I heard footsteps next to my bed, but I could not move, could not scream, could not wake.

"Jadelyn," the calm sound of my grandmother's voice penetrated my ears, hearing it caused a smile to be produced onto my lips.

"Together," the voice said calmly, and I could smell vanilla lotion as soon as the words hung heavily in the air.

My eyes jolted open, as if the momentary paralysis had faded as my mind caught up to who exactly was talking. I look up from where I lay to see Genevieve, her face plastered with a fake grin, almost mixing with a distaste for the current situation. Before I am about to ask why she is here, she in pulling out a switchblade and sticking it dangerously close to my neck.

I twist and turn unwelcoming the fate of what is about to happen, struggling to free myself from the physical grip she has placed me under. Broken sobs come from my being and I begin to plead with what oxygen I have left.

"You thought you could just get up and go?" she spat.

The physical response to her question was the tip of the knife peaking just below my skin; Genevieve was never one to be able to handle any sort of mess (whether she created it or not), and the sight of my blood beginning to dribble out of the wound caused her to pull back immediately.

I lunged from where I was sitting and grabbed the switchblade from her hand. I knew I had to run to the head nurse and figure out how Genevieve managed to get in; when I exited my room I looked down the long corridor of New York State Psychiatric Institution.

I held the exposed switchblade with one hand, and the other snuck along the exposed bricks of the wall. I mumbled something incoherent and that caused a nurse to look over to me, while I sported the blade facing them.

"Please......" I muttered.

"Drop the blade," the orderly said firmly and ushered his hand over to me.

"I just want to go back to my room and think for a bit. I'm very confused." I whimpered out.

"Think?" The orderly exclaimed. "You've had four years here to think, how much more could you possibly need--"

As if someone was controlling my body, the switchblade was shoved into the abdomen of the orderly; crimson blood leaking onto the white uniform.

I sat straight up in my bed, the velocity of my actions nearly caused me to leave the bed momentarily. The room was dark, as it had been for the last couple of hours. The home was characteristically quiet at this hour, through the cracked door I could see the light on at the nurse's desk indicating she hadn't left yet for the night.

The nurses back was turned, and I approached her from behind, trying to step as loudly as possible to avoid startling her when she discovered my presence. She was hunched over a binder filled with patient information and when my had tapped her shoulder, I almost immediately regretted the decision.

"Yes, dear?" she said when she turned around, recognizing who I was.

"Can I m--make a phone call?" I ask quietly. Knowing how late it was I would have figured she would have sent me back to my room and allowed me to do the task in the morning.

"Sure, dear," she said softly. She picked up the phone and dialed the code for outreaching another phone, and then I asked her to dial the number written into a extra piece of paper that was slipped into my file.

"Hello?" Mikey's voice came through on the other end, rasp and unclear, like it did while we were smoking cigarettes on the ledge after we first met.

The nurse whispered to me to simply hang the phone up after I was done, because she was leaving for the night.

"It's me, Mikey," I said, a twinge of pain in my voice.

"What's wrong?" he asked, immediately catching on about the circumstances of the time of the call and the emotion within my voice.

"I just-- wanted to hear your voice," I whimpered. "Please just talk about anything," I added.

Mikey must've adjusted himself from where he was, I heard him clear his throat and start talking; about finishing up the tour with the rest of his band mates, saying how they all miss me, talking about the new songs he's been writing, and their lyrics and instrumentals. Saying how nice the group home was, and his final topic of discussion took me by surprise.

"Your discharge is soon, and the tour is over, too. Maybe you and I could take some time off together?" he asked.

Notes