Geoffrey looked me in the eyes as I spoke, and that old feeling of discomfort filled me. I wanted to ask him to stop staring at me, but then I realized that he wasn't staring at me. He was really listening to me. It seemed like he actually cared because he empathized with me.

"I miss Janine," I said. I felt tears begin to well up. He opened his mouth to speak, but I continued, "I miss Dr. Cuvo. I miss Daniel and Rocky. I didn't even really know Rocky."

"I know, Kristen," Geoffrey said sincerely. "I miss them, too. It's amazing how, when we make a choice and do something to ourselves. It affects everyone else around us, whether it's positive or negative. Daniel made progress well enough for him to get out of here. So he made it out without needing extended care. We all miss him. Dr. Cuvo's resignation affected his patients. Janine's actions affected you and everyone who was trying to help her. You didn't even know Rocky, and his choice and actions have affected not only you, but also everyone else. Even Dr. Pelchat has to find a way to cope with all of this."

"Wow," I said as I wiped my eyes with my sleeve. "How?"

"We know that we can influence a change and do our best to help you, but we can't make you change. It lies within you. You are the one who has to put forth the effort to get better. It gets hard, especially when you get out of the comforting walls of Bent Creek. You won't have your doctor coming to visit you every day. You won't have Ms. Mosley or me there to scream at you in the morning and motivate you to get on with your life every day. You have to begin to see and do for yourself as you receive treatment and continue therapy while you're out there. Just take the advice from your doctor and us: take your medicine, and maintain yourself. That's very important. No matter what you go through, you have to remember that you must always maintain who you are. If you can maintain and not let yourself get lost in the troubles, then you will become a survivor."

Everything he said sank deep inside of me. I wanted to maintain a stable mind so that, when I got out of Bent Creek, I would be able to survive.

"You are so right," I responded. "Thank you, Geoffrey."

"Sure thing," he said with a big smile.

I couldn't help but smile back.

"Don't hold things inside like that," he said. "If you want to say something, say it. Especially when someone shows concern and gives you a chance to express yourself."

"Okay," I said.

CHAPTER 48.

I blinked once after I got up from the table with Tai to get ready for dinner, and time seemed to skip with that one blink. I was lying in bed with a full stomach. I was all cleaned up and in my pajamas. How had night come so fast? I rolled over on the bed and found my silver b.u.t.terfly pendant outside of the pillowcase. I gently tucked it back in. Mr. Sharp winked at me as the l.u.s.ter on the wings shined.

I heard Mena enter the room. She came out of the bathroom wearing an open robe. Her long hair fell down her back and over her shoulders. She only had on panties underneath that robe, and I could see everything else. She walked over to her bed and sat down. She started to put lotion on, but before she could rub it on herself, she caught me looking at her. I quickly looked back down at my pillow. I heard her chuckle.

"It sucks," she said in a calm voice. "We can't have our own bathrobe belts." Even though I wasn't looking at her, I could tell she was smiling.

I slowly looked back up. She wasn't looking at me anymore, but I was certainly looking at her. She had taken her robe completely off. She gently rubbed the lotion on her body. Her long black locks were curly from the water in the shower, and she let them hang down her back and drape her shoulders. Her beautiful skin was like caramel. She didn't look like Mena, but it was her. I made myself turn away. I played with my pendant while it was inside of the pillowcase to keep myself occupied.

"Okay," she said, "I'm dressed. You can look up now. Not that I had stopped you from looking."

I ignored her and stayed turned away. When I heard the bed creak, I turned towards her because I knew she'd be under the sheets and the thin, white blanket. She was telling the truth; she was completely dressed and her hair was pulled back in her usual ponytail. Her ponytails were always so tight that she looked like she'd had a face lift. This made her look even meaner. Now she looked like Mena again. I was strangely comforted by this.

"Why are you grinning?" she asked me.

"No reason," I said, and then I stopped smiling.

"Good night," she said as she tried to snuggle under the thin, white blanket.

I felt bad for her. No one had come to visit her, so she couldn't even ask for a thicker blanket. The nights were so cold in the hospital, no matter how warm it got outside. It seemed like they cranked the AC up higher at nighttime. Poor Mena wrapped herself in the blanket, like she was in a coc.o.o.n, just to keep warm. I lay comfortably under Janine's blanket and mine.

The comfort didn't last long. I woke up in the hallway again. This time it was daytime instead of night, and I was in front of Nicholas' old bedroom again. The door was completely closed this time, and I didn't hear anything coming from the other side. If only I could just wake up. I shook my head, pulled my hair, and even bit myself, but I did all of this in the hallway. Nothing would get me back to Bent Creek. I didn't want to be in this place. Not again.

Feeling hopeless, I started to turn away, but before I could move an inch, I heard a low moan from the other side of the door. It was a painful moan followed by another. I put my ear to the door, and the painful moans were mixed with low cries. I had heard these cries before. The cries had played in my mind until that night when I'd tried to make them stop. The night I'd taken the pills and had taken the knife to make myself rest. The night I'd let Nick see me weak.

I reached out for the door, and this scene suddenly started to move in slow motion. Every move I made and every sound I heard was dramatically played out. I couldn't hit a b.u.t.ton to make it play faster.

I turned the k.n.o.b to Nick's door, which seemed to take an eternity. The door opened slowly, without a creak. Jack was naked on top of Nick. He was hurting him all over again, but this time I could see everything a lot clearer, since time had slowed down. I opened my mouth to scream, but nothing came out. I wanted to move. I wanted to go over and grab him and kill him, but I couldn't move. Jack raped Nicholas until I thought he was dead. That's when I screamed, and Jack saw me watching. I got scared and I turned away, sure that Nick was dead. I ran for the kitchen, but before I could get down the hallway, Dr. Cuvo and Dr. Pelchat were there, waiting for me. Dr. Pelchat had my chart open in his hand and held a pen, ready to write. Dr. Cuvo had something shiny in his hands, and he held it out to me.

I looked at what it was before I took it. I'd grabbed the knife out of the drawer. He had it ready for me, because he knew I was going to need it. Dr. Pelchat nodded at me when I looked at him. I took the knife from Dr. Cuvo and quickly turned back towards Nick's room down the hallway. I tried to make time go faster, but it wouldn't. I could only take slow, angry steps. As I got closer to the door, I let the anger rise inside of me so that I would have enough strength to make the knife go all the way through him and make it hurt and make him cry worse than the way he made Nick cry. Tears fell out of my eyes, and that's when the anger took over.

I was two steps away from Nick's door when the door flew open at a normal speed, while I was still in slow motion, and Jack ran from the doors, faster than time was allowing me to go. He ran past me quickly before I had time to register that he'd made time to work for him and I hadn't. I was still moving towards the door. When I got to Nick's door, I opened it immediately. Time sucked me back into normal speed as soon as I saw my brother, wrapped in his blanket and lying on the floor. Jack was gone. The knife slipped from my hand and fell to the floor.

Nick lay on the floor and didn't move. He didn't make a sound. I turned to Dr. Pelchat and Dr. Cuvo, who were standing at the end of the hallway. They seemed to be moving in slow time. I saw Dr. Pelchat writing in my chart, and Dr. Cuvo was looking over his shoulder. I knew what was coming next. I looked in at Nick as he lay motionless and probably dead. I looked back at the doctors desperately.

"No, please..." I pleaded with them.

Dr. Pelchat kept writing.

"No..." I cried in a whisper. "Please don't do this."

"Kriiiisstenn," Dr. Cuvo bellowed out in a scary, deep, slow-motion voice.

"Please..." I pleaded. "What did you write?"

"Whaaaat did I wriiiite?" Dr. Pelchat's voice was even more demonic.

He threw his head back and laughed with the voice of a monster. While lost in his laughter, he let Dr. Cuvo take my chart from his hands before he dropped it. As Dr. Pelchat laughed and amused himself, it only made me even more frightened. The sounds of the deep and horrific laughs were making b.u.mps form on my skin. Dr. Cuvo turned the chart to me slowly.

I squinted my eyes to see. Dr. Cuvo took one step closer. I squinted harder. Dr. Cuvo turned to Dr. Pelchat, annoyed at the laughter. As he turned his head back to me, his eyes started to roll to the back of his head, where I could only see white. His arms took on a super-fast speed of motion and stretched out to me. The chart was up close and suddenly in my face.

KRISTEN FAILED!!!!!!.

The terrorizing laughs grew louder as I pulled my hair in fear and anger. "No! No! No!" I screamed. I tried to run into the room with Nick so that I could hide from them and protect Nick.

"No! No! No!" I continued to scream.

Suddenly strong arms were wrapped around me, and they were holding me back.

"No! Let me! No! Stop! No!" I swung my arms wildly at whatever was holding me back from getting to him.

"Kristen. It's okay. It's all right, Kristen." This sweet voice that spoke to me was like an angel coming to rescue me from the terror.

I didn't feel completely safe yet, and I was sure that Nick wasn't safe. I tried to swing a little more, but suddenly I didn't have as much strength as I'd had in my dream. I felt tired and my head was heavy, like I had just woken up.

"Come on. Calm down, sweetie. It's okay. It's me. Kristen. It's Ms. Mosley."

I opened my eyes and saw the angel's face. It really was Ms. Mosley sitting beside me. And I was in Bent Creek. I was in my bed, sitting up, and Ms. Mosley had one arm wrapped around me while she used her other hand to hold both of my arms from swinging. When I saw the gleam of the softly lit night light on the wall, I realized that I was not dreaming anymore.

I pressed my face against Ms. Mosley's shoulder, where I let my tears fall. I didn't care if Mena woke up and saw me crying. I didn't even care that I was crying on Ms. Mosley, and, from what I could feel, I could tell she didn't mind, either. Her hand went from her tight death grip holding my arms to softly holding my hands to comfort me. We stayed like that until I finished letting out my tears.

I finally stopped crying and sobbing. I pulled away from Ms. Mosley.

"What happened?" I asked her.

"I was going to ask you the same question," she said.

"I think I was dreaming."

"It must have been something awful, Kristen. I could hear you screaming from the main unit. I'm surprised you didn't wake up your roommate." She looked over at Mena, who was motionless and still wrapped in her coc.o.o.n.

Ms. Mosley turned back to me and asked, "Did you have a nightmare?"

"Yes," I told her.

She asked, "Well, do you want to talk about it?"

"I don't really know how to say it. It was just really scary. I couldn't control anything. It was too evil."

"Did you say your prayers before you went to sleep?"

I shook my head. I didn't want to admit that I didn't normally say a prayer before I went to sleep.

"I find that whispering a little prayer before I go to sleep helps me get to sleep faster, and it comforts me in knowing that G.o.d is watching over me."

"Okay," I said.

"And whenever I find myself stuck in a nightmare that I can't seem to get out of, I call out to Him. I even get on my knees inside of my dream and start praying. Sometimes I have to do that. And he sends his angel and pulls me right out."

"I guess He sent you to me again," I said. I wanted to make her feel like her words were having an effect on me. In actuality, I had begun to ponder. When she said that she felt the comfort of knowing that G.o.d was watching over her, I thought of something else.

"I hear everything," she said. "And what I don't hear, I take it as G.o.d telling me I don't need to hear it." She smiled warmly.

I couldn't smile back. The thought stuck out in my mind.

"What's going on there? You still troubled by that dream?"

"A little," I said. "Ms. Mosley? I have to ask you something."

"Yes? You can ask me anything," she a.s.sured me, with a touch of her hand to my shoulder and a gentle squeeze.

"If someone dies, do you believe that they go to heaven if they are good, and if they are bad, they go to h.e.l.l?"

"I believe that G.o.d pa.s.ses judgment on everyone when they are called home and, yes, they are sent on to their eternal resting place. Though h.e.l.l doesn't really seem like a place for rest."

"If someone kills himself, does G.o.d pa.s.s judgment on that person to go to h.e.l.l?"

"I've heard that in Sunday school, listed among grave sins that will send a person straight to h.e.l.l, but I heard a lot of other things, lists of reasons. It used to scare me because I knew that I wasn't perfect. I was bound to make a mistake or two in my life. One being my bad habit of smoking. I know G.o.d doesn't like that. But you know something? I learned a lot more about G.o.d and his great justice as I studied more and started to understand. Through the teachings, I heard many different reasons from different preachers growing up about the things that G.o.d sends people to h.e.l.l for, and what He finds acceptable enough to let us into heaven. And what I found was that all of these preachers were saying that what was going to get us into heaven were deeds that they were all doing so that they could appear to be more righteous. What they were teaching us were their own opinions of how righteous they thought they were, and they tried to tell us that, if we were like them, then we would be able to go to heaven, no matter what. It was a different one each time. As I learned more about our Heavenly Father and what kind of G.o.d he is, I came to appreciate something that the preachers never told me."

"What?"

"I learned and came to appreciate that no man - not the preacher, not you, or me, or any other man or woman - can judge a person and say that what they do or how they live their life, or even how their life ends, it is what is going to get any of us into heaven. That is G.o.d's job because He is the reader of our hearts. It's not fair for me to say that anyone who kills themselves is going to h.e.l.l, because I don't know that person's heart, their reverence with G.o.d, or their complete state of mind. There are illnesses that can drive a person completely insane. Some don't even know what they are doing if they do commit suicide, because they are unstable. Then, there are people who sacrifice themselves to save others, and they do it, knowing that they will have to die. Does that mean that they've given up on life and G.o.d? So Kristen, I can't answer you with a straight yes or no. I can only say that G.o.d would be the one to ask when you get there, because He is the one who can read your heart and who will finally judge you."

"What if your preachers were right? What if G.o.d does send a person to h.e.l.l for committing suicide, no matter what? Then what will that be like?"

"h.e.l.l? What is h.e.l.l like?"

"Yes," I said, with a bit of desperation in my tone.

"Well," she began. I could tell that she now felt obligated to answer, since she had said so much already. "From what I've been taught, if you are judged to go to h.e.l.l, all of the sins that G.o.d has not forgiven that you have committed are laid before you, and you are tormented and punished in those sins to remind you of your wickedness. This continues on for eternity."

I was now staring at her. She was cutting deep into me. I spoke up. "These were the things that I had learned. If you are good, you go to heaven, and if you are bad, you go to h.e.l.l. If a person commits suicide and G.o.d judges them to h.e.l.l, they have to be tormented by their sins forever. Then, that person would be jumping off a building or shooting themselves in the head, or whatever they did to get sent to h.e.l.l, all over again. Forever!"

The thought of restless torment frightened me. Then I thought of Rocky being stuck in h.e.l.l. I thought of him having to run down the hallway of the Boys' Unit in Bent Creek, being forced to haunt it so that he could be tormented by his eternal sin.

Ms. Mosley saw that I was scared, and she wrapped her arms around me. She gave me a gentle hug. As she leaned into me she said, "Remember what I told you. G.o.d is the reader of your heart, and He is the only one who can judge you. He will always take care of you."

CHAPTER 49.

The next morning I woke up from only two hours of sleep. After Ms. Mosley had left me, I couldn't get back to sleep. Mr. Sharp had hidden inside my pillowcase. I'd been afraid that Ms. Mosley would come back in and find us. She had comforted me enough to make me calm. I wasn't afraid, because she'd helped me appreciate that I had a chance to have a peaceful, eternal rest someday, and that G.o.d was really taking care of me. I believed that He had to have been, in order for Ms. Mosley to be there to pull me from that horrible dream. It wasn't the first time she had been there for me.

I knew that my family session was going to come faster than the previous day had gone by. I tried to think positively and think about all that Geoffrey and Ms. Mosley had said to me. I thought of what Dr. Pelchat had told me about BPD and how Borderline Personality Disorder was not me. We were going to work hard to treat it and cure me. Knowing these possibilities made me feel more hopeful. I was only afraid of seeing Nick again after that night. I told myself not to think about it, so that I wouldn't make myself feel badly again. I knew the time was coming, but I didn't have to think about it.

Before Ms. Mosley came into our room to make sure we were up to get our vitals checked, Mena and I dressed for the day. Mena looked at me while I dressed, and I felt her eyes on me. It was a bit uncomfortable, because she was really staring.

Exasperated, I finally said, "What?"

She asked, "Are you okay?"

"Yes. Why?"

"Wake up! Vitals! Come on, girls!" Ms. Mosley's loud voice filled the hallway of the Girls' Unit.

Mena said, "You better hurry up and put a different shirt on. I can see your fresh cuts. Hurry! She's coming."

I quickly pulled off my shirt and put on a longer-sleeved shirt that was in a drawer nearby. Just as I got the shirt over my head, Ms. Mosley burst in and started to yell, but saw that Mena and I were already awake and dressed. She smiled at the sight of us.

She said, "It's good to see that, for once, you beat me to it, Mena. Come on, girls, it's time to get your vitals checked and start the day."

The day started with vitals, then breakfast, and then our Goals Group Therapy session. This was the only time I had to see how many new people had arrived during the previous night. It seemed like new patients were always being admitted to Bent Creek.

On Sat.u.r.day, Goals Group was with Dr. Pelchat instead of Dr. Finch, and Geoffrey sat in on the group with us as a second mediator. Dr. Pelchat said that this group therapy session was going to be different from our other Goals groups. In this session, we were going to talk about future goals. Goals that we wanted to accomplish when we got out of Bent Creek. He said that they could be long-term or short-term goals. The key was to get us thinking about life after Bent Creek and to help us realize that it would continue on when we were out of here. It scared me to think about going back to work and continuing with my home schooling and then graduating. I knew Mom was going to start talking about me moving out to either go to college or get my own place. She had already hinted at it so many times. But I had other things to think about and try to work out before all of that. I especially had to focus on my treatment. I hoped that Mom would understand that when Dr. Pelchat explained it in our family session.

Tai volunteered to speak first in Goals Group. She stated that her long-term goal was to get along with her step-mother and get to a point where she could really try to respect her as her father's wife.