I think it could be really good for you,” Dan said, breaking their silence.
Harper wanted to laugh. No shame? There was nothing but shame.
Shame saturated her so profoundly, permeated her so acutely, that she could drown in it. She was supposed to be strong. Smart. Independent. But she wasn’t any of those things if she accepted that sometimes her mind was outside her realm of control, her emotions these unwrangleable creatures that chewed her up and spit her out. There was no greater shame than admitting that.
“Can I ask you a question?” she whispered, all her countless feelings globbing together into anger.
“Of course,” Dan said, leaning toward her, reaching out for her. She avoided his touch.
“Who the fuck do you think you are?” she asked evenly, fixing him with a cold stare.
“W-what?”
“Who. The. Fuck. Do you think you are? Telling someone I’m mentally ill? Telling me I need therapy? I’m just curious where you get off.”
“Excuse me?” Dan said, his head reeling back, his temper rising to the surface. “Are you fucking kidding me right now, Harper? If you didn’t notice, you’ve been having a full-blown meltdown for the past twenty-four hours that resulted in you being hospitalized. And you’re mad that I told a doctor about it?”
“I didn’t have a meltdown!” Harper nearly shouted, her blood pounding at her temples. She knew she was a dirty little liar. But lying was better than admitting the truth, better than submitting to the reality of how much anxiety controlled her life. “And none of that information was yours to tell. I don’t go broadcasting your bullshit around.”
“My bullshit?”
“Yeah, Dan. Your bullshit.” She couldn’t stop herself. All that shame, all that embarrassment, swelled inside her, lashing out in a rage. Striking at the closest thing. “You’re the one who needs help. You’re the one walking around like some precious martyr for your dead dad. ‘Oh, woe is me. I had a meanie father, and now my mom wants me to come work with her after school. My life is so hard whaaa whaaa whaaa.’” Harper was being cruel. Absolutely awful. And she hated how good it felt. Anything to remove the attention from her own fucked-up mind.