"I bet you feel a lot better," she said, startling me.

"Yes I do," I replied.

"Did the nurse help you?"

"No. Ms. Mosley helped me."

She scrunched up her face. "Eww. Did she hurt you?"

"Why would she do that?" I asked.

Janine looked at me as if I should know the answer to that question.

"Because she's an evil wench," she answered.

I looked away from her. I didn't believe that anymore. Ms. Mosley seemed like the best person in this place besides Dr. Cuvo. I finished getting dressed and then sat down on the bed. I looked over at Janine. She was peeking out at me from under her pink blanket.

"Do you remember when you first got your period?" she suddenly asked. That question seemed to come unexpectedly.

Not really knowing if I should respond, I pushed myself to answer. "Sure," I said.

"I do, too," she told me. "I don't think that's something we forget."

"No," I agreed. "That's not something girls forget."

"Where were you when you found out you had it?"

"I was at home." Even though I answered her, I wasn't too comfortable going on about it, but I kept quiet to let her speak.

"You were lucky," she went on. "I was at school. But no one knew about me. I felt so scared that everyone would find out, though. Back when I was in fifth grade, a girl in our cla.s.s got her period before all of the other girls. Her name was Kristen, just like you. She was the first girl in our cla.s.s to get her period. I felt so bad for her because she didn't have any privacy. Every time she raised her hand to ask the teacher if she could use a bathroom pa.s.s, the other girls in the cla.s.sroom would say that they had to go, too. Only three could go at a time, so the teacher sent two other girls off with her. Then, when she had to go again, the other girls who hadn't gotten a chance asked to go. It was like they all were taking turns going whenever Kristen would go, so that they could watch her or something."

"That's really sad." I felt devastated, and this wasn't even my story.

"Yeah, I know." Janine sat up and continued. "I feel guilty because I let curiosity get to me too. One day I went to the bathroom with Kristen and another girl named Ca.s.sie. Ca.s.sie had already followed Kristen to the bathroom a few times before. Since I hadn't had a turn, the other girls agreed that I should go to see what it looked like. When we were in the bathroom, Ca.s.sie told me to wait until Kristen went into the stall, and then she made me go into the one next to Kristen. When we could hear Kristen opening the plastic wrapper, we climbed up on top of the toilet and then leaned over the stall."

I stayed silent and listened in revulsion.

"Kristen saw me looking down at her while she changed her tampon. It was b.l.o.o.d.y and gross, and the look on her face was frightful. She looked like she was going to cry."

It did not amaze me to hear how cruel these girls were to this pitiable Kristen. Nor was it shocking to hear that Janine had been sucked into it herself. The girls had been curious, mean, and selfish. They were just like the girls I had gone to school with. That Kristen hadn't stood a chance if she had told someone. Perhaps she'd told a best friend in confidence that she had gotten her period, with hope that her friend would keep her secret. That Kristen obviously had been betrayed.

Not wanting to hear any more of the torturous menstruation stories about this other Kristen, I looked away from Janine and lay down on my back. Staring up at the ceiling, I tried to divert my thoughts away from the topic by searching for Mr. Sharp in my head.

"Are you going back to sleep?" she asked.

Annoyed, I said, "I don't know."

I could not reach him without my b.u.t.terfly. I began to feel lonely, and the thought of poor Kristen in that bathroom stall would not go away. All I could picture was a little girl's face looking up from a bathroom stall and crying. I imagined her to look like what I used to look like in the fifth grade. We had the same sad eyes and frown.

"You should know that Sat.u.r.days are the best day here. We get to sleep until eight-thirty, and we all get to have breakfast on the unit with everyone. We can watch TV and talk on the phone longer. It's kind of like a free day. If you get to Level Three, you can leave the unit, do your laundry, and go outside. The only thing that sucks is that we still have group meetings."

I nodded. A few minutes of complete silence went by until Janine finally started speaking again. I was just getting comfortable and was trying to fall back to sleep.

"Is your Mom coming to visit today?"

"I don't know."

Janine sighed. "My dad is coming. He's going to bring my little brother."

"That's nice," I said.

"Daniel might be going home because he has a family session," she said. "That is going to suck if he leaves." Janine rolled over on her side, turning away from me.

I closed my eyes, remembering the way he had looked at her when he wiped the caramel from her chin. Then I pictured Lexus and John. I had to open my eyes quickly to stop myself. When I opened my eyes, Janine turned on her side, faced me, and stared at me strangely.

"Are you okay?"

"I am fine," I told her.

She frowned and said, "Do you like Daniel?"

I didn't answer.

"Can you believe he doesn't have a girlfriend? He used to have a girlfriend, but she like killed herself or something. It was stupid. If I was with Daniel, I wouldn't feel the need to kill myself."

"Do you have a boyfriend?" I asked.

She smiled and looked up at the ceiling.

"Sometimes," she said while still smiling.

Of course, you do, I thought to myself.

"I am really glad we get to sleep late on Sat.u.r.days."

Janine closed her eyes. She turned away from me, and this time she didn't open her mouth again. Getting that last hour of sleep wasn't hard for me. I couldn't stop thinking, but I was able to drift off in my thoughts. It felt good to be clean on the outside, but I still felt sick inside.

CHAPTER 16.

Eight-thirty came faster than the minute I had closed my eyes and fallen asleep. It felt like only two minutes had pa.s.sed since I had closed my eyes when Ms. Mosley came in to wake us up. She gently tugged at my fingers, and I heard her calling my name. I opened my eyes and saw her deep brown eyes looking down at me.

When she saw that I was awake, she smiled and said, "It's time to get up."

I lifted myself out of bed. I looked down at my body, remembering earlier this morning when Ms. Mosley had helped me clean up. I saw the black and blue bruises on my arms, and quickly threw a sweater over them. It was a normal habit to cover my bruises and scars since Mr. Sharp had come into my life. I looked over and noticed that Janine was not in the room. She wasn't in the bathroom either.

"Come on," Ms. Mosley hurried.

I had gotten the impression from Janine that Sat.u.r.days were laid back at Bent Creek. So it confused me when, immediately after breakfast, we had Group Therapy. This Group Therapy meeting was for the whole Adolescent Unit. We weren't broken into small groups. Instead, Geoffrey set up a bunch of chairs in the main room to make a circle. The room was full of other patients from the Adolescent Unit. Our groups were mixed together for this meeting.

Cadence seemed tired of picking on the new guy named Rocky. She'd moved on to someone else. Rocky was sitting next to the small guy that hated Janine. The small guy was still gaunt-looking. He and Rocky were talking about smoking marijuana and popping all kinds of pills. There was an open seat next to them, but I didn't feel comfortable enough to sit there. Janine and Tai wanted to sit on the love seat, but Geoffrey made them get up and join the circle.

Janine sat next to Daniel, and Tai sat next to Janine. Feeling left out, I sat next to Geoffrey. Most everyone was sitting in the circle next to their friends and chatting when a large, redheaded man walked into the room and sat down next to Geoffrey. When he sat down and looked up, most everyone quieted down.

"h.e.l.lo," said the man. "It's nice to see you again, Kristen."

He remembered my name. I couldn't remember his name. I did remember Geoffrey being in awe of this man.

"You remember Dr. Pelchat, don't you?" Geoffrey asked me quietly. "He's the head of Bent Creek, and he's also a doctor here."

"I need everyone to please be quiet," the man demanded. "I'm Dr. Pelchat, for those of you who do not know me. I hope everyone is having a good morning. I know it is Sat.u.r.day, and most of you want to get on with your day and do your thing, but as you know, we have to get through your group meeting with me for today."

There were random moans and sighs throughout the room.

"Today we are going to discuss drugs and alcohol."

A kid from Chris' group hooted and got some of the other kids in the room to cheer with him. "Did you bring enough for everybody, Doc?" asked Chris, who I a.s.sumed was Jake at that moment.

Dr. Pelchat waved a hand at him. "All right, sit down. Let's get down to business."

The room quieted back down. Dr. Pelchat looked at Geoffrey, and they both laughed.

At least he has a sense of humor, I thought.

"This is Alcohol and Drug Abuse Counseling Group. Here we will talk about good drugs, bad drugs, drugs that you take home, drugs that you sniff, drugs that you eat, and drugs that you drink. It'll be a real party in here."

I laughed along with everyone else.

Dr. Pelchat smiled at us. He looked at Rocky and said, "Hey man."

"Hey," Rocky said.

"Weren't you just about to tell me what you took two nights ago?" Dr. Pelchat suddenly asked him.

Rocky looked around, confused. "Uh, no, I wasn't."

"Oh, yes, yes, you were. I heard you over there talking, and I heard you say something about what you'd taken the night before you came here, and didn't you say something about being able to score any kind of drugs for anybody in here?"

Rocky's face went from pink to pale. He rubbed his palms together roughly and stared down at the floor with his face twisted in anger. He stayed silent and didn't say a word to Dr. Pelchat.

"I listened to every word you said when I was walking into this room. I heard you talk about how you have pot and acid, and I even think I heard you say something about heroin. Is that right?"

"Come on, man," Rocky whined.

"No, you listen to me." Dr. Pelchat stood up and went over to Rocky.

Everyone stared at Dr. Pelchat as he made Rocky look up at him. He was so tall that Rocky had to back his chair up to look at him. Or he could have just done that because he was afraid that Dr. Pelchat was going to hurt him.

"Let's get something straight. It is okay to talk about drugs here. In fact, I encourage it. Talk about it with your counselors, talk about it with your doctors. h.e.l.l, go ahead and talk about it with your peers, but do not talk about dealing drugs in this hospital. Do you understand?"

"Okay, get out of my face!" Rocky yelled.

Tai covered her mouth and closed her eyes, as if she was afraid for Rocky.

Dr. Pelchat bent down and put his face and his index finger in Rocky's face.

Dr. Pelchat said, "Now I am in your face! I want you to get it! I want you to know that you can't do that in here! If you want to brag and impress everyone in here, come up with something better. Okay? Now, listen to me. If I catch you using, dealing, or even offering to get drugs for anybody in here again, I will see to it that you are out of here and sent to jail. You can mess up your own life out there, but you are not going to do it in here to yourself or anybody else. Now, do you understand me?"

Rocky had his face turned with his arms folded across his chest. His eyes were focused away from Dr. Pelchat's, which were burning holes through him.

"Do you understand?" Dr. Pelchat repeated, this time yelling at the poor kid.

Rocky bravely turned his face slowly to Dr. Pelchat's and looked him in the eyes. "Yes," Rocky finally said through clenched teeth.

Dr. Pelchat suddenly smiled. "Good."

He stood up straight, turned around, and sat back down in his seat next to Geoffrey. Rocky let out a sigh of relief when Dr. Pelchat sat down. We all sighed in relief for Rocky. I even felt afraid for him. Tai's face was flushed white. She looked like she was the one who had been scolded.

"Did you ever really try any of those drugs?" Dr. Pelchat asked.

Rocky looked up from his sweaty hands. We'd all thought that Dr. Pelchat had gotten off his back.

"Well? Have you?" Dr. Pelchat asked, looking away from Rocky and turning his head to someone else. "Tai?" he called out to her.

Tai took a deep breath and nodded at him. "Uh- yes, just not- I mean, I haven't tried heroin, but you know. It was some bad stuff. I mean, I don't really know- it was kind of-"

Dr. Pelchat cut her off. "What did doing those drugs do to you? Why did you feel like you had to do it?"

This question proved easier to answer. When he asked her that question, his tone had softened, and he looked deep into her eyes. She thought for a moment and then responded.

"Well, it took me away. For those moments when I was high, it was, well, it was exhilarating. I couldn't cry. I couldn't get angry. I couldn't feel those things that made me human. I didn't want to be human if I had to feel those things. The people that I did drugs with would just let me be. They wouldn't bother me or make me talk about anything."

The thin boy sitting next to Rocky pulled his shirt over his mouth, and I could tell that he was laughing. He was trying to use the top of his shirt to cover it up. Dr. Pelchat and everyone else ignored him.

"When I came down," Tai continued with deep thought. "When I came down, all those problems that I was trying to smoke away were right there with me, except they felt ten times as worse." Tears were falling from her eyes. "So I tried to make that feeling stop. I did take that heroin, Dr. Pelchat. They gave it to me, and they left me alone. When I tried to tell them that I needed them to call my dad, they just laughed. I got so scared. I felt my lungs swell up like balloons, and they put all this pressure on my chest. I thought my lungs were going to explode.

"I don't remember much after I pa.s.sed out, but the doctor said that my liver had collapsed, and that my right lung had stopped working. I have to get surgery, and I am not sure if I will be able to, since this will be my second time getting a new liver. The first time was when I was a baby. I was born with a bad liver, not because of drugs or anything. So, I was given another liver to save my life. The doctor said that I might have a hard time getting another liver because I had already been given one to save my life. It's like I just didn't care, and I wanted to mess up or something, but that's not it. It was because I couldn't get rid of it, not even by doing more. I just couldn't make it stop. There seems like there's just no way to make it stop. I'm a coward. That is why I did it."

"Tai," Dr. Pelchat said. "Honestly, I think that you are the bravest person in this room right now."

"Why?" she asked.

"You know why," he told her.