Picking Up The Pieces

Chapter 1

A young woman sits nervously in the waiting room of the mental hospital, leg shaking up and down, chewing the inside of her mouth. She's waiting for her turn to see the psychiatrist who is supposed to evaluate if she must stay at the hospital because she's a danger to herself, or if she can leave and try to pick up the pieces of her broken marriage and fix her life.  She feels the anxiety in her stomach, sitting at the bottom like a rock sunken in the sand of the ocean floor. She's nauseous, her mouth starts to salivate uncontrollably and her eyes start to water... The tell tale signs she's going to throw up the nothingness in her stomach. She hasn't eaten in a few days, trying to help with the weight gain. He will love me again if I lose the belly fat. And with that she starts dry heaving into the garbage can that the older nurse, whose name tag read Janet, had placed next to her when she noticed the young woman start to get sick.

When the young woman finally calms down Janet grumbles to herself under her breath "Oh dear, this always happens. What do they expect? They make them wait for an hour or more to get evaluated." She then directs her attention to the young lady and speaks in a more gentle voice. "There's a washroom over there, go clean up before you go in. I'll let him know where you are if you aren't out by the time he's ready for you." And then proceeds to point to a door with a drawing of a wheelchair on it and a sign next to it that says W A S H R O O M in large bold letters.

And with that, the young lady shakily stands up and unsteadily walks over to the bathroom Janet had shown her. She walks in without looking back and the kind nurse, the lights automatically turn on and she shuts the door. She makes her way over to the sink and looks in the mirror, her eyeballs are sunken in and her irises are dull. There are dark bags under her eyes from not sleeping, and tears staining her cheekbones from the involuntary crying after throwing up. After splashing some cold water on her face and rinsing her mouth, the young woman walked out of the washroom with her head hung low and shoulders slumped. She takes a moment to glance at her surroundings, nothing has changed. besides the old nurse was sitting uncomfortably in the poorly padded chairs, she was typing on her cell phone using her pointer finger and thumb to spell out her thoughts. Once Janet had hit the send button, she looked up to see the young lady stood awkwardly in the middle of the waiting room.

"Oh I'm sorry dearie!" the nurse exclaims. The young lady notices the accent in Janet's voice, too worked up to notice it before. "I didn't see you there. Dr. Nauss just came out to get you, but you were still in the washroom, I'll go ahead and send him a message and let him know you're back." Janet says in her usual sweet voice.

Just as Janet pulled the phone out of her scrubs pocket, the door that reads DR. D. NAUSS opened. An older gentleman with a glossy bald head, a long wiry beard entered the doorway in a pair of beige cargo pants, a baby blue v-neck and brown birkenstock sandals. He is thin and very tall. To be honest, he looked like a walking midlife crisis, or like he hadn't had contact with another person in a decade.

"Oh good! Dr. Nauss, I was just about to message you. She's ready to go in for her evaluation." Janet cheerily spoke, completely unaware of the fear the young lady had been feeling.

"Thank you, Janet." He spoke in a calm, gentle voice to the nurse.

"Now," He turned his attention to the young lady. "Are you ready to start our meeting, Katrina?"