The room I was given was small, but actually kind of cozy.
There was a simple, twin size bed set against the wall. The bottom of each metal leg was screwed to the floor with giant bolts. A single, long fluorescent light lit up the room in the center, covered in metal bars to keep it from being removed. A small window overlooked a courtyard that was smack dab in the middle of the building. Unsurprisingly, the window also had metal bars fixed to the painted concrete walls inside. A stainless steel toilet sat in the corner of the room opposite to the bed.
That was it. Sparse, but it had the essentials.
“The sheets are tear and fire resistant and you can shower every night at eight p.m. before lights out at nine and every morning at eight before breakfast at eight-thirty. As long as you follow the rules, you’ll stay in this room. If you’re combative, you’ll be moved to a more secure room with all privileges revoked. That pretty much sums everything up. If you require emergency assistance, push this button here.” She pointed at a little yellow button situated right next to the door that had a small horn on it. “Otherwise, that’s it. Someone will fetch you within the hour.”
With that, she left. I heard the heavy click of the lock when the door closed, and sighed.
I sat down on the bed and gazed around the room that would be mine for the next two months. The dull, pale blue paint was chipping from the cinder block walls in some spots. The white, linoleum floor had a few cracks and some yellowing, but otherwise was in decent shape.
I lay back and took a deep breath in and out then let out a sigh. As weird as it was, and despite the nerves I felt, I was slightly excited about this. I knew I wasn’t crazy. What had happened at that shop was something I’d never had happen before. Anyone who saw what I had would’ve reacted the same way.
The calm I felt melted away as I remembered the stench of blood and sweat heavy in the air. The feel of the man’s hands on me, the pain in my head and back from where he’d hurt me. The sound of his grunting as he tried to strip me. The room had been dark and musty, with pipes snaking along the ceiling. The floor was wet beneath my hands, from blood or water, I wasn’t sure. The vision had been so real, so horrifically tangible, that I hadn’t been aware of my real life surroundings. All I knew was, when I came out of it, I’d thrown a chair through the window of the shop and had scratched someone up, pretty badly, when they tried to stop me.
In my mind, I’d been fighting for my life. In theirs, I was just another mental case having a nervous breakdown.
I’d had visions for as long as I could remember. Almost all of them eventually came to be, and all pertained to me. I would hear the voices of the people in my visions, and sometimes I’d hear things without even having a vision. I knew it wasn’t all in my head, but no one else believed that. Certainly not my parents. I’d tried to keep it all a secret most of my life. I’d tried to tell Mother once, but she’d instantly silenced me and demanded I never speak a word of it again or risk tarnishing the Bloom family name.
So, I kept silent. I tried living a normal life, even though I was anything but normal. I looked like a regular nineteen year old with my shoulder length, pale blonde hair and grey-blue eyes. A bit on the small side, perhaps, since I was only five-foot-two-inches and naturally slim, something once described to me as pixie-like. Overall, I was pretty average. But inside, I never belonged. I rarely had friends, and I never committed to any long-term relationships—not since Jared The Jerk in high school—choosing to just have fun with whomever, whenever I wanted.
Not that people usually gave me much in the way of opportunities to have long, lasting friendships. They tended to stay away. It was like they could smell it on me—my strangeness—and chose to keep a wide radius between themselves and me. Which was fine. I liked my solitude.
That strange feeling of being watched fluttered over me again like a soft, silent brush of wind, pulling me out of my thoughts. I sat up and glanced at the small, barred window set in the door, but there was no one there.
I shook off the shiver that danced up my spine and stood to begin dressing in my new institutional wear. I slipped off my yoga pants and shirt, exchanging them for the white t-shirt with the word patient on the upper right side of the chest, light grey sweatpants, and the oversized grey hoodie with Brocker’s Center for the Criminally Insane in big, black letters printed on the back. This place was freezing, so I was happy they at least gave us this, though I could have done without the constant reminders that I was in a madhouse. I folded my clothes and set them on the edge of my bed. The orderly had said someone would collect them while I was visiting with this psychiatrist, Dr. Ferrer.
I hoped she or he didn’t expect me to divulge all my secrets, because that damn sure wasn’t happening. I’d tell them exactly what they wanted to hear and, hopefully, just get prescribed something mild, like a sleep aid. That’d be the most desirable outcome.
I’d changed just in time. Seconds after slipping on the laceless shoes, the click of the lock on my door sounded, and an orderly opened it.
“Time to see the doc,” he proclaimed, his voice a bit too chipper for someone who worked in a place so depressing.
He looked a lot younger than the other orderlies, with his floppy blonde hair, freckled cheeks, and wide, wandering hazel eyes. His mouth was pulled up into a soft, inviting smile that, for no particular reason I could put my finger on, struck me as creepy. He couldn’t have been more than a few years older than me—maybe twenty-five or twenty-six at most. Most people would probably call him cute, with a baby face. Yet, something about him felt familiar. And not in a good way.
I offered a faux smile back and shuffled out of the room, crossing my arms over myself to warm up a bit as we walked. I made sure I could see him in my peripheral vision, but tried not to be obvious about it.
That feeling of being watched hit me once again. I shivered and held myself tighter, keeping my eyes forward and walking in silence next to the orderly. I locked down my mind even further, blocking out the occasional stab of anger seeping through the walls.
I didn’t keep track of the halls we took or stairs we climbed before the overly-cheerful orderly stopped at an office door with a name etched into the frosted glass, but I felt the emotions trying to poke at me getting stronger.
Warden
Dr. Tracy Ferrer, Psychiatrist
Glancing away from the door to our surroundings, I spotted huge red letters painted on the wall of a hallway junction not twenty feet from me: East Ward.
Where the violent patients live.
Sexual deviants, too, according to the woman who’d led me to my room. No wonder I was having trouble blocking out the feelings coming through the walls. The orderly knocked, drawing my attention back to him, then opened the door when a low, feminine voice said, “Come in.”
He shot me a wink, hustled me into the room, then shut the door with a soft click behind me. Gazing around at the large office, I took in the floor-to-ceiling shelves lining the entire back wall, overflowing with books. There was a large, black wooden desk with a laptop, a lamp throwing off dim light, and some strewn files scattered on top, but no pictures of family. A black, leather couch sat to the left of the desk with a single, matching chair beside it. A thin, middle-aged woman with nearly black hair swept up into a severe bun sat behind the desk, eyes fixed intensely on the file in front of her.
“Are you going to sit?” she asked, not even looking up from her reading material.
I frowned at her abrupt tone, but quietly made my way over to the couch and sat, completely unaware of how to do this. I’d never seen a therapist in my life. I didn’t think the whole ‘lie down and tell me how you feel’ stereotype was actually real.
I watched the woman, waiting. She seemed to be very disinterested in my being there, and didn’t speak again until she was done reading and closed the file. I caught my name written on the tab of the Manila folder as it closed.
Should’ve known it was my file she’d been reading.
She grabbed a notepad from a drawer, then stood and walked over, sticking out her hand to me and plastering on a smile that was very clearly forced and insincere.
“I’m Dr. Ferrer, the warden here at Brocker’s. I oversee all patients, and I’ll be who you’ll meet with during your stay. We’ll start with three times a week and go from there depending on how well-behaved you are,” she said as I shook her hand.
When she released my hand, she softly smoothed out her black pencil skirt and straightened her white blouse, before sitting in the armchair next to me.
“So, let’s begin with us just getting to know each other.”
Right down to business, I guess.
“Shouldn’t my file tell you everything you need to know?”
She smiled. “It tells me why you’re here and all your medical history, but it doesn’t tell me who you are as a person. I’d like to learn who that is so I can be of better help to you.”
Her words were spoken slowly and softly, but there was a coldness in her eyes, a detachment. The way she talked to me was almost condescending and screamed that she thought my mental state was as fragile as a thin pane of glass.
“Uh… look, Doctor,” I started, scooting forward on the chaise and folding my hands in my lap. “I’m not crazy. You don’t have to watch what you say to me or treat me like I’ll attack you at any given moment. Yes, I had a slight meltdown… ”
I paused for a second. I was used to lying about my visions and hiding what was really going on, but telling people I’d had a meltdown made me sound weak, like I couldn’t handle the crap life throws at me. Of course, trusting her with the truth wasn’t an option. Then she’d really think I was crazy. So I swallowed my pride and smiled tightly.
“It was stress and too many days of barely any sleep. I fell asleep at the café and had a nightmare. I reacted. That’s it. I’m only here to find some inner peace and to show the court I can be a normal person,” I finished.
Dr. Ferrer didn’t so much as blink through my little speech and stayed quiet for a few moments after, assessing me with a blank expression.
“Well, Miss Bloom,” she finally said with a sigh. “I don’t think you’re crazy, but I also don’t believe you were just stressed and lacking in sleep. You don’t have to tell me about your personal life right away, because I know we must establish some trust.” She gave me a look that bordered on threatening and continued, “But, let me be clear, you will not leave at the end of your allotted two-month stay if I’m not convinced you aren’t a danger to yourself and those around you. So, I suggest you start talking about yourself, and soon.”
She looked away from me and began scribbling something into her notebook. My jaw practically unhinged as I gaped at her. Was it really possible she could keep me here longer, even if I followed all the rules and kept to myself? I could handle two months here, but longer? To be truly trapped here? No. There was no way.
She finished writing and closed her notebook. “You’re excused now. I’ll be giving instruction to the orderlies of which medications we’ll start you with, then go from there.”
My brows pinched together. “What kind of medications exactly?” I asked suspiciously, unpleasantly surprised she was already prescribing me drugs.
“A small sedative dose to help you sleep, a mild antipsychotic, and an anti-anxiety. For now,” she clipped. Standing, and effectively cutting off anything I might have said, she walked back to push a button mounted on her desk. “You may not see it, but I do. You’re wound tighter than you believe and, after that violent outburst at the cafe, we don’t want you to lose control of yourself again. We’ll see how your body reacts to this initial regimen, then I can assess what else needs to be done.”
I heard what she left unsaid. I didn’t have a choice here and, if I fought her, I’d only succeed in gaining myself more drugs, not less. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as I was thinking. The antipsychotic was definitely worrying, but she’d said it was mild and I took anti-anxiety medications all the time at home. It helped the shakes after a vision, if it was more lucid than others.
That same orderly who brought me here opened the door to the office, took the paper Dr. Ferrer held out for him, then turned to wait for me. I stood, nodded at the doctor, and filed out.
“See. That wasn’t so bad,” he said cheerfully. “Dr. Ferrer is great and has helped many who’ve come through here. She’ll take good care of you, too.”
“Awesome,” I replied blandly.
“If you weren’t on lockdown, you’d get time in the common areas now. There’s the main room that you saw before going to your room, then there’s the courtyard. You can access that through the main room. Everyone who is in the common room has TV privileges until five p.m. There are only a few channels, but it’s not so bad. You get used to it.”
On and on he went, talking cheerfully about all the games they had there and what kind of food we were given. It seemed like he’d worked there for a while, because he knew the place well. I let him ramble, but I tuned out his voice in favor of just memorizing where I was. I hadn’t been paying attention before, so I wanted to now.
Something told me I would need to know for future reference.