L E O N I E

The first morning that I was in Mather's Mercy, I wasn't allowed to leave my room for breakfast. I was technically admitted on suicide watch so there were a lot of rules and regulations that had to be followed for my first week. So meals were delivered. I wasn't allowed knives and forks in my room. Nothing sharp or long enough to wrap around my neck and I was supervised heavily until I was cleared a week later and demoted to 'non risk'.

So the first morning that I was allowed to eat in the cafeteria and I saw fries on the breakfast menu, I wanted to sob. I couldn't lie, being locked up in isolation while I was watched like a hawk and evaluated was pretty shit but with each new reward I was given, things felt a little bit easier. I got up in the morning, showered, took my meds in front of the med nurse, Holly and then I went and had breakfast.

Two months and three weeks down, one week to go. Like any other morning, I walked into the cafeteria and headed straight for the smorgasbord of bacon, eggs, hash browns, toast, fries. Ah sweet deep fried potatoes. I piled them on to my plate and ignored the jiggle in my hips. I had enough problems without adding an eating disorder to the list.

There was a whole other wing in the building for that and I'd met a few of those patients. My heart went out to them. Like it did for every other patient in this facility. Everyone had a story and most of them were heart breaking. I sat down at my regular table with a few acquaintances that I'd come to know while I was here.

With my plate stacked, I scanned the space for a place to sit and set sights on a group of people that I'd become familiar with. Acquaintances if you will. There had been a few teenagers of my own age here, but they'd come and gone. So I'd found myself hanging around with a woman - Janice - in her thirties who had bipolar disorder, an older man - Kent - in his fifties who had severe personality disorder and a boy - Rylan - just a little younger than myself who hadn't disclosed what he was in for. He was a bit of a mystery but it wasn't outright obvious what it could be.

"Good morning," I gave them a warm greeting as I pulled the seat out and sat down beside Rylan. The three of them murmured dim greetings. It wasn't unusual for Rylan to be less than cheerful. But sometimes I got a bit more response from the other two. It changed hour to hour.

I'd learned so much about the struggles that people face with these disorders and the mountain of inner battles that constantly keeps them on edge. I know that your mind can be your own worst enemy, but it'd been an eye opener to see the extent of how much worse it could be. I've always hated the medication that I have to take, hidden it in shame, but I've come to realize that I should be grateful that I have something to calm the internal storm.

For some, it's a battle no matter what they do.

"Are you going to eat that?" Kent's voice brought my attention from the food that I hadn't even taken a bite of. I met his expectant glance as he pointed at my plate.

"Yes Kent," I nodded. "I just sat down."

"You don't need to consume that much food," his disapproving stare gave me an exaggerated once over and I looked down. I mean. I'd put on a little bit of weight since I'd been here. But it was sort of needed after how much I'd lost after-- after everything.

"Kent, that's rude," Rylan piped up, his spoon swirling in his cereal. He never ate hot food. "She's thin enough as it is."

"Thanks," I gave him a curious stare before I turned to Kent, smiled and then shoved a handful of fries into my mouth.

"Mail," Hector chirped, his button up shirt straining against his large stomach as he waddled around the table. "Leonie, as usual, a love letter from Mr Gilmore."

"Thanks Hec," I grinned at the jolly little man. He handed me the envelope before giving one to Kent and Rylan.

"What about me?" Janice almost shouted as Hector continued on his way with a small box of letters. He turned back, his gaze swept the four of us before his sympathetic smile landed on Janice.

"Sorry, nothing this morning."

"Those pricks!" She shouted, slamming her frail hands on the table. "Fucking useless excuse for a family can't even get off their fat fucking asses and send me a damn letter."

We watched with startle as she pushed her tray of food right off the table and stood up with a harsh scowl. Hector was long gone at this point. Janice didn't understand the phrase 'don't shoot the messenger' and this wouldn't be the first time that she'd gone off the deep end at him because her 'fat fucking family' hadn't written.

The staff approached the scene to escort her from the room but she didn't fight it. She left with heavy footsteps, swinging out at other peoples breakfast in attempt to throw it off the tables as she weaved towards the exit.

"Someone's on her rag," Kent muttered and I turned towards him in time to catch him stealing a piece of bacon from my plate.

"Kent," I clipped, smacking his hand with my fork so that he dropped it. "Touch my food again and this fork goes in your hand."

"All these females and their mental deficiencies," he scoffed with arrogance.

"This isn't a chemical imbalance issue, Kent," I leaned across the table with a sarcastic smile. "This is just me. And I love food more than life. So test me."

Rylan snickered beside me, earning a curt glance from Kent who stood up to leave as well. Yesterday he'd attempted to serenade one of the other young woman in the facility, providing her with Roses from the garden before he sang Hero by Enrique Inglesias in front of the free time lounge patients. He believed he was twenty five rather than fifty five and it didn't go in his favor but it was cute. That Kent was much sweeter.

Rylan and I settled into a comfortable silence once it was just the two of us and we opened our letters, while we nibbled on our food. This was something that Heath had started doing in the first few weeks that I'd been here after it became apparent that he couldn't handle the no phone call order. Technology was advance here. But we weren't allowed social media or recreational television. So Heath decided to take an old fashioned approach and I almost died when I got my first letter. I wrote him straight back and we'd been doing it ever since.

Leonie,

Let me just start by saying that I miss you. Like wow, do I miss you. As much as I want to hear your voice, I have to admit that this letters thing is kind of cool. Taking the time to sit down and write out what I'm feeling, waiting in anticipation for your response. I don't know. It's probably pretty cheesy but it's kind of romantic.

Anyway. There's not much to catch you up on. College is college. Mom's working. Sarah is.. okay. She misses you. They all do actually. I know that Jess is sending her own letters but she wanted me to tell you that she's sick of school without you. She actually had a lot to say about your absence but I don't have enough pen and paper to include that. Another week isn't much but I think it'll stretch on forever. When you're back, let me take you on a date? Dinner, movie, total chivalry.

I can't wait until you're back. I hope that you know that I meant what I said before you left. I was glad to read in your last letter that you've forgiven yourself. I won't lie, I cried reading that. Don't tell anyone. I'm just relieved that you're getting better and I'll be with you through thick and thin gorgeous. I swear.
I love you. Heath x

I folded the letter up with a lip biting grin, looking forward to writing a letter back after therapy this morning. My Wednesday routine was the same each week. We received mail at breakfast, we had individual therapy and then afterwards we had free time in the large patient lounge. We could draw, write, listen to music with headphones in. There was television and select movies. But they were staff chosen and there were limited options. It kind of sucked being deprived of Gossip Girl and Teen Wolf for the last two and a half months but it was all apart of the healing process apparently.

"How's your boyfriend?" Rylan questioned as he slipped his envelope under his arm. He stood with his breakfast tray and stared down at me while he waited for an answer.

"He's good," I smiled. "How's your dog?"

"He misses me," Rylan explained with a soft sigh before he stepped back and pushed the chair in with his hip. "I'll be home soon though."

"Yeah," I grinned, mirroring his excitement. "One week to go."

"Oh," he turned around as he'd been about to leave, his face wearing a definite disappointment. "I've still got two left."

"You've been here longer than me though?"

"Yeah, one year. Well, it will be in two weeks."

My mouth fell open as I regarded him with shock. I didn't even realize it was possible to be stuck here for such an extended amount of time. I thought three months was torture. "Are you ever going to tell me why you're here?"

"Maybe," he shrugged with a shadow of a smile. "We'll see."

And with that, he stalked off to return his tray, leaving me with the urge to ask more. I wouldn't though.

When I'd finished up in the dining hall, I headed towards the east wing where my therapy session was held. Something else that I'd hated when I arrived. But I'd grown to appreciate the hour long discussions with Cammie. She was a beautiful brunette woman in her mid thirties who knew her shit. I think I challenged her a little in the beginning. Me being me, I questioned her techniques, I attempted to ask more invasive questions than she did and I constantly veered off subject. She broke me down though and I had to admit that she'd helped me heal more than I believed that she could. I saw her twice a week on Monday and Wednesday.

"How was breakfast this morning Leonie?" She asked as I walked straight into her pristine office. It was a warm room with maroon walls and cream carpet. A small desk sat on an angle in the corner of the room and we sat opposite each other on matching plush two seater sofas.

"It was good," I nodded, grabbing a throw pillow and resting it on my lap.

"So, one week left," Cammie grinned with excitement as she crossed her legs and adjusted her pencil skirt. "How are you feeling about going home. Do you think you'll be able to up keep some of the things we've discussed here?"

"Yeah for sure," I gave her a confident smile. "I just can't wait to go home and be normal again."

Her gaze narrowed on me, her lips pulling tight as she looked at me with mild disappointment. "There's that word that I've heard you use before. Leonie—" she leaned forward with her elbows on her knee—"normal doesn't exist. I mean, what is normal? Normal is an ideal that society has created so that people can fit themselves into a category that separates them from people that they don't deem normal."

She leaned back and tapped her pen against the thick journal that she jotted in while we talked. "Why do you think that you're not—" she created finger quotes —"normal."

"I guess it's that I have to depend on medication to feel happy. Or at least not feel like an emotional mess."

"So you have to take medication," she shrugged. "Your brain is a little chemically unbalanced. Let's say Jennifer, who's parents are divorced, she has four Christmas'. Her step brother has attempted to sleep with her and her Mom is married to your boyfriends Dad. Does she have the right to call herself normal because she's not on medication?"

"Who's Jennifer?"

"Not the point Lee," she waved her hand with dismissal. "The point is, is that yes, you need medication. No that doesn't deem you an outcast. It doesn't mean that you should be treated differently. Because there are people and situations that are far more messed up out there and you'll find that those with the most skeletons will have the biggest opinions."

Her point made sense. A lot of sense. But I'd never been one to judge myself based on the lives of others. It had always been how I felt and what I was going through. As selfish as it might have sounded to word it in those terms, it was just easier than focusing on the flaws of others in order to diminish my own.

But before I could voice that argument, Cammie changed the subject. "How's Sarah? Did Heath update you on her condition in his letter?"

"He said she was doing alright," I gave her a small shrug, nodding at the same time. "He didn't say a lot so I suppose there's no change."

"You said that she's sick, correct?" She questioned, staring down at her journal as leafed through its pages. "Cancer was it?"

"Mhmm. Yeah."

"And how would you describe Sarah? What's she like as a person? Do the two of you get along?"

I was certain that I must have been wearing a quizzical stare because I was sure this was a subject that we'd touched before. But with a little arch in my brow and shrug of my shoulders, I filled her in. "She's great. We get along so well. She's hilarious for starters and she has this amazing relationship with Heath. She's an awesome addition to the group actually. Everyone loves her."

"So does she have to do chemo?" Cammie finished writing whatever it was that had her attention and glanced up at me. "I suppose she would?"

"Yeah, she does," I nodded, thinking about the few times that I'd been with her either during or after a chemo session. It always broke my heart to see the effect that it had on her.

"Yet you said before that she's a great addition to the group," Cammie slowly said. "She's on these meds and doing chemo but she's just like one of the girls. She's not treated differently due to her circumstances?"

My mouth opened to answer but I came up short because I realized the point behind her questioning. Ugh. She's good.

"Alright," I nodded with a subtle eye roll. "I get it. I see the point that you're making."

"Well I'm glad," she lightly laughed as she scribbled a few notes down, silence following her revelation. All that could be heard was her pen on paper and the clock ticking the seconds before she put her pen down and refocused on me. "I want to talk more about the miscarriage and the events that lead to the attempt."

Hearing the words 'miscarriage' and 'attempt' were like nails on chalkboard. It was an almost instant feeling of anguish and distress. Not to mention the grief that came along without invitation. Cammie's ability to slide right into a new conversation with such an abrupt manner and no warning had me scowling at her from the sofa. But she as usual, she just smiled and continued her questioning.

"Last week we had a rather impressive break through," she reminded me of the hysteric mess that I'd become at our last session. "You came to understand that there shouldn't be any guilt about the loss, or the way that you'd reacted."

That had been tough to swallow. Realizing that while I had reacted terribly, blaming Heath, cutting him off and refusing to be rational, it was normal to lash out after such a loss. Or so Cammie told me. The point that she wanted me to remember, was that while it could have gone differently based on my reaction, it was in the past now and there was no point keeping Heath at arms length because I felt that I didn't deserve him. We all deserved forgiveness.

"Are you still feeling positive with the conclusions that we came to?" She asked.

"Yeah."

"And the attempt," she gave me a sad smile and crossed her legs in the opposite direction. "Where are we with that?"

"If you're asking if I'm feeling in the least bit suicidal, I'm not," I assured her, re wrapping my hair into a new bun. "I wasn't even suicidal before. I just—"

"Had a moment of weakness?" She repeated the words that I'd used before.

"Yeah. I mean, no I didn't want to be dead. It wasn't something that I constantly thought about. But it just felt like mistake after mistake was piling on top of me and I couldn't breathe. I couldn't see two inches in front of me. I couldn't think. It was like I was trapped in a dark box, suffocating and all I wanted to do was make it stop."

"You said that before you took the pills, you thought that it would be best for everyone if you just left and all the problems you caused would go with you," she almost murmured the statement as she penned out another paragraph. "So you were obviously thinking about your family at that point?"

"Well.. sort of," I recalled that night but most of it was a blur and what I did remember made me nauseous. "Like I said, I couldn't see two inches in front of me. I was thinking about them but it was more like—"

"Like a one track thought process?" She finished the sentence again. "Like there were no alternatives and there was no chance of the thought of your family pulling you out of it because the only emotion that came with thinking about them was guilt and negativity."

"Yeah, exactly."

She gave me a gentle smile and nodded with understanding. "So we've got in place, some tactics to keep it from getting that far again. We've talked about warning signs and when you need to seek extra help. Without shame might I add. Because Leonie, there's nothing wrong with needing help sometimes. We all do."

"Yeah."

"There is something wrong with letting your family stress and fear that you won't be responsible enough to take your medication or get help when it's all becoming to much. The people around you need to feel confident that you'll make take better steps in keeping well."

I thought about Mom and how much she'd shouldered blame of her own. Like she should have been at home rather than in London. As if her being in the same house would have had me opening up to her more. As if she could have made me start taking the meds again after I lost baby Hank. Cammie was right of course. It was selfish to let the people that love me, live with this constant fear that I was going to do something stupid again, all because I was too stubborn to pop the right kind of pills and get help. I didn't need to be ashamed of my condition or hide it from people.

The beeper on Cammie's hip started to blare and both of us jumped, the startling noise shattering the silence that had been a result of some rather profound thoughts and words. Cammie plucked it off her belt and frowned but without hesitation, she stood up and headed to her desk.

"Sorry, reception needs me on an urgent pager."

I shrugged with indifference and stifled a yawn while she leaned on the desk with her hip and waited while the phone rang. The vague words of her greeting and questioning of what's so urgent were a bit of white noise in the background, I was still thinking about our discussion. Which was new for me. I usually prefered to silence all discerning thoughts.

But I was pulled from the engrossed state when Cammie called for me, her hand over the receiver as she waved it in the air. "Reception want to speak to you."

It had been two and a half months since I'd spoken on the phone. I think at this point I'd forgotten how to text. But I stood up and rounded the sofa that Cammie had been sitting on, taking the phone from her as she moved aside.

"Hello?"

"Leonie, we have an emergency phone call on wait for you," the voice informed me on the other end of the line. "I'm going to transfer you. One moment."

My heart began to race while I waited. When I'd first arrive they let me know that phone calls were only allowed to be taken under the event of an emergency and I started to panic while my imagination ran wild at what could be going on.

"Leonie?"

"Alex?"

"Yeah," his voice came through, soft and almost whimpering as he took a deep breath. "You have to come home, Lee."

"Why?" I murmured, my hand holding the receiver so tight that it hurt while a wave of unease rolled over me.

He sniffled again, his sobbing was gut wrenching. "It's Sarah."

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