A Delicate Mind

Valerie was on a dating app one night and swiped right when she saw the profile of, what she thought, to be a goddess. Her heartbeat raced when the app ‘dinged’, meaning that Emma, the goddess, had swiped right also. 

Valerie sat bolt upright in her bed and wiped the sleep out of her eyes. She looked at the clock; it was 1:45 am. Valerie couldn’t go ‘til the morning to message her match. She needed to act on her impulses and simply typed, ‘heya’. Valerie, who didn’t even dream of a response at that hour, plumped up her pillows and lay back down in bed scrolling through Emma’s pictures. She had a grin from ear to ear as she looked at the blonde haired beauty who, according to the app, was less than 10 kilometres away. 

As Valeries eyes started to become heavy, she turned off the lamp and placed her phone on her bedside locker pulling the covers over herself nice and tight. 

‘Ding’

Valerie lept out of bed, almost knocking the glass of water as she went to grab her phone. Once again she was wide awake…it was Emma.

Valerie made the bold move in asking for her match’s phone number. She was wary of the fact that she could only text through the app and yearned to hear the voice of the angel she was conversing with. Once they started talking, they hardly ever stopped.

Three weeks passed and the pair were inseparable. Valerie, who was on medical leave from college, had Emma, who was unemployed, over to her house on numerous occasions over that short amount of time. She was in the mindset that she was an adult and, as an adult, she was entitled to have her girlfriend over whenever she wanted, even if she was living under her parents roof. 

Valerie loved how Emma made her feel. It was like she had constant butterflies in her chest, her whole body tingled when they touched. She loved the smell of Emma’s Jo Malone perfume and the taste of watermelon off of her lips from her lip balm. What she loved most was the fact she never felt alone. 

 

 

As Monica, Valeries mother, knocked softly on her daughters door she asked ‘are you decent?’ She  knew Emma had stayed over. When she entered, she was met with her daughter sitting on the desk chair, the tub chair beside her, each pointing in the direction of the tv. She heard her daughter laugh as she stepped over the clothes that littered the floor and placed two plates on the desk, each holding a sausage sandwich. 

‘I made one for Emma too!’  Monica said with tears in her eyes. 

‘Aww, thanks mom!’ Valerie beamed up at her.

‘Me and your father are going for a drive soon. We’d love it if you and Emma came too!’ Monica smiled tentatively at her daughter. ‘We think it would be nice to treat you both to lunch in town.’ Monica stopped a tear from falling knowing it was just a rouse to get Valerie into the car. 

‘We’d love to, wouldn’t we Emma?’ Valerie asked the empty tub chair.

‘Well were leaving at 2:30. That gives you enough time to get washed and dressed.’ Monica watched as her only daughter dug into her sandwich laughing. Her heart was beating out of her chest. 

She felt like she was enabling her daughters fantasy as she closed the door softly behind her. Monica could hold back the tears no more. She went into the spare bedroom and placed a weeks worth of clean laundry she had been collecting into a bag and brought it downstairs. She stood in the hall, her hand on the handle of the front door, wondering if she was doing the right thing. 

‘Emma!’ she heard her daughter say playfully and giggle, affirming her decision. She wiped the tears from her cheeks and opened the front door putting the bag in the boot of the car. 

As she reentered the house, giggles still coming from upstairs, she met the eyes of her lovely husband Eric. 

‘We have no other choice!’ Eric enveloped her in a much needed hug. 

 

‘Its 2:30 girls!’ Monica shouted up the stairs.

‘Coming!’ she got as a response.

Monica watched her daughter as she descended the stairs smiling and giggling. Her heartstrings were pulled in all directions until she was brought back to reality with a beep of the horn, courtesy of her husband. 

As her daughter buckled herself into the back seat, Monica took a minute to breathe before she armed the house alarm and joined the pair of them in the car. 

Monica silently cried the whole way there. She could only hear her daughter laugh and joke with ‘Emma’. Eric put a warm hand on hers and nodded as they pulled into their destination, Valerie oblivious.

Monica gathered herself by wiping the tears that were streaming down her face with a handkerchief, courtesy of Eric, as he stepped out of the car and opened the boot. She cleared her throat and tried to be upbeat as she announced, ‘we’re here!’

When they were all out of the car, Eric gently took Monica's hand and she could feel his beard brush off of her skin.

‘We’re doing the right thing, aren’t we?’ she wondered aloud. She looked up at her husband glassy eyed. He nodded.

Monica walked alongside Eric behind the laughing, giggling Valerie and ushered her into the hospital. 

‘I thought you said we were going for dinner!’ Valerie pointed out. 

Monica cleared her throat, trying to stay strong. ‘You girls deserve a night away!’ she managed with a smile. 

Her heart burst as her daughter ran and threw her arms around her in gratitude. She held Valerie close for a minute longer than was needed and whispered, ‘I'm going to miss you!’ into her ear. 

‘Geez mom, we’re only going for one night.’ 

 

 

 

Valerie and Emma skipped into the lobby hand in hand. 

‘Can you believe this?’ Valerie asked as Emma pointed towards the sign for ‘super bingo’ that was taking place that night. 

‘We have to do that!’ Emma stated.

‘Can I help you?’ the receptionist asked with a smile. 

‘Valerie Wallis. Im here to check in.’ 

The receptionist checked her off a list. ‘If you go through the double doors on your right, someone will be with you shortly.’ She smiled. 

Valerie pulled Emma in tight and they jumped with joy as her parents caught up with them. ‘I don’t get why moms crying,’ Valerie said to Emma, noticing her mothers red eyes. 

‘Maybe she still wants to believe you are a virgin!’ Emma giggled.

‘Not after last night,’ Valerie said softly into Emma's ear and kissed her on the cheek. ‘I wonder if this place has a pool?’ she thought out loud as Emma dragged her through the double doors. 

Inside Valerie saw three coffee tables, each with three chairs, all of which unoccupied. She pulled an extra chair over to the middle table. It squeaked on the grey tiled floor. 

‘Why don’t you two go home?’ she addressed her parents. 

‘We want to pay lovey!’ her mother smiled back. 

Valerie couldn’t believe it. Her parents paying for her stay with her girlfriend in a very fancy hotel. Something must be wrong.

A clerk came out of the office next to the coffee tables and asked them to come in, that they needed to sign some forms.

As Valerie entered the small dark office with Emma, closely followed by her parents, she was ushered to sit down opposite the clerk. She went through some basic questions; her name; her address; her phone number etc. Then she was asked to sign some insurance forms which she thought to be unusual. The clerk smiled up at her and told her to take her seat outside again, that ‘the doctor will be with you shortly.’

‘What doctor?’ Valerie asked her parents when they took their seats back at the coffee table. She looked towards Emma, who shrugged her shoulders, looking as equally puzzled. 

‘Don’t worry about it love!’ her mother reassured her.

‘Why aren’t you leaving?’ Valerie asked her parents who were holding hands, her mother’s red eyes was very disconcerting. ‘Whats happening?’ she asked.

‘We just have to wait to pay is all.’ Her father reassured her, her mother unable to talk. 

She looked at Emma puzzled. Then she heard the click, click, click of someone, obviously in heels, coming fast in their direction. 

‘I’ll be with you in one minute, the tall blonde woman with the heels held up her finger before entering the office they had just come out of. When she reappeared, she had a stethoscope around her neck. ‘Now, I’ll take you in this room,’ she opened a side door with a set of keys.

Alarm bells started to ring in Valerie's ears. She looked to her parents who were both standing, her father ushering her to follow the doctor, her mother unable to meet her eyes. 

Reluctantly she entered the room and sat down in the chair nearest the desk, Emma by her side. She noticed an examination table in the room and a blood pressure machine. She was starting to think that her parents had tricked her into coming to this so called ‘hotel’. She got up from her chair and went to leave, but her father, a very strong, steady man, stopped her. 

 

 

‘We want to leave, right Emma?’ Eric’s heart started to melt.

‘I'm afraid you cant leave love,’ he said softly, her mother sobbing. 

‘We want to leave and you cant stop us!’ Valerie said with gusto. 

Eric put both hands on his daughters shoulders and looked at her. He started to speak softly to her. ‘Sweetheart your sick.’ 

Valerie shook her head, unable to meet her fathers gaze.

‘You need help pet!’

‘Emma and I ……’

‘…there is no Emma. Shes a figment of your imagination!’

‘No, no, no, NO!!’ Valerie tried once more to manoeuvre around her father.

Eric pulled her in closely and held his daughter as she tried to push him away. He looked at Monica. There were very few occasions that Eric cried; his wedding, and the birth of his daughter being two of them. But they were happy tears. He closed his eyes as his daughter tried to fight her way out of his embrace, tears streaming down his cheeks. 

As this was happening, the doctor was asking Monica questions pertaining to Valerie's behaviours and of course, Emma.

The questions didn’t even penetrate Eric's subconscious. His only focus was on holding his daughter, his baby girl. He had a flashback to when she was first placed in his arms, oh how proud he was at the opportunity he was getting to be her father. Then he had another where she was a toddler. He remembered that he used to hold her like this until she stopped thrashing around, as he knew that she would run out of steam eventually. And so she did.

When Valerie wrapped her arms around him and sobbed into his shoulder he could do nothing more than hold her tight and kiss the top of her head, all the while making a ‘shushing’ sound, just like when she was a toddler.

He must have stood there for half an hour as the doctor asked question upon question. He loved his little girl so much and his heart hurt seeing her in so much distress. He was worried.

He remembered his brother, who had schizophrenic, and what he was like when he was going through an episode. A cold bolt of lightning shuddered down his spine. His poor brother, who ennded up committing suicide whilst in the middle of a psychotic break. He just couldn’t have that happen to his little girl. 

Eventually, when Valerie was cried out, she lifted her head up and he looked into her eyes, seeing her troubled soul. He kissed her on the forehead and told her how much he loved her. When she smiled up at him, his heart skipped a beat. It was the most fabulous smile he could ever imagine. 

 

 

As the doctor, Linda, asked more and more questions to get a sense of what was going on with this troubled young woman in front of her, she knew she was at the right age and had all the symptoms of psychosis. She was taking down all the information Monica provided as the obviously distressed young woman fought with her father to let her leave. She looked up where Valerie was supposed to be situated in the hospital as it was obvious she was in no fit state for an open ward. 

After Valerie calmed down and sat at the chair beside the desk, Linda asked her about Emma. She saw Valerie look up to her father who nodded at her reassuringly. Then Valerie opened up about how she met Emma and how the pair of them had been dating three weeks now. As Valerie talked, Linda typed.

Certain the girl in front of was extremely fragile she phrased her questions delicately. 

‘And where is Emma now?’ She asked Valerie, who pointed to the examination table. She excused herself from the room and advised her father to stay at the door as she left.

Linda walked into the admissions office. She expressed her concern in putting Valerie onto an open ward and a few phone calls later had a bed for her in Special Care. 

Special care was a ward within a ward, where there were two nurses to every patient and checked on them every fifteen minutes. Linda knew that was where Valerie needed to go. She also knew that it would be difficult getting her in there. She noticed how combative Valerie was and in her fragile state didn’t want any extra stress put on her. 

It took an hour for the bed manager to manoeuvre the patients to make a bed for Valerie in the high risk unit of the hospital. When Linda finally got the call, she called security for extra help and organised that there be extra nurses pulled off of other wards to help usher her into the unit. 

When she finally rejoined Valerie and her parents, everything ready and in place for her transfer, she noticed that Valerie was lying on the examination table in the foetal position. She looked to her mother. 

‘They’re cuddling’, she explained. 

Linda nodded, ‘it’s time.’ 

 

 

 

As Valerie spooned Emma, she stroked her hair gently. She felt someone tap her on the shoulder, telling her, ‘it’s time to go!’ 

Valerie looked up. It was the glamorous blonde doctor who was asking her questions earlier. She sat up on the examination table and asked, ‘where am I going?’

She was confused and started do demand where she was going.

The doctor opened the door and told her to say goodbye to her parents. 

‘Dont let her talk to you like that!’ Emma piped up. ‘They are trying to separate us!’

‘No, they cant…..you cant….’ She looked from the doctor to her parents to Emma and back to the doctor again.

‘Look at them all, they are outside waiting for you!’ 

Valerie looked out of the open door, there must have been four people in uniform out there.

‘See, they are waiting to take you, they want to split us up!’ 

Valerie’s breaths became fast and shallow. She took her hands and placed them over her ears. There were too many people speaking at once. There were too many voices in her head. 

‘STOP IT, STOP IT, STOP IIITTTTT!’ She screamed. She didn’t notice her parents exit the room, her eyes were clenched tight. She felt hands on her. She screamed, ‘NOOOO!’ As they practically carried her kicking and screaming into the specialised unit. She was met with a room with two beds. She felt a pinch in her arm and almost immediately felt drowsy. She closed her eyes and slept for what seemed like days. 

When Valerie finally did wake up, Emma was there, but she looked funny….transparent. As the days passed the pills came quick and heavy and Emma slowly disappeared. Valerie started to feel defective; ‘how could she just leave me?’ 

As the weeks went by, Valerie graduated to an open ward. Her memories became hazy and her time with Emma slowly faded.