Previously in Finding Chance...

"Well, Gin and I have been talking and we have the room at our house and want you to come stay with us when you get out." She said smiling down at me.

"Are you serious?" I asked.

I was excited. I had been worried about where I was going to stay once I got out of the hospital and now I knew where I would be.

"Yes. I make good money here and Gin makes pretty good money at her job and we both want us to come stay with us."

"Why do I have to go to Panorama?" I asked. "I won't try it again."

"The doctor ordered it. Its out of my hands, but I am going to ride there with you and make sure you get settled in ok. Is that fine."

"Yea." I replied. "How long will I be there?"

"I don't know Mitch. It could be twenty four hours at the least as long as eleven months. Just remember you have friends like Hannah and Nick that love you and you have your two lesbian mommies to come home to when you get released."

I smiled and let out a small laugh.

"Thank you." I replied.

She looked down at me smiled and then kissed my forehead.

 

Chapter Seven- Panorama

 

Mitch's viewpoint...

 

We left the hospital and went down a long old road that was lined with trees. We finally stopped when we were in front of a long brick building. The front of the building looked nice and was relaxing with the landscaping in front of it. I followed Liz and the driver that had transported us there.

After sitting in a little room with a lady named Jamie, and answering question after question. We were finished or so I thought.

"Ok by the information that you have provided we want to take Mitch in to b a part of our therapeutic program." She said to Liz.

"No what?" I asked.

I just wanted to get this over with and get back out there so I could talk to Chance. He was all that I could think of. I just wanted him there holding me and telling me that everything was going to be ok and that he was sorry and would never hurt me.

"Well we talk you back to the unit and the nurse will do a mental assessment of you and then the physician will be in to see you this afternoon or tomorrow morning." She exclaimed.

She stood up from the desk and looked at Liz and myself. "If you two will follow me I will lead you to the unit where Mitch will be staying. As I explained before we specialize in child and adolescent treatment. Mitch will be on the acute adolescent unit which is usually twenty four hours to one week anything after that will be on the unit next door."

"I don't wana do this." I told her. "I can't. I just want to get out of here and go see Chance.

Tears started to form in my eyes.

Liz reached over and hugged me. "Everything will be ok sweetie. I'll come and visit you and so will Nick and Hannah. Come on and lets get you settled in."

She stood up, grabbing my hand. I looked up at her, not wanting to go. I reluctantly got up and followed the Jamie and Liz.

Jamie led us out the door and into the front lobby. I saw the door. It was so close. I could make a run for it.

Jamie stuck her key in the door and unlocked it. She led us unto a hallway and turned to her left. I saw a large window and looked out it. Wanting to get out of there so bad.

She stuck her key in the door and unlocked it and we went inside. The door slammed shut loudly behind us. She stopped at a door that was labeled conference room. She unlocked it and ushered us in.

"I'm going to go get Kristy the nurse on this unit and she will do the nursing assessment." She said as she turned around and left.

Liz and I both sat down on a couch.

"I'm scared. Everything is locked here. I feel like I'm in prison. I don't want to be here. Why can't I just get out of here and go talk to Chance? I know I can make everything better if I can just talk to him." I began to sob.

"This is all for the best Mitch." Liz told me.

The door to the room opened and a lady stepped in. She looked tough almost scary. She had on a pair of red scrubs. Her dark brown hair was pulled up in a pony tail and she had these piercing green eyes that looked right at me.

"Hi, I'm Kristy and I'm the unit charge nurse and I'm going to do Mitch's nursing assessment."

She closed the door and walked over to a chair and sat down.

"Do you have any questions sweetie before we get started?" She asked. "I know you have been through a lot. I just want you to know that you can talk to me and if you don't feel comfortable talking to me you can talk to one of the Psych Techs."

She smiled at me.

I was wrong when I first saw her. She had a very warming presence about her. Very motherly.

The assessment didn't take as long as the first one. We were done in about thirty minutes.

"We are done," Kristy looked at Liz. "You are free to go." She looked at me. "Don't be alarmed but we as precautions, to make sure no sort of contraband is brought in, have to do a strip search so don't get scared."

I nodded my head, not saying a word.

Kristy and Liz both stood up.

"Go with Kristy and she'll take care of you." Liz prompted.

I hesitantly got up from my chair. I hugged Liz and told her thanks for everything that she had done for me. With this she left standing at the door.

Kristy walked over to the door took a key out of her pocket and unlocked the door, letting Liz out.

Kristy led me into an area that was filled with white plastic chairs that looked very uncomfortable. There was a television hanging up on the wall and was surrounded by plexy glass.

She walked over behind the nurse's station and stuck her head in the door.

"Can you send Jake over to help Eric with a search?" I heard her ask someone and then close the door. She then walked over to where a young guy and woman were sitting.

The guy was African-American, very light complexion. He had short almost shaved black hair and glasses. He was wearing a pair of dark blue scrubs and looked way too young to be working there.

The girl that he was sitting next too had dark brown hair very small frame.

They both looked at me and smiled.

"That's Eric and Chastity. They are the psych techs on this unit and are great people. You can talk to any of us."

I nodded my head.

The door behind the nurse's station opened. A guy came from the unit next door.

He was tall very well built. Probably about six foot even and two hundred pounds of what looked like solid muscle.

He walked over to Eric. "You ready?"

Eric nodded his head, got up from his chair and walked over to me. "Hi, I'm Eric and this is Jake. We gotta do a strip search of ya. Not my favorite part about this job."

I nodded my head.

Eric looked over to a marker board hanging on the wall behind the nurse's station. "It looks like you are gona be in room 16."

They led me down a long hallway lined with doors to everyone else's rooms. They stopped when they got to the last door on the right.

Eric reached into his pocket and took out a key and unlocked the door. He opened it and motioned for me to go inside. He and Jake followed behind me.

Jake closed the door.

"Can you step in to the bathroom bud?"

I nodded my head and walked into the bathroom. I saw Eric toss the blanket off my bed to Jake.

Jake held the blanket up to the doorway. "We try to do this giving you as much privacy as possible. I'm going to ask you to send each piece of clothing over and Eric has to check it inside and out and I will be looking for scars and bruises."

I nodded my head.

"Just pass you shirt over." He instructed.

I took my shirt off and tossed it over the blanket.

"Do you have any scratches or bruises?" Jake asked me.

I shook my head and turned around. Eric tossed my shirt back over the blanket and I caught it putting and put it back on. I continued this process until each piece of my clothing was searched and I had gotten dressed.

I immediately ran out of the bathroom and fell down on the bed and started balling my eyes out. I didn't care if they were there and watching me. I just wanted the pain to be over.

"You uh wana talk to him?" I heard Jake asked Eric.

I felt one of them put a hand on my shoulder. I raised up to see who it was. Eric had sat down on the bed next to me, Jake standing there at the door the whole time.

"Dude, everything is going to be ok." Eric told me trying to sound all hip and cool using the word dude.

I just shook my head over and over still sobbing. "No it won't. It hurts so bad."

I saw Jake look at Eric. "Tell him."

Tell me what? I thought.

"So you are here because your boyfriend broke up with you and you tried to kill yourself?" Eric asked me.

I just nodded my head.

"I know how you feel." He told me.

"No you don't." I sobbed. "No one does."

"I was in your shoes not too long. I was dumped by my boyfriend and of all days on out one year anniversary. I didn't feel like I could talk to anyone because my family hadn't exactly come to terms that I was gay so I just tried to end the pain. I took a bottle of pills, trying to end my life. I ended up here believe it or not over on the adult unit. We got back together thought."

"Really?" I asked.

"Yeah. There's hope for you. Just get yourself better."

"Thank you for sharing that with me." I told him. "I can talk to you if I need. Right?

"Sure can. Now lets get you out of your room. That's one of the rules can't be in your room during the day and the doors all have to be locked during the day."

"Ok."

I got out of bed and followed them out the door.

 

Over the next few days I got to know a few of the other patients there. There were two others there for depression like myself. One was a girl named Misty who was there because she had been cutting. The other was a guy named Trent who had tried to kill himself.

Pretty much everyone else there was there for behavioral problems. It was obvious at times too. The girls were always gossiping and plotting things behind everyone's backs. The rest of the guys just didn't say a whole lot, but when they did all hell would break loose.

We had all just made it back from dinner on my second day there. We were sitting in the day area watching television before our next group session started.

The chairs were arranged in a nice little square and some people were sitting directly across from each other. Two girls that were always arguing finally had enough.

"Quit looking at me." Jill a red head told Anya who was sitting directly across the room.

"I don't have to." Anya kept looking at her.

Jill stood up from her chair. "I said quit looking at me bitch!"

She ran over to Anya and latched onto her hair.

Everyone was yelling. I just backed away and stood in a corner watching. I didn't want to get into the middle of their drama.

Brian the nurse finally caught onto what was going on and came running behind the nurse desk.

One thing I had noticed was that the staff during the evening was no where near as good as Kristy, Eric, and Chastity were during the day. This sort of stuff always happened during the evening and it usually resulted in someone getting a shot of something in the butt to calm them down.

"Get down the hall!" Brian shouted.

Most of all followed and went down the hallway to get out of harms way.

After this, the rest of the evening was uneventful. Tired and sad still filling lost and hopeless I went to bed the first chance I got. I lay there just letting my thoughts race a million miles an hour.

All I could think of was Chance and how I wanted to talk to him. Tell him that I wasn't mad at him and I loved him. That is the last thing I remember.

The day was long and boring. We had to get up by seven, shower have a group and then breakfast and then school. I however had been taken out of school early because my therapist came and got me for our first therapy session.

There I sat in my therapist Mary's office for the first time not knowing what to really say.

"How about we start with why you are here Mitch?" She suggested.

"I tried to kill myself its as simple as that."

"Would you try it again?" She asked.

I was not stupid. I knew that I would try it again if when I got out and Chance didn't want to have anything to do with me. I would succeed next time. They of course didn't have to know this, so I lied.

"No. That was stupid of me." I lied.

"What about your family?" She asked.

"I have no family. My mom and sister are sluts and I haven't seen them in four years and I don't know who my dad is. I spent the last four years living with Chance and his mom and then she found out we were together she kicked us out. He said that he wasn't gay and threw all my stuff outside so I tried to end all he pain.

"Did you have a good childhood?" Mary asked inquisitively,

I shook my head. "I was home by myself most of the time growing up. My mom and sister would go out at night, leaving me home to fend for myself which is what I did."

The session kept going like this. She would ask me a question; I would try to answer it best I could because I wanted to get out of there. I didn't want to feel like a prisoner anymore. I didn't want to e like some of the other people next door that had been there for several months.

"Well, I am going to end out session for today." She told me.

I nodded my head.

She walked me back to the unit seeing how I couldn't get back there myself because everything was locked.

The unit was quiet. Everyone must have still been in school. I glanced behind the desk looking for Kristy who had become my favorite nurse. I saw a name on the marker board. It was a new one in room 14.

Chance. Was what was written up there. No last name because we didn't use them because of the HIPPA law.

I could see Kristy in the back office making some copies on the copier. I would just wait out there for her until she got back out and see if it was the person I thought it was.

"You have any questions about anything?" I heard Eric's voice from down the hallway.

"No." I heard a very familiar male voice reply.

I could hear them getting closer and closer to the day area. When Jake, Eric and the new patient got into the day area. I just stared.

I was happy and sad at the same time.

I was happy that the love of my life was standing there right in front of me. I was sad because I didn't know why he was here.

"Mitch?" He asked.

"Chance. What are you doing here?"

We just stood there staring at each other, not really knowing what to say.

To be continued...

I hope you have enjoyed this chapter of Finding Chance even with a new writer. Please visit the website http://sites.google.com/site/sharedillusionsproject/ stories will be posted on here sooner than on nifty. Thank you and continue reading

Richey