Concealed Affliction by Harlow Stone Read Free Book Online Page A

late when we get home, even though we got on the road after dawn. I’m emotionally and physically exhausted.  I know it’ll be straight to bed for me when I get there. Hopefully tomorrow my head will be clearer.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Five
     
    “Jayne, it’s me, Mrs. Anderson.”
     
    At least she knocked this time before she came in. Yesterday when I woke up in this lumpy hospital bed the snooty bitch was perched on the chair beside me, hoping for a chat. Having never met the woman in my life, it would be a huge understatement to say that I was pissed to wake up finding a stranger not only staring at me, but touching my arm.
     
    After the hell I’ve been through this past week, you’d think that a psychiatrist of all people would understand my need for privacy. You would also think she understands the concept of space, meaning I don’t enjoy strangers being within touching distance, and I don’t appreciate being stared at.
     
    I told her all this, along with a few carefully added curses which ended up being something like “don’t look at me, don’t sit near me, and definitely do not fucking touch me.”
     
    Her voice pulls me out of my thoughts from yesterday’s encounter.
     
    “Jayne, how are you feeling today?”
     
    She doesn’t wait for me to ask her if she’d like to join me, but wisely she sits near the wall opposite my bed a good ten feet from me, not that I want her in the room at all. I also don’t want to speak with her, so I keep my eyes trained on the window overlooking the parking lot. Not that I can see it, being that the bed is down flat, but it’s the same thing I’ve been staring at for two days. Why change now?
     
    “Jayne, other than your outburst with me yesterday, your doctors and the nurses mentioned that you haven’t spoken since you were brought here. We know that although there’s swelling in your neck and around your vocal cords, they are still functional. I’d like for you to use them today Jayne. The police will be here again soon, and it’s my job to make sure you’re in the right frame of mind to speak with them.”
     
    I remain silent.
     
    What is there to say? I don’t want to talk about what happened to me, I don’t want to talk about the weather and I have absolutely no desire to get to know this cold woman in a business suit in front of me.
     
    She told me yesterday on her rant after I told her to get out, that she’s been the psychiatrist on call for this hospital for years, and basically that she needs to find out whether I’m in my right mind, or if I need to be sent to the ward on the third floor.
     
    At this point I don’t care where I am, or what I’m doing. I just want silence. Peace and fucking quiet. Mrs. Anderson gets up out of her chair. Her dark hair is graying. Too much Botox leaves only her eyes and mouth to judge her mood by. Her grey suit is crisply pressed, more like something a lawyer would wear.
     
    The sour expression on her face tells me she hates her job but likes the paycheck. This is most likely why she’s the on call psychiatrist for the hospital. Not one person in their right mind would pay this woman to pick at their brain. She’s a bitch, I could tell from the moment I woke up yesterday.
     
    She doesn’t have a high ranking practice of her own somewhere. She’s paid by the province to be on call for fucked up people such as myself that end up in the hospital for medical reasons and who end up needing their heads checked before they can be sent home.
     
    I’m no doctor, but I think it’s fair to say that someone in my position is allowed all the fucking crazy they want after being held in a basement by a psychopath.
     
    “Alright look Jayne, if you let me do my job you can get out of here quicker. Your doctors informed me that you’ll be held for at least ten more days. Thereafter you’ll get a home nurse to change your sutures. However, that cannot happen until you speak with me. We need to