This Psych Ward is Driving Me Crazy

Dr. Berg held the coin between his thumb and forefinger like he had held dozens or maybe hundreds before this. There was no surefire way to tell whether or not a patient would do well after they graduated the treatment program but, if progress during their stay was any indicator of success, Zoey was going to shine out there in the real world.
"Is this anyone's first time participating in a coin out?" Dr. Berg asked. A few hands were raised in the circle of about twenty clients.
"When it's time for one of our clients to leave us, we like to end things on a positive note and let them know that we wish them the best. The coin will go around and you'll all have a chance to tell Zoey about the progress we've seen." Dr. Berg passes the coin to Kim in the chair next to him. "We'll start to my left."
Kim turned the coin over in her hand, looking across the circle. Zoey had on the wide smile that had become as much a part of her as the freckles scattered under her wide set blue eyes. 
"I'm gonna miss having you around, Schitz." Kim started. Dr. Berg cut in.
"Let's stay away from the nicknames."
A few clients stifled giggles. Kim nodded.
"When you first came in, you were a space cadet." Still more giggles came from the circle. "I mean, you were really out there, talking to yourself all the time and stuff. Then you started to wake up. I don't know what changed but you started talking in group and stuff, it was nice."
Kim went on about the progress she had seen. She spoke eloquently but was a bit long-winded. Zoey didn't mind, though. She liked hearing the compliments even if they came with reminders of her mindstate when she came into treatment from the psych ward.
 She still heard voices every once in awhile but it wasn't nearly as often as it had been. She wasn't even afraid that Dr. Berg would lobotomize her anymore. She had made some major breakthroughs here.
The coin passed from Kim to Terry then to Dan and Kristen and Frank. Everyone had good things to say. Mary told funny stories about how wild Zoey had been when she was admitted. It didn't make Zoey feel bad. Hearing about how she had acted reminded her of all the progress she had been making. The coin stopped at Jack.
"Zoey, you have a more exciting future than you've ever had before." Jack gave her a knowing smile. "This isn't goodbye. We'll be in touch as soon as I get out of treatment. Don't forget about me in the meantime."
Jack passed the coin on but Zoey hardly heard what the rest of the circle had to say. Her blue eyes kept bouncing back to Jack who sat smugly with a foot resting on the opposite knee. 
When the coin made it all the way around the circle, they chanted for Zoey to make a speech. Four weeks ago when she came in, speaking in front of everybody would have been terrifying. There was always the idea in the back of her head that something she said would be stupid but she didn't let it scare her anymore.
Aside from Jack, she wouldn't see another one of these people again so it didn't matter what they thought of what she said.
"You're all so sweet. Everything you guys said means a lot to me." It was the generic speech every client made as they were coined out. After nearly a month of passing a coin around several times a week, the words didn't have the same impact they once had.
"I've learned a lot about how to live with my condition from this place. I know now that no matter what people tell you you can or can't do, if you trust your heart and believe in yourself, you can do whatever you want." 
Dr. Berg's smile urged her on.
"We're all going to reach our dreams. Mental illness doesn't have to define us. We all deserve a fair shot at life. That's all I have to say."
The room broke into applause and Zoey beamed. It felt good to know her life was finally back on track. It had been a dark winter before treatment at Hopescapes.
A tech walked into the room pulling a wheeled suitcase. 
"Zoey, your rides' here whenever you're ready," he said.
Almost immediately, she was inundated with hugs and wishes of good luck. People made promises to call her as soon as they got out and told her she would be missed. Throughout the barrage of goodbyes, she kept her eyes on Jack who stood at the back of the room, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest.
When the room's affection had been spent, Zoey approached him for a hug. After an uncomfortable pause, he obliged. When their bodies met, he whispered "Wait for me," and as he pulled away, he smiled and held her shoulders.
"Don't have too much fun out there."
The tech drummed his fingers on the plastic handle of the suitcase.
"We've gotta get moving, Zoey."
She took the suitcase, gave one last wave to her friends and followed the tech to a white van idling in the parking lot.
Jack returned to his spot against the wall. Now that Zoey was gone, there was nobody here worth talking to. It was all the more reason to get the hell out of this place. He supposed that even if he had planned on staying, not having people to talk to wouldn't be the end of the world.
Jack didn't have the same social drive that other people seemed to have. Dr. Berg had called it "Antisocial Personality Disorder," but Jack just thought of it as logical. 
People needed nourishment, oxygen and shelter. People didn't need other people. Far from viewing it as a disorder, Jack felt that his predispositions were his greatest strength. The need for others was a vulnerability as far as he was concerned. He knew he didn't belong in a treatment center. He wasn't suicidal. He didn't hallucinate. He didn't have multiple personalities or manic episodes or month long crying spells.
As much as he didn't feel he fit in, Dr. Berg would hear none of it. This was the most maddening part of the treatment center. The head clinician, the one in charge of every big decision including Jack's discharge date, wouldn't listen to reason. Well, if they wouldn't free him, he would free himself and there was nothing the techs and counselors and doctors could do about it 
Finally, the clinical day had come to an end and the patients were ushed into white vans. This would be the last time Jack had to cram into a poorly air-conditioned van for the ride back to the residence. He wouldn't miss it. With some strategic shuffling in the line, he narrowly avoided a seat next to his roommate Felipe who rarely changed his clothes or took showers.
Before being assigned to Felipe's room, Jack had been convinced that his mother had been the worst possible individual with which to share a house. He had been mistaken. Felipe didn't nag half as much as dear old Mom but Mom didn't have full blown conversations with voices in her head in the middle of the night. 
Jack stared out of the van windows. He saw the Ft. Lauderdale skyline some distance from the highway. Why people starting building cities in the state of Florida was a mystery. It seemed like every bit of the state that wasn't a sandbox(and plenty of the state was a sandbox) was muddy, overgrown swampland.
Taller trees had trouble finding purchase in the sediment which allowed thick underbrush and crooked palms to cover every bit of unpopulated land. Everything was damp here. The constant humidity gave the entire state a dank, rotten smell. Between the moisture and the sand, it was hard to feel clean in Florida. Jack would be out of this godforsaken state as soon as he was able.
The treatment center residences felt like they were trying a little too hard to be exotic. The buildings were bungalows painted whimsical, pastel shades of blue and pink. Bamboo sprung up around uneven brick walkways.
It might have been relaxing had it not been for the eight foot tall privacy fence wrapping around the entire area. With the fence, it felt more like a compound than a vacation. An observant eye could see strategically placed cameras that served to fill in gaps between shifts of techs making rounds.
Everything was observed, documented and sent in a daily report to Dr. Berg. The only door with a lock was the tech office. Even the bathrooms couldn't be locked. Every half hour like clockwork techs made rounds to mark down locations and behaviors. Jack decided making a pass at the storage shed to get his suitcase would draw attention he didn't need.
The clients called the techs making round "Peekers." Nobody was sure where the name had come from. It had probably been passed down from client to client dating back years to when the treatment center had opened. The whole structure was very big-brotherish, especially for a center that catered to some clients with paranoid delusions of being watched.
When Jack was finally out of the van and back in his room, he surveyed his possessions. He decided he wouldn't need the suitcase even if he could get to it. It would only slow him down and he didn't want to have to wear any of the clothes again. They reminded him of being trapped. A new outfit would be a priority when he was free. A tech poked his head into the room.
"Time for meds, buddy,"
Jack shivered. He hated med time. He had told the doctor that he really didn't need any pills but the staff always seemed to think that if you were crazy enough to be in treatment, you were crazy enough for a handful of psychotropics.
Knowing better than to argue, Jack walked out from his room and followed the tech to the office where he waited his turn. Cait was outside. He didn't like being around all the other clients much but Cait was especially hard to bare.
She stared with dull eyes opened just wide enough so the white was visible all the way around her iris. Even when Jack acknowledged her with a polite nod and half smile her eyes bored into him. No matter how often she did this, it didn't get any less uncomfortable. With his head turned toward the tech office door,he still felt those two, dead pits focusing so intently on him he was sure they would leave a burn like the sun through a magnifying glass.
Thankfully, it was his turn to take his meds. Though he had reported no change in symptomatology to the ditz of a shrink that worked here, she still toyed with his cocktail every time he visited.
The plastic gallon bag that held his medicine swelled with orange and white bottles. It rattled like a rain stick as the tech set it on the desk. Jack opened the bag and sifted through the vials for the new pills that had been ordered. He swallowed them easily without water. He was confident that after being in treatment for a few weeks, he could get a hockey puck down his throat if they asked him to.
"Alligator Alley.," he said, enunciating the syllables. It was the treatment center code for "I didn't cheek my pills." The techs expected clients to say it clearly after their meds to ensure they weren't hiding under a tongue or nestled up next to the gum line. He thanked the techs for forcing him to take the pills and walked out of the office passed Cait to his room. 
Felipe paced with vigor from one side of the room to the other. He was always most active just before his meds kicked in. Once the drugs hit him, he would be out cold on his bed until dinner. Jack envied his ability to sleep through treatment. It was a talent that seemed so valuable it was almost worth the constant haze of psychosis Felipe lived in. 
Jack made for the bathroom and picked up his toothbrush, though he was so well trained at this point he hardly needed it. Just as he did after morning meds, noon meds and night time meds, he stuck it far enough into his throat to gag up the tablets and capsules he had gulped down not forty-five seconds earlier.
This was another part of treatment he wouldn't miss. His throat and gums ached from bile erosion. It wasn't that the pills were that bad. In truth, he hadn't kept any of them down long enough to know what they felt like. It was more the principle of it all. Taking the pills implied he needed them. Needing the pills implied he was crazy. Being crazy meant he belonged here with people like Cait and Felipe. The chemical force feeding made him feel like a goose being fattened for foie gras.
Felipe never seemed to notice the gagging that ran like clockwork in the bathroom of his temporary home. With the symphony of hallucinated sounds bounding around his skull, it was a wonder he heard anything else at all. He was bilingual pero the voices spoke strictly en Espanol. Felipe le gusta their company. Without the chatter, he would lose his lingua prima. Felipe no comprendí que ellos no hablaron antes de la medicina. No le gusto tomarlos la medicina pero la gente que trabajaran aquí gritan a él cuando no tomalos. Usualmente, antes de veinte minutos más o menos, la medicina empiece a trabajar y Felipe started to become cansada. El lay down in his cama y drifted off to sleep shortly thereafter.
Jack always felt calmer when his roommate had settled down for his afternoon nap. After group while he was shut away in his room was the only time he helt like he wasn't surrounded by the insane. They weren't bad people, he knew they couldn't help it.
At the same time, the people he spent his days with had been hand-selected from psych wards all over Florida specifically because they weren't fit to take care of themselves yet.
If they couldn't handle themselves, why was Jack expected to be able to handle them? Maybe he was being judgemental. It wasn't something he would have to worry about for long. There was only a few more hours of daylight until he could reclaim his freedom.