She blinks, no expression to her face, and after what feels like hours, she finally responds in chilled words, “I’m nobody.”
And as mad as I am at her, as much as I hate her, as much as I want to celebrate her downfall, I have the urge to convince her that she is someone. I want to remind her of all the reasons I fell in love with her, but who’s to know if those reasons were just products of her deception. I need a ballast of understanding with her, but I don’t know if that will ever come.
And what would I even do if I got it?
There’s so much I want to say, so many questions, but I know this isn’t the moment for any of that. Turning off the water, I grab some towels, tying one around my waist before I get her wrapped up.
I lead her to the bed and sit her down, saying, “Stay here. I’ll be right back with some clothes.”
I rush to my room to toss on my sleep pants and a t-shirt before returning with a pair of my boxers and a shirt for her. I get her dressed and lay her down in the bed. She remains quiet; I don’t even attempt to speak when she rolls onto her side, facing away from me. I know she’s got to be physically and emotionally drained, and I want to let her rest, but I also don’t trust her to leave her alone right now.
So while I wait for Kyla to arrive, I pick up the envelope that contains the papers I took from Elizabeth’s room and take a seat on one of the chairs in the corner of the room by the windows. I pull out the sheaf of documents, and start riffling through them to get them in order before I start to read.
The information contained in the court documents is unsettling, and I can’t believe what I’m reading. I spend the next half hour going over her mother’s testimony where she admits wanting to terminate the pregnancy when she learned about it, but her husband begged her to keep it for him, so she did. But that after the baby was born, she grew depressed and started having thoughts of harming and even killing Elizabeth when she was an infant. How she felt her husband loved their daughter more than her. And eventually, how she secretly handled the selling of the baby to some guy she met through friends who lived in Kentucky.
The intercom buzzes, alerting someone’s at the gate, snapping me out of my engrossed thoughts.
Setting the papers down on the side table, I walk over to the bed and am shocked to see she’s still awake as she stares out the window blankly.
“Are you okay?”
No answer.
“I need to run downstairs for a moment,” I tell her, but still, no returned response.
Before I walk out of the room, I push the button on the intercom to open the gate and then head downstairs to meet Kyla.
“Thank you for coming on such short notice,” I tell her when she enters my home.
“Alick stressed how important it was for you to keep this matter private.”
“Yes. The last thing I need is for some reporter to start digging around if it were to be mentioned I was at the hospital with a woman.”
Her smile is warm, and when she touches my arm, she says, “You and Alick have been friends for years, and although you and I don’t know each other that well, I want you to know that you can trust me.”
“Thank you.”
“Before I check on the girl—”
“Her name’s Elizabeth,” I interrupt, my stomach still knotted tightly from reading about her mother.
“Before I examine Elizabeth, can you tell me what happened tonight?”
“I received a call from a friend, letting me know she would be learning something that would probably upset her.”
Her brows rise in confusion.
“The details aren’t important, but needless to say, she didn’t take the news well. After I ended the call with my friend, I rushed over to where she’s been staying, wanting to check in on her, and when I arrived, she had locked herself in her room. She was screaming like a maniac and crying. I kicked the door down and she was covered in blood. She must have smashed her head against something. There was blood everywhere. She had calmed a little and began talking. I thought she was talking to me, so I was responding to her, but she wasn’t looking at me. And then she mentioned someone else’s name,” I tell her, not wanting to reveal too much detail. “She must’ve been hallucinating, and then it was like her whole body was in pain and she started complaining about a ringing in her head.”
“Has she had episodes like this before?”
“I’m assuming, but I don’t know for sure. When I brought her back here, I put her in the shower, and her whole body is covered in bruises. It’s like she’s been beating herself. I know she has this wound on her head that she’s been picking at.”
“Is she on any medications that you know of?”
“No. I don’t know.”
“It’s okay,” she assures and then asks to see her.
I lead her up the stairs and into the guest room where I left her. I stand off to the side while Kyla walks around the bed to talk to Elizabeth.
“Hi there. I’m Dr. Allaway. Can you tell me your name?”
I look on, waiting for some sort of movement, but there’s no shift when I hear her weak voice answer, “Elizabeth.”
“Last name?”