Status: Between school and work I'll try and update as much as I can!

Promise

one

It's not the future that you're afraid of. It's repeating the past that's making you anxious. -- unknown

“Kale, you have to breathe,” Erik told his younger sister as the Detroit skyline began to peak into their view. From the passenger seat, Kaley tried to steady her breathing but it was to no avail as the panic attack had completely taken over her body. “Kaley, breathe, breathe, Kaley. Breathe in, breathe out.” He hissed through his teeth.

“Let me…. out of the… car!” She demanded through jagged breaths. Erik glared at the younger Johnson who was beginning to unbuckle her seatbelt and undo her way out of the heavy winter coat she had buttoned up to her neck.

“We’re on the middle of the fucking highway!” He screamed as he slammed on the brakes, hoping that the car that was trailing him would see his red lights and not smash into the back of his SUV.

Before he had even made it to a complete stop she was out of the black Tahoe, onto the road, and on her knees in a shallow patch of snow. Erik quickly turned off the car, turned on the emergency lights, grabbed her coat and made a run for the shoulder of the road.

She had buried her face into the University of Minnesota thermal she had been wearing and began to let out loud fits of wailing and weeping. In these cases Erik didn’t know what exactly to do. The panic attacks had been one thing, they were treated as they came along; this was something totally different.

Slowly the heaving of her chest began to lessen and the loud cries began to be soothed until her breathing had gone back to normal and she had complained about how freezing it was outside. “I’m okay.” She finally told him as he wrapped the heavy North Face around her slim shoulders. The act of confirmation hadn’t been so much for him but more for her as she had to make sure she believed inside that she would be okay.

But she really wasn’t.

She never was.

~~~~

She hadn’t spoken to anyone since she had arrived at Children’s Hospital of Michigan over a week before. She chose to sit in her room all day refusing the company of both her brother and parents who had made the trip from Minnesota. They sat outside in the small waiting room for hours on end, taking shifts throughout the day to relieve someone for a nap or lunch break. They were there around the clock, just incase she had ever wanted one of them.

She hadn’t spoken to the doctors either. The only word anyone on the medical staff had ever heard her utter in the seven days that she had been in their care was quiet “no” on third day, when they tried to insert an IV catheter into her anticubital vein after she had refused to eat or drink anything. She hadn’t thrashed or carried on about not wanting the IV, like most patients would however, she just simply said no. The IV had later been put in after her main psychiatrist, Dr. Hughes, determined that severe dehydration would begin to occur if lines of normal saline weren’t hung immediately. This time she didn’t speak or even look into the eyes of her nurse, Katie, a short and sweet woman who had tried everything in the past four days to get Kaley to open up. But even that hadn’t worked.

On the eighth day multiple doctors came in to inform her that if she wouldn’t talk to either her family or their medical personnel, that she would be Baker Acted and placed into 72-hour surveillance. She simply shrugged and looked out the window, as her eyes remained as glazed over as they had the day she had been admitted. Her mother broke down into loud sobs as she signed the last line of paperwork to put her nineteen-year-old daughter into a Baker Act, and clung to her husband for support. This certainly wasn’t how she had imagined her family.

“If you want to see us, Champ, we’ll be out in the waiting room, okay?” Mr. Johnson asked his daughter. She didn’t acknowledge the graying man as he whisked his inconsolable wife out of the off-white hospital room and down the hallway towards their camp. Her older brother walked up to her next.

“Kale, I’m sorry, okay?” He coughed, trying not to cry. It had been such a tumultuous week, partially his fault. “I shouldn’t have called mom and dad, and I shouldn’t have told them that I thought you needed to be admitted. Don’t be mad at them; be mad at me, please. But you need help, and they’re going to give you the help that you need if you can just open up.” For the first time in eight days, Kaley’s eyes turned dark with anger and her eyebrows furrowed together. Any emotion besides glass was a step in any direction.

“I can’t stop feeling this way.” She told him softly. The demeanor that she had just shown didn’t match the soft tone of her voice. She was angry with him, and she had every right to be; yet her voice couldn’t show it. She couldn’t tell him how she felt; she couldn’t tell anybody how she felt.

“Please just do what they tell you here, Kale. Then you can come home. You can go back to Bloomington.” She shook her head through fat tears as she tried to wipe them away with the back of her hand.

“I don’t want to go back there, Erik. I can’t go back there, Erik. I will officially break if I ever have to go back there ever again.” She explained but didn’t tell why exactly she would break. Erik didn’t know the whole story, and probably didn’t want too. All he knew was the teenage years hadn’t been kind to his baby sister and now they were sitting in the psychiatric ward of the Children’s hospital.

The in-between had been hazy, as he had spent most of the time out-of-state, playing hockey in nearby Denver, Colorado. Even when he was home during the summer, he hadn’t seen much of his sister. She had seemed to always keep to herself in most outings. But he nodded. She wouldn’t go back to their hometown, ever again. The nightmares would come back and the panic attacks would be induced, and he knew she wouldn’t be able to handle all of that. She had scars to prove it.

“I’ll do this, but you have to promise me that you won’t let them send me back to Minnesota.” She squeaked. From where he was standing by the door, he nodded his head quickly. Whatever could be done, he was going to do it.

“Please get better, Kale. I need my partner in crime back again.” She smiled, small, yet it was a glimmer of what she had used to be. He walked over and patted her on the head, like had used to when they were little. Surprisingly she had reached to him for a hug. Her small frame felt like he was going to break it as he grasped around her shoulders.

“I can’t guarantee I’m going to get better.” She admitted as he pulled away. Again her glazed face had returned. She turned back into the stone that no one was able to get a word out of. And she began to lock everyone else out once again. But this time she wouldn’t stay that way.

Things were going to look up eventually. They were going to take a while. They weren’t going to be easy. But they were going to be worth it.
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What do you think? I'm a little new to this Mibba stuff, and slightly terrified to put my work up. Does anybody mind leaving me a little feedback? Because that'd be awesome. (;