eight
Jane cried for the rest of the day. Of course, everyone left her alone like they always did because everyone was fucked up in one way or another. She sat inside the "sitting room" for a long time, curled into a chair in the corner of the room by the book shelf.
The voices were louder than ever and she hated it, but she was so tired of trying to push them back every second of every day. Maybe being on the list wasn't such a bad thing, even if she was terrified.
She'd seen so many people come out of that room as shells and even less that came out looking as normal as ever. There was no guaranteeing which one she would be and that kept her up for half the night. The other half of the night she was up thinking about Harry.
He was constantly in her head, partially because her own mind didn't like him, but mostly because her heart wanted him more than it wanted itself to function. Jane knew that either way she was going to lose memories and that actually accounted for most of her fear.
The process itself was awful, but losing memories about the only good times in her life, the times when she was with Harry, was the thing that scared her the most. He was the only person that truly cared for her once he knew that something was wrong and she didn't want to lose the memory of him, even if she made the decision to let him go.
At some point, she had decided to try to at least write something down, her mind was at war with itself, but she needed to do this. Jane scanned the bookshelf five times until she managed to find what she was looking for; an empty journal.
She'd seen it there a few times before, when she was trying to quiet her mind and she was glad that she had. Without it, she'd be completely lost.
Jane could be resourceful when she needed to be and she managed to find a pen in between the cushions of one of the ratty couches. For as long as she could, she wrote down everything she could remember that involved Harry.
Her mind screamed at her, tormented her, and fought her every step of the way, but she did it.
Sneaking the journal into her room was another story though. Jane knew there was no way that it would be possible, so she shoved it deep in the ratty couch where she had found the pen. During the last day she had left, she snuck in the two cards that she had kept under her pillow and tucked it inside the journal.
With any luck, she would at least remember that it was there after she made it out of the dreaded room. Granted, if she even made it out alive.
Harry tried to see her again on the last day and she made the guards keep him away even though all she wanted was for him to stay and tell her that everything was going to be alright. For two days, she lay awake in her bed, crying and hugging her sad excuse for a pillow to her chest.
The people in rooms around hers yelled at her to shut up, but the guards left her alone. There was a small part of them that felt sorry for her because they'd seen what had gone on behind closed doors and it was something that kept them up late at night.
Jane let the voices rage in her mind and mumbled to herself occasionally. At some point during the night, she managed to say a prayer and mutter an apology to someone that might never hear it.
Early on the morning of the third day, the nurses, accompanied by a few guards, came to take her to the room at the end of the hall; the room of horrors.
Jane knew what was coming, but she couldn't force herself to not be afraid. She pleaded, cried, and fought with the guards to stay in her room, to take her off the list because she would be good, but it didn't do much of anything.
She felt like her heart was going to beat straight out of her chest. It was hard to breathe both because she couldn't stop crying and because she was so unbelievably afraid of what was going to happen to her.
Her eyes roamed frantically, but this time it was her controlling them and not her mind. Jane's head was pounding because of how loud the voices were shouting and because of how much stress she was already putting her body through.
They passed a few patients on their way down the hall, each one refused to look at her, keeping their eyes trained on the ground and fiddling with anything that they could. Harry's sister, Rosalie, walked by and Jane thought that she saw a pained look on her face, but she couldn't focus through all the noise and she had probably just imagined it.
The heavy metal door was right in front of her now. Jane tried to get away one last time, flailing her arms and kicking anywhere in an attempt to at least injure someone so that the pressure would be released from her arms.
After only about a minute, she gave up and cried because she knew it was no use. Jane tried to make her body feel numb to match how she felt, but the voices in her head were making it difficult and she was shaking with fear long before they strapped her down.
Even though she had been through the first part hundreds of time, the sting of the needle in her arm burned like fire as they strapped the conductors to her head. She hadn't stopped crying for about two days and she vaguely thought about how it was strange that she hadn't run out of tears yet.
The nurse that had stayed in the room, her hand on the dial, looked like she wanted to be anywhere else and Jane wished that she was. Just like every time before, she wasn't numb when the dial was pushed forward.
Jane felt every surge and every spasm that her body made in response up until it became too much for her body and she lost consciousness.
She didn't remember anything after that, but the nurse in the room would remember it every day until she died.
When she woke up again, Jane couldn't do much of anything. The voices were gone and her head felt clear for the first time in forever, but she knew that something was missing. Jane couldn't remember much of anything and what she could remember was strange and came in broken pieces that didn't make sense.
After a while, some things came back and she remembered who she was, where she was, and what had happened to her, but a lot of little things were just gone and it put her in even more pain when she tried to figure out what they were.
Every day, she would see the same memory of a handsome man smiling at her like she was the sun, but she had no idea who he was or what he meant to her. There would always be a strange feeling in her chest when it happened and she knew that she missed him, whoever he was.
They had kept her isolated for a while and, when they finally let her rejoin the daily routine, she wasn't sure what to do because everything around her was chaotic and she had no idea who most people were.
On the second day, she saw the man that she'd been seeing in her mind. He was sitting across the room with a woman who looked like him and he looked awful. In her memory, she remembered him as lively and very healthy, but now, as she looked at him from across the room, he looked like a skeleton and there wasn't a single thing that she could point out that made him look happy.
He spoke few words and sat in his own little bubble for the longest time. Jane didn't know why, but she found herself wondering if he didn't see her and if he didn't want to see her. She frowned as she picked at the awful looking sandwich the lady behind the counter had given her.
After a while, she grew tired of the anxious and hurtful feeling in her chest and stood from her seat. The guards beside her watched her with curious eyes, but they didn't say a word or move to stop her.
Jane let her feet carry her across the room slowly and carefully. She didn't know what she wanted, or needed, to say to this man, but she needed to do something.
It felt like it had taken her forever to reach the table where he and the woman were sitting, but she had made it and for some reason she felt scared, like she had done something wrong to him and maybe he didn't want anything to do with her.
Nevertheless, she stood by him and cleared her throat softly to get his attention. He looked up with one of the saddest expressions she had ever seen. He looked utterly devastated. Something in her head confirmed that it was she who had done this to him and she felt awful.
The devastating look was gone in moments after he looked up. Something sparked behind his eyes as he looked up at her and she was taken by complete surprise when he rose from his seat and wrapped his arms around her in a tight embrace.
Warm tears hit her bland outfit and seeped through the thin material to wet her skin. He was saying her name and holding her like she was going to disappear, but she just stood there because she had no idea what was going on or what to do.
Someone yelled at him to keep his hands off and he listened only after he lingered for a moment later. For a long moment, he just stared at her. Jane noticed the pretty green in his eyes and stared back because it felt right and because she liked looking at them.
The woman at the table hadn't said a word, but she was watching them carefully.
Jane watched as the man struggled to find the right words, his lips parting and then closing multiple times after uttering only a few scattered syllables.
After a few moments he managed to gather his thoughts and ask, "Do you remember me?"
Jane frowned and shook her head, "No, but I'm trying to. I remember that you made me happy and that I did something to hurt you."
Harry nodded quickly, a smile on his lips because it was better than nothing, "Yes, I did and yes, you did, but that last thing doesn't matter because I know why you did it. I'm Harry and I'm your friend that wants to be more than a friend."
Jane took a moment to process his words and a few things played in her mind. She remembered cards, two of them. One was old and told her that she was pretty and his name was signed at the bottom and the other was newer and told her that he loved her, again, his name was signed at the bottom.
There was a brief memory that surfaced with the two images and in it she saw a ratty couch and an old journal being hidden between its cushions.
Jane remembered seeing the couch in one of the rooms that she had been brought to the other day and something told her that she needed to take him there and read what was in the journal.
"I'm not quite sure what that means, but I know that I have to show you something."
Harry nodded and gave the girl at the table a brief apology before letting Jane lead him into the "sitting room."
Everything looked the same to him, but everything looked relatively new to Jane. She led him over to the corner where the couch resided and stuck her hand between the aging cushions. Moments later, she held a journal in her hand and they were sitting on the decaying piece of furniture.
Harry watched her carefully as she pulled back the cover and let her fingers skim carefully over the first page of looping handwriting. Something about doing that sparked something in her and he saw it in her eyes long before she looked up at him.
Jane looked at him with wide, bright eyes that were close to tears and a smile that spoke volumes, "I wrote this to remember you."
She read the first page in her head and that's when she started to cry. Harry hadn't said anything because he wasn't entirely sure on what to say, and it took him by surprise when she asked him a question.
"Would you mind if I read it aloud to you?"
Harry nodded quickly and offered her a warm smile as he took her hand in his, "Not at all."
Jane started to read through blurry eyes that didn't want it to stop raining down on the thin pages, "I don't remember when it started, but I know that he loves me and that I don't want to forget a single thing about him. We were little when we met, I think I was six and he was seven, and I pushed him away at first because I thought he was like everyone else. But, he most certainly wasn't and this is where my memory of him begins..."
Author's Note:
Well, that's it. This marks the end of Harry and Jane. I hope that you enjoyed their journey together, even though the road was full of twists and turns. I really enjoyed writing this story and, for those of you who want more, I've decided to include it in my EXTRAS book, so you can head on over there to see some deleted scenes and extras whenever I get to them. Thank you so much for reading/commenting/voting, please let me know what you thought or if you have any questions about what happened during their story.
x Flora
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