All Of Me | Camren

four

Happy Saturday!
—

"I just need ten more minutes, two more cucumber sandwiches, and we'll be out of here in no time." A boy stage-whispers, staring intensely at the wall.

The girl beside him shortly nods and skips across the room. She stops in her tracks when she spots Camila in the doorway, still in the wheelchair with the nurse stood behind her, and frowns. She hurries back to the boy's side and draws his attention to the doorway with a hiss of, "New face, Benji."

"This is the rec room, where patients spend their indoor free time," The male nurse explains, giving Camila only a few more seconds to examine the rather bland room before wheeling her back out through the doors and down a sterile hallway to the right, "These are all the girls' rooms. The boys' are back the other way, but you're not to go down there without permission and supervision from a nurse, understand?"

Camila nods, gulping nervously as she's led further and further down the hallway, around a corner, and to a door marked 271 in bold black letters. She vaguely hears the man inform her that this is her room, but the next thing she's aware of is sitting on the single bed on the right-hand side of the bland room, staring at the ground and wondering how much time has passed. She yelps when a voice speaks up from across the room.

"You're back."

Camila frowns, looking over to see a young girl perched on the edge of her mattress, feet propped up and arms wrapped around her knees. She'd been so lost in her thoughts, she hadn't even noticed the room was made for two, so while the answer is relatively obvious, she asks, "Sorry, who-who are you?"

"Your roommate," She grins, moving to stand in the center of the room and holding her hand out to shake, "Billie."

Camila smiles sadly at the outstretched hand before admitting, "I'm not allowed to touch."

"Neither am I, but I don't really give a shit. I mean, what are we really going to do? Share a bottle of Gray Death?" Billie responds with a certain quiver in her voice that shows underlying desperation. She roughly drags a hand through knotted silver hair, deep roots easily showing through. Camila watches, bewildered, as she takes a breath and steps over to Camila's side, haphazardly falling back onto the bed, "You ever been locked up before?"

She shakes her head, tightness rising in her chest at the choice of words.

Billie nods and, as though rehearsed, begins to rattle off a list of instructions. "The bathroom doesn't lock, so knock unless you want to see all that. The schedule's on the back of the door and the nurses get real pissy if you don't follow it. Make sure you keep your stuff on your side of the room. Enjoy your stay at Stonehaven fucking asylum." With that, she leaps from the bed and takes wide, heavy steps back to her own mattress, falling face first into the pillows and facing the wall in silence.

Camila allows herself a moment to repeat what she's just been told. It may not have been a lot, but Billie's quick tongue—paired with that last word—had made it hard to process. She'd voluntarily admitted herself to an asylum. An asylum! The term is outdated and seems to be used only in horror stories now, yes, but it still describes a place like this. She glances back at the girl and can't help but sheepishly question, "How long have you been here?"

"Six months and counting,"  is the muffled response that sends a shudder down her spine.

But I'm not like her, she reminds herself, I only have to be here for two weeks, and I don't even know what Grey Death is!

With that and only that as reassurance, she scans the schedule on the back of the door, having to take a guess at what time it is and assuming the next event is group therapy at 2:30 pm, which she most definitely is not looking forward to. She decides to take her mind off of what Billie had said to her by unpacking her things and organising the small transparent storage unit beside her bed, taking the place of a nightstand.

Some time later, just before Camila can finish the task she set herself to, a fist pounds against their door, making Billie finally move, if just a flinch.

"Medication, Eilish." A deep voice announces from outside.

"Fuck you!" Billie yells, tugging a pillow over her head and holding it down with her fists. Seconds later, a nurse bursts into the room. Camila's eyes widen as he clamps onto her upper arms and carries her, kicking and screaming, out of sight. In his wake, a kind-faced nurse enters, seeming frail in comparison to his broad stature. She smiles warmly at Camila, though pity dances in her eyes and makes Camila embarrassedly look down to the floor.

"I trust you've seen the schedule." Her voice is sickly sweet like artificial honey as she bends at the waist to be closer to eye-level with the sitting girl, "It's time for group therapy. It's your first day, so you will be allowed to excuse yourself, but your psychiatrist will be informed and I can't guarantee they'll be happy with you." Her smile, quickly turning condescending, only grows when Camila looks back with a small frown.

"Then it's not really excused, is it?" She questions, continuing before the nurse can interject, "It's okay. I'll go."

. . .

Group therapy, Camila learns, is even worse than it sounds. The boy and girl she'd seen earlier were there and wouldn't stop staring at her. The same goes for the other twenty-or-so patients, bar one brown-haired boy who never looks up from his hands while he repeatedly cracks his knuckles. She's asked a few questions by the overseeing doctor, but when the only answer is "I don't know," he focuses his attention on the others, giving her the chance to observe rather than be observed. The doctor, she was informed by the nurse who lead her into the rec room, is one of two on-site psychiatrists. His name is Dr. Reed, and he works almost as a counsellor for the patients. His partner, the elusive Dr. Kiyoko, is the one who will work more closely with Camila's previous doctor to achieve a diagnosis and possible treatment.

"Shawn," Dr. Reed repeats himself, bringing Camila's attention away from her nervousness to meet Dr. Kiyoko and onto the brown-haired boy again as he finally looks up with a hum of acknowledgement, "How are things? Anything to share?"

He shakes his head, eyes darting over each face in the circle — Camila offers a small smile when he pauses on her — before looking back down. The black-haired doctor nods, sighing softly, and moves onto the next person. Camila, however, does not. She watches as he runs a hand over his messy hair and his leg begins to bounce. After a moment, she turns her gaze away, looking through the small window in the door and catching a glimpse of Billie being led back, flanked on all sides nurses. She sighs, looks down to the linoleum floor, and continues to wonder how much longer she'll have to listen to some man preaching about how the devil has climbed his way up to Earth.