I'd been in public high school until the end of my soph.o.m.ore year. I'd left and had started home school when John had left. He and Lexus had graduated two years before me. I hated school. I hated being stared at and teased by the other kids. I hated to be singled out. I was always alone.

There I was in Bent Creek, feeling trapped. It felt like a school that I couldn't escape. My mind started racing with uncontrollable thoughts. I knew they all could see the bandages around my wrists. They'll know everything. They'll call me weird. They'll make fun of me, I thought to myself.

"Hey," said a voice from beside me. I turned, and big, brown eyes stared back at me.

"We're roommates," said the pretty girl.

"Hi," I said.

"I'm Janine. Bulimic Manic Depressive," she introduced herself. "Come over here with me. Meet our group."

I hesitated. Before I could decline, she yanked my hand and pulled me over to a table full of other people. At the table were three girls and two boys. Janine went over to another table and yelled for one of the boys to help her push the tables together to make room for me. When they finished setting up, Janine and I grabbed a chair and sat down.

Janine looked around at everyone and said, "Hey, you guys, this is my roommate. Her name is wait, what's your name?"

Still looking down and not making eye contact, I told her that my name was Kristen.

"Okay, this is Kristen. Kristen, this is Daniel, Tai, Chris, Cadence, and Lenni."

"Hey, Kristen, welcome to The Insane Part Two," said Chris. He was trying to be funny and nice.

I couldn't smile. I was too nervous. I looked away from his smile.

"Thanks," I said in a low voice.

"When did you get here?" Janine asked.

"Early this morning," I told her.

"That check in stuff takes way too long," Janine sympathized with me.

"Man, I need a cigarette," a very shaky and sleepy-looking guy said.

I looked up at him. He was the first boy in a long time that I had seen with long hair. He didn't seem to care that it was long and hanging down. His hair half-covered his eyes, but I could see them, very bright and beautiful. His name was Daniel. When Daniel looked up at me, he caught me staring. I quickly looked back down, away from his beautiful eyes.

"I hear that," Tai agreed with him. Tai had a tanned complexion. She was very even-toned and had wild, curly, sandy-brown hair. She was thin. When she smiled, her teeth were yellow. It was obvious that a simple toothbrush wouldn't get the job done.

Cadence was a very pale girl. She had straight, short, black hair. She didn't say much. She mostly stared off into nothing. Her lips were bright pink. She wore heavy eyeliner around her big, dark brown eyes. Cadence held on tightly to a doll. The doll looked like it was made of smooth white resin. It had long, black hair that was all matted up on one side. And it had one creepy looking st.i.tched-up eye. The eye that wasn't st.i.tched up was beady and red. I tried not to stare at it.

Chris had chin-length blonde hair and could pa.s.s for one of those California surfer boys with the way he looked and dressed if he had a surfboard in his front pocket.

Daniel, Tai, and Lenni were the angry ones of the group. I sensed that Daniel would have been more pleasant if he wasn't shaking so badly, and if he had a cigarette. Lenni was angry because she felt that she didn't need to be at Bent Creek. She told us the story about how, when she had been twelve, she had written letters about wanting to run away from home. Her mother had found them and had stuck her in Bent Creek. Her mother was somehow convinced that she was going to run away.

Janine seemed sweet. She tried to calm Lenni down by telling her to tell her doctor that the letters were old and that she didn't feel like running away. While Janine was talking, Chris started swearing angrily at Cadence. Cadence looked over at me and stared. Chris stopped and apologized. Cadence didn't care. She and her one eyed doll just kept staring at me. I began to feel creeped out.

"Don't worry about it, Chris," Janine said to him. "We all know about your DID."

"What is DID?" asked Lenni.

"It is Dissociative Ident.i.ty Disorder," Chris said.

"What does that mean?" Lenni pressed.

"It means that I have four people living inside of me, besides myself." Chris said. He seemed sad. "I'm sorry, you guys. Jake has a bad att.i.tude. He doesn't really like it here, but I like you guys. I'm not trying to be rude."

"Who does like it here?" Tai commented.

"Look, Chris," Janine said. "Just tell Jake that we're all in the same position here. Chill out. n.o.body wants to be here."

I looked past Chris and I saw that Cadence was still staring at me. She was holding her doll against her chest and she was rocking back and forth. I looked away from her.

"So, what did you do? Did you do one of those cry-for-help things and drag your mom's steak knife across your skin to get a little blood? Did you take a razor and do a few cuts across the wrists to make some stains? Come on, tell us," Tai pressed me.

"Oh, shut up!" Janine spat at her. "Why don't you tell us what you did?"

Tai lifted her shirt and showed us her stomach. She had deep st.i.tches from where she said she had stab wounds.

"Guts," Tai boasted. "I had guts to do what I did."

"Yeah, guts that your crazy a.s.s obviously tried to rip out," Daniel commented. I looked over at him, shocked to hear him speak.

Tai smiled and said, "Yeah, but it didn't work this time."

"You think that's funny?" Lenni asked Chris because he was laughing.

"I don't know about Chris, but I do," said Chris' evil personality, Jake. "Look what I did to him." Jake lifted Chris' sleeves and revealed his scarred arms. He had a countless number of scars and burns. He had words carved into his skin. I could make out the words "die" and "for nothing".

"That's messed up," Daniel said.

"What about you, then?" Jake pressed Daniel.

Daniel c.o.c.ked his head, raised his hand to Chris' face, and gave him the bird. Chris must have come back because he looked at Daniel, shocked.

"Why did you do that to me?" he asked.

Daniel stood up. I watched him as he ignored Chris and walked over to Ms. Mosley. She scolded him for not standing in line like everyone else had done to get his vitals checked. Daniel told her that he liked being the last one so that he could have conversations with her. She seemed charmed and flattered, because she smiled at him. I looked back at Chris. Next to him, Cadence was grinning at me. It was almost as if she was reading me. She knew I didn't feel like I belonged here. I didn't feel like I was like any of these kids. Cadence started laughing harder.

Tai looked at her. "What the h.e.l.l is so funny?"

"Meds!" someone yelled.

I looked up, and a herd of teenagers was rushing to the nurse's station.

"Those of you who take morning medications, please line up at the medicine counter," called another counselor.

Daniel stayed near Ms. Mosley.

"Don't you have morning medication, Daniel?" Ms. Mosley asked.

Daniel shook his head.

She smiled at him.

Daniel looked up and caught me staring at him again. I quickly looked away. I watched as Cadence stuffed her pills down her throat without drinking the water that the nurse handed out to her. I slowly turned back to Daniel. He was still looking my way. When our eyes met again, he didn't let me turn away from him without giving me a smile. It was warm. I tried to be kind and smile back, but it was hard. I was still nervous. Boys didn't smile at me. They only made disgusted faces. I turned to Janine. She was coming towards me from the medicine counter.

"Come on," she said as she grabbed my hand. "We have to get in the circle." She yanked me up and we walked into a room that was one of many in that ward. There was one love seat and a few hard chairs all pushed together to make a circle. Janine quickly pulled me along to the love seat so that we'd be the first to get it. We sat down.

Janine looked at me and smiled. I tried to smile back, but it was just too early in the morning. Sensing I wasn't quite with it that morning, Janine shrugged it off. Ms. Mosley entered the room and kids poured in right behind her. Tai came in and slid right between Janine and me. As she was sitting down, I saw her give Janine an evil look. Janine rolled her eyes. I guess it was because Janine was sharing the love seat with me and not her. The three of us fit on the couch, but I still felt odd. Both of them were so tiny. I began to get self-conscious over how chubby I felt. Finally, the room filled up with the kids I had seen in the front area, all except for Lenni, who never came in.

"Dr. Finch will be in here soon," Ms. Mosley said. "You guys just sit tight."

Cadence walked past me and sat in the chair next to Daniel. Daniel had a small piece of paper that was rolled up in his mouth. He was sucking on the paper, I guess pretending it was a real cigarette. As he reached up to take the paper out of his mouth, I noticed that his hands were shaking badly.

A tall, dark-skinned man entered the room. I knew he was Dr. Finch because of his professional demeanor. He had a very young face for a doctor. He had a shaved head, a mustache, and a goatee. He was neatly dressed in a pair of khaki pants and a sky blue, b.u.t.ton-down shirt with a neatly folded collar. He sat down in an empty chair next to Ms. Mosley. "Good morning, everyone!" he greeted, full of morning cheer.

There were slurred mumbles of a good morning back to him. Some people didn't say good morning at all. I didn't.

Dr. Finch looked around at everyone. He turned to Ms. Mosley and said, "Ms. Mosley, wasn't that the most terrible morning greeting you've ever heard?"

Ms. Mosley nodded her head. She said, "We should try this again."

"Come on guys. I said good morning!" he tried again.

Mostly everyone shouted good morning back at him. Tai and Janine shouted as loud and annoyingly as they could. I had to put my hands over my ears. Daniel just sat there with his face in his hands. Cadence stared at him.

"That was much better. Welcome to your Goals Group. Goals Group is your very first therapy session of the day. The purpose of this group is to help you set some positive and reachable goals every day for yourself. It is always good to have a different goal every day. Don't use the same goal that you had yesterday, even if you didn't fulfill that goal. Try it again the day after. When you are choosing a goal for the day, try to make it a real goal. Don't just say what you think Ms. Mosley or I want to hear. Make that goal reachable and something that is really going to help you."

"A cigarette would help me right about now," Tai whispered to Janine and me.

Ms. Mosley seemed not to hear what she said, but she still gave her a stern look that made Tai straighten up.

"Dr. Finch continued, "All right, so we will start by going around the room. Everyone, state your goal for the day and what you will do to try to reach that goal."

"Oh," Ms. Mosley b.u.t.ted in, "I just wanted to say that everyone should state their group goal for the day as well. We discuss group goals in night group with your group counselor. I think that some kids might need a reminder of what their group goal is for the day. So, everyone, make sure that you state that too."

Janine looked over at Tai. They grinned at each other. The odd feeling inside of me was getting worse. It felt like they were making fun of me in some kind of way. I leaned back on the love seat and wished that I could disappear.

Dr. Finch looked at Ms. Mosley and suggested that she go first. Ms. Mosley obliged. "Okay. I'm Ms. Mosley. I am the counselor for Group Two. My goal for today is be on all you all's b.u.t.ts today. You are not getting away with anything."

"Isn't that your goal every day?" Chris blurted out.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, Cadence gripped Daniel's leg and pinched the h.e.l.l out of him.

"Ouch!" yelled Daniel as he jumped out of his seat. "Leave me alone!"

"Okay, let's get control of ourselves!" Dr. Finch yelled.

"Did you see her just hurt me? She's insane!" Daniel was red with anger.

Tai and Janine were laughing hysterically with everyone else. I seemed to be the only one who thought that this was not funny. Cadence was laughing and she was staring right at me. Her stares were piercing me. I felt my heart beating fast. It could have been the commotion and excitement. It could have been because I was nervous and felt out of place.

Dr. Finch's demeanor went from calm to upset. "Cadence, go back to the front unit with Geoffrey. We don't need this kind of disruption in here." Dr. Finch pointed to the door. Cadence hesitated and looked at Ms. Mosley.

"Now!" Dr. Finch yelled.

Cadence jumped up off the couch as she held her little, resin doll in her arms. As she pa.s.sed me, she twirled around like she was doing a dance. She stopped and bent down to my level to look me in the eyes.

"Welcome," she said. Then, she strolled out of the door.

I sat still, astounded. My heart was beating faster than before. Janine and Tai were staring at me like I had done something wrong. I slid down lower on the love seat. Maybe, if I keep sliding, I could disappear in between the cushions without anyone noticing, I thought. I was so lost that I didn't even notice that Chris had begun stating his goals for the day.

"I am in Group Three," Chris said. "Our group goal for the day is to try to relate with one of our personalities. I am going to try to relate with Jake. My personal goal for the day is to try to not fight with Jake so much. He thinks that this is his body, but I have to show that I am in control, somehow."

Tai went next. "I'm Tai. I am in Group Two. Our group goal is to be nicer to Ms. Mosley today. That was more her idea than ours."

Ms. Mosley rolled her eyes at Tai.

"Anyways," Tai continued. "My goal for the day is to try not to lose my temper at anyone today. So, I guess in order to do that, I just won't say too much to people that annoy me."

Janine tapped Tai on her arm. They grinned at each other, again.

"Janine, why don't you go next?" suggested Ms. Mosley.

Janine smiled at Ms. Mosley prissily.

"I'm Janine," Janine said, "and I am in Group Two. We have to be nicer to Ms. Mosley today. My goal is to eat lunch and dinner."

"No! No! No!" yelled a boy from the other side of the room. This boy was tiny and had a mousy voice. He was thin. "You can't do that! That was your goal from yesterday."

"No, my goal for yesterday was to just eat lunch. Today I am going to eat lunch and dinner," Janine clarified.

"Yeah, whatever, Janine," the little boy said. "You didn't even eat lunch yesterday, so what makes you think you will eat lunch and dinner today, fat a.s.s?"

Janine jumped up out of her seat and went for the little boy. Dr. Finch grabbed her and made her sit down.

"Shut up, Josh! Look at yourself! Why don't you take a look in the mirror?" I could see tears welling up in Janine's eyes. A few drops fell. Ms. Mosley suggested that Janine go outside with Cadence, but Janine wanted to stay.

"Why don't you make Minnie Mouse leave?" she whined. "He's the one who started with me!"

"No one is leaving," Dr. Finch said. "We are all going to get through this and state our goals for the day. That's what we came here to do, so let's do it." Dr. Finch looked at me. "Why don't you go next?"

I felt a sharp pain go through my chest. "I... uhh... well, I don't know what group-"

"I'll go next," Daniel said.

I felt so stupid.

"I can't believe it, a volunteer." Ms. Mosley said.