I don’t know why I’m here. I don’t belong. I’m not one of them. I don’t scream and throw things like Laura. I don’t try to punch people like Jason does. I don’t take my clothes off for no reason like Teresa, or smear my shit on the walls of my room like Gavin. I don’t sit hunched up in the corner and cry all day or stare blankly at the television screen even when it’s turned off.
At least Mary is here with me. I’d been scared she might not want to come too. This is not somewhere you want to come. Only if they make you.
‘Of course I’m here. Where else would I be? I’ve told you I’ll never leave you, no matter what happens.’
Mary has been my friend since Daddy left. Mum blamed me, even though I was only five. She said it was because I was such a difficult child and wouldn’t do as I was told.
‘She’s a liar. Don’t listen to her. It’s her fault he went away, not yours.’
I wanted to believe Mary, but I remember the shouting the night I told him about all Mum’s friends who came to visit when he wasn’t there. He must have left early for work the next morning because I didn’t see him. He never came home again.
I don’t need anyone except Mary, and she doesn’t need anybody except me. We are more than best friends, more than sisters, more even than soul mates. We belong together. There was a girl at school ages ago who wanted to be friends with me. Her name was Lynne and she sat next to me for a while. When we had to do things in pairs, she always wanted to be my partner, even though I told her that Mary and I were a team. Mary didn’t like Lynne taking her seat or walking next to me, and she would kick her or pull her hair or pinch her arm. Lynne cried and the teacher told us off, but it worked because Mary got her seat back and nobody else wanted to sit next to me.
None of the others liked Mary, but it was only because she stood up for me when they tried to bully me. In the playground they’d chant:
‘Orphan Annie, bad and sad, Her Mum is mad, and she’s got no Dad’.
I didn’t know what an orphan was, so I asked the teacher if I was one. She said I wasn’t because I still had Mum, but as she was walking away, I heard her say I might as well be, in that funny whispery voice Mum uses when she says bad things about Daddy and doesn’t want me to hear.
‘Of course you’re not an orphan. Orphans are all alone in the world, they have nobody. You have me. You’ll always have me.’
I know Mary’s promised she’ll never leave me, but I’m still scared that if I try to have other friends, she might get jealous and go away like Daddy did. There’s nobody in here I would want to be friends with anyway. They’re all loonies.
‘You’re not mad. Trust me.’
And I believe her, because Mary is the only person in the world who never lies to me. She knows what I’m thinking. If I was nuts, she would know and she would tell me.
It’s not that bad in here. The food’s OK – unless you’ve got an eating problem, I guess – and the rooms are nice enough, although I wish I was back home with all my stuff like books and posters around me.
‘Bland. Sickly pink and boring beige. This place needs some red and purple and black to liven things up.’
The staff are mostly kind, except when someone kicks off. Then they can be really tough, but I suppose that’s just part of their job. They tell us what to do all the time. When to get up, when to eat, when to go to bed, when to take our pills, when to see the doctor, when to go to group therapy.
‘You’re fifteen. You’re not a little kid anymore. You can make up your own mind.’
I don’t like being told what to do. Not by anyone. Except Mary. She always seems to know what I need. Sometimes the things she tells me to do are bad, like when she wants me to hurt people. I know that’s wrong, and I won’t do it. Then she makes me hurt myself instead. But that’s OK.
Mary is the reason we’re in here. She gave me the knife and told me to cut Elise, the girl from next door. We didn’t like Elise – she stared at us and pulled faces; she said nasty, horrible things about Mum, called her a slag and a tart. Even if she was right, she shouldn’t have said it – not to me and Mary. I didn’t want to hurt her. I just pointed the knife at her to get her to stop. She screamed and ran into her house. Mary told me to follow her, but I went home instead.
When the police came round, I tried to explain it was Mary who wanted to hurt Elise, not me. I still had the knife and I showed them how we pointed it at her. They told me to put it down, but Mary wouldn’t let me. They grabbed my arm and twisted it up behind my back to make me drop it, and one of them cut his hand trying to rip my fingers off the handle.
‘Get off me! Fucking pigs! Take your filthy hands off me, you perverts!’
Mary got super angry. She was kicking and spitting and clawing at them and it took both of them to put the handcuffs on me. They tied my legs together and put a hood over my head. The police asked Mum if she wanted them to take me away. I can’t believe she said yes. I will never forgive her for that. Never.
Mum was crying when they put me in the back of the car and brought me here. She promised she’d come and visit me soon, once the doctors said she could. She hasn’t been to see me yet.
Mum and Mary never got on, right from the beginning. When Daddy left, Mum opted out and even though I was only five I had to pretty much look after her as well as myself. Thank God Mary showed up to help me, tell me what to do until she snapped out of it. I told Mum that Mary wasn’t an “imaginary friend”, that she was real, but she wouldn’t listen. Mum got cross when I wouldn’t get in the car because I was waiting for Mary, or I wouldn’t wear anything pink because Mary didn’t like it. She wouldn’t lay a place for Mary at the table either. In the end, I refused to eat anything until Mum gave Mary the same food as me.
‘I know you’re hungry, but it won’t be for long. We just need to stop eating long enough to scare her.’
Mary was right and Mum caved in. She said she understood Mary was part of my life, although I knew she wasn’t happy about it. They never speak to each other directly, only through me. Which is just as well, because I can leave out some of the rude and unkind things Mary wants to say to Mum, even though it makes Mary mad.
Now I’m shut up in here I miss Mum, and I’m angry with Mary because if she hadn’t wanted to cut Elise, and if she’d put the knife down when the police told her to rather than kicking off, I’d never have been taken away. When I told her this, she stopped talking to me for three days. I may miss Mum, but I missed Mary more, so I said sorry and begged her to come back. We made up and I’m not alone anymore.
‘We need to get out of here.’
I don’t know how she expects me to escape – this place is like a prison.
‘You know how. One day someone will make a mistake and that will be our opportunity’
Mum came for her first visit this afternoon. She said I look well, that I’ve put on a bit of weight and my eyes and skin are brighter. She didn’t ask how Mary is, so Mary sulked and refused to talk to her. Mum chatted away about this and that, what’s happened to people I don’t even know. She brought me a Get Well Soon card from school. I didn’t open it. I might read it later. Or I might not. Mary rolled her eyes at the picture of the cute bunny with a bandage on its head and snorted with derision. The school didn’t send Mary a card.
When the visit was over, Mum tried to hug me, but I was still cross with her for ignoring Mary so I stood rigid with my hands by my sides.
‘It’s OK. Hug her back – this could be our chance.’
So then I put my arms round my Mum’s waist and rested my head against the pillow of her breasts. It felt so good, I wished we could stay like that forever. I slipped my right hand into her coat pocket and felt around carefully. A damp tissue is all I found. But I hit the jackpot in the other pocket. I crumpled the piece of silk up in my fist and slipped it into the sleeve of my sweatshirt as I pulled away.
Mum’s favourite orange and pink scarf smells of her perfume. Back in my room, I hold it up to my face and inhale deeply. I don’t really want to do this.
‘We need to get out of here, and this is the only way.’
I know she’s right.
‘Of course I am. I always know what’s best for us.’
When I wake up in the hospital room, Mary is so pissed off, mean and angry as hell.
‘You stupid bitch. I don’t know why I waste my time here with you.’
I tried, I really did. I waited until just after the staff had done their midnight rounds before I did it.
‘How come they found you then? You’re such a failure. You couldn’t even do this right.’
How was I supposed to know they changed the schedule at random?
‘I’m sick of hanging round with a fucking loser like you. Maybe I should just go and find a new friend, someone who can do what I tell them without screwing up.’
I want to cry, but my throat hurts too much.
They are much more careful now. They come in to check on me every fifteen minutes, search my room every day to make sure I haven’t got anything I could use to hurt myself or anyone else. I don’t think we will ever get out of here.
‘It’s time for Plan B.’
Mary’s been quieter for the past couple of days, so I guess she’s been thinking about other ways to escape. I ask her what Plan B is.
‘You have to stop talking about me. Tell them you don’t listen to me anymore. Play their silly games, go to their stupid therapy sessions. Make them believe I’ve left you. Then when they think I’ve gone for good, they’ll let you out.’
But I’m terrified that she really will leave me. That she’ll be like Dad and go away and never come back.
‘Don’t worry. I’ll only be gone a little while. Just until the plan works. I won’t be far away, and I’ll be waiting for you on the outside.’
I’m putting plan B into action, starting this morning. I’m playing along, doing everything they say, taking their useless pills. I hate it, though. I feel as though Mary really is gone, which makes me not even want to get out of bed. But deep in my head I think I can still hear her.
‘Don’t give up. It will be worth it in the end. Be strong. You can do this.’
And so I get up, and I shower and wash my hair for the first time in a week. And I ignore the tray outside my door and go to the dining room for breakfast, where I sit at a table with Laura and Gavin. And we eat cereal and toast that’s been buttered for us because we’re not allowed knives, not even flimsy plastic ones. They try to talk to me, but I don’t answer, because even though Mary isn’t here, I know what she’d say.
‘Careful – don’t change too quickly or fit in too easily or you’ll make them suspicious.’
In group therapy, I join in for the first time. I tell them Mary is gone, that this is me talking and not her. I say how much I miss her, and that I don’t think she’s coming back. Then I start to cry, just a bit, and they are real tears. Everyone hugs me and says how pleased they are I’m getting better. I wait for Mary to push them away and shout at them to leave us alone. But she doesn’t.
It’s so hard being without Mary, but I will stick it out for as long as it takes to make them think they’ve won. Then when they let me go home, Mary and I can be together again. And this time I’ll do anything she says.
‘Even if I tell you to hurt people?’
Anything. I’d rather die than be apart from Mary. I’d kill to stop them splitting us up.
Hilary Ayshford is a former science journalist and editor based in rural Kent in the UK. She writes mainly flash fiction and short stories, but now finds herself unexpectedly writing a novel. She likes her music in a minor key and has a penchant for the darker side of human nature.