Authors: Tabitha Freeman
“Wow,” I said. “I guess this place was an alternative to jail?”
“Exactly,” she nodded. “I was only seventeen when I was admitted to this place, actually.”
“I thought you had to be eighteen to be on this ward.”
“You do, but my eighteenth birthday was only a month and a half away at the time, so they bent the rules. But I was on Ward 3 at first.”
“What’s Ward 3?” I asked.
“That’s the ward for the really screwed up kids,” she explained. “It goes like this: Ward 1 is the worst
—
that’s an all-male ward for psycho-killers that will never get better, but are too dangerous to be put in prison with the regular criminals. Ward 2 is like Ward 1, only it’s for women. Ward 3 is for both sexes, and it’s for the people who are the most intensely screwed up. I mean, trying to kill yourself is pretty screwed up, but stealing a car while high on cocaine and then driving head on into a transfer truck as a way to commit suicide is a little more intense.”
“Yes, it is,” I agreed with her. “Is that what you did?”
“Yeah,” she replied, smiling sadly. “I killed my
little
brother in the process. I should have gone to prison for life.”
It took me a second to take in what she’d just revealed before I could reply.
“People look at me a little differently after I tell them that,” Channing went on. “But it’s okay. I deserve it.”
“I don’t look at you differently,” I told her, honestly. “I just wasn’t expecting that.”
“You have to learn to expect anything from anyone at this place,” she sighed.
“Surely it was an accident, though,” I said. “You wouldn’t have gotten life in prison for that, would you?”
“Who knows?” Channing shrugged. “My parents are loaded and paid a really good lawyer to convince the judge in my case that I was loony, so I ended up here.”
“When did you come down to this ward?” I asked.
“After my ninety-day evaluation,” she replied. “I think Julianne realized that even though what I’d done was pretty bad, Ward 3 wasn’t for me. Part of the reason I wasn’t getting better was because of being on that ward with those people. Plus my watcher was really hateful to me.”
“Watcher?” I puzzled.
“Yeah, on Ward 3, you have a mandatory watcher twenty-four hours a day,” Channing informed me. “On
e of the nurses on the ward has
to be with you at all times. It sucks. Every now and then, as like a punishment for misbehaving or something, you can be put on watch for a week on this ward. That’s only happened with Aurelia while I’ve been here though.”
“Aurelia told me she’s been here over two years,” I said. “That’s so long. Why is she still on this ward if she isn’t getting any better.”
“Honestly, though I hate to say this out loud, Aurelia is pretty much a hopeless case,” Channing replied. “And she knows it. She started off at Ward 3, then came down to Ward 4, and then went back to Ward 3. She just returned to this ward about three months ago.”
“Wow,” I said. “Does she just not want to get better?”
“Sometimes I wonder if she even
wants
to get out of here,” Channing sighed. “She doesn’t have anything waiting on her out there. No parents, no boyfriend, no friends. Not a soul. At least she knows people in Craneville.”
“But what happens when everyone she knows gets better and leaves?” I asked.
“I don’t think she even ponders that fact,” Channing told me. “The biggest thing that keeps her here is Sam.”
“Who’s Sam?”
“Oh, geez, do you have a week?” Channing laughed. “What a dramatic story. Sam is the love of Aurelia’s life.”
“Did he die or something?” I swallowed hard, my own thoughts briefly shifting to Tyson.
“Oh, no, he’s very much alive,” Channing said. “They met here, actually, in Craneville.”
“On Ward 3?”
“Exactly,” Channing nodded, the look on her face turning grim. “He was being admitted for attempted suicide and trying to kill his rich father just as Aurelia was being admitted for attempted suicide and drug abuse.”
“What a pair,” I mumbled. Channing laughed.
“They
began to show signs of improvement and were able to move down to this ward. But after a year, Sam got better and Aurelia just wasn’t there yet. So he was released and she had to stay behind. He promised her he’d come see her every day and that as soon as she got out, they’d elope, and all this mushy gushy stuff.”
“Did he?” I asked.
“For
about three weeks,” she answered
. “But after that, he just stopped. No letters, no phone calls, no explanation as to why he wasn’t coming to see her anymore. At first, she kept making excuses in her head, like he was sick or a family member was sick or something. But after a month of him not contacting her, she just flipped out. She managed to somehow get into the nurse’s files and get a contact phone number for Sam. But when she called and asked to speak to him, his mom told her that he’d just left for his engagement party.”
“Oh my God, he got engaged to someone else?” I asked. Channing nodded.
“Yep,” she said. “Aurelia dropped the phone and just started screeching and yelling and trying to tie the phone cord around her neck. It was awful…so I hear anyway.”
“That’s why they sent her up to Ward 3?” I guessed.
“Yeah,” Channing answered. “But she was in an isolation chamber for about a week before she calmed down enough that they could put her into a ward room.”
“There are isolation chambers here, too?” I was surprised.
“Oh yeah,” Channing told me. “I’ve never had to go into one, thankfully, and I don’t think anyone on this ward has, either-with the exception of Aurelia.”
“And she was on Ward 3 up until three months ago?”
“Yes, but she’s never acted any differently as long as I have known her,” Channing said. “She’s had her mopey days, but she’s never flipped out or anything.”
“Did he ever call her and offer her any explanation?” I asked.
“No,” Channing replied, her voice suddenly softening. “Never. I think, at this point, if she ever saw him or talked to him again, she’d really go nuts…and I have a feeling she wouldn’t be able to come back from that ever.”
I was quiet for a moment.
“Did she really sleep with everyone on this ward?” I blur
ted out. Channing looked at me
surprised, and giggled.
“No,” she answered. “Just one. Shakespeare.”
“Are you sure?” I gasped. “He denies it.”
“Of course he does, he’s a pig,” Channing replied. “But I know for a fact they did. I was the lookout that night for her so they wouldn’t get caught.”
“When was this?”
“When Aurelia first moved back down to this ward.
Shakespeare
had a crush on her. Even though she didn’t really like him that way, she still slept with him. And they did it
all
the time. I always had to be the damn lookout for them, too.”
“So what happened?” I asked her.
“Well, it lasted for about a month, and then Shakespeare found out th
at Aurelia had been lying to him
.”
“About what?”
“Everything,” Channing told me. “And when he confronted her about all the lies, she said some pretty harsh stuff to him and hurt his ego pretty bad. He hasn’t so much as looked at her since, and it drives her up the wall!”
“Why?” I asked. “If she didn’t like him, why does it matter?”
“Because she liked the fact that someone was paying attention to her,” Channing explained. “She liked that someone actually wanted to be near
her,
whether it be physically or mentally. The fact that he doesn’t pay attention to her anymore makes her livid. She’s constantly talking about him.”
I thought back to the day when Aurelia had given me a nasty glare as I’d walked with Shakespeare to eat dinner. This definitely explained the hostility. I relayed this information to Channing.
“Oh, yeah, I seem to remember her commenting on how Shakespeare clearly wanted to ‘jump your bones’,” Channing chuckled.
“I don’t think he wants to do that,” I told her, frowning. “At least, I hope not.”
“Listen, Ava, one thing you gotta know about this place,” Channing said, leaning forward a little as if she was about to reveal to me some atomic secret. “Nobody is what they seem. Nobody.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“Shakespeare is a perfect example,” Channing explained. “On the surface, he’s charming, witty, and genuinely friendly. But the longer you’re here, Ava, you’ll start to notice all that wearing off.”
“Why put up a fake face for me?” I asked. “That doesn’t make sense. He doesn’t even know me.”
“It’s not just Shakespeare,” she waved her hand dismissively. “It’s everyone. You’ll think you know a person and then, bam! They’ll do something completely off the wall that will make you question everything about them.”
“Why
is it that way?” I asked her
.
“I don’t get it. I w
ould think here
, a person would be at their most raw.”
“Because at some point or another, everyone here tries to be who they were before they came to this place,” Channing said. “But always the real person will break through. You can’t hide your ugly side here, Ava. No one can. Even
you’ll
try. People get sent to Craneville to be cured of so-called sickness. The truth is, no one is really sick here. All of us are here to be cured of ourselves.”
I just looked at her, blankly.
“Don’t you see?” she went on. “Those of us here are different from the rest of society. We always have been. We just never knew it until a drastic situation arose that brought it out in us. Some of us can be returned to that simplistic, ‘normal’ way of thinking and that’s a ‘cure’. But then, some of us can’t. And we never get to leave.”
“Hm
m
,” was my simple reply. “Well that’s certainly a darker way of looking at things.” I was still trying to absorb everything she’d just said. It made sense. But it was such a pessimistic look on reality. Like those people in the world that experienced happiness were just
naïve
and those that experienced hopelessness knew what was really going on around them.
“That’s just my opinion, anyway,” Channing shrugged. We were both quiet for a minute.
“So are you that way?” I asked her, suddenly.
“Am I what way?”
“Pretending to be something you’re not.”
“I don’t even know anymore,” she shrugged. “I try not to pretend, though. Getting through every day is hard enough without putting on a charade, y’know?”
I nodded.
“Thanks for inviting me in your room,” I said, smiling slightly. “That was nice.”
“No problem,” she replied. “You wanna play cards?”
“Sure, that’d be great,” I smiled.
13.
Two more weeks went by. Mom hadn’t called or stopped by for a visit. Part of me was actually surprised, and a little disappointed that she hadn’t been more persistent in coming to see me. But
it was better this way. I needed to do this on my own.
In one of my therapy sessions with Julianne, I’d told her about the conversation between myself and Channing. She didn’t seem to take it too seriously and advised me not to, either.
“Don’t invest a whole lot into what people will tell you here,” Julianne warned me, lightly. “It’s just opinions…and there’s nothing wrong with that. But keep in mind, opinions aren’t facts. And for what it’s worth, I don’t think the world is such a dark place. Hope is what keeps us alive. It’s my job to help you find that hope within yourself so that you can live life again.”
On Saturday, the second weekend of August, it was time for the monthly outing. We were all going to a movie. We all
wore the nicest things we had—
or what we were allowed to have, anyway. For most of us, that was a pair of gym shorts and
a t-shirt. All of the girls, with the exception of myself,
wore their hair down. I didn’t see the point. This movie trip was stupid in my mind. I wasn’t really friends with any of these people, so I didn’t see the point in spending any extra time with them when I could be in my room sleeping. I’d asked Julianne if I could skip out on this little trip. She’d given me a flat out no and gave me some little speech about being part of the group and how it would be good for me.
I sat next to Shakespeare in the hospital van on the way to the movie theater. It was kind of amusing to me to know that I was pissing Aurelia off by doing so. She hadn’t spoken to me since the night I’d had the long talk with Channing. Honestly, it was refreshing to be free of her mindless banter.