behind her, and walking in the opposite direction.

I have nothing better to do than to follow.

* * *

I end up in a sunny room where people are sitting down to eat breakfast. Mine ends up being a bowl of

shitty oatmeal and a banana. I never eat bananas, and I hate oatmeal. But the nurse (or whatever the hell

she is) who’s there tells me that I’ve been eating it since I got here. I try to tell her that I don’t even

know where “here” is or how long I’ve been here, but she just smiles at me and walks away.

She comes back after about 20 minutes to check on me and looks at my still full bowl and uneaten

banana. She frowns a little and writes something on a clipboard she’s carrying, then points me in the

direction of where other people are putting their trays.

* * *

I’m curled up on the floor of my room, shivering and sweating, and feeling like my insides are trying to

crawl out. Like my skin is too small for my body. Like I need something to make it better. And if I don’t

get it, my skin is going to split right from the top of my head all the way down my spine. And then my

skull will split open. And even then, it still won’t be enough to make this feeling go away. My face is

wet, and I can’t tell if it’s from the sweat or the tears that I can’t seem to stop. I think it’s about 3 in the

morning, and even though I know someone has to be out there, no one comes when I scream. There’s

only the hollow echo of my own voice.

I look up at the door (the one that was locked when I tried to open it a few hours ago, the one that I

pounded on until I could barely feel my hands any more), just in time to see someone peer in to check

on me. Their face is framed in that little window that looks out into the hallway, and for a second I think

that maybe they’ve finally come to help me. To finally give me something that will make me stop

shaking and puking and feeling like I’m going to die.

But the face is gone almost instantly, and I’m left alone again. I try going to the door, crawling on

my hands and knees, but I’m shaking so badly that I can only make it halfway there. I curl up on my

side, still crying, still screaming, still begging for someone to come help me.

But no one does.

* * *

After breakfast, we’re herded into a line in front of a single window in the hallway. When I get up to it,

there’s a guy sitting there with a tray of cups and a computer printout.

“Wrist,” he says to me, like I’m supposed to understand what he’s talking about. He’s waiting for me

to respond, but I can’t seem to remember the right answer, if I ever even knew it. “Wrist?” he says again

and points at me. I look down, trying to figure out what he’s pointing at, and see my wrist that has the

bracelet on it.

Oh.

I stick my hand out towards him, and he reads something off the bracelet. With a nod, he grabs one

of the cups and holds it out for me. There’re a couple of pills rolling around in the bottom of it, and I

just stare at them until he holds out a larger cup, this one filled with water. He watches as I take it too,

then just waits, staring at me.

I realize he’s waiting for me to take them, so I tip them all into my mouth and use the water to wash

them down. When I’m done, he asks me to open my mouth and looks inside, apparently making sure

I’ve taken them all.

I feel like I’m in some bizarre new dimension, and I still can’t figure out how I got here.

* * *

My first meeting with “Doc” is that afternoon. Or at least the first meeting with her that I remember.

Another nurse comes to get me around 2 in the afternoon, and leads me to a door that looks like every

other door here, only this one doesn’t have a window in it. The nurse just tells me to go in, so I push the

door open a little, not quite expecting what I see.

The room is filled with books, a couch, some chairs, stereotypical shrink’s office. Which is what this

is, I guess. There’s a woman sitting behind a big desk, typing on a computer, which she stops when I

poke my head in. She’d be hot if she weren’t a few years past that, but she’s still not bad. She’s got dark

blonde hair that’s pulled up, and she’s wearing a white coat that I guess means she’s one of the people in

charge here.

“Nick,” she smiles a little when she sees me, “come on in. We’ll see how you’re doing today.” Like

everyone else, she talks to me like I should know who she is. Like she knows who I am.

* * *

“Yes, Mrs. Bancroft, we’ll take good care of him. See if we can’t get him back on the right track.”

There’s a long line of hard plastic chairs along one wall, and I’m sitting in one about halfway along.

My mom is talking to this woman that I can’t see very well because she’s right in front of one of the

huge windows, and the sunlight makes it nearly impossible to look at her. It’s coming through and

reflecting off her hair, and I try to see how long I can stare at the way it turns all shiny and sort of gold.

“Just fix it so that I don’t have to deal with this again, and I’ll be happy.” That’s my mom, her voice

is familiar enough that I know it without even looking over. I hear her shoes clicking on the hard floor

as she walks away.

The woman still standing next to me sighs, and I hear her talking before I realize she’s talking to me.

“Let’s get you to your room then, Nick.” I look up at her again and end up staring into the sun.

“Okay.”

* * *

I sit on Doc’s couch as she tries to fill me in on some of the stuff I don’t remember. Stuff like how long

I’ve been here (17 days), that I was at County Hospital before this (3 days), that I’ve been on some

serious meds since then (because of my “suicide attempt”), but not until after my body went through a

massive withdrawal period (from what, no one’s exactly certain, even me), that I’ll be here for at least a

month (possibly more), and that Doc’s reduced my dosage of meds now because we need to talk about

some stuff (and the meds make me too spaced out to do much more than sit and stare at people like a

giant creep).

She finishes what she has to say and waits for me to start talking, but I don’t want to. So we sit there

for nearly 10 minutes without either of us saying anything. The truth is, I don’t really feel like talking to

her. I feel like yelling. Shouting at the top of my lungs for her to let me out of here. But I just don’t have

the energy for it. She seems fine with that though, so we just sit in silence.

I’m not used to silence. I’ve avoided it in the past. It’s kind of hard to escape here though. My mind

wanders as I stare at her wall, and for the first time in a long time I’m sober enough to follow it.

Granted, I don’t really like where my thoughts take me, but there’s nothing here that I can use to escape

them.

I look up a few times and nearly say something. Each time Doc looks at me and raises her eyebrows,

but each time I just shake my head and go back to thinking.

* * *

When we’re done, Doc sends me back out into a main area where people are sitting and doing things

like putting puzzles together and working on some sort of craft project, I guess. I don’t have anything

better to do, so I sort of wander around the room, watching them. Some of them look up when I walk

by, but most of them ignore me. Like they’re already used to me. I wonder if I’ll ever catch up with

everything I can’t remember, or if I’ve lost that time forever.

I look at the tables they’re all sitting at, the different colored paper, the glue, the bits of glitter and

red and green. I look around the room and notice some lonely looking paper chains already hanging