It takes a good few hours for the hospital's psychiatrist to come by. The room has no windows and no clocks so time slips away and you can't tell how long you've been sitting just staring at the wall. Every now and then someone would scream and nurses would fly in to assist them. I came to the conclusion that most of the people in the other rooms were probably suffering a withdraw from one drug or another.
I think this place is going to my me go crazy.
I'm close to sleep when I hear the metal door creak open. A woman walks in. She looks much older than everyone else I've seen so far, probably in her early 50's, she has blond curly hair which, despite her age, has no gray strands. She smiles at me and asks the security guard to bring her a chair.
Before the metal door closes behind her I see the girl from earlier, Nazz I think, being escorted out of her room. The blond lady introduces herself and I immediately forget her name. She takes out a notebook and pen and begins to ask questions much like the ones on the paper I filled out.
After twenty or so basic mental health questions she asks me why I'm here and about my relationship with my father. This makes me somewhat frustrated, "I know I've told the story to ten other people in this god forsaken hospital so why don't you just ask them?" I spit my words and cross my arms.
"Kevin, I understand your frustration. If you don't want to talk about it, that's fine. I have all the information I need. In just a few hours I'm going to have staff transfer you up to our adolescent psychiatric ward. You will stay there for a minimum of one week."
Anger boils in me. "You can't be serious! I don't have time for this crap, it was just a fight!" I'm on my feet now.
"Kevin, I need you to calm down or we will have to restrain you." I sit back down and she continues. "Healthy families don't fight like that, you have endured a lot of mental and physical abuse from your father, we just want to help you recover from the trauma that you've experienced."
I realize there's not much I can do about the situation and sign the papers saying I agree to voluntarily stay in their psychiatric ward until the doctors say I'm no longer a threat to myself or others. Within the hour two nurses come to assist me to the sixth floor of the hospital where I will spend a minimum of a week.
I expect the psych ward to be like solitary confinement, where I had just come from, but it's anything but. The walls are colorful with drawings hung on them. Paper lanterns hang above the main desk which faces an empty room with couches, tables, board games and windows that look out over our town. The man at the desk looks up from his computer.
"Ah, you must be Kevin." He stands and smiles. His skin is sun kissed and his hair is dreaded. "I'm Aaron."
I nod at him. The two nurses leave and Aaron movs out from behind the main desk with a clipboard. "There are just a few things we need to do before you can to go to your room."
He leads me to what looks like a small check up room separated by a curtin. "Okay Kevin, I'm going to need you to completely undress behind the curtain and hand me all of your clothes." He must notice the look of terror on my face because he quickly adds "I just need to make sure you don't have anything you could hurt yourself or others with. You don't have to come out from behind the curtain until you have these on." He hands me maroon scrubs that are, thankfully, not paper.
I do as he says and when I step back out he tells me to sit on the examination bed. Aaron asks me a few medical questions and write down my answers. "Alright, Kevin that's all I need for now, Later tonight someone will come in to draw some blood and tomorrow you will meet with your therapist." He stands again and leads me down a long hallway lined with rooms on both sides. As I pass the third room on the left I catch a glimpse of Nazz.
We stop at the very end of the hallway and Aaron turns to me "Girls are on the left and boy are on the right. This is your room everything you need is on your bed. It's quiet time now but dinner is in fifteen minutes." He turns and makes his way back to the front desk.
I take a deep breath and enter the room. It's a big room with its own bathroom, cubbies, two beds and a big window but the first thing I really notice is the skinny boy sitting cross legged on one of the beds. I stare for a moment at the black hat that sits on his head. "E-Edd?" I call out.
He looks up from his book, shocked at first but his face melts into a smile. "Well hello, Kevin, this is quite a surprise."
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I was going to write more for his chapter be then I thought 'Why not leave it here so they have a reason to come back?' I'm the worst, I know. ;)