Harper

I woke up to a blindingly bright room, my head throbbing as if I had been thrown headfirst into a storm. Disoriented, I blinked rapidly, trying to adjust to the stark white walls surrounding me. My body felt heavy, my limbs sluggish, as though I had been sedated. A strange sensation crawled over my skin, something wasn’t right.

I attempted to sit up, but the moment I moved, a sharp resistance yanked me back. My wrists were bound. Thick, unforgiving straps secured me to the bars on the side of the bed. Panic surged through me, my breath hitching as I pulled against the restraints, my heartbeat beating wildly in my chest.

“Hello, Miss Stone. I’m Amanda.”

The voice was calm, composed, completely at odds with the chaos spiraling inside me. I turned toward the sound and found a woman standing near the foot of my bed. She wore glasses perched neatly on her nose, her blonde hair pulled back into a meticulous bun. The light blue scrubs she wore told me she worked here, wherever here was.

“Why am I restrained?” My voice came out hoarse, cracked with the remnants of sleep and fear. “Where am I? Where is Ethan?”

The sound of his name, a sharp pang stabbed through me.

Amanda stepped closer, her expression soft, almost pitying, as she placed a gentle hand over mine. “Harper, listen to me,” she said slowly, like I was a child she needed to soothe. “Ethan passed away a couple of days ago.”

Her words slammed into me with the force of a freight train. My throat tightened, my stomach clenched, and my body turned to ice. “No,” I whispered. “That’s not…”

Amanda continued, her voice steady but firm. “You had an episode after hearing the news. You tried to hurt Officer Jones, Ethan’s friend. Because of that, you were brought here, to Palms Care, for your safety.”

My safety. The words echoed in my skull, hollow and meaningless. I shook my head, trying to absorb what she was saying, but it was as if my mind refused to grasp it. This had to be a mistake. Ethan couldn’t be gone. Just the other day, we were…

I paused, my memories felt blurred. What had we been doing? Talking? Laughing? My mind scrambled, reaching for something concrete, something to hold onto, but there was only a void where my certainty should have been.

“No,” I said again, my voice sharper this time, a desperate denial. “This can’t be real. I need to see him.”

Amanda’s fingers tightened over mine, an attempt at comfort, but it only made my skin crawl. “I know this is difficult, Harper. But Ethan’s parents decided to cremate him. There won’t be a funeral.”

My breath hitched. “What?”

She nodded solemnly. “They’re shipping his remains back to his hometown.”

“They aren’t having a funeral?” My voice cracked as the reality started sinking in, pressing down on my chest like a crushing weight. Amanda patted my hand in an effort to comfort me as I said to myself, “Why wouldn’t they…?”

I had only spoken to Ethan’s parents a handful of times in the three years we had been together. They seemed kind, but distant. But to not even have a service for their son? To just erase him like that?

Everything about this felt wrong.

My mind swirled with panic and confusion. Could they legally keep me here? Did I even want to leave? Because what was waiting for me outside these walls? An empty apartment. A life without Ethan.

Amanda’s voice pulled me from my thoughts. “I’ll return later to take you for your therapy session.” She unlocked the restraints and stepped back, giving me space to sit up. I barely noticed her walking out, but the click of the door locking behind her sent a shiver down my spine.

For hours, I sat in silence, staring at the walls, my thoughts circling a dark drain. Was any of this real? Ethan was here and now he has gone? It felt like these drab walls got smaller with each tick coming from the clock on the wall. Amanda returned. The door opening startled me as it broke the silence. She motioned for me to follow her, I stood from the bed feeling almost feeling like I forgot to walk I clumsily followed her out of the room. She lead me down a long hallway, my mind felt foggy, each turn we took becoming harder to remember, as though the walls themselves were shifting around me.

Eventually, we reached a blue door marked with a plaque. Dr. Stevens.

Amanda turned to me with a small smile. “Dr. Stevens is great. He’ll help you sort everything out.” Then, she knocked, waited for the response, and nudged me inside.

The man before me was tall, his hair a stark white, making him appear both wise and strangely comforting. He wore a casual button-up shirt under a sweater, nothing too formal, nothing too intimidating.

“Good afternoon, Harper.” His voice was warm, gentle. “I understand you’ve been going through quite a bit in the last few days.”

I let out a humorless laugh. “That’s an understatement.” I said with a crack in my voice while ran a hand through my tangled hair.

Dr. Stevens gestured toward a chaise lounge. I thought these were stereotypical furniture pieces for these types of doctors. I hesitated, then lowered myself onto it, too exhausted to protest.

“How have you been feeling since you heard the news about Ethan?”

How have I been feeling? Empty. Worthless.

My throat tightened. “Like my world has been ripped to pieces.”

Dr. Stevens nodded as though he had expected that answer. “Tell me about your relationship with him.”

I stared back at Dr. Stevens. I didn’t want to reveal my thoughts and feeling to this stranger.

“Harper, I’m only here to help. When you’re ready.” He says softly.

I swallowed against the lump in my throat. “We were together for three years…”

“How did you meet?” he quickly fire backs.

The question made me pause. Why was this important for him to know? It felt so insignificant to answer this considering everything that happened but somehow, I answered. “College trip. My friends uh.. dared me to talk to him. He was running on the beach, and I invited him to the bar with us. It turned out we were from the same town.” A small, broken smile tugged at my lips. “It just… clicked.”

Dr. Stevens studied me for a long moment before speaking again. “I know this pain feels unbearable and grief can take away from many valuable years of your young life.”

I lifted my gaze. “Why would you say that?”

“There’s an experimental program for people suffering from severe grief,” he explained. “It’s a clinical trial but it has shown great results. You could benefit from it greatly and help us learn more about treating it.”

I frowned. “How does that work?”

“I cannot provide all the details, given it’s a proprietary trial, but if you agree to it we will reveal all of the information.”

“What if I find out what it is and don’t want to continue?” I ask.

He smiles. “You just leave and don’t tell anyone else about it, but I think with you being so young, you’d benefit more from it than our older candidates.”

I sit there for a moment taking this in. What would this even mean? How do you just get over grief? They want to treat it like it’s an illness?

Dr Steven leans forward. “Grief fades naturally over time. This process just accelerates it. They’ve already seen incredible results.”

I stared at him, my heart pounding. The idea of erasing even a fraction of this pain was tempting. But was it right? Am I taking the easy way out? I bury my face in my hands and let out a sigh. I only had Ethan. I don’t have any family to lean on, I drifted apart from all of my friends. What did I truly have left to lose?

I lift my head from my hands. “How soon could I do it?”

Dr. Stevens’ expression remained kind, but I swore I saw something flicker in his gaze. “Tomorrow, if you’re ready.”

I let out a shaky breath. “Sign me up.”