"And I feel pressure from everyone to be this person with no emotions and the drive to be everything I wouldn't have been decades or centuries ago," Judith says through rapidly falling tears. Her breathing is ragged and her trembling hands rise to her quivering lips. "I'm not my grandmother or my aunts. I'm a person with issues outside of my color and no one to help me!"

"Hey, you have me." He stands out of the chair and leans over, sitting the notes and pen on his seat. Judith watches him approach her from the right of the bed and sit on the edge. "I know I don't understand what it's like to be you, but I come from a Jewish, immigrant background and I know what it's like to have pressure to be what they couldn't. Pressure to be an American; whatever that means."

"Sometimes I wish I could disappear. Not die, of course, but go somewhere and be forgotten," she quickly clarifies while maintaining eye contact and when he nods, she looks at her lap.

"What's keeping you here," he asks, his voice low and almost secretive.

"My little brother and sister." Judith doesn't stop to think before she answers and he creases his brows at her response.

"So," he drones, unsure how to form his next question. She lifts her dark browns onto his. "If you didn't have them?"

"I'd be dead." He draws in a breath as his hands slide up his thighs from his knees, and his eyes wander onto the notes he'd left in his chair. She scans his posture with her irises bouncing up and down, a curious disposition evident on her innocent, tear-stained face. "What?"

"I think Red Cave is the best option for you," he hesitates while looking at her. He watches her eyes widen in horror as the confession leaves his mouth.

"No," she mumbles, shaking her head simultaneously. She pushes herself off the bed and stands over him. "You said - you wouldn't send me there."

"No, I didn't say that." He tilts his head and raises his brows as he rushes to defend himself. She staggers in front of him as her heart pounds harder, adrenaline fighting the drugs in her system. "I said I would try to get you out of here soon if you talked to me and I'm a man of my word."

"You tricked me," her voice cracks and he pulls his lips into a straight line, almost nonchalantly. Judith hangs her head and allows her mind to unravel what's occurring. While she does, he turns his back to her and walks toward his chair.

I'm an idiot. Oh, my God, I can't believe I -

She watches him continue to the door with his notebook and pen in his left hand, and when he places his right hand on the door, she says, "I trusted you. I told you about my brother, my Grandmother, my Dad - even my ex. I told you everything and you sat there and listened just to tell me you're sending me to an asylum?"

"Miss. Jefferson, I didn't," he starts to speak with his head slightly veering to look across his shoulder but she interrupts.

"Fuck you." She takes a step toward him, her fists curling at her sides. He bends at the hip and knits his eyebrows at her, his confusion countering her wrath. "You tricked me! I have a sister that needs me and a brother who's here right now probably going to Red Cave too."

"Then you'll see him when you get there. As for your sister, she has family that'll care for her, I'm sure," he argues and she scoffs in disbelief, her eyes refusing to dim.

"Are you kidding me? Kids are separated from adults." He doesn't respond. Instead, he drops his gaze onto her socks and she narrows her eyes. "Have you seriously never been there? You're sending me to a building you've never stepped foot in?"

"I've seen Polaroids and moving pictures of the grounds, staff, and patients, so I have a clear understanding of what goes on." Her mouth hangs open by three inches as she stares at him. "You'll see him when your morning orderlies walk you through the building. Bikram yoga, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You're also allowed to sit outside by a fountain."

"A fountain? Yoga," she repeats questioningly. "What building did you see? Because the one I was in was nothing like that! I saw people screaming at their reflections and banging their heads on walls and windows. There was a lady who cut another woman in front of me and I never saw the second person again. Meanwhile, the psycho was roaming the halls until I left."

"That was a year ago, Miss. Jefferson," he reminds her and she exhales the breath trapped in her lungs. Wrinkles form alongside her nose, mimicking the ones above her nose bridge.

He can't be serious.

Multiple suppressed memories surface all at once - one involving a thin man with a light brown complexion, hazel eyes, and a fade reclining in a tree while reading a burgundy book - and she lifts her hands to her chest. She feels her heart vibrating against her fingers and it quickens her breathing.

"Please you can't send me back there." She staggers toward him as he swings the door open. He watches her stop beside the chair and he takes a deep breath.

Sadness drips from her chin and onto her collar as they stare at each other. Without a word, he steps into the hall and while taking ragged breaths, she sprints toward the open door. He shuts it between them and they face each other.

"I'll talk to someone who works there and see if they'll look after you. You'll be okay," he gently attempts to assure her, but she shakes her head as she chokes on a sob.

"I'll kill myself if you send me back. This I swear, Doctor Nemens." He glances at the mist spreading on the glass as she huffs and puffs. "I don't deserve to be in that place and if you don't see that then you're just as heartless as that woman and as the orderlies who abused us, who over-medicated us! While we were laying in bed fighting off drugs we weren't supposed to have, they were smoking and playing cards!"

"And I'll bring that up to Richard Myers: their boss." Judith runs her fingers through her afro, stopping at the top of her head and clutching her hair as she helplessly weeps. "You have to trust me when I say that you'll be fine there."

"Last time I trusted you, you ripped the rug from under me with this bullshit," she yells with her right index on the glass and her left arm at her side. She forces her face to bear a scowl. "I don't trust anything else you say and no one else! I swear if you get me out I'll eat three meals a day. Hell, I'll even shoot for five if it pleases you and I'll never try to hurt myself or anyone else."

"I'll see you again tomorrow," he says before walking down the hall toward the waiting area. She rests her temple on the glass and watches him stroll out of her line of sight.

Judith rolls onto her forehead then presses her lips together and her eyes shut. She counts backward from ten in her head like she was taught at Red Cave, trembling through each number.

Get a grip, Judy. If you spaz, they'll give you another shot.

When she reopens her eyes, they land on the doorknob and her breathing slows.

Wait, he didn't lock it.

Judith lifts her head and scans the area. Out of the usual bunch, only three nurses are at their posts behind the round counter. With her eyes locked on the bulkiest one - a blue-eyed blonde sporting a short ponytail - she reaches her left hand toward her ticket to freedom and feels the cold metal heating.

She tugs it open, slow and steady without a drop of fear in her veins. They're inattentive, short, and just as frail as her if not a few pounds heavier. Judith glances at the floor on the other end of the threshold and suddenly it all feels too good to be true.

She returns her vigilance to the women in uniform and takes a step out of the room. Still, they don't look up at her. She looks at the elevator and wants to run as fast as her legs will allow.

If I do that, they'll notice me. Try to stay calm.

Judith takes a deep breath and when it exits just as uneasy as it entered, she takes another, then a third. Her body is looser as she walks around the counter, her head high and each stride full of purpose.

Don't look at them, don't slow down, don't run. Stay calm.

She watches them through her peripheral and their attention doesn't leave their paperwork. Just as she reaches the doors, they ding and open as if they were waiting for her.

Her eyes broaden when she sees two men - one scrawny and the other burly - standing on either side of a stretcher. Their matching burgundy and black suits intensify their midnight complexions and overall alluring appearances.

They guide the gurney past her and as she steps in, she catches the heavyset one's eye. The intricate, gold logo on the black blanket informs her that they're from the local funeral home. The very one her father was cared for by.

The doors slowly shut and through the closing gap, she notices the blonde woman finally raise her head. She looks at the elevator just as it shuts.

***

Judith's resting in a booth at a diner, her face buried in her folded arms on the table. A woman in a hip-hugging navy blue dress approaches her and forcefully clears her throat to which Judy lifts her head. Groggy, she gazes upward at the closed-off, furious dark brown eyes shooting daggers at her.

"Ma'am, this isn't a homeless shelter. Either order something or leave." Judy glances at the window to her left and notices that the sky is dark yet riddled with stars. She then scans the diner of twenty patrons talking, eating, and some bobbing their heads to the guitar riffs flooding from the jukebox.

Judith pushes herself upright and runs her hands across her outer thighs, expecting to feel pockets of money. When the fabric is that of cotton instead of denim, her eyebrows lift.

The waitress crosses her arms as they make eye contact and her demeanor doesn't soften. She peeks over the table's brim and notices the plastic hospital band around her wrist.

"Are you from Saint John's?" Judith follows her gaze and nods her head before returning her attention to her. "Okay, well, I'm calling the law."

What the fuck?

"Wait, what?" She blinks faster as she scoots to the edge of the seat. A few truckers sitting at the bar look at them. "No, you don't have to do that, I was heading home!"

"Don't you raise your voice at me," she sternly says while pointing her index at her. Judith reads her name tag: Wanda. "You people constantly come here and sleep off whatever drugs or booze you're on and I'm sick of it!"

"Drugs? I'm not on anything and I don't drink." Judith shakes her head with confusion on her sleep-deprived face. Bags rest under her eyes along with dark circles, her face as pale as the rest of her malnourished body.

"Uh-huh," Wanda mumbles sarcastically, eyeing her from her afro to her gown. She whips her head toward the bar and yells, "Bobby, call the police! We got another one!"

Jesus, whatever I did to rile you up I'm sorry. I don't wanna see another cop or doctor again tonight. Please let me just go home.

Her neck contorts as she screams at the scrawny man behind the register. Judith catches a breath to prepare to stand up until a familiar voice speaks.

"You don't gotta call the police on her." They search the small diner for the person and notice Eric sitting near the truckers, occupying a plate of steak and potatoes and a mug of coffee. "That's my friend's girlfriend."