Retention

Retention

[5:30 pm]:

With moments passing so quickly I can only remember walking through her office.

One moment I am sitting in the comfortability of these sterile walls that have always tried a little too hard to be a "comfortable" space

With its splashes of color and scattered personal items, but otherwise,

barren.

I am in my head,

mechanically nodding when I assume it’s the appropriate moment to say “yes” and shaking my head likewise when the appropriate answer is “no”.

My mother is sitting in the ugly chair adjacent to me, making mumbled nervous conversation with the woman across from us.

The sound of static came with their words exchanged as I focus on the clock ticking and the gum beginning to disintegrate in my mouth

I don’t remember exactly what happened between me walking through those doors and being carried, bound by my arms and legs into a blinding white room.

[10:00 pm]:

My clothes are gone, and I lay there, bare, unable to move with only that of a grey white speckled gown keeping my decency.

I don’t have the energy to fidget with the straps holding me flat against the cold, hard-plastic surface beneath me.

So I take a breath, close my eyes, and wait patiently for this to be over so I can go home.

A lady finally walks in, releasing me from my restraints, and hands me a tray with the following contents:

An apple, a juice box, and a yogurt cup.

2

I reject hesitantly only to receive the look of complete disappointment on my mother’s face who is sitting on a low chair on the right side of the small white room.

We must have been here for a while because I focused closer on her, saw her frame, almost as shocking as my own:

Drained, pale, and hollow-eyed;

It was in that moment that the guilt swept over me and my sanity crept through the cracks

“Why am I here?”

“What am I doing?”

“I didn’t mean for things to get this far.”

But it was too late.

[1:00 am]:

The ambulance was there

and in a split second

I wasn’t.