When My Husband Had Me Committed for His Mistress

The room was white. Walls. Floor. Ceiling. Even the light was white. Fluorescent. Humming.

I sat on the bed. Thin mattress. Scratchy sheets. My wrists had marks on them. Red lines from the restraints they'd used in the van.

I wasn't wearing my clothes anymore. They'd given me scrubs. Gray. Shapeless. The fabric smelled like bleach and something else. Something chemical I couldn't name.

There was a window. Small. Reinforced glass. I could see a parking lot. Cars coming and going. People who could leave.

I couldn't leave.

The door had a lock on the outside. I'd heard it click when they brought me in. Heard the nurse's footsteps fade down the hall.

I was alone.

Except I wasn't.

The boy was in the corner. Sixteen. Hoodie. But he looked different now. Paler. Like someone had turned down his brightness.

"Emberly," he said softly.

I didn't answer. My throat was raw from screaming at the airport. My eyes felt swollen.

"You have to eat something," he said.

There was a tray on the table beside the bed. Sandwich. Apple. Juice box. I hadn't touched it.

"I'm not hungry."

"You haven't eaten in two days."

"I don't care."

He moved closer. His sneakers didn't make a sound. They never did.

"Please," he whispered. "Just a little. For me."

I looked at him. At the boy who wasn't real. Who had never been real.

"Why are you still here?" I asked.

He didn't answer right away. He sat on the floor. Pulled his knees up. The way he used to on the rooftop when we'd skip last period and watch the clouds.

"I don't know," he said finally. "Maybe because you need me."

"I don't need a hallucination."

"Then what do you need?"

I closed my eyes. "I need to wake up. I need this to not be real."

"Emberly—"

"He put me here." My voice cracked. "Dillon put me here. He signed papers. He ripped up my ticket. He stood there and watched them drag me away and he didn't—" I couldn't finish. My chest hurt too much.

The boy's face was the saddest thing I'd ever seen.

"I know," he whispered.

"You promised you'd protect me."

"I'm not him anymore. You know that."

"Then what are you?"

He looked down at his hands. Sixteen-year-old hands that used to hold mine on the walk home from school.

"I'm what's left," he said quietly.

The door opened. I flinched. Pulled my knees to my chest.

A nurse came in. Middle-aged. Kind face. The kind of face that made you think she'd chosen this job because she cared.

She looked at the untouched tray. At me. At the corner where the boy sat.

She couldn't see him. But she saw me looking.

"Emberly," she said gently. "How are you feeling?"

I didn't answer.

She moved closer. Checked the chart clipped to the end of the bed. "It says here you've been talking to someone. Is there someone in the room with you?"

I looked at the boy. He shook his head slowly.

"No," I whispered.

The nurse's smile was patient. Practiced. "It's okay if there is. We're here to help you."

"I'm fine."

"You haven't eaten. You haven't slept. That's not fine, sweetheart."

I hated that word. Sweetheart. Like I was a child. Like I was broken.

Maybe I was.

"I just want to go home," I said.

The nurse's face softened. "I know. But right now, this is the safest place for you."

"Safe from what?"

She didn't answer that. She just made a note on the chart. "Dr. Brennan will see you tomorrow. In the meantime, try to rest. And please eat something."

She left. The lock clicked.

I stared at the door.

"She thinks I'm crazy," I said.

The boy stood. Moved to the window. "You're not crazy."

"I'm talking to someone who isn't there."

"That doesn't make you crazy. That makes you surviving."

I pulled the blanket around my shoulders. It wasn't cold. But I couldn't stop shaking.

"How long do you think they'll keep me here?" I asked.

The boy didn't answer.

"Dillon signed the papers," I said. "He can keep me here as long as he wants. Can't he."

The boy pressed his hand against the glass. Looked out at the parking lot.

"I don't know," he said quietly.

I lay down. Curled on my side. Faced the wall.

The boy sat on the floor beside the bed. I could feel him there. Even though I knew I couldn't.

"Don't leave," I whispered.

"I won't."

"Promise."

He was quiet for a long time. Then: "I promise."

I closed my eyes.

Somewhere far away, in a city I'd never been to, in an office overlooking a river I'd never seen, my brother—who I thought was dead—was reading a file with my name on it.

But I didn't know that yet.

All I knew was the white room. The locked door. The boy in the corner who was fading a little more every time I looked.

And the terrible, crushing certainty that no one was coming.

No one ever came.