Get Me Out of Here Read Online Free PDF

night's sleep he'd seemed to anticipate with a little too much relish.
    I thought about Tim's visit. He'd been relieved. I was in the psych ward with all of these mental patients, forced into a fog of complacency. And the sonofabitch was relieved! I'd called myself crazy in front of him before, and he'd always gently answer, “No, sweetheart, you aren't crazy.” Fucking liar, he did think I was crazy. He'd kept looking at his watch the whole time he visited me—couldn't wait to get out of there and leave his wife a prisoner in the loony bin.
    Screw him, I thought. He doesn't want me around. Well, I don't want to be with him anyway!
    There was only one place to go. West. Only the most dangerous neighborhoods of the West Side were much closer from here than they had been from home. And it was nighttime. Perfect. This time, I would make it all the way to the projects. And this time, I wouldn't make it out alive.
    I was on the sidewalk of a major thoroughfare, moving as quickly as my drug-numbed body would let me. I shuddered and sobbed uncontrollably as I headed west in my bare feet. I knew damn well I was the perfect victim—which is precisely what I wanted to be.
    I didn't get very far when a uniformed security guard approached me, a logo of the hospital on his pocket. Resistance? I hadn't planned on resistance. I didn't have the energy for it.
    “Ma'am, do you realize it's two in the morning? I don't know where you think you're going, but the streets aren't very safe around here at night.”
    His words were music to my ears.
    “I'm going west,” I sobbed. “These streets are too safe, goddamnit. I gotta get outta here.”
    He put his hand on my shoulder. I wanted to push it off and start running in earnest, but the damned medications dulled my reactions. The guard soon realized I was from the psych ward and escorted me back to the unit. I didn't fight him. I just wanted to go to sleep.
    The night nurse/drill sergeant had set down her coffee and magazine and was standing by the double entry doors to the unit, arms folded, awaiting my return. She was clearly angry and wasn't going to let me go to sleep until she'd had her say.
    “Where have you been?” she demanded, her brown eyes burning into me. “You don't leave this unit at this time of night. You don't leave this unit without a signed pass from a doctor. What on earth is wrong with you?”
    Don't you know, you idiot? I'm in the goddamned psych ward. I'm crazy. And I'm doing what crazy people do!
    “I want to go home,” I mumbled through my tears. “I just want to go home. I'm not supposed to be here. I don't belong here.”
    “Humph,” she sniffed. “We'll let the doctor be the judge of that. If he decides to release you or gives you a pass, fine. But you do not leave this place without one, and you surely don't do it at two in the morning. As long as I'm the charge nurse responsible for you, you aren't going anywhere. Look at you—you're a mess. You're in a hospital gown for God's sake. You've taken some pretty large doses of drugs. It was downright dangerous.”
    It was my turn to be angry. “Hey! This is a free country, and I can go any goddamned place I please. You made it easy actually—just sitting up there on your big fat ass reading. You just don't want to have to stop reading and get up from your little throne behind the desk. You don't care about me. You're only pissed because you screwed up, and you're scared you'll lose your fucking job!”
    “ Look ,” she practically spit the word at me, her eyes narrowed, “you obviously don't like me. Well, I don't much like you either. I don't have to like you. But I'll tell you one thing. I'm not going to lose my job over someone like you. I've worked here for ten years. I don't know what your problem is, but let me tell you one thing. Don't mess with me because you'll be in lockup so fast your head will spin. You don't scare me, you don't move me, you don't intimidate me. And if you want to make