neck was a tangle of blood-crusted scratches.
And suddenly I remembered pain at my neck. Wet,
sticky fingers.
My right hand shook as I held it up to the light.
Dark crust still clung to my cuticles. Blood. I’d done
this to myself, trying to make the screaming stop.
No wonder they thought I was crazy.
Maybe they were right.
***
The nurse had said I wasn’t allowed to close my door,
but I closed it while I showered, and again when I got
out of the bathroom, because she’d left it open after
one of the fifteen-minute checkups.
Rachel Vincent / 27
Were they afraid I was going to kill myself? If so,
it’d have to be a pretty creative suicide. The only
things not nailed to the floor or the wall were the towel
on a shelf over the toilet and the tiny bar of hand soap
on the sink. In the end, my pride won out over vanity
and I washed both my body and hair with hand soap,
rather than go begging for basic hygiene supplies from
people I’d never met.
After my shower, I found a clean set of purple
scrubs folded on the bed, but I’d have to go without
underwear until someone brought me some clean
clothes. Nurse Nancy had said Aunt Val was supposed
to bring them, but when and if my aunt showed up, she
was
not
leaving without me.
Clean and dressed—if not exactly to my
satisfaction—I stared at the door for a solid three
minutes before working up the nerve to open it. I’d
missed both dinner and breakfast, so I was starving,
but less than eager to mingle. Finally, after two false
starts, I shoved still-wet hair back from my face and
pulled the door open.
My laceless sneakers squeaked in the empty
hallway, and I walked slowly toward the clinking of
silverware, acutely aware that while I did hear a couple
of soft voices, there was no actual conversation. Most
of the doors I passed were open, revealing room after
identical room. The only differences between those
and the room I’d been assigned to were the personal
possessions. Clothes stacked on open shelves and
pictures taped to walls.
28 / My Soul to Lose
Halfway down the hall, a girl a couple of years
younger than me sat alone on a bed in a room almost
as bare as mine, talking to herself. Not whispering
under her breath, or reminding herself not to forget
something important. Actually talking to herself, at
full volume.
When I turned the corner, I found the source of the
other voice, as well as what passed for the cafeteria.
Five round tables were set up in a large room occupied
with normal-looking people in jeans and T-shirts.
Mounted on the far wall above their heads was a small
television tuned to
SpongeBob.
“The trays are on the cart.”
I jumped, then whirled around to see another
woman—this one in cranberry-colored scrubs—sitting
in a hospital waiting-room-type chair near the
doorway. Her name tag read: Judy Sullivan, Mental
Health Technician. “Find the one with your name on it
and take a seat.”
I took a covered tray labeled Kaylee Cavanaugh
from the second shelf of the cart, then glanced around
for somewhere to sit. There were no empty tables—
most had two or three occupants—yet everyone ate in
silence, but for the sounds of chewing and silverware
scraping plastic trays.
The edges of the room were lined in more stifflooking waiting-room chairs and small couches with
pale green vinyl cushions, and one girl sat alone on
one of these with her tray on her lap. She picked at the
edge of a slice of meat loaf with her fork, but seemed
Rachel Vincent / 29
more interested in whatever patterns she was creating
than in actually eating.
I found a table and ate in silence, suffering through
half of the dry meat loaf and a stale roll before I
looked up from my tray—and directly into the eyes of
the girl sitting alone on the edge of the room. She
watched me with a creepy sort of detached curiosity,
as if I were a bug crawling across the sidewalk in front
of her. I wondered briefly if she was the ant-stomper
type. Then I wondered why she was at Lakeside.
But I purged that thought quickly—I didn’t want to
know. I didn’t want to know why any of them were
there. As far as I was concerned, they were all locked
up for the same reason: they were crazy.
Oh, and you’re the shining exception, right?
some
traitorous voice asked from deep inside my head.
The
girl who sees things that aren’t there and can’t stop
screaming. Who tries to rip her own throat out in the
middle of the mall. Yeah, you’re sane.
And suddenly my appetite was gone. But Meat
Loaf Girl—Lydia Trainer, according to her tray
cover—was still staring at me, limp black hair falling
over half of her face, revealing only one pale green
eye. My return stare didn’t faze her, nor did it force
her to acknowledge me. She just watched me, as if the
moment she looked away I might jump up and dance
the cha-cha.
But then someone else walked between us and
caught her attention like a ball of yarn rolled in front
30 / My Soul to Lose
of a cat. Lydia’s gaze followed a tall, heavyset girl as
she carried an empty tray toward the cart.
“Mandy, where’s your fork?” Judy the mental
health tech asked, standing so she could see the girl’s
tray. The tense way she held herself made me nervous.
Like she expected Mandy to lean forward and take a
bite out of her.
Mandy dropped her tray on the cart with a clatter of
silverware, then stuck one hand into the waistband of
her jeans and pulled out a fork. If I’d had any appetite
left, that would have killed it. Mandy tossed the fork
onto her tray, spared a contemptuous glance at the
aide, then shuffled in sock feet into another large
common area across the hall.
Lydia still watched Mandy, but now her features
were scrunched into a tense grimace and one hand
clutched her stomach.
I glanced at her tray to count her utensils. Had she
swallowed her knife, or something stupid like that,
while Judy’s attention was occupied with Miss Forkin-Drawers? No, all of the silverware was there, and I
could see no obvious reason for Lydia’s pained look.
Creeped out now, I stood and turned in my tray—
all utensils accounted for—then rushed back to my
room without looking up until I’d closed the door
behind me.
***
“Hello?”
Rachel Vincent / 31
“Aunt Val?” I wound the old-fashioned, curly
phone cord around my index finger and twisted on the
hard plastic chair to face the wall. That was all the
privacy I’d get in the middle of the hallway.
My kingdom for a cell phone.
“Kaylee!” My aunt sounded bright and cheery, and
I knew even without seeing her that her hair would be
perfectly arranged and her makeup expertly applied,
even though she didn’t have to be anywhere on the
weekend.
Unless she was coming to get me. Please let her be
coming to get me…
“How are you feeling, sweetheart?” Aunt Val
continued, a sliver of concern denting her otherwise
impenetrable armor of good cheer.
“Fine. I feel good. Come get me. I’m ready to come
home.”
How could you let them bring me here? How could
you leave me?
She would never have left her own
daughter in a place like this. No matter what Sophie
had done, Aunt Val would have taken her home, made
a pot of hot tea, and dealt with the issue privately.
But I couldn’t say that. My mother was dead, and
I’d had no one but Aunt Val and Uncle Brendon since
my father moved to Ireland when I was three, so I
couldn’t vocalize the soul-bruising betrayal twisting
through me like a vine choking me from the inside. At
least, not without crying, and crying might make me
look unstable, which would give them a reason to keep
32 / My Soul to Lose
me there. And give Aunt Val a reason to drop off my
clothes and run.
“Um…I was actually just about to head your way.
Have you seen the doctor yet? Do you think I’ll be
able to talk to him?”
“Yeah, sure. I mean, that’s what he’s here for,
right?”
According to Nurse Nancy, the doctor didn’t do his
rounds on weekends, but if I told Aunt Val that, she
might wait for official visiting hours. Doctor or not, I
was sure she would take me home once she saw me.
Once she’d had a look at this place, and at me in it. We
might not share the same blood, but she’d
raised
me.
Surely she couldn’t walk away twice, right?
From somewhere near the common area, a
booming male voice announced that the anger
management group was about to start, then specifically
suggested that someone named Brent should attend.
I leaned my forehead against the cold cinder blocks
and tried to block it all out, but every time I opened
my eyes—every time I even took a cold, sterilescented breath—I remembered exactly where I was.
And that I couldn’t leave.
“Okay. I’m bringing some things for you,” my aunt
said softly into my ear.
What? I wanted to cry. “No. Aunt Val, I don’t need
things. I need out.”
She sighed, sounding almost as frustrated as I was.
“I know, but that’s up to your doctor, and if he gets
Rachel Vincent / 33
delayed…or something, wouldn’t you feel better with
a fresh change of clothes?”
“I guess.” But the truth was that I wasn’t going to
feel any better until Lakeside was a distant, unpleasant
memory, instead of my current waking nightmare.
“They won’t let you have anything but clothes and
books. Do you want something to read?”
All I wanted to read was the exit sign on the other
side of the locked door by the nurse’s station. The one
you had to be buzzed through.
“Um…I have a paper due next week. Could you
grab
Brave New World
from my nightstand?”
See? I’m
not crazy. I’m responsible and focused on schoolwork.
Don’t you want to take me home so I can live up to my
true potential?
Aunt Val was silent for a moment, and that
uncomfortable feeling in the bottom of my stomach
swelled. “Kaylee, I don’t think you should worry about
homework right now. We can tell the school you have
the flu.”
Footsteps shuffled past me, headed toward the
group session. I stuck a finger in my ear, trying to
block it all out. “The flu? Doesn’t it take, like, a week
to get over the flu?” I wouldn’t miss that much school.
I wouldn’t miss any, if she’d take me home today!
My aunt sighed, and my gut twisted around the
lump of dread anchoring me to the chair. “I’m just
trying to buy you some time to rest. And it’s not really
a lie. You can’t tell me you’re feeling one hundred
percent right now…”
34 / My Soul to Lose
“Because they shot me full of enough crap to put an
elephant to sleep!” And I had the cotton mouth to
prove it.
“And for all we know, you might actually be
coming down with a bit of the flu. I heard you sneeze
the other day,” she finished, and I rolled my eyes.
“They don’t lock up people with the flu, Aunt Val.”
Not unless it’s the bird flu or Stephen King’s end-ofthe-world flu.
“I know. Listen, I’ll be there in a bit, and we can
talk about this then.”
“What about Uncle Brendon?”
Another pause. Sometimes there was less meaning
in what Aunt Val said than in what she didn’t say. “He
took Sophie out to lunch to explain all this to her. This
has been really hard on them both, Kaylee.”
Like it’s easy on me?
“But we’re both coming to see you tonight.”
Except I would be out by then, even if I had to get
down on my knees and beg her to take me home.
If I
had to wake up here again, I’d lose my mind.
Assuming I hadn’t already.
“Promise?” I hadn’t asked her to promise me
anything since I was nine.
“Of course. We just want to help you, Kaylee.”
Yet somehow, I didn’t feel very comforted.
***
Rachel Vincent / 35
I waited in the common area, stubbornly resisting the
jigsaw puzzles and crossword books stacked on a shelf
in the corner. I wouldn’t be here long enough to finish
one anyway. Instead, I stared at the TV, wishing
they’d at least show some
good
cartoons. But if there
was a remote available, I had no idea where to find it.
A commercial came on and my attention wandered,
in spite of my best efforts to ignore my fellow patients.
Lydia sat across the room from me, not even
pretending to watch the television. She was watching
me.
I stared back at her. She didn’t smile. She didn’t
speak. She just watched, and not with an unfocused