When you get to the nurse, whose name is Janet, the first thing she does is pull your wrists toward her so she can examine them.
“It’s nothing, see? I just scratched on them a little. It calmed me down when I did that,” you explain.
Janet glances up. “You can talk in therapy about why you did what you did, okay, hon?”
“Okay,” you answer obediently. You’re planning on being as agreeable and pleasant as you’re able so you can get out of here as soon as possible.
She then checks your blood pressure, heart, ears, nose, throat, and reflexes, and then the questions begin.
“Are you on any medication?”
You tell her you were on Zoloft and it was working but you’re no longer taking it.
“How much were you on and when did you stop taking it?”
“I think I was taking one hundred milligrams and I stopped taking it by accident. I met my boyfriend and started feeling happy. I forgot to take it and then still felt happy and figured I didn’t need it.”
She nods. “I’ll check with your primary doctor to make sure you were at one hundred milligrams.” Then she jots some info down. “Stopping your medication might explain some of your erratic behavior.”
You decide you don’t like this lady at all.
“I’m going to need to draw blood,” she announces.
“How come?”
“To make sure you’re getting the nutrients you need, to check your iron and potassium, make sure you’re not under the influence of any drugs and that you aren’t pregnant. I’ll also have to scan your body for other self-inflicted injuries and check for lice.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Not kidding,” Janet says. “Have you ever done drugs?”
“I don’t do drugs!”
She squints at you and then asks, “Are you lying to me?”
“No! I don’t even drink alcohol! Why didn’t you ask me this stuff when my parents were here?”
“Children tend to lie when their parents are around. They seem to be more honest when their parents leave. Are you sexually active?” she asks.
“What do you mean?”
Janet gives you a look like you’re in second grade, like duh, do you need to have the “talk,” and then you say, “I’ve never had sex.”
“Hmm.” You can tell she thinks you’re lying. Then she says, “Sexual relations during your stay will result in immediate solitary confinement, so don’t even consider it.”
You can’t even. This woman is the devil.
“You need to be aware of the rules.”
She hands you a paper robe, tells you to change into it, and then heads to the door.
“I’ll give you a couple minutes to change.”
“Why do I have to change my clothes?”
“I told you. I have to check to make sure you haven’t injured any other parts of your body. I can’t do that with your clothes on. I’ll be back in a minute. Tie goes in the front.”
Janet leaves and you put on the robe, but then you curl up in the corner on the floor with your legs pulled up to your chest, and you start crying. You didn’t sign up for this. This woman shouldn’t be working at the Crazy House; she should be admitted. She’s nuts.
The monster is roaring, and you feel a hotness inside you’ve never felt before. You’re imagining having to stand naked in front of this horrible woman as she checks you all over for marks that don’t exist. You feel like you’re about to be violated.
Then the doorknob turns and Janet’s back and another woman is with her.
You can’t.
You won’t.
You don’t want to be here. This isn’t what you deserve. You haven’t done anything wrong.
“You have to get up; I have to take a quick look,” Janet says.
Her voice sounds far away, the monster roars, and you’re crying hot, heavy tears, shaking your head back and forth, back and forth. “No, no, no … I can’t, please, I don’t want to do this!”
You heave and cry and rock, because you don’t want this to be you. You don’t want to be here, in this place, in this mess, having these strangers look at your naked body.
“Look, if you get up, we can do this really quick and painless.”
The other lady comes over and kneels down by you.
“Sweetie, it’ll be really quick, and you don’t have to take the robe all the way off,” she says.
“I don’t?” you ask.
“No, come on, get up. I’ll help you.”
She seems a lot nicer than Janet, whom you hate with a burning passion, and you want this to be over with, so you take the nice lady’s hand and you stand up and focus on her, whom you are now going to think of as Nice Lady during this whole process to make it go by faster.
Janet quickly scans your legs while Nice Lady talks to you, although you don’t even know what she’s talking about—she’s really good at keeping your mind focused on something—and then you feel Janet’s hands run along the length of your arms and you quiver with a hotness you hadn’t expected. You hear Janet say, “No bruises or lacerations on forearms.”
Then Nice Lady says to you, “I’m just going to untie the front and we’re going to check your tummy and then your back and we’ll be all done, okay?”
You nod, and then you hear Janet say, “Nothing here” and “Back is clear too,” and, just like that, it’s over. And Nice Lady is smiling at you and tying the paper robe back up.
“That wasn’t too bad, was it?” Nice Lady asks.
You shake your head no.
Then Nice Lady smiles at you and leaves the room.
Janet then checks your scalp and says, “No lice eggs.” Like you were expecting to be told otherwise. She takes five vials of blood from a vein in your right arm and wraps a blue bandage around your arm tightly.
“And we’re all done!” Janet says cheerfully.
You say nothing.
“You can get dressed now,” she says, and leaves the room.
After Janet is gone, you get dressed quickly and go out into the hallway where Damian is waiting for you with one of his bright, straight-teeth smiles.
On your way to your room, you check out his tattoos—there are some skulls. Hearts. A rose. The word hope. You focus on the word hope, although you feel numb.
All you want to do is crawl into a bed.
In your room, the walls are not cinder block, which you were expecting, but they are white. Damian explains that the door must remain open at all times, which relieves you because then your roommate can’t kill you in the dead of night. It’s a cold, basic room with a rectangular window you can’t even get a view from—it’s too high up. The two beds, on opposite walls, are covered with navy spreads and each has one white pillow at the head. There is a dresser with three drawers between the beds and another matching dresser along the wall where the door opens. A bathroom is near the door. The floor is linoleum and you wonder if that’s for easy cleanup from the suicides and murders.
You stare at Damian because he’s got to know this isn’t where you belong. He’s looking at you with kind eyes, gentle eyes, as if he knows what’s going on with you, as if he truly understands that you’re really scared.
He says, “Play your cards right and you’ll be out of here in the minimum amount of time.”
“This is crazy, right?” you whisper.
“I know it’s tough. Do what they say, and everything will be fine.”