Range of Emotion

Nate bounced the lamb-shaped, stress ball on the floor as he walked. The puke-green, low pile carpet made no sound while he followed it around the ninety-degree turn in sock-clad feet. The only sound came from a young woman violently throwing up in one of the rooms he passed. A familiar refrain from the past few days. Seventy-three steps to a tiny end of the hall meeting room, a one-hundred and eighty-degree turn, and he was headed back the way he had come.

He passed the tiny kitchen area filled with locked pantries and fridge, and empty white tables. Turned again at the short hallway next to the tiny television area and the giant desk that made up the nursing station. His back to a double-wide locked door. The door to the outside. It’d been over a week since he’d been out there.

Later in the day as bedtime neared, Nate often wondered what he was doing there. How had his life degenerated to this? Locked in a mental ward. Pacing the hall. Alone. Exhausted. Depressed and terrified of everything. 

A year ago he had been independent. Worked the same office job for over eight years. Owned a townhome and three ancient cats, leased a car, and lived just like everyone else in the world. He wasn’t a party animal. He tried to eat right and exercise. Yet he still ended up here. Confused. Alone. Hopeless.

The mornings were the worst. Nate went to bed at night, almost feeling like himself again. Able to think and reason. Only to awake in terror the next morning. Fear of nothing at all. Depression so deep he wondered why he bothered to breathe for one more second. How had he gotten here? 

The sad reality was that he’d checked himself in again. Four times in a year. Each time worse than the last. Each time a new drug added. Each time more and more lost to himself. Hope had vanished after the fourth or fifth medication was added. Nothing helped. In fact, he really began to believe everything was making him worse. That’s why he’d tried to come off everything. Which put him right back where he was now. At the hospital, praying for a miracle of some god he’d never really believed in, to save him from himself. 

Soon it would be dinner time. He lived for the structured moments. Three meals a day, art class, group therapy, sometimes a movie or a group game. It kept his mind busy and off the insanity that had befallen him over the past year. 

Inside he could ignore the way the world crashed around him. He was on the verge of losing his job. Sick time and disability had run out. Soon the house would be foreclosed on. He had no savings as it had all been eaten up by medical bills to pay premiums and ridiculous out-of-pocket deductibles for his shitty work insurance plan. Twice he’d taken money from his 401k to pay medical bills. Over twenty-thousand dollars, just to end up back here. Alone. Broken. A failure.

Nate left the small stress ball at the nursing counter and disappeared into his room to cry. At least his roommate wasn’t in. If there was anything worse than being stuck in a psych ward, it was having to share a room with a complete stranger who was just as, if not more, broken than he was. Try sleeping with room checks every fifteen minutes by the nurses, and a roommate who had to sleep in a giant beanbag crammed into the space between the tiny twin bed and the wall, while listening to some hip-hop music on earphones loud enough that three rooms over could hear every word.

Sleep might help Nate’s mood. If he could sleep. The occurrence was rare. Two hours a night at most. Broken sleep led to worse days. He’d never been this teary in his life. He’d also never had an episode of depression last this long. He curled into his bed, a wood platform with a three-inch mattress on it, wrapped the thin white blanket around himself, and sobbed into the cushionless pillow beneath his head. He worried about his cats, left to a neighbor’s care since he had no family who acknowledged him. The idea of failing his pets made him feel the worst. His poor fur babies who had already been unwanted by others due to their own illnesses.

What if the doctors didn’t let him out this time? The thought always tickled the back of his mind. A fear of forever being locked away, wandering halls in burgundy scrubs, eating bland foods, and telling doctors what they wanted to hear, even if it was all just lies.

He knew all about cognitive behavior therapy and dialectical behavior therapy. Enough that he could teach classes on both. Often in groups when the topics got brought up, he could point out skills others could use in their situations. The therapists always praised Nate’s knowledge of the skills, then told him he must not be using them.

He’d used them all. All day, every day for months. Meditated until he should have had Buddha coming out of his ears. Identified emotions. Tried to change emotions. Tried to tie them to some event, a traumatic childhood or some other bullshit. Only they weren’t. He feared fear. The fear made him depressed. And sometimes he was depressed just to be breathing. Time had given rise to life circumstances that would make anyone depressed and anxious, like his pending job loss and possible foreclosure. But those things had been two years in the making. All of this had begun with a migraine. He’d take the migraines back just to have his brain clear again. Now that he was finally off lithium and gabapentin he could sort of remember where things had started to really go wrong. It had started with the meds and the change in location of his job. Maybe Jamie had been right all along and the office job had made him sick. 

He'd been out on sick leave for months. Time which was quickly running out. His migraines had vanished under the hail of emotional issues. Now he was just plain crazy. On the rare occasion he did sleep, he dreamt about all the mistakes he’d made to get where he was. The bad choices of trusting doctors who never listened to him, to pushing himself to the edge over and over, and trying to save himself in a thousand self-destructive ways.

He put a pillow over his head and tried not to think about it.

Nate dozed lightly, tossing and turning, just on the edge of consciousness, waiting for the dinner call. But it was an orderly who roused him.

“You have a visitor,” the man in dark blue scrubs told him.

Nate frowned at him. Who would visit him? Hell, he couldn’t get anyone to pick up the phone when he called from the hospital. Not his estranged family or even his neighbors. And the hospital phone system was always too complicated to call long distance. If Jamie even knew he was there. Nate hadn’t spoken to him in months.

They were wrong, Nate thought. Misery does not love company. He didn’t want to show Jamie how bad he was. He didn’t want the man to walk away. So he’d cut ties himself. A semblance of control that was all a lie. Nate didn’t have many friends. None other than Jamie outside of work. Work friends were just that. Friends at work. They didn’t want his trouble. All had long since stopped calling to check on him. His pain was too much for them. It was too much for Nate most days too.

“Who?” A neighbor maybe? Nate hoped they hadn’t brought the cats to the humane society or something. 

“Jameson McKendal.”

Nate blinked at the orderly. “You must be mistaken.”

“We have his ID. If you don’t want to see him, we can send him away.”

“No. No. Don’t send him away. I…” Nate’s heart skipped a beat. What could Jamie be doing here all the way from Washington? Nate ran his hands through his hair and tried to remember if he’d showered today and brushed his teeth. Yes. Of course. Because the orderlies tracked those things, and Nate always tried to be a good patient. “Where?”

“I’ll escort him down to the meeting room at the end of the hall.” The orderly left and Nate stood frozen beside the bed. Did he really want Jamie to see him this way? Was he going to turn Jamie away after he’d traveled so far to see him? No. That was beyond rude. 

The maroon shade of his scrubs wasn’t his color. He’d packed for this trip, but had been too out of his own head to care enough to wear any of the things he brought. Did he have time to change?

Nate stood there a minute longer, debating. Confusion and indecision ruled his life. He didn’t trust anyone, especially not himself anymore. What if he made the wrong decision? Was there a right decision?

He sighed and headed toward the meeting room. What the hell. Everything else had given up the ghost. This was probably the end of his friendship with Jamie too. Might as well give him one more straw to suffocate him. Another reason to end everything. All he had left was his cats. The only tie that kept him here. Those cranky old brats who still cuddled and purred like he was the most important person in the world. Tears filled his eyes at the thought of them being put down just for being old and alone after he was gone. He wouldn’t do that to them. The pain crushed him every day, but he refused to end it just because they needed him. Jamie loved animals, maybe Nate could convince him to take the cats home with him. Then Nate would be free to put an end to his own suffering.

And then there he was. Jamie. Big as always. But kind. He looked like a teddy bear, dressed in flannel and jeans. Tall, stocky, a little heavier through the middle, but not enough to hang over his belt. He looked good. Nate’s heart gave a little jolt, a glimpse of feelings long buried. He still loved Jamie, even as broken as he was now. Nate sighed. Was this real? Was Jamie really here?

“Jamie?” Nate began, not really sure what to say.

But suddenly Jamie’s arms were around him, hugging him tight.

The orderlies jumped to action. Touching wasn’t allowed. Nate couldn’t remember why.

“It’s okay,” he said. Nate returned Jamie’s hug, then pulled away to stare up into Jamie’s face. He was crying. “Oh! Jamie, what’s wrong?” Nate’s protective instincts took over right that second. An urge to wreck anyone who’d upset Jamie ignited in his gut. “Don’t cry. Everything’s okay.” Nate would make it okay if he could. “What are you doing here?”

“I called. You didn’t answer. So I tried the neighbors. They told me where you are. And here I am.” He reached out as though to touch Nate’s hair, but stopped before his fingers could make contact. The orderlies lingered close, watching. 

Nate waved a hand at the little meeting room. “Should we go sit down?”

“Sure,” Jamie said heading into the room and taking a seat. Nate followed, leaving the door open. If he closed it, the nurses would just open it again anyway. 

Nate sat down opposite of Jamie. “You look good,” Nate told him. He always looked good. Even scruffy and hungover after a comic con bender.

“You look thin. Are you eating?”

“Three meals a day here. Full of carbs. It’s horrific. I’m sure I’ll be fat by the end of the week.”

A smile curved the corner of Jamie’s lips. “Smart-ass. Glad to see that isn’t completely lost.”

Nate’s joy faded a little. Yeah, most of who he had been vanished long ago.

“Stuck my foot in my mouth, I see,” Jamie said after a moment of awkward silence.

Nate really didn’t know what to say. “Why are you here?”

“For you. I thought that’d be obvious.”

But Nate hadn’t done anything to maintain their friendship. He had given Jamie an out. A chance to escape before being saddled with a crazy person as a friend. “I can’t give you anything,” Nate said.

“Why would you need to? I never asked for anything.”

“I’m not who you remember me to be.”

Jamie shrugged. “Right now, sure. But it won’t always be that way.”

“You don’t know that,” Nate protested. Tears burned in his eyes, threatening to fall. Almost two years he had suffered. Lost, confused, broken.

“Neither do you,” Jamie pointed out.

They fell into another awkward silence. Mostly because Nate was too lost in the voices replaying in his head of worthlessness and hopelessness to respond. 

“I love you,” Jamie said after a moment. “We’re friends. Best friends for life.”

“Even if I’m crazy?”

“You’re not crazy.”

Nate sighed. He was crazy. Hadn’t everyone told him so? Numerous doctors, nurses, therapists, and coworkers. He had to admit Jamie’s affection warmed his gut a little, though Nate was too tired to believe it.

“I want you to come home with me,” Jamie said after a while.

“Huh?” 

“My home in Washington.” 

Nate sat in confusion, trying to make sense of the words. To Jamie’s home? It was so far away. And what about Nate’s stuff and the cats? Then there was the whole psych ward thing. They wouldn’t just let Nate walk out of the ward. Not without a doctor’s clearance. His stays were usually a week long at least, while they fiddled with the meds again and again. Though that short amount of time wasn’t enough to make any changes for the good or bad.

“Leave all this behind. Pack up your stuff and your cranky critters, and come to the island with me. Start over. No strings. Just the support of a friend as you get back on your feet.”

What an impossible dream. Nate wasn’t well enough to make a decision like that. What if he was wrong? He blinked at Jamie, not sure what to say. 

“You said you’d tell me when you’re ready. I think you were ready a long time ago. You’re just too afraid to make the move. Held here by the expectations of others. Expectations the world forced on you.”

That was true enough. 

“I’m safe here,” Nate said instead.

“Are you?” Jamie asked. He looked around. “How many meds have you tried? How many times have you been back here? What have they done to make you safe other than locking you in a prison?”

Nate tried to think of something to say. “They keep me safe from myself.”

“I’ll take on that role.”

Nate shook his head. It was too much to ask of any friend. “No.”

“Nate, you’re not going to hurt yourself. Especially not since you have those wonderful, cranky old cats to care for, and soon you’ll have me in your business, keeping you busy. Helping you heal. You won’t have time to think about how off your brain is.” Jamie held out his hand, palm up. “Come home with me.”

“What about the house and the car and…”

“Let me worry about all that. You just focus on you and the cats,” Jamie said.

“But I’m stuck in here.”

“Not for long. Let’s see if we can get one of your doctors to chat. Okay?” 

Nate found himself nodding. He wasn’t sure exactly what he was agreeing too, but he took Jamie’s hand, sliding their palms together and interlacing fingers. Jamie’s hand was warm, solid, real. He wished, not for the first time that Jamie were more than a friend. But he was here now. That was a start wasn’t it?