Dear Connie,

A Story by Kristi C.

Dear Connie,

She reached for the heart-shaped box in her pocket and looked up at me with an innocent smile gleaming upon her face. Her small giggle that followed broke the silence by which I felt I was being deafened. This little girl that stood before me was undoubtedly the most psychologically powerful one I have yet encountered in my time here. She would persistently say things that would perplex one’s mind in all directions, and make one marvel how such a youthful human being could have such a brilliant mind.

           Most of the patients here thought of her as a little ray of sunshine. She would come visit our section of the hospital everyday, and Nick was the one who most anxiously awaited her arrival. He adored her beyond measure, and liked to think of her as the daughter that he never got the chance to raise. On Nick’s first day here, he was breaking down and refused to go to sleep because he was absolutely petrified that he wouldn’t have the strength to wake up the next morning and go through one more day “on the scolding surface of Hell.” That’s when she entered, grabbed his hand, and told him that he would always have the strength to continue living because she would never let him fall. She told him that after every thunderstorm, there’s a rainbow, and for every dark today, there’s a brighter tomorrow. His tears soon subsided as he looked at her in awe, trying to absorb the fact that a nine-year-old girl had just saved his life.
           Nick was the inspiration of the 107-page tale she had written about the perfect world, the one she believes exists out of our reach. I got a chance to read some of it when she joined us for art one day, and I can honestly tell you that it continues to hold the title of the most beautifully written piece I have ever read. It drew me right to her side in longing for that perfect world because it did truly sound perfect in every sense of the word. She emphasized the fact that even in a perfect universe, tragedies had to strike because without them, we as humans wouldn’t know a good thing if it was standing right in front of us. She also emphasized the fact that even with reoccurring tragedies in the world we actually do live in, we as humans still don’t know a good thing if it cuts us in the throat.
           The hospital, in most cases, doesn’t permit cancer patients to leave their assigned hospital room, but I suppose the nurses gathered that Connie was stable enough to visit the 2 North wing as she pleased. Her head was blanketed by black and blue bruises and some spots where her long blond hair once laid and her arms covered in self-inflicted scars and marks from her every day chemo shots.

She handed me the box and sauntered over to the seat beside Jane as I watched them perform their little handshake with one another. I opened the box which held inside a colorful beaded bracelet assembled by Connie herself. She always loved making things like this. I felt a smile involuntarily grow on my face as I slid the bracelet onto my wrist, turning it a few times to see every inch of it in its entirety. It was beautiful.

I walked over to her, kissed her on the cheek, ignoring Julie’s yelling at me for displaying physical contact with another patient, and proceeded into the TV lounge with my journal in hand. I opened it to the first page, and read the quote which I read each and every time before writing.

We are selfish, base animals, crawling across the Earth. But, because we got brains, if we try real hard, we can occasionally aspire to something that is less than pure evil.

Something inside that quote just triggers every drop of creativity in my brain. I think it’s how the quote is formed around the dark side of humanity; it speaks about how humans as a species, no matter how pure and innocent their coating portrays them to be, there is always possession of an underlying objective which only contributes to the venomous effect that the human race has brought upon planet Earth. Humans are selfish and base animals who live only with the darkest of intentions.
Then I remember that that is part of the reason why I was brought here. To the psychiatric ward, I mean. I turn to a new, fresh page, and I begin to write:

The social workers in the emergency room downstairs believed I was too dangerous and pessimistic to live by my own means. And I suppose they’re right in the sense that I am pessimistic, but I simply see no value in being anything but. Expectations lead to disappointment, disappointment triggers failure, and failure triggers lack of hope. Sure, you can get back on your feet and try again, but you’re only setting yourself up for that never ending cycle in a world with only despair. So, why bother? I’m not going to waste my life away aiming for a future that will never come. I’m going to live one day at a time, and see where this revolting mania called life takes me.

I paused, suddenly thinking back to Connie’s perfect world, and that longing took hold once more. Her tale, too, speaks much about that dark side of humans, and how in her world, that wouldn’t exist. Then my chest sinks in at the sole thought that if anyone deserves to see that world, it is her. She has been through a countless number of traumas and adversities in her short nine years of life, and she still has the strength to get herself out of bed every morning.
I’ve written several entries about Connie in this journal and some letters for her, even. She hung them in her room in the same way I hang her drawings for me sporadically on my walls. All the patients in 2 North have at least three drawings from Connie hanging in their room, even Gale, who rooms alone at the very end of the hall in 261. He rarely steps foot out of his room, and I’m not sure he’s ever had a single conversation with Connie. But, being the sweetheart she is, she slid a few drawings under his door anyway, and when he leaves his door open, you can see those drawings hanging over his bed. Gale is roughly fourteen-years-old, two years younger than me. Though I’ve never spoken with him individually, there is something I find admirable about him. I’m not sure I will ever be able to pinpoint exactly what it is, but it’s there, on the underlying surface. I began to write once more:

Gale’s the type of patient that the nurses grow irritable with. Not because he has an attitude, and not because he does anything wrong. They’ve simply given up on him. I, along with the other eight adolescents in this ward, fail to see how giving up on a patient in a psychiatric unit is supposed to help them restore their faith in the world or restore their belief that “it will get better.”

“Lunch time!” Julie yelled from the entrance of the unit, pulling along a purple caddy which held our meals that each patient ordered. “Everyone grab your tray and head over to the dining room.”

I quickly walked back to my room to set my journal in between some clothes and proceeded back into the hallway, over to the caddy to find the tray labeled “Riley N. Anderson.” I walked into the dining room and sat in the chair beside Peyton. She smiled at me and continued eating her grilled cheese sandwich, her hair looking perfect as usual. She’s one of those girls who couldn’t look bad if she tried. Her auburn hair always fell perfectly, and you could travel to the moon and back in a shorter time span than it would take you to find a single blemish on Peyton’s face. She had ocean blue eyes that were simply mesmerizing, and a smile that could light up an entire city. I’m guilty to say I envied her along with every other girl who has ever laid eyes on her.

I lifted the lid of my dish and set it on the table beside the tray. I ordered the usual: chicken fingers with two orders of French fries. Outside in the hallway, there was yelling and screaming; some from a fourteen-year-old boy named Wayne, and some from the nurses trying to calm him down. The patients in the dining room kept eating their lunches nonchalantly, as episodes like this were everyday events on the unit. Wayne had attempted to hang himself two days earlier with the shower curtain, and was screaming and yelling because he did not want a one-to-one. A one-to-one was a nurse that supervised and followed each and every step their assigned patient took. If Wayne went up to get a drink of water, the nurse would be right behind him, having to intently watch him lift the glass and watch every drop of water pour into it. They had to watch him use the bathroom, and they even had to sit in the doorway of his room all night, every night, just watching him sleep. This would continue every second that the nurses and social worker believed he was not stable enough to be on his own. I hate to say it, but I did pity him. Not even because he had wanted to kill himself, but because he had to deal with a one-to-one. Having someone stare and follow every move I made would drive me to a higher state of insanity than prior to entering the ward.

Suddenly, the yelling in the hallway came to a close, as the nurses were left with no choice but to sedate him and afterwards carry him back to room 257. This technique was known among the patients as “booty juice,” and the name is pretty self-explanatory. If you throw a fit and lose control of yourself, the result is a sedative injected into your butt. The ward was really no different from that of a typical high school in the sense that every one would be gossiping about Wayne’s incident, and then once he came to rejoin us, they would all act perfectly normal and as though they hadn’t been talking about him all day. Pathetic, really.

After everyone had finished their lunch, they all headed back to the lounge where Cayleigh, Chris, and Kevin had already begun their Star Wars marathon. I’ve personally never grown much interest in Star Wars, so instead, I headed back to my room, grabbed my book, and plopped down on my bed with my back toward the wall. On the other side of the room lay a tall, lanky young girl with long, dirty blond hair. Alex had been my roommate for about three or four days now when she was first admitted, but this was her second time having done so. From the moment she arrived, she was the topic of gossip in the Mather Psych Unit, and she was referred to as “that new b***h.” I personally liked Alex. She was quiet and timid, but she was the type of girl who, despite her painful wariness, had the nerve to say what everyone else was thinking. She wasn’t the type to sugar coat things to spare your feelings, and that was the key quality in her in that I was fond of.

She’d been readmitted because she had lied her way out of here the first time, and also because Kelley, our social worker, had felt she was not by any means safe in the conflagration she called her home. In group therapy earlier this week, each patient had to individually talk about their home life along the reasons why they had been brought here, and listening to her story gave me the most overwhelming sense of vulnerability I had ever felt. Everyday I was here was accumulating the guilt that was compounding in my chest. They had years’ worth of devastating traumas trailing behind them that had led them to the attempt of suicide. I, on the other hand, had nothing. Nothing sparked my depression; nothing triggered me to try to cut my life short. And that is where the guilt settles in.

Maria"my therapist"had tried to reassure me that depression was nothing to feel guilt about, and that my case was simply a chemical imbalance; when that is the case, a background is not something that causes depression. It’s just two parts of the brain that are not connecting in the proper way that they should be. I tried to believe that, but giving myself a sense of confidence and reasoning was not something that was often done in my mind.

The innocent yet whiney voice of Connie was the first thing I heard when I was beginning to wake up. I began taking Remeron a few days prior, and it had the effect of a soft lullaby.

“Can we go outside today? Please?” begged Connie. I warily looked to the upper right toward my window where the sun was heavily beaming down on the surrounding pavement, and where there were shadows of birds flying in the broad daylight. Today was March 21, the first day of spring, and the day Connie had been longing for months now. She and I were alike in the fact that spring was undoubtedly our favorite time of the year for the mere fact that Autumn is the period where everything in nature first perishes and crumbles, and spring is the period that everything is reincarnating and coming back to life.

Connie had not stepped foot outside since the first day she was admitted, which was roughly a month and a half ago. I didn’t understand how someone like her could bare that, and by someone like her I mean the type of person who loves nature and the smell of fresh air almost more than anything.

“I guess we can take the gold patients onto the roof today, just to keep it to a minimum.” said Theresa, followed by the excited squeal from Connie. The “gold patients” she was referring to were one of the two statuses that each patient had attached to their name: safety status and point status. Safety status ranged from A, B, and C; A is the status you receive upon first entering the ward. B is the status you receive when the nurses fell under the impression that you weren’t safe on your own, and you were carefully watched by a nurse, but it not quite as intensely as a one-to-one. And finally, C status means the nurses believe you are safe and require no more supervision than the everyday patient.

The point status ranges from bronze, silver, and gold. Each patient is granted an amount of points for participating in regular activities such as group therapy, schooling, attending every meal in the dining room, and socializing with the other patients. Gold status basically means you have at least 400 points. You also get 100 free points each day.

Outside in the hallway, there was another episode which consisted of yelling and screaming, but this time it was not coming from Wayne; it was the voice of my roommate, Alex. I clumsily stepped out of bed and walked out into the hallway, my gaze turned to the payphone where Alex was sitting, tears streaming down either side of her face. I’m ashamed to say that I tried to make out some of what she was saying, though I was well aware I had no business hearing the conversation.

“The only f*****g reason I’m in this ward is because you led me to try to kill myself. You’re probably f*****g drunk, like always.” Alex angrily yelled into the phone. Her voice was breaking and the tears were evidently growing to be overpowering. “F**k you!” She screamed before slamming down the phone onto its hook. She sat there, still, for a few moments before breaking down with her face hidden by her trembling hands and the emotional agony reverberating from her sobbing. Julie, who sat at the far end of the hallway, next to the entrance, was watching Alex with worry. It was a safe bet that we would not be going outside today.

She stood up and quickly came toward our room where I stood still under the door frame. She pushed me out of the way and sat on her bed with her back against the wall, her knees pulled to her chest, and her face covered by her folded arms.

I continued to stand there with my head turned toward Alex, watching the tears shed and feeling an urge to comfort her, though I knew I would fail to be of any help.

“Alex…?” I mumbled quietly.

“Leave me alone.” She said weakly with a small crack in her voice. I wanted to help but I didn’t want to pry and increase her already high level of agitation.

“Fair enough. If you want to talk, I’m here.” Her crying grew lighter for that moment, almost as if it had been paused by a remote control.

“Thank you.” I suddenly got the feeling that she had either never or rarely had that said to her, that she’d never had that shoulder to lean on.

“You don’t have to thank me.” She looked up at me, her eyes puffy and her cheeks red, with one single tear streaming slowly near the right corner of her lips. I smiled at her slightly and sat down on my bed, picking up my journal and my purple pen, read my quote, and turned to a new and clean page:

I wasn’t sure why I was so taken aback by Alex’s reaction to my reassurance that she could talk to me. It’s almost as if she had always had to put on the mask of a brave girl whose body never consumed an ounce of pain or heartache. She’d always had to be brave because she felt as though no one cared if she was miserable, so she might as well just pretend to be happy. I don’t know if"

“It’s just my mom.” Alex mumbled suddenly, my eyes quickly changing gaze from my journal to those watching me across the room. “I hate her with every fiber of my being.”

“Well…why? If I may ask.”

“Did you not hear my screaming at her just now?”

“No, I did, but why has it gotten to that point?”

“Put yourself in my shoes for a moment.” Her tears had settled and her voice had grown to be clearer. “I’ve been emotionally and physically abused all my life by that…monster. When I say emotionally, picture a five-year-old girl being told she is worthless and that her mother would have been better off if that little girl had never been born.” I felt a sudden sinking in my chest at that image as a sense of guilt had set in once more. “Watching her hide pill and wine bottles throughout the house was a daily occurrence. I used to hope she was drunk at times, because when she was sober she had completely forgotten I existed. At least when she would hit me, she knew I was there. As I got older, I realized how fucked up a mother must be to have her own child integrate that way of thinking.”

“I’m so sor"“

“I don’t want your sympathy.”

“But, what happened on the phone just now?”

“Oh, that. She was just yelling at me for having to come to the psych ward because ‘the money for this was coming out of her pocket’ and ‘I better get a job to pay for this if I want to continue living with a roof over my head.’ I’m also a piece of s**t and, once again, worthless.”

“You’re not a piece of s**t nor are you worthless.”

“You’re not going to accomplish anything by saying that, you know.”

“I’m not saying it to make you feel better. I’m saying solely it is the raw truth that you deserve to be told.”

“Well, thank you, Riley. But, hearing something once is not going to cancel out sixteen years of hearing the opposite.” She got up slowly with her eyes still intently on me before walking out of the room after her name had been called by Julie, waiting down the hall with Alex’s medication in hand.

III

The flames of the accident were surrounding her on the pavement, creeping up to her body and inevitably reaching her hair as each strand was lit and burned. She was screaming; screaming in agony, in fear, crying for an absolution. The female that stood before her held her index finger to her lips, urging the crying woman to be quiet, indicating that she was to blame for the approaching death of the one lying on the street as each layer of her flesh was smoldered.

My field of view was quickly shifted to the 2 North wing, but it had been altered into an emergency room in a split second.

“Are you sure you want to see her?”

“Yes. I’m sure.”

I began to follow the nurse down the hallway as we came to a stop and she pulled back a curtain which behind laid an elderly woman with the majority of her face burned off; she was the young woman who I had witnessed lying on the pavement just seconds ago. Her eyes were fixated on an invisible object on the ceiling, but that changed the moment I entered the room. My eyes quickly met hers which began widening and bulging immensely out of their sockets. I felt my heart stop as I ran out of the room where I had suddenly lost every ounce of air in my lungs. In spite of the fact I was failing to breathe, I started back toward the woman when a nurse intervened my path and suggested it’d be best for me not to go back. I shoved her out of my way, my sight growing weary, as I pulled back the curtain once more. The woman’s eyes had once more quickly been turned to me, began bulging, but this time, she had begun to speak.

“Y-you. You! You did this!” She let out a scream which had pierced the ear drums of everyone in the wing. As the shriek came to a close, I looked at her once more, and felt my heart drop into the now empty cavity that was my stomach. The woman’s trembling index finger was pulled to her lips, now urging me to be quiet in the same way she had been told when she was lying on the pavement, and the younger woman with her long, black hair had attempted to kill her.

I ran away from the room, screaming in my throat, when I felt a hand grip my forearm, suddenly jolting my body around where my face was inches from the old woman’s, her finger still held to her lips.

I sat up in my bed and let out a loud scream, my hands covering my face and my breathing cut short. I heard Julie’s voice grow louder as she ran into mine and Alex’s room, wrapping her arm around me comfortingly.

“It’s okay. It’s okay, Riley. It was just a nightmare. It was only a dream. Take a deep breath. You’re okay. Listen to me. It was only a dream. Okay?” I began to cry as I turned my face into the crest of her neck, the image of the elderly woman still vividly painted on the canvas of my mind.

After a few moments had passed, my eyelids had started to grow heavy and my body was on the stem of falling into another deep sleep. When the realization hit me, I stood up, sprinted in the direction of the bathroom and flew the door open, cupping my hands under the bronze faucet and splashing my face with frigid water. I had suddenly felt like Nick on that night he was in refusal to get any sleep, but with a slight alteration in reasoning. I was not scared of living, but I was utterly terrified of witnessing another visit in my dreams from the sinister woman whom I’d apparently caused a psychotic break down.

“Riley?” My neck jolted to my left in paranoia where Connie stood, her head poked in the doorframe with her eyes coated with concern. I took a deep breath and grabbed a paper towel, wiping my face quickly from the water whose reminisce still left a stinging sensation on my skin.

“Hey, Connie. What’s up?”

“Nothin’. Are you okay? What happened?”

“Yeah, I’m alright,” I lied. “Just a bad dream, that’s all.”

“It didn’t sound like just a…’bad dream’.” She saw through that lie as if my voice had a face of transparency. I rolled my eyes and reached to the top shelf which sat a plastic cup, filling it up with water and taking small sips, trying to pretend my hand wasn’t still trembling in trepidation. Connie just stood there with her eyes glued to me, telling me by the action itself that she was not going anywhere until I told her every detail. I sighed and kissed her small forehead.

“Just give me a few minutes, okay? I’ll come into the lounge and I’ll write you another letter if you’d like.” A dim smile was shown on her lips as she nodded and skipped down the hallway, back into the lounge with the other patients. Julie had started to walk toward the bathroom and rested her hand lightly on my back, brushing away the strands of wet hair in front of my face from the splash of cold water.

“Are you alright, sweetie?” I nodded and took another sip of water, mimicking the faint smile Connie had given me.

“Yeah. Thanks, Julie.” She smiled at me warmly and walked out into the hallway. I returned my cup to the top shelf and walked back toward my closet, grabbing my journal and my purple pen, following Julie and Connie back toward the lounge.

I shyly stepped into the lounge, trying not to portray the sense of self-consciousness that was racing through my mind. I sat on the lounge chair located in the back corner of the room, resting my feet on the small chair a few inches in front. I read opened my journal, read my quote, and started on a new page:

Dear Connie,

Hey Bug. You know, I’ve been thinking about that perfect world, and I noticed that in the short story you wrote, you painted the picture of what would be the perfect world for everyone else; what would rise everyone else’s happiness to its fullest extent. I want to know what your perfect world is. If you could design your own world with no limits, “The World of Connie,” what would it be like? Who would be there? What would the nature be like? What if every piece of that world was made of candy, like in your favorite movie, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? What if it was like Disney World? I want you to think about it, okay? And then tell me all about it.

Love, Riley A.

I carefully split the piece of loose-leaf from the spiral binding, removed the small fringes, and folded it up. I walked behind Connie and tapped her on the shoulder with the corner of the letter, handing it to her as she turned around. I’ll admit that the letter was the kind of thing I put together on the spot. But, in spite of that, I was sincerely curious to know what the “perfect world” meant to her.

Coming from room 258 was the sound of weeping and resistance, and was the direction of which all the nurses had their heads turned. I lightly tapped Kevin on the shoulder.

“Kev, what’s going on? Who’s crying?” He answered me with his eyes still fixated on the TV screen. He refused to take his eyes off of the incoming notes in what seemed to be an intense game of Guitar Hero III.

“Katie; she’s being sent to Sagamore on Monday.” My chest sank in sympathy. Katie has been in this ward, in what is intended to be a short-term hospital, for over two months. From my limited understanding, she struggles with a severe case of psychosis and anorexia. After seeing so many patients come and go after as little as a week, she has been desperate to return home. Now, finding out she’s being sent to Sagamore, a long-term psychiatric ward, I could only imagine the desolation of hope she must be enduring.

As the sobbing grew louder, I saw Katie grimly walk down the hallway toward the payphone, her unsteady hand picking up the phone and dialing what I assumed to be her mother’s phone number.

“Mom?” The trembling in her voice was coinciding with her quivering body. She was trying to fight the pain, though. “They want to send me to Sagamore. I don’t wanna go. Tell them not send me. I can’t do it. I wanna go home.” Her fight she had put up against those tears had now failed.

“You knew? You knew they were going to send me there?! Why didn’t you tell me?! Why did you let me believe I was going home?” Her crying had become an angry yet agonizing groaning as she interrupted her mother’s defending statement, hammering the phone back onto its hook. Her back had turned toward the wall and skimmed down until she was sitting on the floor, screaming into her hands. Cayleigh, her roommate, sat beside her with arm over her shoulders, caressing her comfortingly. She didn’t speak, she just held her. I guess she, along with the rest of us watching the suffering tattooed on Katie’s body, was well aware that no words, regardless of how powerful, could help Katie in this situation. She was heartbroken, she felt betrayed, and above all, she wanted to feel normal.

I attempted to put myself in her position; I imagined someone saying to my face, “Two months in this psych ward is not enough to fix you. We can’t help you; you’re just too messed up. You need help that is bigger than this hospital alone.” No one of course had actually said that to her, but from my perspective, the words were loud and clear.

Katie suddenly lifted herself from her previous position when what began as a slow saunter turned into a heart-racing sprint down the hall, turning sharply into her room. Cayleigh had tried to follow her, but from what I could see, Katie had given her a push out of their room, urging that she preferred to be left alone. I knew, Cayleigh knew, and the nurses very well knew, that leaving her alone with the monstrosity that was her mind was actually quite dangerous. At the very least, Katie had the decency to prevent Cayleigh from staying with her as she didn’t want her to be dragged into the chaos that was about to strike.

The heavy wooden door of room 258 was loudly shut and to say there was a treacherous scream sounding from the room was not in any way an over dramatization. Katie was on the brink of insanity. If she hadn’t passed that line already, the mere thought of spending an indefinite amount of time in another ward was enough to send her there. The sharp stroke of my nails dragging down my forearm was merely the paintbrush of fear and helplessness as the rest of my shivering body was the blank canvas.

I glanced around the lounge to catch a glimpse of reactions streaming from the rest of the patients. With the exception of Connie, Cayleigh and I, the face of everyone else had a dull sense of indifference glazed on it.

After a few long moments, the screaming had come to a close and the door of 258 had opened with a small creak. Katie stepped out into the hallway nervously, wearing a black and white stripped zip-up hoodie that she wasn’t wearing prior to entering her room. As she grew closer and stepped into the lounge, tears still rapidly trickling down either side of her face, her sleeve had instantly become the center of my attention; the thick white stripes on her sweatshirt which covered the area of her wrist and this area only, embodied red splatters of what appeared to be blood. Each and every nurse sitting behind that front desk was to blame.

When her eyes met mine, I quickly began to look around the room, trying not to focus too intently on her sleeve; she knew I’d seen it. Though I was no longer looking at her, the sense of grimace being sent in my direction was almost painful. Then, to my surprise, Katie came to sit in the chair beside me. Her eyes were fixated into a deep stare at the gray carpet, her right hand covering her bleeding left wrist. Connie and Cayleigh had refocused their attention on Kevin’s video game. I, however, sat their in silence, contemplating whether I should say something to Katie, or just let her be. I couldn’t help get the impression that she sat beside me out of desire to talk. Otherwise, she would have sat in the seat on the opposite side of the room, the only seat not neighbored by another patient. Apparently, this contemplation was evident.

“You can say something, you know.” said Katie suddenly.

“What?”

“I can see it out of the corner of my eye. You keep beginning to speak, and then stopping yourself. If you think you can help me, say something. Don’t make the same mistake the nurses made.” Her voice began to break again and her eyes were still fixated on the carpet. To my shock, I was not the only one here who believed the nurses held every ounce of blame, and deservedly so.

“That’s just it,” I muttered. “I do, of course, know that I want to help you, but I’m not sure I can.” I saw her nod slowly, her bottom lip quivering slightly.

“That’s fine. I’d just rather you speak up now than regret it later.” She stood up, smiled at me to the best of her ability, and began to walk out of the lounge. In the few instances I’d spoken with Katie, I’ve been delightfully surprised. She seemed to be the only teenager I’ve met"other than Alex, I suppose"who could find it in themselves to go the extra mile and form grammatically correct sentences, holding sophisticated conversations.

The short conversation we’d had kept replaying as if I was on a roller coaster and was forbade to get off. ‘I’d just rather you speak up now than regret it later.’ I swear, it’s like she was hinting at something. The deduction, in a psych ward, at the very least, was that she was going to try to end her life. I’d like to say she wouldn’t be able to with the intense supervision the nurses provide, but then again, she had been able to harm herself and Wayne was able attempt suicide, and just barely failed at that. I guess I’d noticed that a growing pattern of the nurses was that they always tend to take action after the fact. Wayne wasn’t supervised until after he’d tried to kill himself. Come to think of it, it seems to be more of a continuous pattern in humans all together rather than just this small portion of nurses.

“Breakfast is here! Everyone to the dining room!” called Julie, pulling the purple caddy behind her. I yawned and stood up, stretching a little, before heading over to the dining room behind the other patients. Down the hall, Julie had stopped at room 258 and poked her head in, speaking quietly.

“Katie? Come on, sweetheart, breakfast is here.” Everyone began piling up in the front of the open doors of the caddy, searching for their labeled tray. At the front of the line was Kevin, picking up random trays and handing them to their assigned patients, making it easier for everyone.

“Riley! This is yours.” I walked over to Kevin and carefully took the tray from his hands, careful to not spill the cup of hot coffee tottering back and forth on the tray.

“Thanks, Kev,” and I began to walk into the dining room. Kevin followed, finally holding a tray that had his name on it, and we began our regular half-and-half collections. From the time I was 4-years-old, maybe, I’ve had an undying obsession with the little half-and-half cups they give at restaurants when you order coffee. I’d always collected them from my parents and drank them as if they were cups of orange juice; it was kind of what I was known for in my family. Until meeting Kevin, I’d never thought anyone else had that common liking for them. That was how he and I became friends, oddly enough, other than the fact that there were only ten patients on the unit, and chances are we would have become friends one way or another.

After making our rounds of the dining room, Kevin sat beside me and we counted our little cups.

“Nine. How many do you have?” he said, peeking over at my tray as though he was counting them himself.

“Nine; we’re good.” And we began drinking them one by one. Once we finished, and Kevin let out that of a loud belch, I lifted the lid of my dish which held three golden-brown pancakes, the small plate beside it holding two small packages of maple syrup. As I began to cut the pancakes with the plastic knife and fork I was given, Katie walked in shyly with her tray at hand, sitting beside Kevin on the opposite side of the table. Her eyes were puffy and the fact she’d just finished crying once more was crystal clear.

“Katie, I’m here if you need anything.” said Cayleigh who was sitting beside her and looking at her with reassurance.

“Yeah, me too,” Kevin added, “Feel better, man.”

Silvery rain drops streamed seamlessly down from the dark clouds, casting a shadow from the light of the harvest moon. I sat at the plastic desk below the windowsill, watching the torrential downpour hit the pavement, the puddles forming into a lake. It was rather hard to see clearly with the plastic barrier, surrounded by a steel frame, placed in front of the window with a giant padlock wrapped around the coils, separating the two.

The unit, to my liking, was rather quiet in comparison to the mix of fighting and video games usually present in the hall. I thoroughly enjoyed quiet hour; Alex was in a family meeting with Kelley, and it was only then I’d had the solitude I’d been longing. The rain had grown heavier and I was startled by a sudden flash of lightning followed by the roaring thunder, though I did notice a small, narrow smile form on my lips.

Thunderstorms carry a sense of supernatural, sinister conduct, and that in itself is simply what I admire about them. The affect they have on certain people is just simply mesmerizing to me. Shaking, screaming, crying, all the fears that grow to be empowering from the simple noise that is thunder; I would love to be able to cast such an effect.

There was a faint knock from the door. I turned around to find Connie once again poking her little head into the room, sliding a small, folded piece of paper onto the carpet. She smiled at me before quickly running away. I stood up and walked over to the paper, picking it up and walking back to my bed, sitting with my back against the wall. I unfolded the piece of paper which read:

Riley,

i thought a lot about what you said and i really dunno what my perfect world is. i like the whole Charlie and the chocolate factory thing though. i dont really know if I have a perfect world. i have a list of things i wanna do though while i still can.

While I still can. The beating in my chest had come to a halt. Had she completely given up all hope of getting better?

i wanna go to six flags, and i wanna go to disney world, and i wanna go to harry potter world. i wanna go camping too. i wanna meet my real parents and i wanna know everything about them. Theres lots more but thats all i can think of right now.

Xoxo "Connie

Her real parents; I had forgotten she was adopted. She’s shown us pictures of them; Connie had her mother’s nose and long fingers, and her father’s blue eyes and jaw structure. From what I remember, Connie was placed in a closed-adoption, and had never truly met her parents. There was a couple who wanted to adopt her at first: a tall, bulky man who had a track record of abusing those of his own children, and a short, blond woman who, from what the doctors and Connie’s birth parents could tell, was an alcoholic. Needless to say, they did not seem fit to bring this new-born into their home. Then, along came Mr. and Mrs. Whitley, had immediately fallen in love with the beautiful baby who lay before them, and had at once agreed on the name Constance; Constance Whitley. They brought her into their home where three, well-raised children already lived, and here is Connie, nine years later.

That’s how Connie puts it, anyway. She says her foster parents have been telling her all her life that the name Constance was not one that they had considered in their many discussions of “What are we going to name our child?” But, something about her appearance that first moment they laid eyes on her, well, it was as though the name was blatantly printed in thick, black ink across her forehead.

From what I can remember, Connie had been told roughly at the age of seven"only two years ago"that she was adopted. It was in that same discussion that she was told that placing her up for adoption was evidently the most the painful thing her birth parents had ever done. Both her mother and father wept as they hesitantly placed Connie in Mrs. Whitley’s arms. It was because of that weeping that the Whitley’s had made it their goal to give Connie a beautiful and happy life, as they knew that it was, at the very least, what the Halletts"Connie’s birth parents"would have wanted for her. However, Connie being diagnosed at the age of six with a severe case of Leukemia was not something that they would have planned for her in that beautiful life.

To spread the icing on the cake, Mrs. Whitley had suffered a traumatic brain injury only three years ago, and there was rarely a guarantee that she would wake up in the morning and recognize Connie, her other three children, or Mr. Whitley.

I grabbed a piece of paper from my desk and wrote Connie’s wishes in bullet form:

· Meet birth parents

· Know everything about them

· Disney World

· Harry Potter World

· Six Flags

· Camping

· Have three kittens

Having three kittens for pets wasn’t included in her letter, but it was something she’d always talked about. She simply adored animals of any and every kind, but she had a special love for kittens. She loved the way cats had a sagacity of independence to them. She’d also wanted to have a pet mouse, and make the mouse and the kitten be best friends; I didn’t bother including that one on the list.

I wasn’t even sure exactly why I had written everything down the way that I did. But, I kept the piece of paper anyway, folding it up gently inside the letter she had wrote me, and slipped both papers into my journal. Footsteps grew louder as they approached my room, where Dr. Siverd stood, giving me a dim smile.

“Riley?” He muttered quietly.

“Yeah?”

“Do you have a minute?”

“Yeah, sure,” I said. I walked back to my bed and resumed my position with my back against the wall, my legs crossed, as he pulled out the chair from the desk, sitting across from me with a notepad in hand. I assumed he would be doing the usual “How are you doing?” “How’ve you been?” acting on the whole pretending-to-care facade he usually posed. He was a very tall, pale man, with a comb-over of gray hair, along with glasses, a stutter when he spoke, and an awkward vibe he often gave off.

“So, how’re we doin’?”

“Fine, I guess.”

“Mmm, how’s the depression been?”

“Tolerable,” I lied, as he jotted something down quickly on his notepad.

“And the anxiety?”

“Fine.” He jotted something else down, nodding awkwardly.

“How’ve you been sleeping?”

“I’ve been waking up screaming.” My voice had a very dull sound to it.

“I’ve heard that from Julie. I believe the nightmares are a result of the Remeron; a common side effect can be very vivid dreams.” I didn’t say anything, I just nodded. Then he chimed in once more.

“And your appetite?”

“Increased.”

“Also the Remeron. How would you feel about discharge?” My heart stopped.

“D-discharge? You really think I’m ready?”

“Well, I don’t know, only you do. Do you want to go home?”

“O-of course I want to, but I can’t. I’ll try to kill myself again.” And he began writing again. I started to get angry.

“Well, as I’m sure you’ve heard, the nurses and I have deduced that your case is one of the mildest among the patients currently in the unit.”

“But just because my depression is the mildest doesn’t make it nonexistent.”

“Of course not. Depression is very real, no matter how strong or weak.”

“I’m not ready to go home.” I stated firmly. The anger was building, and according to his reaction, he had picked up on the anger.

“Is discharge a touchy subject?” His eyes were on me, but his pen was still gliding along the paper.

“As of right now, yes, because I’ve only been here for two weeks; you keep discharging people who actually need help, but yet people who want to be here merely because it’s ‘fun’, like Chris, you let them stay for over a month! Chris is fine; he knows so and so do you! I need help!” It took every bit of strength in my bones to refrain from yelling at him, though I’d already failed miserably.

“And we’re here to help you, Riley. You know that, don’t you?” I nodded once and quickly wiped underneath my eyes.

“I can’t go home yet. I’m not ready.” I repeated. He gave another awkward nod and continued to glide his pen along the paper, flipping through pages quickly and writing what seemed to be short notes on every other page. It looked as though he lost his place and was flipping back and forth and reading different lines to jot his memory.

“Well, alright. Let me meet with Linda and Brian and I’ll talk to you soon, okay? How’s that sound?”

“Alright. That’s fine.”

“In my opinion, however, I believe you’re ready. I think you’re strong enough, Riley.” That was enough to snap that strand of strength in half.

“Fine, discharge me, then. But if I go home and hurt myself, just know that it’s on your hands.” He looked down at his notepad, his eyes holding a gleam of remorse, and slowly stepped out of the room, turning down the hallway.

I was fuming by that point. I sat there with my hands clenched in fists before violently pounding them against the wall in fury. As the strength in my arms grew wearier, I began to wonder whether Dr. Siverd may have had a point. Maybe it was time for me to go home. Not because I was ready, because I wasn’t, but maybe because this hospital evidently isn’t doing anything for me. It’s not as much of a therapeutic environment as it is a place to merely keep you safe, though they plainly did a terrible job of that; there really wasn’t any individual therapy, and rarely were there held group meetings"only those where the patients came together and held that of our own mini-group therapy.

I thought back to Katie’s incident with her mother, and out of the blue it became a breeze to place myself in her shoes; maybe I, too, needed facilitation that was bigger than this hospital alone.