Hospital For Souls

Chapter Four

My first group. I stand awkwardly in the doorway, watching what the other kids do. I look around.

There's the platinum haired kid and his roommate. A girl who looks younger than me with blonde hair and watery blue eyes watches me curiously, her hands lightly placed in her lap on her black leggings. Her silver shirt shimmers slightly in the light. I avoid her gaze and look at the other two.

Brian is here, as well as another girl, a brunette with brown eyes and a black shirt and jeans. She glances at me quickly, then looks down at the floor. Brian smiles at me when I walk in. They all have a purple book.

I look down and sit halfway between Brian and the blonde girl. The door closes soon after with a soft click and I look up. A woman I haven't met yet walks in, her brown hair tied back in a ponytail. Her eyes are behind glasses and the light is reflecting on them, so it's hard for me to see her eyes. She holds a stack of papers in her right hand and moves to a seat where she can see all of us. She smiles softly at us.

"Hello. I am Ms. Evans. I'm going to be helping you learn mindfulness skills. But first, it looks like we have some new faces, so let's start with introductions." She pauses, thinking. "Let's go with first name, what grade you're in, and something interesting about you." She points at Brian to indicate that he should start.

"Hello, I'm Brian, I'm a junior in high school, and I play piano," he says, his voice confident. He gives me a slight smile. Oh shit, is it my turn? I don't know anything interesting about me.

"I-I'm Jessica, I'm a s-sophomore in high school, and I-" I stop, not knowing what to say. The room gets really quiet and it starts making me anxious. What do I say? I don't have anything interesting to say. Other than I write poetry, but that isn't very interesting....

"Jessica?" Ms. Evans's voice breaks into my thoughts.

"I-I write... Poetry..." My last word is really quiet.

"That's cool," Brian says. I look at him. Is he just saying that to make me feel better, or does he really think that's cool? I can't tell. He seems sincere enough, but I can't be sure. I blush and look away as the blonde girl starts talking. I hear her say her name is Paige, but after that, I unconsciously tune everyone out. It isn't until it gets to the redhead who said something about being interested in computers that I come back to the group.

"Alright everyone. Thank you for introducing yourselves." Ms. Evans starts. "Today we will be working on 5-4-3-2-1." She gets up from her chair and crosses to a whiteboard on the opposite wall from me. I hadn't even noticed it was there. She begins writing on the board.

A few seconds later, she has written out '5 things you see, 4 things you hear, 3 things you can touch, 2 things you can smell, 1 thing you can taste'. I stare at it blankly.

How does this help with my depression? How does this help with my father?

"Brian, can you name one of these for me please?" She looks at him. I do as well. He looks around the room, then looks at me. He smiles softly at me and I blush and look away again.

"One thing I can see is Jessica's eyes are hazel." I look up at him, my eyes wide. He turns to look at Ms. Evans, who nods.

"Thank you Brian. Very good. Jessica." She looks at me and I shrink back a bit. I look frantically around the room. The buzzing of the lights are annoying me and all I can focus on though.

"I uh... I can hear the lights buzzing..." I say slowly. She nods and looks back at the board. She writes down both of our answers and moves on to Paige.

This goes on for several minutes before she hands us a paper with the exercise on it. I stare at it for a while, frowning. I get the exercise. But what does this have to do with mental health?

I almost miss our release from the group. The others start leaving and I scramble up to follow after them. Most of them have already made it to their rooms by the time I get to the hallway. When I walk into my room, I spot a purple book on my desk. It looks just like the ones the others had. I set the page on the desk and look at the book.

Across the cover in white lettering is written 'Depression and Anxiety'. I frown at it, opening the cover. There are several activities in it, including the activity we learned today and an introduction page. Further in are daily goal pages, like a school assignment planner. Not having anything to write with, and not wanting to do it anyway, I close the book and go curl up on my bed.

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One Year Ago

"So how come you sit by yourself?" Dustin asks me. The question surprises me and I look at him. He's sucking out yogurt from a tube and staring at me expectantly. I narrow my eyes at him.

"Why do you ask?" I don't mean to sound defensive, but I also don't know this guy at all. He raises an eyebrow at me and tilts his head, pulling the tube out of his mouth.

"Well, you seem like a really nice person. It seems strange to me that you're by yourself." He licks yogurt off the corner of his mouth. "I mean, if you wanna be by yourself, I ain't gonna judge, but that doesn't seem like the case."

I shrug and look away from him. You're not wrong. It's not by choice. But you don't really need to know that. You'll find out eventually anyway.

The bell rings and I get up to go to class, not even waiting for Dustin. I didn't need to worry though, because he trots up next to me, the tube of yogurt still in his mouth. I roll my eyes, though secretly I'm kind of glad.

I haven't had anyone try to be my friend in years. Guess people liked my mom more than they liked me.

"Hey, do you know where this class is? I'm still getting lost." He holds out a piece of paper with his schedule on it. Reading through it, I laugh.

"Yea. Wouldn't ya know? We have the rest of the day together." It was like the world was really trying to be nice to me for once. Though, I know that'll end once I leave school. Shaking my head of that thought, I indicate with my head for him to follow me.

"Come on. Oh, and you might wanna lose the yogurt. Ms. Candace isn't too fond of food in her class."

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A nurse comes to wake me for lunch. There's a tray with a not very appealing looking entree that might be hamburger helper. I shuffle over to it to eat, though I'm really not hungry. I know I haven't been eating much, but what was the point?

I push the weird entree around before slowly snacking on the mandarin orange cup it came with. Once I feel like it's safe enough to, I come out of my room with my barely touched tray. I set it up on the cart and hurry back to my room.

Not long after, there's a crash in the hallway. I peek out the doorway out of curiosity. Brian and Mark are standing across from each other, Brian apologizing for something. Mark just pushes past him and I see that two trays are on the floor. Mark glares at me as he passes and I squeak and hide back in my room.

What was that kid's problem? I was just curious what happened.

I sigh softly and curl back up on my bed, staring at the wall.