"How is that?"

"Look at your wrists."

Anger began to well inside of me. I locked eyes with him. And when I did, I knew he had me. I couldn't look away when he began to speak.

"You tried to kill yourself a little less than a month and a half ago. Your heart stopped beating, and you could have died. Do you realize that, Kristen?"

"Do you feel like you failed? Kristen?"

"I failed? Is that what this is about? I failed! And Rocky succeeded. He got out!" The anger and the tears flowed out of me.

"That's how you see it? Rocky got out? And you failed because you didn't?"

"Why do you say that? Why do you keep saying 'failed'?"

"Isn't that what you mean? Those were your words. You said 'failed'."

"What? No. You just said. You said, 'You failed.'"

"I'm just repeating what you wrote."

"What I wrote?"

Dr. Pelchat opened my chart and pulled out a wrinkled, sheet of paper. He reached out and handed it to me. I looked at it.

"My c.r.a.ppy poem."

I had never seen Dr. Pelchat look so shocked. "Is that what you call it, Kristen?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

"It doesn't look like a c.r.a.ppy poem to me. It looks like a very deep piece of work created from an expression of serious emotion."

I tried not to let his compliment affect the anger I was feeling inside.

"How did you get this?" I asked.

"I found it on the floor of the main unit right next to a broken pencil. The sitting area was being cleared out, and I asked Geoffrey who had taken paper and pencil from the counselor's desk, and hadn't returned the pencil. Your name was mentioned."

"Right."

"Why are you so angry, Kristen?"

"What makes you think I'm angry, Dr. Pelchat?" I only said his name because he kept saying mine every time he asked me a question.

"You are responding to me with some anger in your voice. Are you angry?"

"I'm upset."

"What is that poem about?"

"It's about the Devil," I snapped. I was annoyed at him for asking me so many questions.

"The Devil? Help me understand, Kristen. How does the Devil tie into that?"

"It's about how the Devil is evil. And we are evil. And we do evil things that the Devil likes. Like hurting people. Like hurting children. Like killing ourselves. And when we do this, we may not necessarily be trying to kill ourselves, but maybe we are trying to do something else."

"Are you speaking about yourself?"

"I don't know. Rocky killed himself. He got put in here because he had tried to kill himself. But then when he got in here, the place that was supposed to help him, well, he succeeded in killing himself."

Dr. Pelchat did not respond. He just kept looking at me.

So I continued, "I tried to kill myself. I failed. But now I feel..." I stopped myself. "I mean, I feel confused."

"About what?"

"I thought that I wanted to die."

"Do you not feel like you want to die?"

"Sometimes."

"How about right now?"

"Frustrated. Confused."

"I see. Does Rocky's suicide make you feel frustrated and confused about your own feelings towards what you had tried to do to yourself?"

I thought about his question. Rocky seemed to really want to die. He had tried it and even when he was brought in to Bent Creek, the feeling seemed not to leave him. Maybe he was in the wrong place. Maybe he needed to be somewhere long term, like Janine. Was he hopeless, as Dr. Bent had said that some people are? Was I hopeless too?

"Yes," I answered Dr. Pelchat. "It does change my feelings. I do sometimes feel like I would be better off gone, but then I feel like..."

"Yes? Like what, Kristen?"

"Like it can't all be hopeless. Right?"

"No," Dr. Pelchat a.s.sured me. "You're not hopeless. If you are hopeless, then, what are we both doing here?"

I don't know, I thought to myself. I sank back in my seat feeling calm, but still a bit frustrated. I wanted to understand what it felt like to be hopeful and actually want to get through all of this. I needed to know what it meant to cope, survive, and not feel like I wanted to die.

Dr. Pelchat opened my chart and began to write. I tried to sit up to see what he was writing. Doctors were good at scribbling so that no one could understand what they were writing except other doctors and nurses. It seemed like a secret code only doctors used.

Finally, Dr. Pelchat looked back up at me. He said, "You are making great progress. You should know that, Kristen."

Even more confused, I said with a sarcastic smile, "That's good to know, Dr. Pelchat."

Going to bed that night was lonesome. Even though I didn't really like Mena, it felt strange not having her there in the bed next to mine. Mr. Sharp wasn't creeping around me. He always appeared in my lonely and empty times. He hadn't bothered me since that day I'd denied him. He'd said he wouldn't come back, and that scared me. I snuggled under Janine's blanket. I started thinking about if Mr. Sharp really had left me. I felt my heart jump. How lonely would I really be if he actually had left? I'd be lost and empty.

I closed my eyes and tried to stop thinking. But the more I tried not to think, the faster my mind raced. Too many thoughts, and no pen or paper to write. No Mr. Sharp to bleed it away. No relief. Just myself, alone, in the dark, underneath the blanket, in a cold and empty room. Scared, I lay still and let my mind take over.

I thought back to when I'd picked up the pills and had swallowed them down. I ran my fingers over the st.i.tches and felt them. I felt the scars. I thought of when I'd picked up the knife. I thought of when I'd begun to slice. I thought of when I'd dialed Lexus on the phone and it had rung with no answer. I'd hung up and tried again. That time it had gone straight to voice mail.

Lexus had said that she missed me. She had said that she was coming to visit me the next day. I tried to smile and focus on the next day. I felt a tear come out of my eye. If only she had known...

CHAPTER 44.

Keeping true to what she had said, Lexus was the first person to show up for visiting hours the next day. I was surprised that she was the first, because she was a very busy person. She showed up with a sweet smile, and presented me with a warm embrace. She smelled sweet, like wild cherries. Her hair was down and sweeping over her shoulders. Her gorgeous smile made me feel like old times when we were really friends, and nothing was fake. Not even our smiles and hugs.

After we hugged each other, Lexus removed her sweater, commenting that it was too warm inside the main unit. Then we sat down at a table together. We gave each other awkward smiles, not really knowing what to say or where to begin our conversation.

I finally said, "Thank you for coming to visit me." Then I smiled again.

She returned the smile, even warmer than before. "Of course," she said. "I told you that I was coming. We hung up kind of weird yesterday."

"Yeah," I laughed nervously. "I had to go. I didn't really get to say goodbye, because my doctor was coming and I wasn't really supposed to be on the phone."

"Oh!" she chuckled. "That's a shame. John wanted to say hi to you."

I rolled my eyes coldly at her.

She noticed. Changing the subject, she suddenly asked, "Are you comfortable?"

I had to think about it for a second before I answered. "Well," I replied, "It's okay. I am as comfortable as I'm going to be in a mental hospital."

"I guess so," she said, with her fake smile.

"How's your family?" I asked, because I wanted to change the subject.

She smiled what seemed like a genuine smile while looking down at her hands as they rested in her lap underneath the table.

"Everyone is doing great," she said. "My mom just bought a new SUV. Yeah, so that's cool. Dad's happy about it, because he doesn't have to share the truck with her anymore." She laughed to herself, seemingly amused.

I tried to smile back at her. "That's nice," I told her.

The mood was too awkward. I wasn't feeling cheerful and chatty. There was something eating at me from the inside. I didn't want it to come out, because I knew that if it did, it would ruin the whole visit. It was something about her smile. It was the way she looked nice and smelled so good. It was making me angry inside. I wanted to tell her to stop faking her smiles with me, and let's be real. But I didn't want to mess things up.

"How's John?" I asked without thinking.

A look of surprise came over her face. She seemed like she had to think before she answered. She looked me in the eyes, like she was searching me to make sure I had really meant to ask that question.

"We are great!" Lexus said happily.

I looked down at my hands, because she kept looking down at hers. I felt sick inside again. The silence was making it worse. Whatever was gnawing at me wanted to burst out and just bite Lexus' head off. I swallowed until that ball in my chest slowed down. It was spinning too fast.

"Kristen, there is something that's been bothering me. We are supposed to be real friends, right? Well, I feel like we should talk and be real with each other."

"What is it?" I asked her. I somehow already knew. I had a feeling that inquiring further would damage our short visit, but I had to hear her. I wanted to know what she was really thinking.

"Why did you do it?"

I'd known she was going to ask eventually. I just hadn't known that she would ask me while I was still at Bent Creek. I didn't look up at her. I just kept staring down at my hands as they rested on my lap.

"Was it because of that night?" she prodded on.

I didn't answer. To vex her, I raised my arms to pretend I was stretching, and I rolled up my sleeves. Her eyes grew big when she saw the exposed st.i.tches and the scars on my arms. She looked down at the table and shook her head. It was all too real for her perfect world, I thought.

"Kristen, please," she pleaded. "I need to know. I need you to tell me, because I've been beating myself up over this. I don't want to think that you did this, and that it's my fault. If it could have been prevented because I-"

"So you think it's about you?" I growled at her. "You think this is all about you."

"No," she pleaded. "I didn't say that. That's not what I meant, Kristen."

"Yes, it is what you meant," I told her. "It's always about you, Lexus. Isn't it? That's why you didn't answer your phone. That's why you didn't want to talk to me."

"Kristen, the reason I didn't answer my phone was not because of you. John didn't want us to answer our phones that night. There was a good reason for us not to answer our phones. John, he-"

"What did he tell you?" I asked her. "Did he tell you not to answer the phone because he didn't want you to be burdened with all of my problems? Did he tell you not to talk to me because all I do is talk about depressing things and make you depressed and sad, too?"

"No," she said. Lexus sounded like she was going to cry. "It was not like that. If you would just listen, I will tell you. We were trying to plan our future together. You are right. We didn't want to be burdened with any problems. Not that night."

My eyes shot up from my hands to her fake, sympathetic frowning face. I was gazing at her, hard. I kept silent as she continued to speak.

"I love you, Kristen. I really do. You are like a sister to me. I mean, we have been through a lot together, especially when your family went through all of that mess. I could never just let you hurt. If I had have known that you had hurt yourself, I would have been there for you. But that night, I just wanted to be happy and enjoy that night with him. Everything was perfect. I didn't want to ruin that."

"Then it's a good thing you didn't answer your phone," I said to her in a calm, but stern, voice.

"It wasn't like that," she pleaded.

"Yes, it was!"

"Kristen, no..."

I shook my head. "Yes, it was. It's okay, Lexus. You, your Prince Charming, and your perfect family were having the perfect evening together. Your phone rings and you guys see that it's me trying to call. You think to yourself, 'Oh, G.o.d, I don't want to ruin this night by answering Kristen's call, because I already know it's going to be depressing and sad, and Kristen will ruin everything. That girl, Kristen, she's just full of problems. She's nothing but a burden!'"

I was breathing hard. The metal ball in my chest was turning so hard that I could hardly get the air in and out of my lungs fast enough to catch my breath.

I looked at Lexus as tears fell from her eyes. She shook her head angrily.

"That's not fair, Kristen. Not after everything that I have done for you. Not after all this time I've been your friend."

"Fine," I said coldly.