Chapter 15
The day was spitefully happy. The sun shined high and bright in the cerulean colored sky. The warm light glistened off the green of the trees the quivered softly in the breeze. Taylor was not surprised at the beauty of the day. In a storybook world it may have been dark and cool and pouring rain, but this was real life. The weather does not correspond to the feelings in your heart.
Today he had been released from the hospital. It was the first time in days he had been outside. Not that he was outside very long. His parents and his doctor dragged him down long empty corridors in the basement into a partially open garage. As they stepped into the tower of cement and steel Taylor felt the wind caress his cheek and for that instant he remember what it felt like to be happy. His father than opened the door of an unfamiliar red sports car and told him to get in the back. The windows were heavily tinted, almost painted black, so that when all the doors were shut it was impossible to see through with a bare eye or even a bare flashbulb. No one wanted Taylor exposed to the blinding glare of the media today; that is why they put him in this ridiculously conspicuous vehicle, and that is why is father turned up the loudest, most obnoxious radio station on the dial; To blend in by being totally visible.
It had worked. Not a soul approached the blood red car as it sped out of the parking lot. All eyes were on a hunter green van with mostly tinted windows seventy-five or so feet behind the car carrying Taylor. The van was a clever decoy, complete with a young, flaxen-haired male passenger who hid his face behind a magazine until the red car was out of sight. Flashbulbs went off all around the green van until the boy rolled down a window and stuck his head out and with a smile asked the reporters who they were looking for, and the reporters went back and resumed their positions.
By the time word reached reporters that Taylor was gone he was standing, black duffel bag in hand beside his father at the admissions desk of The Kennedy Institute for Psychological and Physiological Rehabilitation.
�This is your room. You won�t have any roommates or anything so you will have as much privacy as the law allows.� the forty-something nurse explained to Taylor with a smile, �Today you do not have to accomplish anything, but settling in; put your clothes away, put your own sheets on the bed, if you so desire, make it feel as much like your room as you want. Dinner is at six, we encourage you to eat in the dinning room, but we do not demand it, in all cases. Unfortunately because eating-habits are one of the reasons you are here, you will have to eat in the dinning room. After dinner you are not scheduled for anything, but that may change, and if it does I will let you know. Any questions?�
Taylor swallowed; his throat felt coarse, like sandpaper, �Am I going to have to see a doctor while I am here?�
�Yes, but all of that will start tomorrow. You�ll be seeing Dr. Kennedy, one of our psychiatrists and Dr. Turner, a specialist who deals with many patients recovering from an eating disorder.�
�Is Dr. Kennedy, the Dr. Kennedy, the one who started this place?�
�No,� she smiled, �That Dr. Kennedy is long dead. Your Dr. Kennedy is his great-grandson.�
�Oh��
�Will that be all?�
�Yes, um, thank you.�
With that she was gone, leaving Taylor alone in the solemn room. He looked around at the starch white walls, and the starch white sheets, and the starch white curtains and he felt like he was trapped inside a giant snowdrift. He shivered. He wanted to change the room and make it a place he could live, but he knew that any change he made would be looked at as if it were a window into him. Taylor wanted to cry. Everything was so cold and confusing. Than he realized that he was the one making it confusing, and simply changing the sheets on his bed meant nothing.
He yanked the white sheets from the bed and the white curtains from the window and replaced them with the blue flannel ones that his mother had brought from his room. Of course they were not the same sheets that were on the bed the last time he was in his room; the sheets he almost died on, but they were familiar and warm just the same. He silently put his neatly folded clothes into the drawers of the dresser that stood up against the wall and his cloth covered journals and other books into a nightstand drawer. Reluctantly he put a framed picture of him and Dawn on top of the dresser beside a picture of his family and his other friends. Those pictures were from a smiling time, happy time; a time he needed to recreate if he ever hoped to leave this place.
At six o�clock on the dot the same nurse who brought Taylor into his room that afternoon came to bring him to dinner. In silence they walked down a white corridor to a mildly noisy room. When she opened the great heavy door, no one turned to look at Taylor and that made him glad. He did not want to be looked at, but that did not stop him from looking at everyone else. The room was incredibly diverse, filled with men and women of all ages and races. Some spoke to the people around them, others sat alone saying nothing. Some looked rather insane, one woman sat quietly talking to herself, and another man burst into fits of laughter suddenly, even though nothing around him was funny, but most of the people looked just like everyone else.
Taylor took a seat at a table in the farthest corner of the room. No one was sitting in the vicinity of the table and that made it appealing. This would be the first time in a long time he would actually have to eat, and he did not particularly feel like having an audience.
He saw a young, dark-haired man approaching him and he drew back in his chair. Men of that caliber were all too familiar. This man only noted Taylor�s expression of wide-eyed terror and left a tray of the edge of the table. Taylor pulled the orange, plastic, fast food restaurant type tray toward him, staring at the chicken sandwich, salad and apple sauce as if it were poison.
The chair across from him slid out from its place and he looked up. A young girl about his age stood before him with her hand on the back of the chair. She had long dark brown hair, deep green eyes that were cautious, but happy, as if they had only recently learned how to smile, and skin that rivaled the alabaster coloring of the walls. Her wrists were bandaged, as was her left elbow. Her neck had a single bruise that went all the way around until covered by her hair. She was beautiful; there was no denying that, but the casual way she displayed her bruises and bandages made her more alluring.
�Anyone sitting here?� she asked in a soft, raspy voice.
Taylor shook his head and she sat down. No one said a word. She poked her salad with a fork picking out the pieces of tomato until they all rested on the edge of her plate. She looked up at Taylor, who had not touched anything on his plate and asked, �Anorexic?�
Taylor looked up, �Excuse me?�
�Are you anorexic?�
�No.�
�Oh,� she said glancing down a moment, �I didn�t mean to pry. I just noticed you weren�t eating, and that you�re on the thin side, and I�ve had lots of anorexic friends�but most of them are dead.�
�Oh, well I�m not anorexic�I�m�uh� the word stalled on Taylor�s tongue, �I�m bulimic.�
�I�ve known a few of them too.�
�Dead?�
�All, but one.�
�Wow.�
Another span of silence passed before she spoke, �I�m manic-depressive.�
�I�m Taylor, nice to meet you.�
�You�re funny kid,� she smiled, �My name is Lee. You new here?�
�Yeah, I just came this afternoon.�
�Planning on staying long?�
He sighed, �I don�t know��
Lee did not know to respond to him. She knew it was dangerous to get close to people too fast. Especially people here. Luckily a male nurse in jade green scrubs approached the table, canceling out any awkwardness that was building between them.
�Lee, Dr. Klein needs to see you.�
�Okay, be there in a second,� she said turning to Taylor, �It was nice meeting you. Maybe I�ll see you around.�
�Yeah, maybe.�
�Can I make a suggestion?� she asked softly.
�Sure.�
�You better eat, because you aren�t going to be happy if you don�t.�
Taylor lay awake in bed that night staring at the ceiling. Today had not been terrible. He was not sure he liked this place, or if he was supposed to like this place. He was not sure what he was supposed to feel, or if he was supposed to feel anything at all. He was frightened and he was not sure what scared him. It was a long road that would lead him back to sanity and he didn�t remember the way. This place was supposed to be his map, guiding him back to the place where he left himself behind, but he was the only one who could take the first step. How was he supposed to learn to walk this road again when he couldn�t even crawl?