The Calling | The House of Voices #1

Fourteen - Anniversary

Anniversary

 Abercoster’s Institute for Troubled Teenagers was originally supposed to be a house

What the architect who had designed the house had originally intended to be the living room, now served as a sort of lobby, where Dr. Larkson and the head nurse Patty Malone received and welcomed new patients.  The kitchen, large and old-fashioned, looked more like his grandmother’s country kitchen rather than the kitchen of a mental institute. He’d seen a few of those; they looked nothing like this one.

When he first arrived at the institute, Darren couldn’t understand why the Board had insisted that the house be decorated the way it was – like an ordinary family home. He still couldn’t, actually.

Yes, he understood that the Board wanted to make the children feel like they were at home – it was probably supposed to be therapeutic, even. But it was doing the exact opposite.

The children at Abercoster’s hated the phony hominess that the Board was trying to desperately to promote. It only reminded them of the fact that they were far from home, away from their families, surrounded by people who force-fed them psychological theories about their mentality. People who insisted that there was something wrong with them. People who pretended to care.

No wonder they’re so hostile, Darren thought. This place will never feel like home.

The only real advantage of having the Institute in a large house was the amount of privacy it offered. Because the house was so large, the children got the entire third floor to themselves. The boys owned half of the west wing, while the girls owned the other half. The east wing consisted of the library, TV room, and a separate common room for the children to just hang out together.

The second floor belonged entirely to the doctors and nurses. One half of the west wing was consisted of Darren’s and Pauline Larkson’s offices, and a few other empty rooms meant to serve as offices for visiting therapists. The other half of the same wing consisted of the nurses’ rooms.

Seven in total, for Patty and her team.

The other wing contained a larger room where Dr. Larkson held group meetings for the kids, another small library, and five rooms for the Institute’s doctors.

Sighing, Darren opened his door and stepped inside, exhausted from his argument with his boss.  He may have kept a tight lid on his emotions back in Dr. Larkson’s office, but once he entered his room, he lost all of the self-control he’d displayed earlier.

Growling, he slammed the door shut behind him and locked it forcefully, kicking his shoes off angrily. How could the woman he’d been in awe of not more than forty-eight hours ago have turned out to be so cruel? Was she really willing to give up on a patient just like that?

He shook his head wildly, trying to dispel the angry thoughts in his head.

Pauline Larkson’s murky principles weren’t any of his business, were they? He needed to focus on his own job instead of getting caught up in how much he disagreed with Dr. Larkson’s refusal to treat Parish.

Still fuming, despite the voice in his head urging him to calm down, Darren unbuttoned his shirt and took it off, tossing it onto the floor at the foot of his new bed. Groaning heavily, he slumped onto his face, gazing blankly at the ceiling as he desperately tried to organize his muddled thoughts.

After a few moments, he gave up. He pulled a pillow off the bed and chucked it at the dresser in front of his bed in anger, crying out in obvious anger.

For the first time, he was thankful that he was all alone. Because Dr. Larkson lived close-by, she did not feel inclined to be one of the “live-in doctors” that the Institute’s brochures raved about. So he had an entire wing to himself.