scars || njh

20

When I woke up it was dark outside. I looked to my bedside table where I was left a tray of food. It was some weird meat looking substance with corn and peas on the side. They tray also had a small salad and a jello cup.

I didn't dare touch the meat fearing it was secretly some chicken-hamster mystery combo so I just picked up the jello.

I didn't know what to do with myself since I had no phone to use so I put on some slippers I found and went to wander around. I looked up and down the hallway, there was absolutely no one.

Super creepy.

I decided to turn right and see where that took me. I didn't even know what time it was. All I saw was rows and rows of doors. There was the occasional sign over head telling you what room numbers were coming up next.

I was getting a little bored, it didn't seem like there was anything interesting at all to look at here, just grey walls and rooms filled with crazy people, so I headed back to my room.

For the next hour or so I watched Wheel of Fortune, the only decent channel the hospital TV got at this time, and picked at the canned peas. How was I going to do this for two more weeks? This is literally the most boring thing ever.

Having literally nothing better to do, I forced myself back to sleep.

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The next morning I awoke to a nurse cleaning the bathroom, pretty loudly if you ask me. I sat up and rubbed my face.

"Sorry, didn't meant to wake you dear"

"Oh it's okay, I probably should be getting up anyways... Do you know where I'm supposed to go today?"

"There should be a schedule for you on the door" and with that she pushed her cleaning cart out and went to the room across from mine. I looked in across the way as the door opened. I saw a boy.

He looked pretty distressed and was holding his head in his hands. He didn't even bother to look up as the nurse walked in, just kept staring at the floor. Just as the door was about to close he looked up and we made eye contact. I quickly looked away to stare out of the window. Great, now I look like a weirdo. 

When I looked back, his door was closed. I jumped off the bed quickly to close my door as well, so he wouldn't be able to look in here when the nurse left again.

Just as she had said though, there was a paper schedule taped to the back of the door with my name at the top. I scanned over it and saw I had to meet with a therapist every. single. day.

Amazing.

On it there was some other stuff like, "Group Arts & Crafts; Tuesday 12:00-3:00" or "Group Creative Writing Class; Sunday 10:00-1:00. That's gonna suck.

I looked at today's column, I only had a session with my therapist scheduled for 3 hours from now. What am I even supposed to do all day.

You know what I could be doing? Spending time with Niall, but no. I had to be here making macaroni art and eating mystery meat. It kind of sounded like summer camp.

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I occupied myself for three hours by watching re-runs of Criminal Minds and trying to figure out theoretically, about how many horses I could I fit inside this room? I'd say about 8 if I started stacking.

I heard a knock on the door and a second later another nurse I hadn't seen before opened the door. Um what if I had been changing?

"Bella Winters?" she asked in a sweet voice.

"That's me"

"You have a session with Dr. Strey, follow me" she held the door open for me as I climbed off the bed and put on my hospital slippers.

They took away your shoes and anything else you brought that could be a "danger to yourself and others". Yeah, because I'm really gonna beat someone or myself to death with a shoe. They also gave you clothes to wear but I brought some pajamas of my own.

We began walking down the hallway but she didn't even need to look up to know where to go.

"Are you enjoying yourself so far?" She asked flipping through papers in her purple clipboard and barely paying attention to me.

"I mean I haven't really done much so far... but the view from my room is beautiful". Was I supposed to be enjoying myself? Let's not forget everyone here is being forced to be here.

"Yes it is beautiful here. Okay here's your stop, when you're done someone will be back to escort you to your room again" she said opening the door for me.

"Thank you"

Here we go, more talking about my feelings.

The room was a lot less hospital like than the rest of the building. It had huge windows on the farthest wall looking out to the gorgeous, lush mountain side. It also had a big grey couch with a grey love seat facing it. In between them was a coffee table containing a ton of small plants and mental health magazines. There were a few anti-suicide and psychology posters on the wall as well.

A woman, who I'm assuming to be Dr. Strey was sitting in the love seat with a binder in her hands. Everyone here always had so many papers in their hands, I wonder what they were looking at.

"Bella, please to meet you, I'm Dr. Strey but most people just call me Sarah" she stood up and stuck out her hand. I timidly grabbed it and gave a small fake smile.

"Nice to meet you" I said and sat on the couch kind of awkwardly.

"I think for today we should just get to know a little about each other and the situation. Are you okay with that?" she talked with her hands a lot, with every word she was making some sort of gesture.

"Yeah that's fine"

What I wanted to say was that I would prefer if you could just check that I'm a perfectly sane, normal person and let me leave but this works too.

"Okay let's get started"