The Eleventh Ward

Chapter 11

When I opened my eyes, I was in white room. The walls and floors were like pillows and there was a hint of cleaning products in the air. 2 security cameras were perched on the corners, their eyes focused on me. I blinked the spots out my eyes and tried to figure out what had happened through the fuzziness in my head. After a few minutes I'd remembered being in a fight, a when the realisation that it had been Lacey finally clicked in my head, I pulled my knees up to my chest and tried to hide.

I don't know how long I was sat in that room, it could have been minutes or hours, but when the door clicked open and the head nurse walked in, I knew I wasn't ready to go back. She walked towards me slowly but purposefully and knelt down in front of me.

"Hello Brandi" she said in a quiet voice. The anger that I remembered from the ward was all but gone and a calm women was now trying to talk me out of the room.

"Do you remember what happened?"

"You threatened to send me back to juvie" I said in a flat voice.

"Before that"

"I got in a fight with Lacey" I was looking at her, but I was avoiding her eyes as much as possible. I knew these people's tricks, and the eyes were where everything happened. Just one look of those caring hazel eyes could convince you to sign up to a Habitat for Humanity trip and swear to Jesus. Instead, I kept my eyes flitting between her mouth, her hair, the way she was sitting.

"That's right, and you know that fighting is unacceptable here" I nodded quietly and we sat in silence for a few minutes. "I know you've been through a lot in the past year, but you're doing so well to get yourself back on track. I've seen people like you before, really bad people that have done things just like you and have fucked up their life so bad that even we can't fix them, but you... You're not like those people. You have a chance Brandi, a chance to get everything back."

"But I can't get Lea back" I whispered, and a tear escaped. It was the first time I'd cried since the accident, and instead of sitting and staring at me because I was a dangerous person, the nurse wrapped her arms around me and pulled me close. She was quite plump, and she smelled like washing powder which smelled like flowers. And it reminded me of my mum hugging me before I went to school for the first day, and I fell into her. I let her hold me, and stroke my hair as I let just a little bit more of human Brandi take her place back in my body. "It's okay baby" she whispered and ran her hand down my hair again. She let go and looked at me, wiped a stray tear away with her hand before offering it to me. Gingerly I took it, and she pulled to my feet and led me out the room. We walked through a corridor with a few other rooms with strong white doors, I guessed leading to other padded rooms, until we walked through a door and emerged into the adult ward. We walked through it and back into the Eleventh Ward. It was like the first time I'd arrived, but now everyone in the foyer turned to look at me and I felt countless pairs of eyes bore into my skin. The nurses lead me into the girls corridor, but instead of turning into my bedroom, they continued walking a bit further down the hall to a separate room. When the door was opened, I could see there was a single bed in the centre of the wall and my possessions had been moved in.

"It was decided you were better off in a single room for the time being" the head nurse said, before giving me one last smile and closing the door behind her. I stood still for a few seconds and took in the room. It looked exactly the same as my last room, except there was only one of everything. There were still no windows and I began to feel the bare walls close in on me. Without even bothering to check if all my things were there I walked out the room and pulled the door shut behind me. The corridor was still too small so I almost ran out into the foyer. The foyer was too crowded with people so I went into the lounge and sat on the window sill. This was the only place in the ward where you could see out into the real world. Whenever I had driven past the hospital as a kid, I would have been able to see people sitting in this exact spot, but I never even began to imagine what had led them to this windowsill. I might have seen Luke sitting here at one point over the years, or Grace. I thought of Grace and about what I'd told the head nurse in the padded room, 'I can't get Lea back'. But maybe I could. Not in the same way, but I could talk to her. I immediately jumped down from the windowsill and walked back to the girls corridor. I knew which room was hers, but when I opened the door it was empty. I checked the cafeteria and the activities room and in the end I had no choice but to accept that they were on the roof.