If- Nina G. Jones Page 0,70

possible. But him and poop-voice were laughing about something and chatting away. They had decided I wasn’t worth talking to anymore. It became hard to fill my lungs with air. My face and chest were pressed down onto the seat and each panicked breath seemed to yield less oxygen.

“Flip me . . . better yet, uncuff me. I won’t fight. I just need to breathe,” I gasped.

They had forgotten about me. I would be forgotten and die back here.

Sorry officers, but my life is at stake. Didn’t they know cars were dangerous? If we crashed, I wouldn’t be able to help myself out. I didn’t care if it pissed them off, I needed air. I fucking needed air.

“Open the window. I can’t breathe!” I shouted. If I could just get some oxygen, I could think clearer. I could breathe.

I slammed my my forehead at the door just in front of me. “Let me out! Let me out!” I felt myself turning blue, I could see blue splashes before my eyes.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

I thrashed harder each time. I would get them to listen. Even better, I would pass out so I wouldn’t feel the painful clenching around my chest. The racing thoughts of death would stop and I could get some quiet. I didn’t care that with each thud, more warmth trickled down my forehead until I could see hardly anything but my own blood. “Let me out! Let me the fuck out!”

BIRD

I TRAILED BEHIND Miller as he approached the nurses’ desk.

As he filled out paperwork and talked to the intake nurse, Jordan and Trevor came rushing in through the entrance to the psych ward.

“Thank god,” I sighed. I felt like I had been thrown into an alternate reality and seeing my guys grounded me again.

“Is he okay?” Jordan asked.

“I don’t know, we just got here.”

Jordan hugged me and Trevor rested a comforting hand on my shoulder.

“Bird, I’d been so busy with the show and I’d been staying at Trevor’s so much, I didn’t even notice.”

“How do you think I feel? Like an idiot. How could I let it get this far?”

“Don’t blame yourself,” Trevor said. “You have no experience with these types of things. Mental illness goes undiagnosed a lot.”

But it wasn’t undiagnosed. Ash knew, and he didn’t tell me.

Miller made his way over to our huddle, and I gave a round of introductions.

“I thought he was a loner. He didn’t tell me about his friends. Maybe that’s why he stopped coming around as often,” Miller said. It wasn’t a good time to tell him that Ash had overheard the things Ella had said.

“Can I talk to you for sec?” Miller asked me.

“Sure.”

Miller pulled me a few feet away. “He was being belligerent when they brought him here, so they had to sedate him. That and the fact that he likely hasn’t slept for more than a couple of hours in the past week or more means he likely won’t even be up until tomorrow. Then they are going to have to administer the meds which will take at least a few days to kick in. They might even do some other stuff.”

“Other stuff?”

“I don’t want to freak you out.”

“It’s a little late for that, don’t you think?”

“ECT. I know it sounds archaic, but basically shock therapy.”

“No,” I cried under my breath. “They’re going to shock his brain?”

“I just spoke with the doctor a bit. That’s what they did in New York. It’s not as bad as it sounds. In really acute cases, especially when hallucinations may have set in, it’s just a way to kind of reset his brain a bit and let the medicine take hold faster. The shocks are very low voltage.”

I knew Miller had Ash’s best interest in mind, and he was his brother, and I was just his new girlfriend, but my heart still wrenched with images I had seen on TV of people being tortured this way: tongue depressors, thick leather belt buckles tied to hands and feet, the violent convulsing. I just couldn’t imagine my Ash this way.

“Bird, thank you for everything. But you should go home. Rest. I have your number, and when he’s in a state to talk, I’ll call you. Knowing Ash, I don’t think he would want you to see him like this. And I have to put him first. I hope you understand.”

I did. But I couldn’t help feeling that Miller didn’t understand what Ash and I shared. We were younger than him, and he had just learned