A Second Ward Romance
Hi, my name’s Tom Ross, I’m 15 years old, and this is my story. Honestly I didn’t think I’d ever fall in love, hell, I didn’t even believe in it. Luckily, someone, in someplace you’d least expect it from, I learned from. I could never fathom that me, of all people in my house, would be going to a mental hospital.
“Tom, you’re only going because you’re normal…you just don’t fit in here.” My dad tried to explain to me. It wasn’t logical at all and honestly it was ludicrous. My father had anger management problems and frequently got out of hand. My mother had a phobia of germs and wouldn’t leave our house, ever, and lastly my older sister. She had turrets, which were very mild. I was the only perfectly normal person in the household, which made me fell pretty lonely. Our house was always quiet from lack of conversation because it was too difficult to make. Dad would start yelling and throwing things, mom would be too paranoid of germs coming out of our mouths, and Laura would have too many outburst, but enough about the family, let’s skip to the hospital.
Well, it’s been about 6 years since I’ve been registered into Walters’s & Patson’s hospital for the mentally disabled and I must say, it’s become kinda like "home". I live in the 2nd ward, room 103. White walls, white tiled floor, white sink, white toilet, white bed, white table, and a white chair is all that’s in my room. There’s also a window in the door and a window secured with bars in the back of the room. My next door neighbor is Rick. He’s paranoid of his own reflection, which explains why he looks a mess everyday. To the right of me is Jane. Her parents sent her here after she burned their house down. Like me, she’s completely normal, well…except she likes to burn things. Now the part when I fall in love and stuff.
It was April, going on the fourth month of my sixth year of being in W.P.H.M.D. we had got some new people, like we do every month. Surprisingly, this month we had got a lot more girls than usual. Mike, the 2nd ward director, had called us all down to come to the cafeteria for the entrance ceremony. We all rushed down stairs to try to get seats closer to the front but of the 1st ward had filled them up already. Before the ceremony they had to do placement to assign rooms and wards to everyone.
“Alright everybody, now that we’re done with placement, we’ll start with the welcome ceremony.” Carol, Dr. Walters’s wife said. I was sitting in the far back so I couldn’t hear anything that well. I shrugged my shoulders and waited for some time to pass by. It was getting really boring until a girl with long, curly hair brown hair walked up to the podium. She had the prettiest blue eyes I’d ever seen and a pretty face to match.
“Um…hi, I’m Leah, and I’m 15, thank you for welcoming me.” she smiled. Well that’s a first, who would smile after coming to a place like this, I thought. She walked over to Mike shook his hand and stood behind him. This meant she’d be in the second ward.
“Hm…nice to see some fresh new faces in the ward, eh Rick?” I said casually. “Yeah, sure glad it isn’t my face though.” He said scratching his face furiously.
Once the ceremony died down the bell rang, which meant we were free to roam around wherever. I walked back upstairs to my ward and pushed through the busy hallway making my way towards the game room. I stepped into the doorway to see Leah and Mike talking.
He turned around, “Hey Tom, I got work to take care of, would you mind showing Leah around?” he pushed her towards me. I shook my head no and looked over at Leah. She was really slim, looked about 4’6, which to me was short for 15.
“Thanks” he said rushing out the room.
She looked at me, “So your name’s Tom huh?” she questioned.
