Morgan Abrams
Day 18 of being in hell
You just couldn’t help yourself could you? Had to ignore every warning you’d been given, just to sneak out to play the new Sun Road 7 game at the arcade and run face-first into Jason’s friends. Couldn’t you have just turned around and left before they saw you? Keep your damn mouth shut and head low?
That’s a second arrest on your record in less than a month. You’re going to have to do community service now. And that’s in addition to the mandatory therapy.
To top it all off, they had to replace your arm cast. An extra week of this horrible itchy, smelly thing to hold your bones together while nanite therapy crawls through your skeleton and fixes your arm for the second time in three weeks.
Rivka threatened that if this happened again because of you failing to walk away she’d make you go through the healing process the old fashioned way, and that could take half a year.
A* suggested you see it as an opportunity to try being ambidextrous.
You’re pretty sure that was supposed to be a joke.
Like, seventy percent sure.
All this and you still have to go back to school tomorrow.
Just thinking about it makes you nauseous.
So of course you can’t stop fixating on it. Imagining all the different ways things could go. For a brief two years under the protective shield of being with the other Sour Grapes, school had almost been tolerable. An entire month at a time without being called the f-word or the r-word or any other number of slurs.
Now you’re all of those and the psycho kid, the ‘future school shooter’ kid.
Rivka had to place a hard cut on your net access because you couldn’t stop obsessively following every horrible rumor swirling on the school boards online. Not being able to read it every day has… helped. A little. But it’s still out there.
You have another therapy session later today. The man you’re being forced to see – still haven’t learned his name yet – insists the two of you talk twice a week, which feels excessive, but you don’t get a say in the matter and Rivka already signed off on it.
“You don’t want the alternative,” she had said.
You groan into your pillowcase.
Don’t exactly care for this guy either!
You lay out on the bed, careful to keep your arm at the correct angle. Still bruised. Still sore. The plaster to repair your chipped tooth leaves a constant bitter aftertaste. Not entirely checked in, head full of fuzz from painkillers while a history lecture plays out on your new tablet (got the last one smashed at the arcade, good going).
Every session has been by video appointment since this therapy guy lives somewhere in… Utah, you think he said? Might as well be another planet. Worse, every session you have to struggle through with no idea what he’s thinking. Can barely even read his face.
And what does he want to talk about? Does he want to talk about the fight? Or the years of bullying? How about how almost all of the people you thought were your friends have completely abandoned you?
No, you made one mistake, one slip-up in how you answered a question about the Halloween party and now all this guy wants to talk about is your ‘delusions’ of wanting to be a woman. Which. Bullshit. It’s not a delusion. You know full well what ‘normal’ boys think and feel and it’s not this. You’re not crazy. There are other people like you out there. Yes you haven’t met any but you know they’re there.
It’s real.
It’s real, it’s real it’s real!!!
You don’t need to be medicated for this – not in the way he keeps talking about. He’s starting to make you feel like you’re the crazy one here!
Last session, which you were forced to attend while still half-lucid from pain medication, he kept trying to get you to talk about sexual fantasies? Wouldn’t accept that you don’t have any. Talking on and on about crossdressers and something called a gynephile and just refusing to let the subject go. The harder he pressed, the more uncomfortable you got.
Riley has been your only bastion of sanity. The only person from school who hasn’t cut contact with you. Probably because her situation is almost as bad as yours.
According to Riley, Noor has been loudly insisting that she was taken advantage of, that she was drunk, and Definitely Not A Lesbian. Which is– well… You saw plenty of the two of them together both in and outside of school before then, when they were being more careful.
If anyone’s believing such an obvious lie, it’s because they choose to.
Yesterday the two of you laughed at the pictures she took of a pamphlet her own mandated therapist made her take home. The cover is of a young woman in a blue country-prairie style dress with her hands folded in front of her. Standing to her right is a older, bearded man with one hand around her shoulder. Both of them prominently display wedding rings.
The caption over top reads: ‘There’s still hope for troubled girls!’
Her parents have started to force her to only wear dresses or skirts. She has to ‘earn’ back pants with good behavior. You know it’s been killing Riley but at least her mom seems to care. Yours has gotten more distant than ever, and she was never a particularly warm person to begin with.
Your phone buzzes, prompting a pause in the lecture playing on your tablet. The one that you haven’t been listening to since five seconds after it started. What’s she want now?
–Chattrlog–
BatterUPBitch: Dude
BatterUPBitch: Have you been on the boards today
The_Morganism: No net access
The_Morganism: Remember
The_Morganism: I can talk to Rivka
The_Morganism: A*
The_Morganism: And you
The_Morganism: That’s it
BatterUPBitch: Oh right
BatterUPBitch: Sorry, that’s just like wild to me, I keep forgetting I’m talking to somebody living in the 20th century
BatterUPBitch: How’s it hanging back there?
The_Morganism: Very boring
The_Morganism: Pain meds are good tho
BatterUPBitch: Sick, who’s your dealer is there a time traveller discount
The_Morganism: The Doctor
BatterUPBitch: Damn
The_Morganism: So
The_Morganism: What’s on the board
BatterUPBitch: Uh, shit nothing good
BatterUPBitch: I was gonna ask if you wanted to talk it out
BatterUPBitch: But if you didn’t know that uh
BatterUPBitch: Makes this all kinds of awkward
The_Morganism: Riley
The_Morganism: What’s on the board
BatterUPBitch: I’ll tell you
BatterUPBitch: But you gotta answer me something first
BatterUPBitch: So I can uh
BatterUPBitch: Tailor my response?
The_Morganism: Riley what are you talking about
BatterUPBitch: By any chance do you, like think you’re a girl?
****** Morgan Abrams
ALERT ALERT ALERT
Hospital rooms are really unpleasant, it turns out.
There are two other beds, occupied. Covered by drawn curtains for a pretense of privacy. One of the other beds has a screen, which has been blaring audio from some family game show for hours. If you have a screen, no one’s shown you how to turn it on. Don’t get to have your phone here either. There’s nothing to do but sleep, but the fabric of the sheets is all wrong. Everything here smells weird. The hum of the lights is different. Even their color is different. There are too many other people constantly moving around just outside the room, an ever-changing background buzz of noise competing with your own thoughts.
Worse still, there’s an IV drip plugged into your arm – the other one, not the arm you messed up in October – and the needle is a signal flare of distress in the back of your mind as, all the while, the tape makes your skin itch.
Here was the fantasy, if you lived: that someone, anyone would listen to you. Would fix things. Fix your brain or your body, you don’t care which, just fix it. That maybe Rivka or some other adult would finally see you, finally see past the facade you couldn’t figure out how to crack and just finally fucking see you and care enough to do something about it.
Here instead is the reality: Rivka Abrams on a warpath. She’s made sardonic jokes about killing people before but here and now you believe her. Pacing back and forth at the foot of the bed for the better part of five minutes as she rattles off a list of brand new enemies and her desired punishments thereof. A young woman in nurse scrubs stands transfixed, too intimidated to move as she clutches the edges of her tablet.
It’s enough to make you feel stupid to ever think things could be different. Never should have opened your big mouth when Rivka muscled past the nurse and stormed in demanding to know what the hell you were thinking.
“I’m going to kill him,” Rivka seethes, “turn out his insides and vivisect every last inch of nerve tissue. I’ll implant him in a defective prosthetic and tune every nerve impulse to pain. That– That– That incompetent murderous trash-heap of a man. I’ll see to it he won’t work in psychiatry again for the rest of his short miserable life. I’ll destroy him. I’ll leave nothing left but a skull nailed to a fencepost.” In this moment, if she could breath fire, she would. Her free hand twitching for want of a cigarette.
“Ma’am–” the nurse starts.
“Don’t you ‘ma’am’ me you empty-headed dolt. What were you people thinking putting Morgan on Flouxetine? That’s a Pimozide contraindication, you’d have finished the damn job and killed him yourself – or is that the entire aim here with how shoddy this entire operation is run?”
“Ma’am–”
“–and while you’re adding that to his file you put down that I will be personally vetting any future assigned vermin you gibbering monkeys think to pass off as a therapist. I will not tolerate any further mistakes.”
The nurse’s eyes narrow at the personal insults, mouth tightening as she taps something on her tablet. All this anger, this show, and Rivka’s still not even angry at the right thing. It’s not the therapist’s fault. Not really. He never told you to stop taking your meds.
“And you.” Rivka hisses through clenched teeth as she finally turns your attention back to you. “Why the hell didn’t you say anything sooner? There was no need for you to resort to this, Morgan. What on earth were you thinking? Were you even thinking at all? No, of course not. You idiot child. How could you be so selfish?”
You should yell back. Make her see, make her get it. What is it going to take to get someone to actually listen to you? Does she actually care or is she just acting so pissed off because her longest running experiment almost self-terminated?
White claps across your face and you feel the slap more in the afterimage. The lingering sting, too-warm on your skin, the welling in your eyes.
Rivka is shouting something you don’t even process. More noise drowning in the static as you lay there, stunned. She keeps talking, the anger palpable even if you struggle to follow the content. Slowly, you sink into the bed, hands reaching up to cover your face.
Don’t want to be here.
Don’t want to be here.
Don’t want to be here.
“Excuse me, is there a problem here?”
Everyone’s heads snap towards the doorway. A thin tall white man in blue scrubs steps into the room. A pair of security guards hover behind him. The nurse quickly steps over to him, in a rush to put the three men between herself and Rivka.
“The patient’s mother is here and–” the nurse starts.
Rivka pulls back from the bed, pinning the newcomers with a glare. Beetles impaled on corkboard. “I take it you’re the clown in charge of this circus.”
Blue Scrubs man visibly straightens his posture, bracing himself. Putting on a customer service smile, he holds out a hand. “I’m Dr. Jones, how about we take this discussion out in the hall and let–” there’s that fucking name you hate, ”–rest?”
Rivka doesn’t take the offered handshake, but shifts her gaze to study the Doctor’s face like she’s cataloguing him for dissection later. “Why wasn’t I informed of this immediately? I shouldn’t have to find out my child has been hospitalized from a goddamn schoolgirl crying over a phone line!”
“I understand you’re upset, but we have strict procedural guidelines–”
“Which require you to contact a minor’s parent or guardian within fifteen minutes of admittance. Is everybody in this facility incapable or is your department an outlier?”
“I’m afraid that’s not my particular responsibility, but I’m sure we can sort out what went wrong together if you’d be willing to come with me, Mrs.–?”
“–Dr. Abrams.”
“Right, Dr. Abrams,” Dr. Jones agrees, voice smooth. He gestures towards the doorway, a placid smile on his face. “If you’ll come with me, please?”
With a simmering fury like an over-boiled pot, Rivka allows herself to be corralled out of the room. The security guards moving to flank her on either side playing no small role in that.
As the last guard leaves and closes the door behind him, you let your head fall back onto the pillow and stare up at the ceiling.
Fuck.
What are you supposed to do now?
You thought it would finally be over. That you wouldn’t have to keep going on like this, that you would be, you know – dead.
At the time, your one regret is that your collapse happened when Riley was there. Hadn’t planned on that. Didn’t mean for it to happen. One more crime against her that you can never make up for. She chose you over her friends and you lied to her face about it. Repeatedly. There’s no way you can ever face her again. Not after this. She’s got to hate you by now.
The only alternative outcome to all this, the one you had hoped for – was that maybe someone would finally realize something was wrong with you and take it seriously.
If not Rivka or your therapist, then someone else, surely.
That you would get to have that cathartic emotional moment at the climax of the story where everything finally comes out in the open, everyone cries, and promises are made to change things for the better.
Only–
Only you’ve woken up again and not only has nothing changed, everything looks like it’s about to get worse than ever.
*. M. A.
5 days since leaving the hospital
Something is pounding on the apartment door loud enough that you can hear it from your room. You don’t get up. You don’t do anything. You haven’t been doing much of anything lately. Just the bare minimum to keep A*’s complaining to a minimum. Still dressed in yesterday’s clothes. Rivka looked in on you the other day and in a fit of disgust declared she doesn't know what else to try with you. Maybe she’ll stop fighting the CPS people and let them send you to that camp place after all.
Wonder if it’s anything like the one Riley has been threatened with.
Another bang on the door.
“Ms. Riley Parson is at the door for you,” A*’s tinny robotic voice announces from the wall screen.
She messaged that she’d come by today. More like threatened.
“T-t-tell her to go away,” you croak. Turn on your side to stare at the wall. Haven’t talked to her since the hospital. Keep hoping she’ll get the message and dump you like the bag of puke you are. The time to cut things off was before all of this happened, but you can still do the right thing now. For both of you.
The seconds drag by.
The pounding finally stops.
Good.
Maybe she’ll finally get the picture and leave you alone.
It’s her fault you’re still here.
Her fault you don’t even get to escape any of this.
You’ll never be a woman – a pervert, a freak, a danger. A bundle of alien impulses puppeteering a body that makes you sick to your stomach to look at. A short empty life of complete isolation is maybe the best you can hope for.
Not that you’re aiming for even that much.
Out in the hallway, a door slams against the wall with a heavy thwack.
What?
You lift you head, confused. Who opened the fucking door?
Before you can even get up on your elbows, head swimming from having laid in bed all day on an empty stomach, your bedroom door slams open, crashes the handle into the wall hard enough to leave a dent. Riley stands in the doorway. Red-eyed and shaking and so very extremely angry.
You don’t stand a chance. Can’t process a reaction in time to stop her as she marches across the room, shoves you back in the bed and –
I grab him by the shoulders and squeeze as I shake him, the words bubbling out of me without any filter. “What the fuck, dude!? Don’t you fucking DARE leave me on read you prick! Do you have any idea how worried I’ve been, you asshole?”
Fuck! The words are choking in my throat. I’ve got too many things I want to say all at once. All the planning I did on the way here is in the trash bin immediately on seeing him laying here like a dead lump. It’s all I can do to press my head against his and try to beam the entirety of what I’m feeling directly into his fucking brain.
How dare you!
How dare you!
You just lay there, looking past me with a glassy-eyed stare. Up at the ceiling like I’m not even here so I give you another shake for good measure. “What was your fucking plan, numbnuts? Did you think I wouldn’t care?”
I let go of you with one hand long enough to punch you in the shoulder.
Fucking look at me, damn you!
“What would have happened if I hadn’t been there, huh? Look man, I know everything fucking sucks shit right now but you have got to take care of yourself man!
“Do you know what it was like having to sit in a fucking maintenance tunnel the whole time wondering? I was panicking out my mind, man. Crying like a fucking five-year old trying to decide if I should leave you there and get help or fucking drag you out myself and I don’t even get to know what the hell was wrong with you? I have to find out from your fucking Mom’s AI? You couldn’t at least tell me you were okay?”
Fuck. You.
I sit back on top of you to take a breath and blink the tears out of my eyes. Wipe them away with the back of my hand. Are you picking any of this up Morgan?
Can you fucking feel how serious I am? My throat hurts, my chest aches, and now my freaking nose is getting stuffy and I don’t know what to do. What I was I thinking coming here? I’m humiliating myself. But fuck man, you really think you can just fucking throw me away like everyone else did? Can’t even have the grace to say it to my face?
“My life is a mess enough as it is, dude. Everyone else hates me or thinks I’m a slut. My mom’s crawling up my ass to make me some pinkshit princess bimbo, Dad’s no fucking help, and Jun’s too busy kissing leather boots and pretending he doesn’t know me. I did NOT need this from you right now, Morgan!”
You screw yours eyes shut. Uses a free hand to cover your face. Maybe I finally got through to you. Or maybe this is it. I’ve pushed it too far and I’ll have lost you for good.
“Sorry,” your voice comes out like a whisper. Creaky from disuse.
“S-s-sorry,” you repeat. “I’m s-s-sorry.”
It’s not anger, so I cling to it. “Don’t try to ditch me again,” I order.
Slowly, you nod.
“Did I piss you off or something? What the hell happened?”
You stays still for what feels like forever.
Finally you say, “I– I th-think I’m crazy.”
I can’t stop myself from laughing a little. “Join the fucking club dude.”
I let go of your shoulders and sit back. Keeping you pinned under me still in case you decide to… I don’t know, go run and hide in the bathroom or something. I prod the shoulder I punched earlier. “If something’s wrong, you gotta fucking talk to me. You understand?”
“…okay.” You finally pull your hand away from your face.
Finally, finally look at me.
Fuck, you look almost as bad as I feel.
“I’m dead serious, dude.”
“I c-c-can tell.” You keep staring up at me, eyes flickering down. Pupils so wide they look more black than green. “Um.”
“What?”
“C-c-can you um, can you sit somewhere… else?”
I blink. Looking down at myself for the first time and realizing how I’m positioned. I laugh, and then because I’ve lost all control of my mouth I say, “What, don’t like it when the girl’s on top?”
Your face only gets redder. “Riley.”
“Fine. I’ll have mercy, for now.” I say in the haughtiest voice I can muster and swing off him –
Riley moves to sit on the edge from the bed, leaving a respectful few inches between you. Finally free, you force yourself to sit up again. Brace against the momentary loss of vision before curling your legs under you to take up less space. Lessen the risk of brushing against her. Grateful the door’s still open. Although despite what Riley might fear, you don’t think you’re in any state to run out of here. You’d probably faint and trip on your own feet.
Riley wipes her nose with the back of her hand, suddenly unable to meet your eyes as she makes a uniquely undignified sniffling noise. “Tissues?”
Wordlessly, you reach over to the bedside table and grab the box. Hand them to her. She takes the whole thing, pulls a couple and blows her nose. “I can not do a full year of this bullshit without you man. I – fuck.” She shudders, has to put her thoughts back in order again before continuing. “It’s bad enough you’re not coming back to school.”
“I’m sorry,” you sign.
She blows her nose again, cleans her hands before prodding your leg. “You better be. You’re on probation, got it?”
“Probation?”
“Things are real shit, I get it. Okay? Holy fuck I get it. But we get through it together, okay? Not by… not by doing whatever the fuck this month was.”
She waits for you to say something. Tense and deeply embarrassed. Afraid.
“Okay?” she prompts.
“I won’t do it again,” you promise. Uncertain if you’re lying or not.
Morgan Abrams
~17 hours until arrest
–Chattrlog–
14/05/92
RileyTheMagnificent: Dude what hell happened???
RileyTheMagnificent: You can’t just say ‘oh yeah the FBI visited my apartment and then go silent on us
RileyTheMagnificent: On me
RileyTheMagnificent: I heard about that freak blackout, isn’t that your area? Are you okay?
RileyTheMagnficent: Did you get arrested?
RileyTheMagnficent: Are you in a CIA blacksite?
RileyTheMagnficent: Do I need to stage an armed coup?
RileyTheMagnificent: (Just kidding mr nsa man)
RileyTheMagnficient: I’m freaking the hell out over here
15/05/92
RileyTheMagnificent: Your mom didn’t ground you again or something did she?
16/05/92
RileyTheMagnificent: Are you mad at me for something?
RileyTheMagnificent: You have to tell me if you’re mad at me
***TODAY***
RileyTheMagnificent: I stopped by your apartment this morning
RileyTheMagnificent: Had to fucking BRIBE the checkpoint guy
RileyTheMagnificent: No one was there
RileyTheMagnificent: What the fuck is going on man
RileyTheMagnificent: Don’t
RileyTheMagnificent: Don’t do this to me again
***NEW***
RileyTheMagnificent: Morgan please
Centimorgan: I’m sorry
RileyTheMagnificent: Holy shit he’s alive!
RileyTheMagnificent: I’ve been freaking out all week dude
RileyTheMagnificent: I’m texting in class and everything, shit man
Centimorgan: i’m really sorry
Centimorgan: i wasn’t ignoring you on purpose
Centimorgan: I Promise
Centimorgan: my phone broke
RileyTheMagnificent: It broke????
RileyTheMagnificent: And it took you this long to replace it???
RileyTheMagnificent: You know what whatever
RileyTheMagnificent: Apology accepted
RileyTheMagnificent: Are *you* okay?
RileyTheMagnificent: What the hell happened???
Centimorgan: yeah
Centimorgan: sorry i just
Centimorgan: uh
Centimorgan: can we talk?
Centimorgan: like face to face
Centimorgan: wait shit
Centimorgan: sorry you already said
Centimorgan: school. Class.
Centimorgan: i forgot
Centimorgan: it can wait sorry
RileyTheMagnificent: Woah, moumentai slow down
Centimorgan: it’s fine
Centimorgan: sorry
RileyTheMagnificent: Stop that!
RileyTheMagnificent: Is everything okay?
Centimorgan: i don’t
Centimorgan: i don’t know?
Centimorgan: it’s been days and
Centimorgan: i’m still
Centimorgan: processing
Centimorgan: imagine one of those old timey computer hard drives spinning really hard and it’s melting through the earth
RileyTheMagnificent: Morgan my dude, I’m gonna be honest
RileyTheMagnificent: I have no idea what that means
RileyTheMagnificent: Did something happen? Is it your mom?
RileyTheMagnificent: Did she get arrested or something? There hasn’t been anything on the news about it.
Centimorgan: it’s not that level of bad
Centimorgan: or maybe it’s worse?
Centimorgan: actually
RileyTheMagnificent: Worse???
Centimorgan: sorry
Centimorgan: ugh, i keep saying sorry I know you hate that
Centimorgan: i’m trying to edit it out but I haven’t really slept uhhhh in days and I’m probably not thinking straight which, haha yes I know, very funny
Centimorgan: okay so like
Centimorgan: i keep flipping between feeling like
Centimorgan: uh
Centimorgan: thinking about how great it would be to like
Centimorgan: one of those side-walked fried eggs like in the meme videos
Centimorgan: where they just kind of like
Centimorgan: burn on contact?
Centimorgan: and wanting to sink to the bottom of the ocean
Centimorgan: you know?
Centimorgan: no shutting up now sorry
Centimorgan: sorry for saying sorry again
RileyTheMagnificent: Dude. It’s okay!
RileyTheMagnificent: Deep fucking breaths
Centimorgan: i don’t want my breaths to fuck
RileyTheMagnificent: ;) That sounds more like normal Morgan
RileyTheMagnificent: Where are you?
Centimorgan: right now?
Centimorgan: gym
RileyTheMagnificent: Uhhhhh shit which one
RileyTheMagnificent: The one on 72?
Centimorgan: yes
Centimorgan: I mean no
RileyTheMagnificent: ????????
Centimorgan: 38
Centimorgan: the one just off the mall
RileyTheMagnificent: Okay.
RileyTheMagnificent: Okay.
RileyTheMagnificent: You stay put. Got it?
Centimorgan: aren’t you in class right now
Centimorgan: security’s not gonna let you just walk out
RileyTheMagnificent: you let me worry about that
Centimorgan: i’ll be fine really
Centimorgan: I just didn’t want you to worry
Centimorgan: and you’re supposed to be getting your grades up
RileyTheMagnificent: Morgan
RileyTheMagnificent: Shut up
RileyTheMagnificent: And
RileyTheMagnificent: Stay
RileyTheMagnificent: Put
Centimorgan: yes ma’am