Breathe

shifting.

~tw whole chapter~

It was the week before Christmas. Clay had been in the hospital for a month and in the psych ward for two weeks. The world outside of Clay's window was bitter and cold. He had never seen snow in his life, and he had to spend his first memory of it in the hospital. His legs were still shaky sometimes; even though he had learned how to walk on them again, they got tired very easily, and Clay noticed that when his legs got tired, so did the rest of him. Clay used to be in peak physical condition, and now, ever since his attempt, he was nothing but skin and bones and a shell of a soul. He wanted so desperately to get better and go home, but he knew that he wasn't better. That would take time.

The worst part of the psych ward was not the fact that he couldn't close doors for a time (he earned that privilege back a week and a half in) or the fact that he couldn't talk to his best friends, it was group therapy.

Twice a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays after lunch, Clay had to attend group therapy, which was usually full of teenagers who had eating disorders or adults who could never leave. Clay was the black sheep; he was classified as suicidal, but he was an adult who had the potential to leave. He wasn't able, therefore, to really connect with anyone, so group therapy was more of a session where Clay just listened and waited for the hour to be over. 

One day, after a particularly long group therapy session, Clay was walking out of the room and into the day room when a nurse pulled him aside.

"Clay, Dr. Reno wants to see you," she said, handing him the slip of paper that gave him access to go to the office.

Silently, he took the paper and headed straight for the office. These visits were never ones of any value- typically it was always the same old shit: we're going to keep you on 20mg of escitalopram, or Lexapro, for the time being, hopefully it will start working soon. Sometimes, though, they liked to tease discharge dates. At the rate you're going, you could be out of here by New Year's !

Most of the time, Clay just absorbed all of the information and didn't process it, so generally he couldn't remember much of what the doctors or psychologists said. Some of it would get through to him, particularly the information regarding Nick and George.

Nick and George called and said hello. They hope you're doing well.

Every day he woke up and went to fucking group therapy because every day he did was one day closer to seeing them again.

Knocking softly on the office door, Dr. Reno shuffled him in. She was a tall, stocky woman, who, to Clay, resembled a vulture. She was in fact a very nice woman, she was just built with anger and sharp corners. Clay wondered who hurt her.

Sitting, she shuffled some papers on her desk and then smiled at Clay.

"Good news, Clay," she started. "We have a discharge date set up for you."

Clay's head shot up. He was going home.

I'm going home.

"You've been making remarkable progress during your stay, Clay, even if you can't see it."

Clay smiled softly and nodded. That was what the one-on-one psychologist said as well. He couldn't see the progress he was making. Then again, he couldn't really tell when he relapsed because it wasn't anything too out of the ordinary for him. These behaviors were mostly hidden under the surface, and even though they were his own, Clay couldn't tell when they shifted in personality.

"Your discharge date is December 26th," Dr. Reno said with a smile. "That's great news, Clay, because every other doctor out there said New Year's."