My Soul to Lose

  “I know, honey.” She leaned forward, frowning in serious concern. “That’s the problem. You could have seriously hurt yourself without meaning to. Without any idea what you were doing.”

  “No, I…” But I couldn’t really argue with that. If I could have stopped it, I would have. But a stint in Lakeside wasn’t going to make that any better.

  My uncle sighed. “I know this is…unpleasant, but you need help.”

  “Unpleasant?” That sounded like a direct quote from Aunt Val. I gripped the footboard of the bed so hard my fingers ached. “I’m not crazy. I’m not.” And maybe if I kept saying it, one of us would actually believe it.

  “I know,” my uncle said softly, and I glanced at him in surprise. His eyes were closed and he took several deep breaths, like he was preparing himself for something he didn’t want to do. He looked ready to cry. Or to beat the crap out of something. I was voting for the latter.

  Aunt Val stiffened in her chair, watching her husband carefully, as if silently willing him to do something. Or maybe not to do it.

  When Uncle Brendon finally opened his eyes, his gaze was steady. Intense. “Kaylee, I know you didn’t mean to hurt yourself, and I know you’re not crazy.”

  He seemed so sure of it, I almost believed him. Relief washed over me, like that first air-conditioned breeze on a hot summer day. But it was quickly swallowed by doubt. Would he be so sure if he knew what I’d seen?

  “We need you to give this a shot, okay?” His eyes pleaded with me. Desperately. “They can teach you how to deal with it here. How to calm yourself down and…hold it back. Val and I…We don’t know how to help with that.”

  No! I blinked away unshed tears, refusing to let them fall. They were going to leave me locked up in here!

  Uncle Brendon took my hand and squeezed it. “And if you have another panic attack, I want you to go to your room and concentrate on not screaming. Do whatever you have to do to resist it, okay?”

  Stunned, I could only stare for a long moment. It took all of my remaining focus to breathe. They really weren’t going to take me home!

  “Kaylee?” my uncle asked, and I hated how concerned he looked. How fragile he obviously considered me now.

  “I’ll try.”

  My aunt and uncle knew that my panic attacks always seemed to be triggered by someone else. So far, always someone I’d never met. But they didn’t know about the morbid certainty that came with the panic. Or the weird hallucinations I’d had at the mall. I was afraid that if I told them those parts, they’d agree with Dr. Nelson, and the three of them might put me back in that restraint bed and weld the buckles shut.

  “Try hard.” Uncle Brendon eyed me intently, his green eyes somehow shining, even in the dim overhead light. “Because if you start screaming again, they’ll pump you so full of antidepressants and antipsychotics you won’t even remember your own name.”

  Antipsychotics? They really thought I was psychotic?

  “And Kaylee…”

  I looked up at Aunt Val and was surprised to see visible dents in her armor of relentless optimism. She looked pale, and stressed, and the frown lines in her forehead were more pronounced than I’d ever seen them. If someone had shown her a mirror at that moment, she might easily have wound up my roommate in the loony bin.

  “If you even look like you’re going to hurt yourself again—” her gaze strayed to the scabbed-over scratches on my neck, and my hand immediately flew to cover them “—you’ll wind up strapped to that table again.” Her voice broke, and she pulled a tissue from her purse to blot tears before they smudged her mascara. “And I don’t think either one of us can handle seeing you like that again.”

  I woke up at four in the morning and couldn’t go back to sleep. After an hour and a half of staring up at the ceiling, ignoring the aide who came to check on me every fifteen minutes, I got dressed and headed down the hall in search of a magazine I’d started the day before. To my surprise, Lydia sat on a couch in the living-room half of the common area.

  “You’re up early.” I sat next to her, uninvited. The television played in the corner, tuned to the local news, but no one watched it. As far as I knew, the other patients weren’t up yet. Neither was the sun.

  Lydia watched me just like she had the day before, in mild interest, no surprise and almost total detachment. Our gazes met for a long minute, neither of us blinking. It was an odd sort of a challenge, as I silently dared her to speak. She had something to say. I was sure of it.

  But she stayed silent.

  “You don’t sleep much, do you?” Normally I wouldn’t have pried—after all, I didn’t want anyone else poking into my alleged mental instability—but she’d stared at me for hours the day before. Like she wanted to tell me something.

  Lydia shook her head, and a strand of lank black hair fell in front of her face. She pushed it back, her lips firmly sealed.

  “Why not?”

  She only blinked at me, staring into my eyes as if they fascinated her. As if she saw something there no one else could see.

  I started to ask what she was looking at, but stopped when a purple blur caught my attention on the other side of the room. A tall aide in eggplant-colored scrubs checking in on us, clipboard in hand. Had it been fifteen minutes already? But before she could continue with the rest of her list, Paul appeared in the doorway.

  “Hey, they’re sending one over from the E.R.”

  “Now?” The female aide glanced at her watch.

  “Yeah. She’s stable, and they need the space.” Both staff members disappeared down the hall, and I turned to see that Lydia’s face had gone even paler than normal.

  Several minutes later, the main entrance buzzed, then the door swung open. The female aide hurried from the nurses’ station as a man in plain green scrubs stepped into the unit, pushing a thin, tired-looking girl in a wheelchair. She wore jeans and a purple scrubs top, and her long pale hair hung over most of her face. Her arms lay limp in her lap, both bandaged from her wrists to halfway up her forearms.

  “Here’s her shirt.” The man in green handed the aide a thick plastic bag with the Arlington Memorial logo on it. “If I were you, I’d throw it out. I don’t think all the bleach in the world could get rid of that much blood.

  On my right, Lydia flinched, and I looked up to see her eyes closed, her forehead furrowed in obvious pain. As the aide wheeled the new girl past the common area, Lydia went stiff beside me and clenched the arms of her chair so tightly the tendons in her hands stood out.

  “You okay?” I whispered, as the wheelchair squeaked toward the girls’ hall.

  Lydia shook her head, but her eyes didn’t open.

  “What hurts?”

  She shook her head again, and I realized she was younger than I’d first guessed. Fourteen, at the most. Too young to be stuck at Lakeside, no matter what was wrong with her.

  “You want me to get someone?” I started to stand, but she grabbed my arm so suddenly I actually jerked in surprise. She was a lot stronger than she looked. And faster.

  Lydia shook her head, meeting my gaze with green eyes brightly glazed with pain. Then she stood and walked stiffly down the hall, one hand pressed to her stomach. A minute later, her door closed softly.

  The rest of the day was a blur of half-eaten meals, unfocused stares, and too many jigsaw puzzle pieces to count. After breakfast, Nurse Nancy was back on duty, standing in my doorway to ask a series of pointless, invasive questions. But by then I was annoyed with the fifteen-minute checkups, and beyond frustrated by the lack of privacy.

  Nurse Nancy: “Have you had a bowel movement today?”

  Me: “No comment.”

  Nurse Nancy: “Do you still feel like hurting yourself?”

  Me: “I never did. I’m really more of a self-pamperer.”

  Next, a therapist named Charity Stevens escorted me into a room with a long window overlooking the nurses’ station to ask me why I’d tried to claw open my own throat, and why I screamed loud enough to
wake the dead.

  I was virtually certain my screaming would not, in fact, wake the dead, but she seemed unamused when I said so. And unconvinced when I insisted that I hadn’t been trying to hurt myself.

  Stevens settled her thin frame into a chair across from me. “Kaylee, do you know why you’re here?”

  “Yeah. Because the doors are locked.”

  No smile. “Why were you screaming?”

  I folded my feet beneath me in the chair, exercising my right to remain silent. There was no way to answer that question without sounding crazy.

  “Kaylee…?” Stevens sat with her hands folded in her lap, waiting. I had her undivided attention, whether I wanted it or not.

  “I…I thought I saw something. But it was nothing. Just normal shadows.”

  “You saw shadows.” But her statement sounded more like a question.

  “Yeah. You know, places where light doesn’t shine?” Much like a psychiatric hospital itself…

  “What was it about the shadows that made you scream?” Stevens stared into my eyes, and I stared at her crooked part line.

  They shouldn’t have been there. They were wrapped around a kid in a wheelchair, but didn’t touch anyone else. They were moving. Take your pick… But too much of the truth would only earn me more time behind locked doors.

  I was supposed to be learning how to handle my panic attacks, not spilling my guts about what caused them.

  “They were…scary.” There. Vague, but true.

  “Hmmm.” She crossed her legs beneath a navy pencil skirt and nodded like I’d said something right. “I see…”

  But she didn’t see at all. And I couldn’t explain myself to save my life. Or my sanity, apparently.

  After lunch, the doctor came to poke and prod me with an entire checklist of questions about my medical history. According to my aunt and uncle, he was the one who could really help me. But after my session with the therapist, I was skeptical, and the doc’s opening lines did little to help that.

  Dr. Nelson: “Are you currently taking any medications?”

  Me: “Just whatever you guys shot me full of yesterday.”

  Dr. Nelson: “Do you have a family history of diabetes, cancer, or cataracts?”

  Me: “I have no idea. My dad isn’t available for questioning. But I can ask my uncle when he gets here tonight.”

  Dr. Nelson: “Do you have a medical history of obesity, asthma, seizures, cirrhosis, hepatitis, HIV, migraines, chronic pain, arthritis, or spinal problems?”

  Me: “Are you serious?”

  Dr. Nelson: “Do you have any family history of mental instability?”

  Me: “Yes. My cousin thinks she’s twenty-one. My aunt thinks she’s eighteen. I’d call them both mentally unstable.”

  Dr. Nelson: “Do you now, or have you ever, used or abused caffeine, alcohol, nicotine, cocaine, amphetamines, or opiates?”

  Me: “Oh, yeah. All of it. What else am I supposed to do in study hall? In fact, I better get my stash back from your rent-a-cop when I check out of here.”

  Finally, he looked up from the file in his lap and met my gaze. “You know, you’re not helping yourself. The fastest way for you to get out of here is to cooperate. To help me help you.”

  I sighed, staring at the reflection shining on his sizable bald spot. “I know. But you’re supposed to help me stop having panic attacks, right? But none of that stuff—” I glanced at the file I was secretly desperate to read “—has anything to do with why I’m here.”

  The doctor frowned, pressing thin lips even thinner. “Unfortunately, there are always preliminaries. Sometimes recreational drug use can cause symptoms like yours, and I need to rule that out before we continue. So could you please answer the question?”

  “Fine.” If he could really help me, I was ready to get cured, then get out. Short and sweet. “I drink Coke, just like every other teenager on the planet.” I hesitated, wondering how much of this he’d tell my aunt and uncle. “And I had half a beer once. Over the summer.” We’d only had one, so Em and I had split it.

  “That’s it?”

  “Yeah.” I wasn’t sure whether he was happy with my answer, or secretly making fun of my seriously deficient social life.

  “Okay…” Dr. Nelson scribbled in the file again, then flipped up the top page, too fast for me to read. “These next questions are more specifically geared toward your problems. If you don’t answer honestly, you’ll be crippling us both. Got it?”

  “Sure.” Whatever.

  “Have you ever believed you had special powers? Like the ability to control the weather?”

  I laughed out loud. I couldn’t help it. If that was a symptom of crazy, maybe I was sane, after all. “No, I don’t think I can control the weather. Or fly, or adjust the earth’s orbit around the sun. No superpowers here.”

  Dr. Nelson just nodded, then glanced at the file again. “Was there ever a time when people were out to get you?”

  Growing more relieved by the second, I shifted onto one hip, leaning with my elbow on the arm of the chair. “Um…I’m pretty sure my chemistry teacher hates me, but she hates everyone, so I don’t think it’s personal.”

  More scribbling. “Have you ever heard voices that others could not hear?”

  “Nope.” That was an easy one.

  Dr. Nelson scratched his bald spot with short, neat fingernails. “Have your family or friends ever suggested that your statements were unusual?”

  “You mean, do I say things that don’t make sense?” I asked, and he nodded, nowhere near as amused as I was by his questions. “Only in French class.”

  “Have you ever seen things other people couldn’t see?”

  My heart dropped into my stomach, and my smile melted like a Popsicle in August.

  “Kaylee?”

  I crossed my arms over my chest and tried to ignore the dread swirling through me, like the memory of that dark fog. “Okay, look, if I answer this honestly, I’m going to sound crazy. But the very fact that I know that means I’m not really crazy, right?”

  Dr. Nelson’s wiry gray eyebrows both rose. “Crazy isn’t a diagnosis, nor is it a term we use around here.”

  “But you know what I mean, right?”

  Instead of answering, he crossed his legs at the knee and leaned back in his chair. “Let’s talk about your panic attacks. What triggered the one you had in the mall?”

  I closed my eyes. He can’t help you if you lie. But there was no guarantee he could help me if I told the truth, either.

  Here goes nothin’…

  “I saw a kid in a wheelchair, and I got this horrible feeling that…that he was going to die.”

  Dr. Nelson frowned, his pencil poised over my file. “Why did you think he was going to die?”

  I shrugged and stared miserably at my hands in my lap. “I don’t know. It’s just this really strong feeling. Like sometimes you can tell when someone’s looking at you? Or standing over your shoulder?”

  He was quiet for several seconds, but for the scratching of pen against paper. Then he looked up. “So what did you see that no one else saw?”

  Ah, yes. The original question. “Shadows.”

  “You saw shadows? How do you know no one else could see them?”

  “Because if anyone else had seen what I saw, I wouldn’t have been the center of attention.” Even with my brain-scrambling screech. “I saw shadows wrapping around the kid in the wheelchair, but not touching anyone else.” I started to tell him the rest of it. About the fog, and the things twisting and writhing inside it.

  But then Dr. Nelson’s frown dissolved into a look of patient patronization—an indulgent expression I’d seen plenty of in my two days at Lakeside. He thought I was crazy.

  “Kaylee, you’re describing delusions and hallucinations. Now, if you’re really not on any drugs—and your blood work will confirm that—there are several other possible causes for the symptoms you’re experiencing—”

  “Like what?” I demanded.
My pulse pounded thickly in my throat, and my teeth ground together so hard my jaws ached.

  “Well, it’s premature to start guessing, but after—”

  “Tell me. Please. If you’re going to tell me I’m crazy, at least tell me what kind of crazy I am.”

  Dr. Nelson sighed and flipped my file closed. “Your symptoms could be secondary to depression, or even severe anxiety…”

  But there was something he wasn’t saying. I could see it in his eyes, and my stomach started pitching. “What else?”

  “It could be some form of schizophrenia, but that’s really jumping the gun. We need to run more tests and—”

  But I didn’t hear anything after that. He’d brought my life to a grinding halt with that one word, and hurtled my entire future into a bleak storm of uncertainty. Of impossibility. If I was crazy, how could I possibly be anything else? Ever.

  “When can I go home?” That dark, sick feeling in my stomach was churning out of control, and all I wanted in that moment was to curl up in my own bed and go to sleep. For a very long time.

  “Once we get a definite diagnosis and get your meds balanced…”

  “How long?”

  “Two weeks, at least.”

  I stood and was almost bowled over by the hopelessness crashing over me. Would I have any friends left, if this got out? Would I be that crazy girl at school now? The one everyone whispered about? Would I even go back to school?

  If I was really crazy, did it even matter?

  My next four days at Lakeside made the phrase bored to death seem like a distinct possibility. If not for the note from Emma that Uncle Brendon brought, I might have given up entirely. But hearing from her, knowing that she hadn’t forgotten about me—or told anyone else where I was—brought relevance back to my life outside Lakeside. Made things matter again.

  Em was still planning to humiliate Toby that weekend, and crossing her fingers that I’d be back at school in time to see it happen. And in case I wasn’t, she’d made plans to broadcast his downfall on YouTube, just for me.

  That became my new goal. Doing and saying whatever it took to get out. To get back to school, and back to my life.