Chapter One

Killing Mom

Haley finished writing her ninth poem of the day and flopped down on her bed.  She stared through the heavy mesh covered windows and sighed.  Then she hid her pencil under her pillow.  On the Adolescent floor of Crane Hospital, patients weren’t allowed to have pens or pencils in their rooms.  The ever-creative patients might use them to hurt themselves.  Haley knew this rule.  She had broken this same rule at all the hospitals she’d been in.  She was a pro at breaking rules and getting away with it. 

This hospital was hospital number twenty-two for fifteen-year-old Haley.  She knew she was at the end of the line.   Now she was in DCF custody.  No foster home would take her, she was too “disturbed” and “mentally unbalanced”  She would be forced to live in a residential treatment center for mentally and emotionally disturbed kids. 

Residential treatment was like a horror story spoken about in hushed voices with chills running down your back to kids in psych units.  It was the end of the line and the last place she wanted to go.  Every time Haley got out of the hospital, she would promise herself that this was the last one.  But then the hallucinations would start winding her up and reality would start to crumble. 

That’s when Gemmy got her, she would convince her to cut or overdose or starve herself and there was the ambulance ride to the ER, hours of waiting in a locked room with no possessions, just a hospital gown with snaps but no ties, and her mom for however long she could handle Haley’s crying.   There would be a TV in a glass case with a glare on it so she couldn’t really even see the screen, but Haley wasn’t much of a TV fan anyway. She thought it turned your brain to mush.  Eventually an ambulance would come and bring her up to two hours a way to another psych unit.   Haley was fifteen now. It got harder and harder for her to imagine herself as an adult. 

It wasn’t that Haley wanted to die, it was just that the voices took her power away and took over her actions.

“You’re going to end up killing yourself one of these days,” one of the doctors at the emergency room had told her the day before when he weighed her at 88 pounds.  “You can’t expect to keep treating your body like this and live to age eighty.

Haley had nodded sadly.  She could barely imagine herself in a year.  It scared her.

“I know you’ll get better,” her dad had told her just last year before she killed him.  “I just know it.”  Haley wanted to believe her dad so badly, but with each passing overdose, each lost pound, each last slice on her body, it was getting harder and harder to believe.

Haley slid herself under the antiseptic-scented blankets and tried to block out all thoughts from her head.  Some days she just wished she could just sleep forever or that she was really good at mindfulness.  Today was one of those days.

Just as Haley’s eyes were about to drift shut, she heard the sound of rattling keys coming down the hall and then a voice calling her name.

“Haley, Haley Kline, the doctor wants to see you.”

Haley murmured something unintelligible and slowly sat up, clearing the sleep from her mind.  One of the Mental Health Workers from the Unit was standing right there.

“All right,” she got out of bed. Her voice was chronically quiet and psych hospital staff were always jumping down her throat telling her she was being passive aggressive.  But that was just her normal tone of voice. 

She picked up her nonskid hospital socks off her dresser that was bolted to the floor by metal bolts.  The socks swallowed her tiny size 1 feet.  She would have much preferred her sneakers, but they had been taken away from her on admission as she had automatically been put on “Escape Precautions.”  This meant she couldn’t go off the unit for any off-unit activities, and couldn’t have her shoes, or clothes.  Instead, she’d been given spaceman pediatric blue johnnies with snaps instead of ties and blue pants. At least this hospital had a pediatric hospital gown option.  Usually, Haley had to trip over a gown that fell past her ankles.  This one fell to her knees and allowed her to walk down the hall to the meeting with her doctor without falling and tripping.

“Which doctor do I have?” Haley asked the Mental Health Worker whose name tag read Kim.

“Dr. Fowler, he’s new.”

Just my luck, Haley thought to herself. I’m going to get a new doctor straight out of residency who has no idea what he’s doing.

To read more of “When One Door Closes” subscribe to my newsletter by going here . You will receive a weekly newsletter with fresh never before seen writing, audiobooks to listen to and the ability to unlock secret material