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AAliyah Montgomery
Banger-Gray
DC English Comp I
17 September 2012
After confessing to her pale, wide eyed therapists an exceptionallyyoung teenager noticed
herself in the dark. Literally. A dainty, anxious 13 year-old was being driven to a hospital in a
completely different county during the oddest hours of the night. It was indeed one of the longest
nights of her life so far. Her mother drove. She was driving her oldest baby to be admitted to a
distant hospital. Hopefully, this treatment could offer help where she could not. The girl‟s
fraternal twin also sat in the backseat of their unreliable New Yorker that they had all pushed so
many times. She happened to be very moody after a long‟s day practice for her Drama class. She
could have cared less about what was going on at the moment. She knew where her older sister
was going, but did not understand the full purpose. A young uncle drove a car ahead of them that
was as dark as the night itself. He was there for the support of all three and happened to know the
way to the hospital. He would be moving to another state soon. This would be his last time
seeing his older sister and nieces for some time. All four were veiled in darkness that night in
one form or another.
The girl once described as “lifeless” by her mother had no clue how she moved from a
velvet backseat to a cold, hard black chair. She looked to her left to see her tired mother. Her
sister must have stayed in the car. “Dammit” she heard. It happened to be her uncle. Until this
moment she had forgotten how much taller he was from her. The doors were locked. Once you
were in you could not get out under any circumstances. Once he finished his rants about having

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to pee he told of his time being admitted for anger problems. He wanted to smash peoples‟ heads
into walls. Knowing the temper of her mother and even herself the teen came to the conclusion
that this must have been hereditary. The mother shared her experience, too. She had been
severely depressed just like her daughter; however, the two had separate reasons behind their
depression. The girl knew about the abuse her mother went through as a child and understood her
reason, but she did not understand her own reason for being so sad. This made her feel stupid. So
the three waited and waited in a room full of people who saw things that were not there and those
who blended in to the very chairs they sat in.
Next was another chair. The uncle stayed behind in the previous room. The walls of this
room were painted white and a black woman sat behind a desk. At first, the mother and daughter
did not notice her there until she sat up straight. The woman asked questions about the mental
history of the family and their purpose for being there. Then came the question. “Have you ever
been molested”? It was asked directly to the young girl. The woman‟s eyes seemed to pop out to
fully examine the body language of the girl. There was no doubt in the girl‟s mind that this lady
should be in the room that she just left her uncle in. She replied with a simple no. Since the
mother was wiser than her child she knew exactly what was coming next. The woman leaned
back with a deep breath as if preparing for war. She tried to rephrase her question a myriad of
times to see if she could squeeze out a heart-breaking story of a malicious sexual act that
happened to the girl that her mother did not know. The room filled with the answer of „No‟. The
teenager could not understand why the woman could not accept the fact that she had never been
sexually abused. In the end of the session, or so they thought, the woman waltzed out of the
room to do some paper work for the admittance of the adolescent‟s admittance. A sigh of relief

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came from the mother and daughter. Her last question bothered them to no end. Soon enough the
lady darted back in. “Are you sure”?
Everything was a rushed blur of white coats and cold hands to the sad girl. Now she was
in a tight-knit elevator with her dear mother. The woman known for her feisty nature appeared to
get weaker within every step of the process of admitting her child. The daughter noticed. Yet
another chair except it was thick, plastic, and white with a yellow tint. “See you later Leah” her
mother said gracefully. She knew she made the best decision for her daughter. While the 13 year
old waited she overheard a male nurse‟s conversation over a hospital telephone. He was
extremely dark, but not as dark as coal. He had a brown tint to his skin. He was nice-looking.
She guessed. She did not really care about his appearance but only of his call. She hung her head
low to dismiss any suspicion of eavesdropping. She heard irritation in his voice. “They took your
shoes? Well go back and get them”. The poor child immediately regretted her choice of
treatment. As he marched away from the telephone she got a glance of his hospital ID. His name
was Mr. Innocence.
A black female nurse sporting a light blue scrub came toward Leah with a camera, a tan
file folder, and a long cloth bag. The blonde-haired woman seemed to be up in years. No purses,
shoe laces, accessories, clothing with straps or drawstrings, sharp objects, or anything that could
possibly cause harm to yourself or others. Everything that was not allowed went into a bag she
carried with her. Another bag was with the woman. This bag seemed familiar to the teen. She
knew it did not belong to the hospital. It was her mother‟s black and white stripped bag. It must
have had the girl‟s clothes in it. The nurse never gave it to the girl that night. She noticed a
plastic hospital bracelet on her thin arm. She read her full name, birth date, and the hospital‟s
name. For the life of her she could not remember who placed it on her arms. As her eyes drifted

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toward the scars on her writs she quickly looked up. Her eyes stared directly at where the noise
she heard came from. The male nurse from earlier, Mr. Innocence, and another smoothed haired
man stared directly at the small girl, too. They looked as if they did not know whether to
confront her stares or go on about their business. She heard them. She knew exactly what they
said. She was on „Suicide Watch‟.
“Smile”. The flash from the nurse‟s camera startled the weary child. A fear came over the
girl. She hoped with all the forces of nature that her picture looked decent. The nurse let the girl
see it. The 13 year old did not approve of the picture. “Pretty girl” slipped from the nurse‟s
mouth as she slowly placed the photo in the tan file folder. She was sure the nurse was lying to
make her feel better. Out the corner of her eyes she noticed two separate lines of human being on
white walls. Boys lined up on the furthest wall while the girls were on the nearest. The girls‟ wall
was decorated with turkeys, pilgrims, and “Jesus is the reason”. This amused the child who had
given up on faith a time prior to that. “Come on”, commanded the smooth haired male nurse with
the mustache to match. She carefully trailed after him. He moved pretty fast. They entered the
first room in the hallway. Some unidentifiable figure came in to speak with him. “Put all your
stuff on the mattress here”. As soon as she did he tossed the mattress on the floor and started
dragging it down the dirty hospital hallway. Leah was appalled. “Hurry up”, he demanded again.
He began making small talk. “Your name‟s AAliyah with two capital A‟s”?It sounded more as if
he were telling her than asking. She shook her head „yes‟ anyway. He went on “that‟s my
daughter‟s name, too. I‟m Mr. Ali. No one knows how to spell or pronounce that name correctly.
No one realizes how old it is.” The teenage girl was not sure whether to be comforted or to feel a
bit paranoid.

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Her room was smaller than the one she shared with her twin sister. Mr. Ali placed the
mattress on the bed frame. She noticed the mattress was stained. It was blood. Maybe it belonged
to a previous self-harmer like herself or an attempted suicide.Or a successful one. Mr. Ali soon
covered the mattress with paper-thin white sheets. He requested she make her bed every day. She
usually minded other‟s request, but never saw herself making a bed. It had been years since she
threw away her mattress infested with bugs to only sleep on her wooded box spring. Her mother
had recently bought a futon for her. Making a bed was simply not in her nature. The male nurse
talked about the shiny gray speaker phone built in the cabin under the sink. They will call her out
of her room through that. The shiny black button on it was only used if you needed something.
He left. She plopped on her new bed with her head in her hands.
She began to observe her new territory. The first thing she noticed was the freezing cold
temperature of the room. The dead would shiver with chill bumps. The room contained a pinned
down dark brown desk with a shelf pinned to the white wall. A chair that looked like the one she
sat on outside her room was placed under the desk. The sink had a reflective faucet and porcelain
white bowl. The speaker was embedded in the cabinet as she had noticed before. To the side of
the sink was a door. It was not really a door. It had no knob and never closed all the way. It led to
the bathroom. The bathroom had enough room for the toilet and shower. The floor was tiled
unlike the part of the bedroom. The shower had no curtain or anything to shield her body if she
took a shower. No privacy. It was a mental institution after all. She heard a sudden „THUD‟. It
sounded as if someone threw their chair out of anger in the room next to her. The person grew
tired enough to stop after a few minutes. Leah then brought her attention to the tinted window
that had a metal sheet over it with many tiny holes to still give some type of view. She could not
jump even if she wanted to. She saw the hospital parking lot which she considered a good view.

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She would be able to see her mother‟s car when she came to visit her in such a far place. That is
if she could find time off work and the car drove properly. As tears filled her tired brown eyes a
muffled voice came through the speaker. It mentioned something about a group meeting of some
sort for the girls. She slowly eased her way out of the heavy door in her room. She came last in
line on the wall. She could tell she was the youngest and obviously the smallest. They all entered
a room with a long table and chairs like the one she had in her room. All of the girls stared at
Leah as she sat down. This made her extremely uncomfortable. The nurse who snapped the
picture of her glided in. Leah was introduced first by the nurse. She heard comments on how
pretty and tiny she was. They all settled down. A pale brunette started off with a story of how her
stepfather pointed a gun to her head to rape her when she was little. Well now she knew what
type of support group it was. She heard other stories from around the table. When it came to her
she had no story. She was a virgin. That brightened the room from its somber mood. They told
her to stay that way. None of them had ever had that option. The nurse left the room for a while.
The girls asked questions her age, school, and if she was really a virgin. Then one dark girl with
thick, shaped eyebrows acknowledged the fact that Leah resided in the room of her old
girlfriend. Then the teenage girl who opened up the meeting said something smart to the other
girl. From what the 13 year old heard the two both adored whoever this girl was. The argument
ended with “Whoever gets out first”. Leah could not wrap her mind around the point of bickering
over someone who wasn‟t there, let alone someone who was a mental patient in the same
hospital as you. The girl could easily be with another while these two were competing over here
in a mental institution. She finally let that thought past.
“Time for bed girls”. Everyone filed into their rooms. Leah had to take a long journey to
her room on the end. She sat on her bed. Someone turned off the light. She really did not care

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who at this point. She glared out the window. She could not see the moon. She laid under her
thin white sheets, took a deep breath, and thought and thought and thought until she felt her
heavy eyelids close. Darkness yet again. Her eyes suddenly popped open. She noticed it was
early morning, but too early for the first light of the day. The time of day was not what her young
eyes were fixed on. They were focused on the slightly opened door to her room. A man stood
there. She must have frightened the chubby white man because he jumped. She did not care.
Why would he be in her room? Then she realized where she was. They check on the patients
during the night. He left as quickly as he came with a shaky, embarrassed smile. A deep sigh
filled the shadowy room. She did not fall back to sleep. She just watched as the room filled with
the light of the early morning. Then she heard a muffled voice telling the boys and girls to get
ready to come out. Morning already.