By Anna Starkey
The First Day
The lounge is spacious and sterile. A nurse station with glass walls sits in the corner. I told a girl they look like zoo animals in a cage. She told me they get to go home at the end of the day.
The chimpanzees in the St. Louis Zoo communicate with visitors in an eerily human-like way. One that always left me with a combination of pity and fear. I would walk by quickly. If I didn’t see them, I could pretend they weren’t there, forced into makeshift habitats. There, I was in a habitat of my own. Rather than tall trees and rope courses, mine was made of easily sanitizable furniture and green walls that would have been better painted white. The chimpanzees know they are captives despite the greatest efforts of their caretakers, and I knew that was a hospital whether the nurses wore scrubs or not.
Daily Walks
The unseasonably warm air of February felt like god-may-be-real after the long weeks with no windows to dream out of. A walk of roughly one mile, pace set by the nurse, don’t fall behind, don’t walk ahead. Our steps would quickly fall in time as we marched to the same beat. Who would’ve thought freedom would be so ordered?
Locals would see us walking in groups and know we were the sick kids from down the road. Their eyes would first scan the group in an attempt to catch a glimpse of a walking zombie in daylight. Half-dead half-alive with gray skin and sharp teeth. When I would stare back, they’d look away and for some reason I’d feel guilty. If I am a chimp, then I should be more entertaining. But all I could do was stare back with the dead eyes they were looking for and they would turn away because it is all too human. I don’t blame them.
Sneaking Out
The Ronald Mcdonald House looked like a church-camp cabin and smelt like an old person’s home. Each room adorned with two twin beds and a bathroom. The communal kitchen encourages parents of sick kids to socialize. Children with terminal illnesses, wheelchair bound, most under the age of five. I could walk, talk, and live, a privilege these kids might have never had. But I couldn’t eat.
My best friend, Betül, and I were next door neighbors. We were the two eighteen-year-olds at the Adolescent Psych Ward and now we were the two eighteen-year-olds at The Ronald Mcdonald House. She was the one who cut my hair and dyed it. We pierced each other’s ears the same night under the stars, at the top of the parking deck. My mom was shocked, but supportive. My psychiatrist diagnosed me with Bipolar.
One day, a Friday, we conspired with some of the other girls, Nadira, Carys, and Mollie. We all had an early release to eat dinner at our temporary homes. Betül and I called an Uber at 9 p.m.to the designated meeting spot. My mom thought we were going bowling, or at least that’s what I told her, but I knew she didn’t believe it. Betül’s mom didn’t ask where we were going. We arrived at an apartment which was rented by either Nadira or Carys, I’m still not sure which one. The car pulled up that would drive us tonight; Nadira met a guy who was either bored enough or desperate enough to sixth-wheel. I wasn’t sure where we were going, or if we were going anywhere at all. I was more interested in the three joints he promised.
That’s how we ended up squeezed in the backseat of a 2012 Honda Accord, speeding down the streets of St. Louis, with the second joint being passed around. When the guy asked how we knew each other we laughed. The smoke was a sigh of relief, inhaled with a burn, exhaled with a cough. Betül and I practically sat in the same seat as she squeezed my hand so tight that my fingers were losing circulation, the tips turning a pale white. The bass rattling the car and winding roads were too much for her. We looked out the window instead. Though it was a cool evening, the windows were rolled down and the air was fresh. We watched as this unfamiliar city passed by in a blur. The streetlights looked like stars when I squinted. Despite the anxiety boiling in my stomach, I smiled. For the first time in months, I felt normal. I felt free.