Young Writers Society

"MUCUS! SWEATY PALMS! FIGHT OR FLIGHT!-"

"Belinda relax," Emily told her as she tried to stifle another symptom of stress, "You're starting to make me nervous." Emily looked around the hospital waiting room at the people staring. Surprisingly it was only a few people. The people without wheelchairs or handicaps. I guess that makes sense, Emily thought, if she comes here every two months. There'd have to be some people who understand her predicament.

"I'm sorry, I just don't like hospitals." Belinda rubbed her thumb s across her palms.

"Really?" Emily asked. Belinda looked up at her, her elbows on her knees and her chin resting unstably on her wrists. "Miss Daredevil detective doesn't like hospitals?"

"Sick people belong in hospitals, dying people go to hospitals, it's not exactly where I want to be." Belinda tapped her cane.

Emily was silent, something about her tone told her that Belinda really didn't want to be here for more than her usual hatred of people seeing her weakness.

"Belinda Cabbotry for Dr. Darby." A nurse said from the doorway. Belinda tried to push herself out of her chair. Emily felt bad watching her face turn slightly red, so she held out a hand. Belinda glared at it and then took it.

"Do you want me to come with you?" Emily asked, partially to make her feel better and mostly to make sure she didn't hobble away when she wasn't looking.

"If you want to, it's nothing embarrassing." Belinda tried to walk ahead, but Emily caught up and they walked through to the check-up room together.

***

"Blood pressure's high, what have you been eating?" The doctor asked as she took the band off of Belinda's arm.

Belinda's face went red and her cheeks puffed out as she tried to tell her. "P-p....ch-choc..." She took a deep breath and started again. "Stuff I shouldn't have."

The doctor looked over her shoulder as she prepared a needle on the counter away from the table Belinda was sitting on in a thin hospital gown. "What happened to the fruits and vegetables we talked about?"

"They sniff weird." She said shivering and crossing her goose bumped arms. "I've cooked them, dressed them, drowned them, and boiled them, every time I eat them I upchuck."

The doctor shook her head, making her short red ponytail shake rapidly like a puppy's tail. She turned to face Belinda with a long needle and a alcohol wipe. "You need something other than fats and sweets. Your heart has enough trouble without cholesterol." She wiped Belinda's shoulder clean.

"I know I know."

Dr. Darby stabbed the needle into Belinda's shoulder, but Belinda didn't seem to notice. When she was done, the needle came out without Belinda even flinching. "We'll leave so you can change." Dr. Darby said, motioning for Emily to follow her out in the hallway. Emily noted that she was about half a foot taller than her. Her lab coat fits, Emily thought. Her own lab coat was on special order because it was a few inches to short especially noticeable around the sleeves where they just barely reached halfway between her elbow and her wrist. So much for one size fits all.

"How long have you known Belinda?" The doctor asked in hushed tones.

"About a month, why?"

"I was just wondering because she doesn't usually let people bring her here." Dr. Darby shrugged.

"Her boyfriend asked me to make sure she came." Emily remembered the yelling in lab 123 before she got in the other day. Melanie had been "present" then and if Emily had learned one thing about her is that she liked to argue as much as she liked being the smartest person in the room. As soon as Belinda came back he had basically thrown her under the bus.

Then a question came to Emily's mind.

"What's up with...?"

Dr. Darby shook her head.

"What?"

"I'm supposed to say what my patients' problems are."

"Not even if I'm really curious?" The doctor shook her head again, "What if I'm worried about her?" The doctor smiled.

"Belinda has a rare genetic disorder, a unique disorder, where her muscles don't accept the materials given to them. They don't receive as much nutrients."

"Why?" Emily whispered.

"We're not sure. The specialists believe that she has bad genes that didn't quite copy the right data to make proper receptors for materials, so her body doesn't take in as much material as she has."

"So how does she...survive?"

"They recognize certain things more than others, like Oxygen, and some things just have to go around a few times until they're recognized. It's not like nothing is ever taken in, it's just harder-"

There was a loud crash from the check-up room, and both of here heads flew in it's direction.

"She's fine." Dr. Darby said, blandly as Emily contemplated coming in to see if she was okay.

"Then what was that?" Emily asked.

"Sounded like the chairs."

"Well, how do we know she didn't faint, or isn't having a seizure?"

"We only heard the chair." Dr. Darby explained blandly, "If she had fainted we would have heard her hit the ground, and if she were having a seizure there'd be a lot more collateral damage. It's a small room." As much as Dr. Darby looked like she wasn't worried, Emily could see that she was still staring at the door and straining her ears to see if Belinda was okay.

"Shouldn't you make sure though? I mean you are her doctor."

"I have, but the more you try to help her the less she she respects you. If she were really in danger I'd break down this door if I had to, believe me. I really want her to get a private nurse to make sure this kind of stuff doesn't happen at home. She'd never tell me if she had a bad seizure, but..."

The doctor's voice trailed off. Emily suddenly wondered how much she did know. Certainly no one would be told if Belinda, or Melanie, had a bad seizure or fainted. But did she know about Melanie? She'd clearly spent a lot of time with Belinda, but had she ever noticed that there was a different personality? And if she did, would she have the decency to suggest help?

***

"Okay Belinda give me your cane." Dr. Darby said after a series of seemingly pointless exercises. Belinda went still. The doctor held out her hand and Belinda looked down at her grip on the cane, her eyes wide. "Belinda, I'm waiting." Belinda didn't move. "Your the one who didn't want the wheelchair, now prove that you don't need it."

Belinda took a deep breath and shakily handed the aluminum cane to the doctor. Emily leaned forward in her seat, partially because she and the doctor had to be ready to catch her if she fell and partially because she had never seen Belinda without her cane. Belinda always held her cane, whether she needed it or not.

"Okay, could you walk to the door?"

Belinda looked terrified. It was three feet, but that was a mile to her. That was a lightyear without her cane. Belinda clenched her fists and slid her foot forward. It was slow and all around ungraceful, but Belinda managed to scoot to the door without clinging to the wall. By the end her face was red and she looked dizzy. She leaned against the doorknob.

"Okay touch your toes."

Belinda sighed and stared down at her sneakers. They were elastic for just this reason. Emily knew, she had seen Belinda smack her foot against a wall trying to get them on without leaning down.

She looked up at the doctor who nodded, and looked down again. With one hand she squeezed her waist and the other she let fall. With obvious pain she pressed her back down as far as it would go and tapped just below her knees. "That's....as far," she coughed, "....As far....as far as I....uh....go."

"That's fine." She walked next to Belinda and gently helped the cane back into her hand. Belinda looked up, her face was even redder. She exploded into a coughing fit that sent her into the empty chair next to Emily to sit in utter exhaustion.

After a minute, when Belinda had finally stopped coughing, the doctor filled out a sheet on a clipboard. "Okay, you seem relatively healthy, just eat less fats and cholesterol. I know you can cook, so don't lie to me."

Belinda gave a childish, embarrassed giggle, revealing that she hadn't really tried to change she diet.

***

The halls of the nursing home were gray. The kind of gray that left you lost in thought and dragged any potential conversation out of you. Emily really didn't know why she was here, they had been talking, or rather she had been talking, about a personal nurse for Belinda, when she walked right past the car. Emily had followed, to make sure Belinda gave her an answer as to where she thought she was going. It turned out that on one side of the hospital was a nursing home that peaked Belinda's interest. As for why it did, Emily had only sneaking suspicions.

Belinda turned almost mechanically to another hall. She eyed the numbers on the door. Belinda had tucked her hair behind her ears, but she didn't talk, leaving Emily wondering if she was really Melanie at that moment. Melanie's two tells were her hair and her natural love of her own voice.

Belinda mouthed the numbers as she counted the doors.

Belinda, as in the original alter, not just the generic name for her colleague when she couldn't tell who she was. Belinda the personality was a little quieter, when she wasn't shouting random words. As far as Emily could tell she didn't like to be the center of attention and she preferred to hide behind her hair.

Emily liked Belinda better than Melanie. When Melanie talked she assumed everything, she didn't need someone to respond, she knew what you would say and could have a conversation by herself. She also assumed that Emily wanted to hear her seemingly endless fountain of knowledge. Belinda at least talked to her like an equal. Even if she knew she was smarter.

Belinda stopped at a door labeled 134. She sighed and fixed the hem of her jacket.

Emily watched her curiously. Melanie, or Belinda, had never looked this...well blank.

"Bel-Melanie?" Emily asked softly. Melanie turned, her eyes not quite looking at her, like she was thinking about something else entirely. "Are you okay?" Melanie stared for a while, then nodded.

Melanie gingerly turned the knob and walked in. Behind the door was a tan old woman with bright white hair and a large book in her hands. She was sitting comfortably in a plush grey bed, but wearing a what someone might call her Sunday best.

"Mom?" Melanie asked. The old woman looked up. This was the first point of the conversation that seemed odd to Emily, and it certainly wouldn't be the last. This old woman was way too old to be her mother. Emily thought. She looked more like a grandmother. Of course Belinda's age hadn't really revealed itself to her, maybe she was a lot older than she looked. But she couldn't be old enough for this old lady to be her mother could she?

"Jackie." The old woman smiled, placing a bookmark in the book and setting it aside. "How are you?" Jackie? That was not one of the alters Emily knew of.

"Good." Then Melanie noticed that the old woman was looking at Emily discreetly. "Mom, this is Emily, she's a friend from work."

"Hello, Emily." The old lady smiled.

"Hello Mrs. Cabbotry."

Melanie flinched, revealing that that was not her last name.

"Mrs. Christe." The old lady corrected. Was Melanie the "original"?

"Sorry." Emily smiled awkwardly.

"It's fine." She said, "So how are you, Jackie, how's Mason, how's the class, do I have any grankids?" Melanie laughed and sat down in a chair next to the bed. Emily stood awkwardly next to her for lack of a chair.

"No grankids yet mom." Then Melanie turned to Emily, "I swear, eighteen years and she refused to let me date and now all she wants is grankids."

"I need someone to spoil." The old lady smiled. "How's the leg?"

"Getting better, I can walk, but I still might need the cane forever." A leg injury? "What book are you reading." Melanie asked, anxious to change the topic from her.

"Oh that's not important, tell me about you."

"There's nothing interesting going on with me, mom."

"Oh that can't be true, you have a boyfriend, a nice job, come where all my stories? Show me your life in the last two weeks."

Emily looked around. This old lady had only been in a nursing home for two weeks? Then Emily remembered, that there was probably a reason she was in the nursing home in the first place. In this case, the conversation might not help her figure out why Belinda/Melanie had come here.

"Well, my life is kind of boring." Melanie insisted.

"There are no boring stories when you're locked up in here. When do you think I'll be clear to go? It shouldn't take this long to recover from surgery!" Emily decided that that was not the truth. She was told that. A nursing home was not a place for recovering surgery patients. She doesn't know where she is.

"Okay, well, I guess, yesterday Jacque, one of my kids, he got the football team to state. And I saw Monica, that girl I didn't like, you remember her Emily?" Emily jumped a bit.

"Oh yeah, the blonde one?" She said unsure.

"Yeah, well I saw her at McDonald's behind the counter. Man I bet she wishes she read Hamlet now." Melanie launched into a completely fictitious story about Monica Dixon. All the while, Emily put the pieces of a lie into a reasonable story.

***

"So that was your grandmother?" Emily asked as the walked to her car.

"Yes." Melanie said in a low voice.

"And she has Alzheimer's."

Melanie's head lowered even more.

"She thinks you're your mom."

Melanie nodded.

"And you let her, because you were close to her and you don't want to upset her.

"Is that bad?" She asked after a while.

"Lying about what's wrong to help someone feel better?" Emily thought for a while. "There's nothing wrong with that."