For My Aching Soul

Chapter 22

I cried myself to sleep that night. Alex had come to ask exactly what happened and if I was okay. I lied to him as I always did but as soon as I shut the door I cried and I cried and I cried. I had already personally blamed myself for my mother's death and a part of me knew that my father did too but to hear him actually vocalize that truly destroyed me. This was it. I knew I'd never ever be okay again. No matter how long I stayed here for.

I started getting tranquilizers and dietary supplements the very next day. The supplements came at breakfast and lunch hours and the tranquilizers came right before bed.

"So they put you on supps, huh?" Lennie had asked in her authentic Australian accent that day at lunch when a nurse came over and handed two little yellow pills to me in a plastic container.

I nod, half too tired to form words and half too trapped inside my own body to speak.

Today had been excruciatingly slow. With my age being a red-marker, I had read basically every book worth reading in the part of the library I was allowed to go into and I'd walked to every corner of the compound that had access. What my father said played over and over again in my head. I would have gone and danced all these feelings out of me if I was my old self but that Nicole was far gone.

When the nurse brought me my sleeping pills that night I swallowed them with a small chuckle to which she gave me skeptical eyes. The laugh came out my lack of belief that these would help me close my eyes yet alone sleep through a whole night. But to my surprise, I snored that night.

It's a damn shame they couldn't keep away the nightmares or make everyday suck less.

Weeks passed and the pills became part of my routine. My father never came back and for that I was both glad and disappointed. His choice to not visit, for which I didn't blame him, made me truly-for the first time-realize that I was a parent-less and friendless 16 year old slowly losing her mind in a place that was suppose to prevent that.

It's sad to say that the most interesting thing that actually happened here was when a girl from Wing 33 strangled herself with the arms of her night sweater.

It was 7 pm when about five security guards came bursting into our Wing frantically opening up room doors and checking on the women. Lennie, Sam, Elizabeth and I were in the sitting area playing cards so we got full view of the sight right across the hall. About four doctors and six guards had rushed into Wing 33.

Two girls ran out a moment later, hysterically crying. Another actually threw up right at our door. I had a bad feeling, the same one I got the night my mother had died. Several minutes passed before we all saw it. It was the body of a girl I had spoken to a few times. I had remembered telling Lennie how cute I thought her purple braids were. She was always expressive during group sessions and was the go-to skin care person from what I had heard others saying.

She was lifeless in the arms of a guard, her braids almost sweeping the floor as her head was thrown back. A doctor was walking beside, hands covered in gloves, testing for pulse. From how cold the entire place suddenly became, I knew (and I'm sure the doctor herself knew) that there was no point to that. She was dead.

We all got extra hours of therapy after that. We were meant to be scarred by what had happened, especially those who personally knew her. Every member of staff was on edge. Alex said that something like this hadn't happened in years. But I wasn't bothered. Nothing moved me anymore. I had watched my mother die, heard the beep signaling the end of her life. Death was no longer something I feared, I actually quite frighteningly embraced it.

After two weeks we were notified that our casual sleepwear would be confiscated for safety precautions. They would be replaced by light pink nightgowns that they were sure couldn't hurt a fly. It was the first act that the management of this place had taken that made it actually resemble a hospital.

Miss Allione was quite convinced that I was hanging off the edge by a thread. I couldn't say she was wrong. I was starting to slowly lose hair from the stress and my eyes were in a constant state of daze.

"I really like you, Nicole. I don't wanna see you spend the rest of your life here. Let me help you." She had said.

So to help me, she added Citalopram and Xanax to my list of daily pills which included supplements, vitamins and Lexaton (the tranquilizer). The first was an antidepressant...meant to make me smile again. These I had to take twice a day. 6am and 6pm. I took the Citalopram in the morning. This was suppose to make facing the day a lot less awful. The Xanax replaced the Lexaton and of this I took a dosage everyday at 6pm. This was suppose to make me relaxed and not feel as though the bed was going to cave in and swallow me alive.

I guess you could say they helped...helped at suppressing me.

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