I could hear the gravel crunching under the tires of the car as it drove down the long, soggy road towards a large brick building, growing bigger the closer we came to it. We’d already passed though the gates over a mile back and the further away from the entrance we got the more my heart pounded in my ears.
‘She shows symptoms of severe hallucinations, voices in her head…’
I glanced over at my dad from the corner of my eye, he was staring straight out the front window. It was drizzling, not enough for the windshield wipers to be on, but enough to cover everything in a grey haze. It seemed the weather understood my mood and reflected that in the colours of the clouds.
‘I’m guessing its paranoid schizophrenia…’
As the brick structure grew closer, I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. Dad began to look towards me but caught himself at the last minute and kept his eyes forward. I clenched my jaw, blinking back tears as a wave of nausea rolled over me and I averted my eyes to the wall of trees outside my window, appearing then vanishing as the car moved on.
The wind blew through them, causing their branches to shake and wave as if they were saying goodbye to the fall and hello to the winter, goodbye to my freedom and goodbye to me. My molars scrapped together but it was useless as I felt the moisture escape my eyes. I quickly and angrily wiped it away on my coat sleeve by they kept coming.
The car jolted to a stop outside the large double doors of the building. It was a large brown and red bricked building, consisting of several parts at different heights however all of them had triangular roofs. It looked as though it was several decades old and maybe it was a boarding school when it first opened. It might have been a place where people played and were happy but now the windows on the first few floors were covered with bars and the ones higher up were blocked up with wood completely. It screamed sadness.
I felt my heartbeat increase.
“Dad…” My voice was quiet and sounded hoarse from where I was on the verge of tears, I tore my eyes away from the looming structure and focused them on Dad. The tears continued to fall down my face, I didn’t even have the effort to brush them away now.
“No, Maria.” Dad said, cutting me off and abruptly opening the door so he wouldn’t have to continue the conversation. He inhaled deeply as though he was preparing for a fight and exited the car, kicking the door shut with the heel of his shoe.
I watched him in the side mirror walk round the back of the car to get my very few things out of the boot. In the leaflet for this place they made it very clear that although you could wear your own clothes, patterns and designs must be minimal and colour must be black or white. This lead to a large amount of my clothes being left at home and new ones being brought in their place.
My door opened and I was pulled out of my thoughts. I looked up and met dad’s eyes, I knew that he was having just as hard a time dealing with all of this as much as I was. Only after today he would go home and everything would return to normal for him. Not for me though, I stuck here for however long they deemed fit to keep me.
He sighed, holding the car door open with one hand and my duffle bag in the other, I went to open my mouth and object to this once again, wanting to say that I could get better on my own. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be.” He let out a heavy sigh, the muscles in his jaw tightening in a habit that I knew he only had when his mind was set on something. “Let’s go.”
I guess there was no way out then, I put one foot on the gravel and followed it with the other and slowly rose out of my luxurious leather seat. Once again dad kicked the door shut with his foot as soon as I was fully out and we began talking towards the building in silence. Him steering me towards the double doors with a firm hand between my shoulder blades.
One of the doors opened as though they were watching for our arrival. A smartly dressed, strawberry blonde haired woman who looked to be in her late forties stepped out, followed by a dark hard man that was dressed completely in a white nurses uniform. I could see the woman’s lips curve into a kind smile as we neared and I resisted the urge to grimace, what was so happy about this place? Did she have no sympathy at all?
“Welcome to Blackstone Youth Mental Health Facility.” She sounded as though she could be and answering machine message from how monotone her voice was. She descended the stairs with the young man following her closely. “I’m the lead director here, Margret Swan and this is one of our employees, Shawn. You must be Maria.” She held her hand out to me which I shook when my dad gave me a glare for being rude when I hesitated. “And you must be Jonathan Williams.” She turned to my dad and they shook hands as though they’d been friends for years.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you both.” Dad said with a smile and gave my bags to Shawn when he reached forward to take them, Dad wasn’t used to anyone doing anything for him so he wasn’t going to say no to someone carrying something for him.
A piece of hair fell into Margret’s face which she quickly and neatly pinned back up again. “I believe we have a few things to discuss and some final details to sort out if you’d both follow me.” She said, turning back towards the building.
We ascended the steps, following after Margret and Shawn into the building. Then crossed the threshold of the double doors that closed with a resonating bang behind us.
