Night Number One

Before leading me to my bedroom, the two young ladies introduced me to the nurses who promptly took my vitals and chatted happily with me, despite it being close to 2 in the morning. I, however, had very little to say. The friendly nurses led me to a bedroom on the left side of the common room. It was clean and bright with a large window facing a courtyard. There were two beds on either side of the wall and two large cabinets with cubbies for storing clothes and the personal items that had passed inspection. Gratefully, I noted that the other bed was empty. The last thing I felt like dealing with was another, strange human being in my space. I put my clothes in a cubby and turned toward the bed. I slid under the covers and closed my eyes. The florescent light blasted through the open door an kept me awake. Around 15 minutes into my attempted slumber, a nurse walked in to check on me. This happened about every 15 minutes the entire night, keeping me from getting much sleep. It wasn’t until early morning that I finally drifted into sleep, just to be woken up by chattering outside my bedroom door. I had no idea what time it was and had no phone to check. I got up and quickly slipped on clothes and stepped outside. The large common room was humming with people and occasionally laughter would poke the air, the apparent happiness startling me. I stood, blinking in the florescent lights. Finally, a nurse rolled a small cart over to me and kindly told me to sit down. I picked a seat in the middle of the room, gaping around at all the intimidating strangers. The nurse took my vitals and handed me a schedule for the day. The day was full of activities from yoga to group therapy, to art therapy, all of which were optional. I had no idea where to go, so I wandered around, seeking water. As I walked through the doorway on the other side of the entrance to the common room, I saw a drink machine like you’d find in a fast food restaurant loaded with juice, pop, and water. There were also packets of snacks on the counter and coffee. Sweet, wonderful, delicious coffee. Okay, the coffee was crap, but it tasted so luxurious and it was comforting to have something… well… normal. I let the coffee warm me and give me strength since I missed breakfast by sleeping in. There were two young men standing at the drink machine, both no more than 25 years old. The shorter of the two had brown, wavy, jaw length hair and spoke gently. “Hi,” he said the first friendly person I had met so far. “I’m Jeremy.” I replied with my name and said nothing else, my usual chatty nature abandoning me.