Who: Sally and Icy What: Introspective thoughts, trying to make sense of new situations When: Early evening, Sunday Where: Grounds of the Asylum Warnings: None? Maybe?
It wasn’t that Sally was completely naive. She had known that taking the job at Roanoke would be different from the life she had known previously, a challenge. Not like that was particularly difficult given the fact she had more or less been locked away for most of her life beyond doing errands or when she upped the doctor’s dosage of medicine so that she could slip out for a few hours. But that wasn’t an option here. Because each patient had different needs and it wasn’t as if they would abuse her the way she had been at home. At least, she didn’t think they would? Hopefully they wouldn’t? Not that it would be a new experience but still, she’d prefer not being attacked for no real reason.
Either way, she was more than slightly overwhelmed. While Sally had always wanted a chance to get out and see the world, to interact with people, this... wasn’t really what she had meant. It was good work, and the patients needed help, she was more than aware of that fact. But at the same time, Sally was only twenty four and had never gotten a chance to see what all the world had to offer. She’d had glimpses but never anything concrete.
Sighing in frustration, the red headed nurse leaned against a tree on the grounds of the asylum. The temperature had been moderate as of late, for which Sally was thankful. Nature always had a calming effect on her and given how highly stressed she already found herself, not being able to ground herself could have ended badly. Sally didn’t exactly have the best track record of talking to people on a personal level. She was impatient and restless at times, like now. And she wouldn’t know how to respond and she was pretty certain that voicing these thoughts to someone else on staff could end badly because then she could lose her job and she didn’t have that many options and she didn’t even have anything from when Doctor Feinstein had died.
Twisting some hair between her fingers, the twenty four year old gazed up to the main building where the offices were. The general principle of the asylum was a good one, there were freedoms in their own way. But the patients knew they were still stuck and that was the problem. Even with having the gym and art room, the cottages for the non-violent patients, they were still patients and still institutionalized. Even the ones who weren’t all that lucid were aware of that particular fact. Some would adjust, but would all of them? Would Sally? Times like this, she missed him, Jack, the boy from across the way, the one who she could talk to even if he never noticed her the way she had wanted him to. Because despite that fact, he would listen.
“Ugh, stop missing the past, Sally. It won’t do you any good.”
Frustrated with herself, Sally dropped the twisted strands of hair from her grasp and closed her eyes, head resting against the trunk of the tree. It hadn’t even been a week. She needed to have more faith in herself. She knew that, and she knew Jack would tell her the same, tell her she always had a way of seeing things that no one else did. Well, that was all well and good, but it would help if she could see it for herself. Could see what she was supposed to see to help her figure out her place within all of this. Figure out how to help people who didn’t want help, who didn’t think they needed it.