Song: Wait by M83
"Send your dreams where nobody hides, Give your tears to the tide"
Noelle
Barbara sits in front of me in her plush white leather chair. She is tapping her pen on her notepad while staring at me intensely. I have become all too familiar with this setting and these four and a half months I have spent here have been all too long, all too boring, and all too lonely.
"Noelle," she says my name for the third time, obviously irritated with me. "How are you today, Noelle?"
I shrug. The silence between us is deafening. Overwhelming, even. If a needle were to drop, I feel as if the entire room would come crumbling down around us and I still wouldn't hear it over this silence.
"Noelle, this will go a lot faster if you would just talk to me. I am here to help, you know." I am beginning to hate the sound of my own name because she says it so often. I'm even considering going by Anastasia again. But I won't. I don't think I ever will.
"Alone." I answer.
She furrows her eyebrows, "What?"
"You asked me how I felt," I jog her memory and the confusion leaves her face and is replaced by what.. relief? Surprise that I actually spoke? I don't know. "Alone." I repeat, "I feel alone." My voice is husky and low, as I don't use it as often as I used to.
"Alone as in physically or mentally?" She makes a note, scribbling quickly.
"Is there a difference?" I question.
She sighs, "Well, do you feel understood?"
I scoff and shake my head, "I haven't felt understood in a long time."
"Okay, well then mentally alone, check." She tries to laugh, I just shake my head. What a lifeless job a psychiatrist is, making jokes and "checklists" out of someone's mental health issues. Disgusting.
"I feel alone, in every definition of the word. Mentally, physically, metaphorically. Alone. In every sense." I wave off her silly remark. I don't find any of this funny and neither would she if she were in my shoes.
"Alone how?" She asks.
God, she frustrates the living hell out of me with her tedious questions. ALONE, I FEEL ALONE. IS THERE ANY OTHER WAY TO PUT IT? I scream internally.
I groan, "I miss giggling on school nights with my friends over boys. I miss fighting with my sister over who gets the last piece of cake. I miss dancing in the kitchen with my mom to The Rolling Stones after dinner," I choke on tears, "I miss people, my family, people caring about me, but I think that most of all, I really miss myself. Does that explain my loneliness? I miss the feeling of someone being there. I'm tired of being my only companion." I retort as a tear slips down my cheek.
For a minuscule moment, I almost think that Barbara is going to pull me into a hug, but rules and regulations strictly forbid her of doing/saying anything personal to a patient, so I know she won't. Part of me thanks the rules because if she were to hug me now, I know I'd break into a million pieces and it would be impossible to put myself back together. But the other, more dependent part of me wishes she would so that I could feel some sort of presence apart from my own crippling mind.
She clears her throat, "Noelle, I-" She is cut off by a nurse shoving the door open. Rude.
I quickly wipe the tears off my cheeks as he speaks, "New patient coming in, needs a mental exam like, now." He sounds urgent.
YOU ARE READING
The Road Less Traveled
Novela Juvenil"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.” On the 14th day of junior year, Noelle Chambers was checked into a mental hospital. On the last day of junior year, she was checked out. Li...
