The Calling | The House of Voices #1

Four - Memories

Memories

Parish:

It had been over three years since Parish Feltman had last seen his mother. He had just turned fourteen and had been suffering from a strange psychological disease for almost a year. The doctors had diagnosed him with a multiple personality disorder, but he didn’t believe them. They were all liars.

He had known for a while that the stress of dealing with a mentally disturbed teenager had been getting to his mother, but nothing had prepared him for when he woke up that Sunday morning and found her gone…

Parish snapped out of the memory as soon as the cold water hit his face. Shaking himself out of the past, he blindly reached for the face towel to dry himself. His first counseling session with Dr. Michelson had been a nightmare. The young doctor was much friendlier and open-minded than most of the other doctors that Parish had met, but he had done something that had made Parish instantly hate him.

He’d questioned him about his mother.

Until today, Parish had always believed that he hated his mother for abandoning him and leaving him in the care of his unconcerned father. He always told himself that he despised and resented her for running away. Dr. Michelson had proved him wrong.

Darren – Dr. Michelson had insisted that Parish address him by his given name – had told him that it wasn’t resentment that he was feeling, but hurt. He said that when Parish’s mother had left him, she had broken his heart so badly that the only way he knew how to forget the pain was by converting the agony into anger and acting out.

It was all a bunch of psychological bull-crap, as far as Parish was concerned. Or at least that’s what he’d told Dr. Michelson. It wasn’t an easy thing to admit, but for some reason, Parish knew the doctor was right. He was hurt. He was in pain. His mother had left him in the care of a father that loathed the very sight of him. A father who blamed him for his mother’s disappearance. A father who did everything he could to get his only son as far away from his as possible.

It took every bit of self control in Parish’s body to keep him from slamming the door shut when he stepped into his new bedroom. He closed it behind him with a soft click, making sure he didn’t wake his snoring roommate. Sid Something. He hadn’t really had time for introductions.

Dressed in only a pair of pajama bottoms, Parish paused in front of his designated closet and debated whether or not to put on a shirt. He was uncomfortable in the shorts as it was, but he wasn’t really sure if he could dress however he wanted, now that he was sharing a room with another guy. If he were at home, he would have just crawled into bed in his boxers and nothing else.

But he wasn’t at home. He was in a mental institute – or a “rehabilitation institute for the disturbed” as his father had put it. Parish ground his teeth together in anger.

He had been waiting for the day when his father would tell him to pack his bags and get in the car for years. It was no secret that Lionel Feltman had no desire to share a roof with a mentally ill teenager. Parish had been expecting his father to ship him off to his Aunt Helena in San Francisco, or even to his Uncle Steven in Ohio – but a mental institute? No, he definitely hadn’t seen that one coming.

Forcing himself to forget about his father, Parish snuck a glance in Sid’s direction. Once he saw that the boy was wearing only a pair of flannel pajama bottoms and no shirt, Parish relaxed. He shut the closet door quietly and slunk over to his bed.

As he clambered into the bouncy, single bed, Parish couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to be at home in his own bed.

A small chuckle escaped his lips. Home? Please. The Feltman house hadn’t felt like home to him in over three years. Aunt Helena’s was more like to him than that empty, hate-filled house. He was probably more likely to feel more home here in a mental asylum with a bunch of psychotic teenage rather than his own home.

The thought depressed Parish. That wasn’t how a child was supposed feel. He certain that every single patient in here that girl who’d crashed into him in corridor; Sid, his roommate, and everyone else who had been committed to this God forsaken place – was probably lying bed, dreaming about going back home.

All  expect for him. He only hoped that Aunt Helena would hear about him being committed and rush over to rescue him.

He wasn’t even sure is she could get him out of there, but it something that gave him hope.

And being a boy diagnosed with a disease he was certain he didn’t have; locked up in a mental institute by his disconnected father, Parish Feltman needed all the help he could get.

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Short, I know. But none of the chapters in this book are going to have a set length. Some may go on for seven pages, ten, and some even one. It really depends on the story. It's actually writing itself at this point, so I have no idea how this is going to work out... =)