Never There

The stupid van reminded me of a creeper van…

I was horrified.

There were two other people in the van, one an old man with graying hair and beard, and a woman, probably I her early thirties with bleached blonde hair and an upturned nose. You could see bright red hair coming in at the roots. It was a nasty red, too. But she could’ve gone with a better color than BLONDE…

I saw the facility after we had been traveling for about an hour. It looked exactly like a hospital.

The two weirdos in the front seat hadn’t said a word to me the entire time.

The van pulled into the facility gates (they had gates!!), and went down a long drive until it finally pulled up to a door.

I sat there expectantly. They probably were going to have to talk to me now.

They climbed out of the car, and then Blondie opened my door. Was I not to be trusted or something with a car door handle??

“Please follow us.” Blondie spoke with a pompous, look-at-me-I’m-so-perfect voice. I wanted to smack her, just to see what would happen.

I followed her and the old guy up into the facility. And I admit, I was totally shocked at the inside.

In the front was a small room, kind of like a hospital waiting room. That wasn’t too shocking, mainly because I had been expecting it. There was a receptionist at a desk, and she looked like the jittery sort. She was fat and had thin dyed red hair, and was wearing these ugly purple horn-rimmed glasses. And she was wearing make up that mainly consisted of purple. Geez…what a creeper.

There was a door directly in front of the door we had just come through.

This was the part that shocked me.

There was a single room, probably as large as a Wal-Mart would be without all of the shelves. Half of it was filled with chairs and tables, and the other half with sofas. The chairs and tables were all a dark wood, and had burgundy cushions. The couches were the same burgundy, accented with these olive-green pillows. The carpet was beige.

There was a second floor, and it bordered all around the room. You could see that there was a glass wall where there would normally be railings, but it went all the way up to the ceiling.

Great. Apparently they expected suicidals here. They never liked me… And I have no idea why.

All along the hallway were these doors, and I’m pretty sure they led to rooms. Like, rooms the kids stayed in. Apparently privacy here wasn’t an option. The rooms were all in a glass hallway, only a door separating you and Wal-Mart.

The doors to the rooms matched the furniture…obviously these people were OCD about matching things. Ughh.

I looked around for a clock until I found one. It was about 10:30. Oh, and go figure. The clock was burgundy too. If they force us into anything burgundy, I’m gonna scream.

“Follow. Me,” Blondie sniped at me.

I rolled my eyes.

I followed her into a room (burgundy door), and the she shut the door behind us. I sat down in a burgundy chair in front of the desk, and she sat in a bigger burgundy chair across from the desk.

I’ve already started hating burgundy.

“So. You must be Katie Marshall,” she said. “My name is Dr. Vang. I am the administrator here. The man you saw with us earlier was Dr. Collins, and he is the head director of St. Barbara’s.”

I wasn’t paying attention. I was too preoccupied with thoughts of why the van wasn’t burgundy.

“This is a facility that helps treats kids from ages 13 to 16. We have kids sent in from everywhere, and only by their parents. Everyone here has had no visits to a doctor about being whatever their diagnosis happens to be. People are sent here purely because their parents don’t want to take their child to a doctor, and have to pay them tons of money just say you have a problem and give you some pills.

“Here we are purely a volunteer group, and we do our best every day to help each and every one of you. At the present time, there about 90 kids in the facility. The doors you saw on the second floor all lead out to hallways, and within those hallways are about ten rooms. You will be in sector 11, in room 9. Your neighbors will be Sean Bradford, Melanie Ayers, Michelle Rodriguez, and Aaron Cotton. We do not believe that boys and girls should be separated from each other, so there will be two boys in your sector.”

She handed me a piece of paper. “Here is your daily schedule. You will follow this each and every day, unless we instruct otherwise. We have already brought your things up to your room, so if you would like to head up there now, you are welcome to. We will be up there in 30 minutes to give you choices for decorating your room, unless you would like it to stay they burgundy, olive, and beige set-up it currently is.”

Oh, hell no! I was NOT keeping ANYTHING burgundy in my room!!

“The staircase from here is right on the left. We will do our best to make your stay enjoyable.” She concluded with a smile. She was acting like this was some resort or something...it was kinda pissing me off, actually.

I got up and left the room.

I found the staircase immediately and went up. I walked to the left, seeing that sector 20 was there, and it went down from there.

When I finally found sector 11, I couldn’t get in. There was a keypad there, obviously awaiting a password.

“It’s on your schedule,” someone whispered behind me. I probably jumped about a mile.

“Ahh…sorry. I’m Sean, by the way.” He held out his hand.

He was a little taller than me, probably about five feet and six inches tall, and he had light brown hair that did this weird flippy thing in the front. He was pale, but not, like, ghost pale. And he wasn’t wearing burgundy! Oh, thank you God…

I just looked at his hand. I wasn’t going to shake it. And after about 10 seconds of just holding it there, he pulled it back awkwardly.

“Here. It’s, uhh, four-seven-six-six,” he said as he punched in the numbers. The he opened the door.

I practically ran to my room. At least this door didn’t have a keypad. I opened the door and closed it immediately, locking it.

What was wrong with me? Normally I’m friendly and outgoing. I just left a guy in a hallway. And I normally would’ve talked to him! He was nice and kind and—

Then I realized why.

He reminded me of Dylan.