5150

A few hours passed but Teddy continued to check in on Maya; she had promised Carina as much. It broke Carina’s heart to have had to walk out of that room and that she, as her wife was not able to help Maya in this moment. But she also knew that Maya needed help that was beyond her capability. And she was terrified of her dying.

Hearing Jack tell her how he had thought Maya was dead when he found her was a mental image that she couldn’t get out of her head. It triggered memories of Andrea’s death. The difference being that Maya’s enemy wasn’t a human trafficker that stabbed her, but her own trauma-driven mind.
Carina knew that Maya didn’t choose to have had this trauma response over the last few months, but she had thought that after everything that they’d been through, that Maya would’ve been able to open up to her before she ended up endangering herself. She almost thought that she should consider herself luckily that the first time Maya’s trauma response had been triggered to that extent that, she had only slept with Jack and not hurt herself.

Since Teddy had taken Maya for a trip outside the hospital room, Maya had not uttered a single word. She didn’t respond to Teddy nor to any of the nurses or the psychologist they brought in. She laid on her side, unmoving, starring at the plain white wall.
Carina and Teddy decided to let Andy visit her; they didn’t think that Maya would use any tools to hurt herself and she was on a somatic ward, so visitors were allowed. But Maya remained in her paralysed like state, not even pulling her hand away when Andy took hold of her hand. It was like she had closed herself off after the previous state of fear.

At one point they even asked Dr. Bailey to visit her, in an attempt that the authoritative woman might get Maya to react, but to no avail. Maya just felt numb, unable and unwilling to move or make an effort. She merely existed. Everyone talking about her having endangered her life; well this definitely wasn’t saving it. How is she supposed to start living again, stuck and confined to this bed in this room in this stupid hospital. Maya felt like all energy was drained from her body.

There were moments, hours perhaps in which she wasn’t sure that she would have been able to move, even if she wanted to. Andy and Dr. Altman and others kept checking in on her but she didn’t hear their words. She felt like everything was surreal, she knew that she was deteriorating but the only person that made her feel alive was the very same person who locked her in here.

And lately even Carina hadn’t been able to make her feel anything. If she was being honest with herself, she knew that she had fallen back into “eyes forward”, but it was the mode that was all too familiar, that felt so wrong and so right at the same time. She knew that she had hurt Carina, pushed her team away, but the truth was, that she didn’t care. She couldn’t feel any of that.

And what really was the point of existing when she wasn’t even capable of these basic human functions? What if this was her real nature? What if this was all she would ever be capable of? Hurting other people by manipulating them into thinking that there was an actual person behind this? She should have never left this path of “eyes forward” until she either succeeded or died trying. Maybe it was all for the best that her nature had pushed everyone away and made sure to hurt them enough along the way that they would never be able to forgive her.

She hated whenever nurses and doctors came in to care in some way for this shell of a body that wasn’t even good enough to keep her on this path. Her body hat betrayed her once again; Carina used to tell her that it was human and necessary to let the body rest, but what was the point of resting really, if she wasn’t really a human person capable of loving and living? The nurses touching her body to care for it was almost unbearable. This body didn’t feel like it belonged to her any longer and she frankly didn’t feel like she deserved it.

It was only for the lack of energy and lethargy that Maya didn’t rip out any of the lines providing her body with nutrients, water and medicines. It was probably for the best because they would probably have her committed for longer if she did. Though did it really matter at this point? Everyone knew she was a nut job anyway, and to be honest the longer she remained in this vegetative state, the more she started to believe it herself. Maybe this was where she was meant to end up.

She was going in an out of sleep due to medication or exhaustion, she wasn’t sure which. But sleep didn’t lead her into oblivion. She was plagued by dreams of scenes of screaming at Carina over and over again, seeing her walk out of the hospital room again and again but no matter how hard she tried to reach her, the floor always turned into a treadmill. And the harder she ran, the faster it became, no there was Lane, standing there, laughing, berating her, letting her fall over and over again until she didn’t get up anymore…

“Maya, isn’t it possible, with everything else you’ve accomplished, that you could learn to let yourself rest and sleep and love in this life instead of waiting for death to set you free?”
She shuddered and jerked awake, or so she thought, because in the hospital chair sitting across from her was Diane Lewis. Was she still dreaming or was she hallucinating?

“Hello Maya.”, Diane said in her usual ‘therapist voice’.

“Di…Diane”, Maya’s voice was horse from not having been used for so long.
Maya expected Diane to say something, anything but she just kept looking at her with this stare that felt like it looked right through to your soul.
She didn’t know if it was because of the dream she’d just had or whether she was just trying to grasp at every last straw of hope at this point, but what happened next definitely wasn’t a conscious decision.

“How…”, she felt her voice breaking, “how can I learn that?”

Now it was Diane’s turn to be confused.

“Learn what?”, she asked with a half quizzical, half concerned look.

“You… I don’t know if you even remember, but when I told you that I was thinking about the clouds once, you said to me once that… maybe I could learn to let myself rest and sleep and love instead of…”, she sounded really small and felt her voice giving away, she let out a shuddering breath, trying to force the tears back,

“because I… I don’t… I’m about to lose all hope that it’s even in my nature to be able to…”

She pressed out those last few words, before the façade broke. She felt her body curling into the fetal position, sobbing.
Then she felt Diane next to her, carefully rubbing her back. She was kneeling next to Maya’s bed, almost whispering into her ear:

” It’s ok. Let it all out Maya… You are capable of love Maya. It may not feel like it right now, but this right here is proof of it. No matter how long you try to keep that façade of indifference up, they will always crumble down eventually. But you have to want it, too. No one can force you to get better.

“So I didn’t just manipulate everyone into believing that I am not a psychopath?”; in a different situation Diane may have made fun of that question, but Maya’s feeble voice made it clear that she was sincere.
“No, Maya, You are definitely not a psychopath. And believe it or not, I am not an easy person to manipulate. Believe me, I would know.”