Dangerous Intuition, Tasha Kessler [best books to read in your 20s txt] 📗

I don’t want to be here anymore. I just don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be alive. I don’t have any desire to have a conscious body, or find help. I had tried to find help before. The one person I had gone to, the one person I could trust my secret to had betrayed me. Locked me away in a mental institution like a crazy person. I hated my life. I just don’t want to be here anymore.

These have been my thought patterns for the last two years. I couldn’t do this anymore. I had seen it coming. I had seen myself lying lifeless on the floor, empty pill bottle in my hand. I had seen this five weeks ago. The longest that I have ever seen forward. And since then I had not been able to think of anything but. I wouldn’t eat, only sleep. I was so tired all the time. I could barely force myself out of bed long enough to use the bathroom. I took a bath, trying to wake myself up with the hot water, but the only thing I succeeded in was thinking about a new form of Suicide. I tried to drown myself in my bath. Staying under until my lungs burned. At some point everything went black and when I opened my eyes my head was out of the water and I was panting for air. This tub was too small. I’d had to lift my feet to make my head go under, and when I passed out I had slid back into the only position I could get into.

What was the point? I had already seen how I would die, hadn’t I? I didn’t know when but at some point in the near future I was going to O D on my meds. This is why I couldn’t see anymore into the future. No more dreams or visions. Not so much as a tingly “spidey sense”. I was going to die. Soon. It wasn’t long now and I would finally be free of this feeling. Free of this place. The medication hadn’t done anything to help me. It had only made me tired. What was the plan? Keep me asleep so I couldn’t kill myself? Too exhausted to even try? What was the point in that? I was missing life either way. But with the medication I was still feeling every bit of pain I had felt before. Every part of me that ached still ached but with the added sense of exhaustion.

The nurse came in carrying my pill in a little white paper cup, and a tray of food. Disgusting. Even if I wanted to eat, I wouldn’t eat that. I couldn’t even tell what it was. Something green and slimy next to what looked like something that might have been mashed potatoes in another life. I looked at the little paper cup sitting on my tray. I didn’t understand my vision of suicide. How was I going to die from an overdose of my medication? I never got to even see a pill bottle, let alone hold one or be in charge of taking my medication on my own. I knew that if I ever wanted to get out of this place it would have to be through death.

I noted that I had a new nurse. Sudden realization coursed through me and I formulated a quick plan. “Hi.” I said, startling the nurse. “Susan. Right? Your name tag.” I pointed to the name sewn onto her uniform. They couldn’t use real nametags here. Someone could use them to hurt themselves or someone else. I was going to go to hell for all of this, but it felt like I was already there anyway, so why not? “Oh don’t tell me you aren’t going to talk to me either? Is there some kind of policy against it or something? You know if I wasn’t already crazy, not being allowed to talk to anyone might just drive me there.” I stomped over to the tray and grabbed my pill cup, tossing back the pill and opening my mouth for her to inspect. Making sure that I had swallowed the pill was part of her job. Shocked, she opened her mouth and nothing came out. As if she couldn’t think of the right words, or form them. “It’s fine.” I said. “You don’t have to break the rules, I get it.” I was good at lying. Just not good enough to convince the shrinks here of anything. “Oh. No!” She said, “We can talk to the patients… it’s just they… they- I mean all the other nurses- they said you never talk.” I gave her a half smile. “They say a lot of things. They don’t really like me. They ended up firing the last nurse that spoke to me. The one you replaced. I guess she told them, and they felt the need to get rid of her. As long as you don’t say anything though, I won’t either.” I gave her my most innocent ‘please?’ look, and told her “I’m too happy to have someone to talk to besides these shrinks.” She smiled and nodded. “I suspected as much. People don’t talk if they don’t feel comfortable around you. I figured that if you don’t speak to them it’s for a reason.” I gave her a week smile and nodded.

She looked puzzled. I wished she would just ask me already. I knew she wanted to. It wasn’t one of my feelings or anything, just past experiences combined with the look on her face. It was almost pained, and I knew it was coming. “You seem pretty normal though. Would it make you go into hysterics or something if I asked you why you’re here?” told ya. I had a long conversation with her about my ability, explaining that it was just a feeling that I got sometimes, an intuition. I left out the part about the dreams and visions. And the part about them all coming true. That part is what got me in this place to begin with. I told her about how I had told my childhood best friend and how she had misunderstood and placed me here. Not long after she got there she had to go back to work but she left me with a feeling of guilt. She was a nice person. Not the same as that head shrink that saw me every week. I had a bad feeling about him.

I knew Ally hadn’t misunderstood. She just hadn’t believed in me or my ability. She thought I was having a nervous breakdown, and at the time I thought she might be right. The psychiatrists had all declared me crazy and had locked me away for further evaluation. A few months of that was all it had taken for the depression to set in.

Over the next few days I became fast friends with Nurse Susan. I felt bad for betraying her trust like I was going to. It would probably end in her being fired too. But I figured that she could do so much better than this place anyway. Go somewhere where she really could help someone. “Is there anything special I can get you today, Megan?” she asked. She was so sweet. I hoped it didn’t hurt her to much when I… well when I die. “Freedom?” I asked jokingly. “If I could give you that, I would. You’re not crazy. Even if you are, you’re not a danger to anyone, so there’s no point in keeping you here.” She was wrong. I was a danger, but only to myself, and only because I knew that I could never escape this place any other way. “I just wish I could at least feel like I was somewhat normal. I can’t even take my own medication.” This was it…. This was my shot. It would either work or it wouldn’t. Considering the vision of my lifeless body, I was pretty sure it would work. “I may be able… to work something out there… but you would have to promise not to tell anyone. I could lose my job if anyone found out I let you start taking your medication on your own.” I had already thought of this. But it would be worth it. I was just selfish enough to feel like my freedom, my death would be worth whatever loss she would suffer as a consequence. This was it. I was going to be free. No more pain. I was almost euphoric at the thought of my own suicide. Maybe I did belong here. I didn’t care if I belonged or not. If I did it was because they made me that way. “If I’m caught, I’ll tell them I swiped them from your cart.” I nodded. And this was the truth. If I got caught, I would do whatever I could to protect her. She was a good person. She didn’t deserve what I was going to do to her.

The next thing I knew I was staring down at my lifeless body. This was my vision. Only now it was reality. I watched as I took my last breath and I finally felt free. Someone came in then. I’m not sure who it was. One of the male nurses. Who was on duty to night? I was confused. Everything started happening so fast after that. There was a lot of screaming and people rushing in and out. Then everything went fuzzy and then faded into black. No sound. No light. Just Nothingness. Peace.

The beeping broke into my nothingness. It broke my peace and left only irritation. I opened my eyes to a bright room filled with all kinds of gadgets and doodads ticking and beeping away. I went to rub my eyes, still adjusting to the bright lights and found that my arm was attached to a tube. An I.V. My throat felt raw and sore. They had pumped my stomach. I had failed. Even at suicide I failed. I would never be free. Not from this place or my pain. They weren’t going to let me. I’m glad I thought of the story about swiping the pill bottle from the nurses’ cart. Turns out I needed it. I saved her job as promised, but hurt her in a way that even in this pain I could understand. I betrayed her trust.

Dr. Argyros, my weekly psychiatrist, had entered the room moments after his nurse had drawn my blood. For a split second I could have sworn that I seen him almost…blur. Not at that moment, but at some time in the future. Great. My sight was coming back but now it was blurry? I’m not sure I even wanted it back, especially if it meant that it was going to be blurry. Had my suicide attempt dented my ability? He looked down at my chart and frowned, looking almost confused. “What’s up Doc.?” I sneered sarcastically. He gave a slight shake of his head as if to clear the foggy thoughts within. “I see you’re making progress.” His accent was thick and it got on my nerves. Hungarian maybe? Or Russian? Either way it annoyed me when he said the word ‘progress’.

This time it wasn’t like our usual mind probing sessions. Instead of asking me how I was feeling or if I wanted to talk