My First Night

When I left BPI it was with the understanding that I would be going to Western Academy in one week. Not really something that I was looking forward to, but it was, inevitable.

When we pulled up my heart stopped. The place looked huge from the outside. I knew I did not want to be there.

My mother climbed out of the car and cheerfully announced that we had arrived. I shot daggers at her and resisted the urge to point out that I was young, not stupid.

I didn’t notice the grounds so much as I noticed the lone house next to my new home. It was a farm house and I closed my eyes and for a moment I pretended that I was going in there to a warm loving family that actually wanted me.

The feel of my mother’s hand gripping my arm pulled me out of the first fantasy I had about the house next door, but it would not be the last.

She tugged on me and I tried hard not to, to be brave, but my eyes welled up with tears and I lowered my head so that my long hair slipped down into my face, creating a shield between me and the world I was about to enter.

As I trudged along the side walk, I felt like I was a convict walking down the corridor to the gas chamber. I felt deep in the pit of my stomach that this was going to change my life forever.

We stepped through the doors and was greeted by John. He was the one in charge of everything and he took us into his office. It was a small room and on one side of the plain brown desk there was his chair, on the other, there were two more chairs where we were directed to sit.

I later learned that John was an alcoholic. He would leave work and go to the pub in town. This was a terribly small town and everyone knew that if he was needed after hours, he could be found there at the bar.

He was an older man, if I had to guess, I would have said he was in his fifties. However, I have learned that alcoholics tend to look far beyond their years so his true age is a mystery. He was short and scrawny in physical size. The man had one of the most commanding presences I have ever come across. You know when he spoke, you better shut your lips and listen.

He went over the rules and the system and assured my mother that I would be well taken care of. Years later I would learn that this was just a formality and it didn’t matter at that point whether or not my mother felt I was safe there. She had already turned over custody of me to the state.

I was lead up to my room and I was happy to see on my way there that my old roommate from BPI had also arrived at Western Academy. A short lived happiness I can assure you, but at the time, I thought that I had an ally already waiting for me.

My room was the middle room, and, the smallest of all the rooms. I was introduced to a young lady named Krista who was going to be my roommate.

I wish I could remember all of the names of the students who where there when I arrived, but, there were literally hundreds in the years I spent there and often it blends together in my mind.

Krista was probably one of the most beautiful girls I had ever seen in my life. She hand long blonde hair and perfectly straight teeth. She dressed in long flowing gowns and whenever she moved she jingled from the throng of colored metal bracelets that dangled from her wrist. She was on honors working towards graduate status.

My mother left soon after and I stood in the window of my new room just watching her go. I would like to say that I got used to my mother’s abandonment, her rejection of me, but to this day it is not something I have ever been able to let go of. It leaves me full of self doubt, asking myself what it was about me that was so unlovable to her. I was not an only child, but, at this point, I was the only one she had given away. It also left me wondering how anyone would ever be able to love me if I was so bad that my own mother could not love me. Aren’t mothers supposed to love their children no matter what they do?

That night I climbed into my bed, and lay there whispering in the dark with Krista. She told me about the staff members. Then she began to tell me about herself. She was a white witch she said, she had a ouija board and could speak to the dead. She told me how the building used to be a church and that they shut it down because several people were killed there.

I never did learn if that was true or not. My adult mind tells me that it was done to scare me, but, then again, later down the line when I began to make friends with the kids that lived in town; I learned that they told the same stories.

If it was designed to scare me, it worked. I was scared to death and my ears strained for the sound of any angry ghosts that might be after me. Krista had a soft and soothing voice and I was nearly lulled to sleep when I heard the first thump. It was coming from the wall directly next to my bed and I gritted my teeth. My skin tingled and as always when I feel any kind of intense emotion, my ears began a slow buzzing in them.

The tears fell and a suffocating feeling came over me but I was not going to utter a single word of fear. Krista chattered on as if she had heard nothing.

My first night at a place that would become the first home I had ever had was spent with tears streaming down my face. Something that would become common place within my life, I learned how to cry in silence. Some times I still do.