Final Room

11 | alice hardy

CHAPTER ELEVEN | ALICE HARDY

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

          For a so-called uneventful first week of college, a lot has certainly happened today.

          I've been trying so stupidly hard to fit in, to be normal, and everything was flushed down the drain of that campus bathroom, courtesy of my panic attack. Though I tell the nurse I feel fine, I don't tell her nearly half of it, aware I already am a current topic of conversation on campus. This way of thinking is dangerous and horribly self-centered, like I'm overestimating my importance on other people's lives, but I know they know. The second I found out there was a club dedicated to discussing true crime cases, it all became so much clearer to me.

          I'm a number. I'm a statistic. It's how they know; that kind of information spreads like wildfire, and I hate it. I hate that this has turned me into some kind of minor celebrity because I survived the brutal murder of all my friends, and there's a club at the university I attend that may or may not decide to discuss it. It can't be worse than the online scrutiny, especially that from other Final Girls, the only people I need to impress and feel validated by, but I finally understand why it feels so exploitative at a personal level.

          "Your parents' numbers aren't on your file," the nurse tells me, sitting at her desk.

          "They live in Chicago," I explain, twirling a cup of sugared water that has yet to touch my lips. "You could call them, but it would take them a long time to get here if they're truly needed."

          She sighs, pursing her lips. "Is there anyone we can call? A guardian? A grandparent?"

          "There's her brother," Betty chimes in, from the opposite corner of the office, and doesn't even cower when I glare at her, a stark reminder I'm the least intimidating person I know. Odette, on the other hand . . . "Sorry, Wendy, but you need to have a phone number on your file in case something bad happens and the school needs to get in touch with someone. It's for your own good."

          I've lost track of everything that has been done for my own good, against my will, but I don't try to fight her on this, not in front of the nurse. Even if both of them have my best interests at heart, this certainly feels like an overreaction, and I don't want to place an even bigger target on my back by either letting Xavier be dragged all the way to campus or by telling the nurse I'm apparently seeing things that aren't there.

          Panic attacks are fine, it seems. Panic attacks in public are also okay, totally not a big deal (you're traumatized. Now what?). Telling people you're seeing things, including dead people? Not so much. It's a sure way of making them look at you like you've lost your goddamn mind, and I don't want anyone to doubt my sanity or attempt to gaslight me into thinking things have unraveled any differently than they objectively have.

         (It's then that I realize this is the most contact I've had with my mom in a long time, possibly ever since the divorce, with her making me call her every day. Her mannerisms have stuck to me with tight stitches.)

          I reluctantly give the nurse Xavier's phone number and watch her punch the numbers into her keyboard, filling in the missing details on a medical file I didn't even know I had. I set the full cup of water aside and rise from my chair, deciding I'm an adult and no one gets to keep me in an office when I don't want to be there, with Sidney raising her head and looking up at me in anticipation. She stays on the floor, lying like a sphynx, and she's not the one blocking my path.

          "Where are you going?" Betty asks, springing up from her own chair, like I'm not mad at her for dragging me all the way here. In a way, I've brought this upon myself, considering I wasn't even able to convince her I was fine, that this sort of thing happens to me all the time, and I always get over it by myself, regardless of how long it takes. My history with panic attacks isn't the greatest or the prettiest, I know that, but I just wish my opinion and my wishes were taken into account instead of being disregarded like I don't know or can't decide what's best for me. It's infantilizing and dehumanizing to some extent, not to mention frankly annoying. "I'm not done with my lectures for the day yet, but you can maybe attend this one with me just so you don't have to be by yourself—"