Signing the final sheet in the stack on the desk I placed them all neatly into one of several folders before filing it into the cabinet behind me. The cabinet closed with a click and I returned to the comfort of the swivel chair resting before the computer screen. Ding! The monitor blinked letting me know that a new email had arrived. I clicked on the window allowing me to access the email and read it through, replying accordingly. Brrring brrring! The phone lying beside the keyboard sounded through the relatively quiet halls. I picked it up and pressed the green button.
“Good afternoon, Charlesville Rehabilitation Centre, how can I help you?”
“Hello, I had a relative of mine very recently be placed under the care of the centre and wanted to know when I would be able to visit him,” the cheerful voice inquired.
“You’re more than welcome anytime dear so long as it’s between nine am and half past eight in the evening,”
“Okay that’s great, thank you!”
“Anytime, see you soon,”
I closed the phone setting it on its charger before returning to the monitor. I completed some tasks the younger employees were too lazy to with a smile on my face. My job was one I enjoyed. I loved seeing so many people coming in and out of our facility starting off as broken shells of their former selves before regaining that will to build it back up. But there was that one I would never forget; she grew on me over time. I recollect that moment I first saw her stumble in. Out of breath, pale, thin. Alone above all. I could see determination in her eyes along with some other unknown emotion.
“My dear child, are you okay?” I all but jumped from my seat at the computer. She began to ramble on about ‘wanting them gone’ and no longer needing something. From my many years working at the centre I knew. I knew this young girl, no older than seventeen, had seen too much and experienced so much for someone of her age. I hurriedly called out for a nurse to bring the trembling child a wheelchair; she was in no state to walk. She sighed in what I believed to be relief.
“She needs help as soon as possible. From what I gathered she’s having auditory hallucinations and withdrawals. She said she wanted the voices gone,” I looked down at the girl, not yet having learnt her name. She seemed to be experiencing some kind of inner conflict, occasionally scratching at her skin. She looked about ready to self-destruct.
“Shut Up!” she cried out, tears in her eyes, hands pulling at her hair, “Brianna I’m so sorry,” she sobbed into her hands. The sight was heartbreaking. I’d seen a lot in my time but this girl was something. It was extremely exceptional to have someone of her age sign into such a place alone. Not a parent, guardian, friend in sight.
“Make them go away, make them stop!”
“Make who stop? Who are they? What is your name?”
The way I saw her look at me in that moment with fear in her eyes was something I would never forget. I had never seen someone dragged in so deep by the dark side of your world. She was a scared little girl.
I look back and remember her telling me everything. How it was her decisions that lead her to her down spiral, how Brianna who I came to know as her late friend encouraged her decision to climb back out of it. It took some time but she came to trust me. It was a month or two she had been with us. She found it difficult to open up to me or any of the other staff but eventually she did. She learnt to trust me. She told me of her parents and how she saw them murdered before her eyes. They didn’t know she was in the house but shared a last loving look with her mother when she saw her quietly decent the stairs. She told me she bit her hand so she wouldn’t scream, the scars remained as a permanent reminder to her. She had fled to house and fell into the wrong crowd at only fourteen.
Her best friend, her last remaining strand of hope had unwillingly left her. The countless tears she shed relaying this information to me. I spilt several of my own. It was hard for me to see her torn within herself when the ‘voices’ began to argue again. I could almost see them, hear them internally torturing her. But over time they faded. She continued to experience withdrawal symptoms for some time but the voices ceased. Her mind was once again her own. Occasionally she would tell me they were there again but this came to an end roughly nine months into her stay.
Three years. Three years she stayed with us. I developed something with her. I watched her break free of the shell she had around her and shed away the monster that had taken over her life. She was her own person once again. I watched her blossom into a beautiful young woman. The colour returned to her once ghostly skin, the tremble of her frame became less obvious before completely stopping. The voices were gone. She began to trust.
It’s been just over half a decade since the day she stumbled into the Rehabilitation Centre wanting to better herself. She defeated her demons. I couldn’t be more proud; she has come so far. Riley made it. For her.
