Her (16 page)

I wasn’t laughing, and neither was Dr. Bent. Dr. Bent told Cadence it was her turn to share. At first Cadence just looked around at everyone. Her face was strange. The tense expression started to melt away as she began speaking.

“I’m Candy. I am seventeen years old, and there are degenerate perverts of the government who are trying to penetrate our minds with unimaginable strengths. We don’t know what they are capable of, and there’s no way to find out unless you let them get you. My father’s friend said that he could protect me, but they got him, too. He tried to get me, but my dad said that this was the only place that they wouldn’t get me. They can’t find me here. They can’t find any of you if you don’t talk about it. They’ll hack you! They’ll hack you all up! They…they said…they will get me…”

She gasped as if someone had tried to grab her. Her left hand stayed between her upper thighs, as if she were trying to protect her crotch. She clutched her doll tightly and pressed it to her chest as she rocked back and forth in her chair. She cried softly.

“I don’t want to be a part of it! He said it was for me. It was all for me.”

I was confused and scared all at one time. The expressions of fear and paranoia were written on Cadence’s face. What was with this girl? She was so afraid that she was shaking. Who was after her? Why were they after her? Who were these perverts? I wondered. I knew I'd never know because they probably didn't exist.

My mind was racing. I looked at Dr. Bent, who looked as calm as the summer wind.  I heard Tai and Janine snickering. They probably thought it was funny because they didn’t understand. I didn’t think it was funny. I thought it was almost horrifying because I didn’t understand.

Dr. Bent leaned forward and gave a warm smile to Cadence. “It’s all right, Cadence. No one will make you do anything that you do not want to do in here. You are safe, just like we talked about before.”

Cadence continued to rock back and forth with her doll clutched closely to her chest. I watched her move her hand down. She placed it between her thighs and she squeezed them together. Someone had hurt her. They had hurt her badly. Maybe she felt that they were still after her. I started to feel bad for her. I got lost in my thoughts; not realizing that the next person had began speaking.

“My name is Rocky,” the new person said. “I am thirteen years old. I am here because I tried to…I mean…I…” His hands were shaking and he looked nervous.

“It’s all right,” Dr. Bent said. “Nobody’s going to judge you.”

“I tried to kill myself last night,” he admitted.

I felt my heart beat faster. Pains shot through my stomach as he spoke. He was so young, and something hurt him enough cause him to want to die. I understood his pain.

“How did you try to do it?” I heard myself ask.

All eyes suddenly shot stares at me.

I sank in my chair, embarrassed.

Rocky looked at Dr. Bent for permission. “Do I have to answer that?”

“You don’t have to, but it may aid us all in understanding. Everyone in here has shared his or her issues. It won’t make you stand out. If anything, it should help.”

“I don’t really want to say. I mean, there is nothing to say. I just tried to kill myself. My mom found me, and they made me come here when I got out of the hospital. It doesn’t matter.” He sighed and looked down at his hands in his lap. I could see charcoal residue on his cheek.

Dr. Bent didn’t press Rocky any further. She thanked him for sharing and told him that he’d done a good job opening up. Though she was trying to be nice and encourage him, it didn’t seem to work. He kept his eyes on his hands, and had the same depressed look on his face. Dr. Bent didn’t pick on him anymore, as she seemed to do with Tai. She moved on to Daniel.

Daniel looked up, shocked, when she called out to him. His mind must have been somewhere else. Everyone seemed to have been drifting off while other people were speaking. I tried to stay alert in case she called on me.

“What?” Daniel asked.

“It’s your turn to share, silly,” Janine reminded him.

“What are we doing again? What are we sharing?”

“Are you okay, Daniel?” Dr. Bent asked with concern.

“Can I use the restroom?” asked Rocky.

“Hang on a minute, Rocky,” Dr. Bent said. “Daniel, you look pale. Are you feeling okay?”

“I have to use the bathroom, too,” Janine interrupted.

Others started complaining that they needed to use the restroom.

“Hey!” Dr. Bent yelled. “Let’s get in control here! If you all could just wait a minute, I’ll call your group leader to come get you. You all will get a break.” She got up and went over to Daniel. She looked down at him. “Daniel, do you feel all right?”

Daniel looked up and his face was ghostly white. His eyes rolled back to where his pupils seemed to disappear and we could only see white. He tried to nod his head.

“Yes,” he struggled to get out, “I’m okay, Dr. Bent.”

“I don’t think so,” she said as she began dialing on her phone. She spoke with someone on the other end and asked them to come because Daniel needed help. When she hung up, she went back over to Daniel. Everyone stared at him. Tai and Janine asked him if he was all right, and he kept trying to say that he was fine, but he could barely speak.

Less than a minute went by, and Ms. Mosley entered the room with Geoffrey. Dr. Bent told them that Rocky and Janine needed to use the restroom and that Daniel wasn’t feeling well. When Dr. Bent said that Rocky and Janine needed to use the restroom, Tai and a few others said that they had to go, too.

I suddenly felt like I was back in school. I sat quietly in my chair, looking over at Daniel, concerned. Daniel looked like he was drifting off into sleep. Ms. Mosley told everyone to come back to the unit with her and Geoffrey. Geoffrey walked over to Daniel and asked him if he was all right. Daniel insisted that he was fine. When Geoffrey grabbed Daniel’s arm and tried to help him up, his lack of balance proved otherwise.

“Easy does it, there. Come on, Daniel. I’ll help you back to the unit and we will test your blood sugar. It might be low.”

Geoffrey and Daniel headed out the door first. The rest of us lined up behind Ms. Mosley, and we headed out the door, leaving Dr. Bent in the office.

When we were back on the unit, everyone seemed to scramble away to their rooms. Daniel was sitting at one of the tables while he pricked his finger and let his blood drip onto some kind of small machine that looked like a calculator. I sat down at the table with him.

He looked up at me and said, “I guess my secret is out.”

“What is that?” I asked, referring to the machine that was sucking the blood from his finger.

“It’s a blood glucose testing meter. My blood sugar is low.”

He let his head fall onto the table. I looked down at the small machine and saw that the digital screen on his meter read fifty-eight. I called out to Geoffrey, not knowing what fifty-eight meant. Geoffrey came over and tapped Daniel. Daniel looked up. I sighed with relief. I thought he had passed out. Geoffrey gave Daniel half of a chocolate candy bar. Daniel tore into the candy bar immediately.

“Why is your blood sugar low?” I asked him.

He shrugged. “I’m diabetic, so it happens sometimes. Better it gets low than high.”

“Why?”

“Because that means I can have candy,” he said with a mischievous smile.

“I had no idea you have diabetes,” I told him.

“Since I was twelve. It’s called Juvenile Diabetes,” he shared.

The conversation died right there. It was sad to think that Daniel had to suffer with diabetes, starting from such a young age. It was sad that he had to go through it at all. I’d had no clue that he went through that until he’d gotten sick in our group meeting. I had never seen him take a shot or a pill or anything for his diabetes.

I felt strange inside, just sitting there with him in silence. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to feel. I wanted to say something to him, but there weren’t any words. All I could do was look at him. His hair was dark and long like John’s. I couldn’t allow myself to start thinking about John. If I did, I’d get weird right there in front of Daniel. I leaned my head on my hands as my elbows rested on the table.

Instead of ignoring my presence, Daniel began to stare at me. I tried not to look at him. He had a string of caramel hanging from his bottom lip. I debated in silence whether to tell him or not. When I finally made my decision, I looked at him. I didn’t intend to say anything, but I couldn’t help laughing at the cute expression on his face while he let the caramel hang there. He was clueless.

“What’s so funny?” he asked.

“You have some stuff on your mouth. It’s just…”

“What?” He was smiling at me.

“The caramel is hanging from your mouth.” I kept laughing at him.

The more I laughed, the more it tickled him. He tried to wipe at the caramel, but that only made it worse. He made me laugh harder.

“What? Did I get it?” he asked.

I had to cover my mouth because I was laughing so hard. Daniel kept trying to wipe the caramel away, but was not having much success. I gave in and reached out to wipe it away for him. He noticed me getting closer to him, and he stopped smiling. My thumb touched his chin, and he flinched, quickly turning his face away from me. I immediately knew it was a mistake. Daniel didn’t want me to touch him. I pulled my hand away, feeling stupid.                                         

I didn’t notice Tai standing nearby. She and Rocky walked over and sat down at the table with us. She gave me a strange look. She was grinning and twisting her lips at the same time. Cadence giggled at Rocky as she passed our table.

“Shut up,” Rocky fussed.

“What were you two talking about?” Tai asked.

“Nothing,” I said.

“Oh, candy!” Janine exclaimed as she suddenly approached our table. She sat down next to Daniel and she made him smile again.

“How come you can have candy and we can’t?” Janine asked him.

Daniel held out the last bite of his candy bar to her and asked, “Do you want it?”

Janine pushed her long hair back and looked into his eyes. It was almost sexy, the way he pushed the last bite of chocolate into her mouth and she chewed it. He watched her enjoy that last piece. Everyone one else watched. We were all shocked that she was eating it.

Interrupting the PG-13 moment between Janine and Daniel, Tai said, “Don’t go throwing that back up, Janine. He sacrificed his last bite of chocolate for you.”

Janine laughed and stuck her tongue out at Tai. They both laughed. Daniel kept his gaze on her. It looked like he had just noticed the beauty mole on the bridge between her neck and shoulder. Then he poked it with his index finger. Janine squealed in a cute way and poked him back.

Tai looked over at me. She said, “Whew, somebody needs a bath.”

Everyone laughed, including Daniel. Janine was still poking at him, but I knew that he was laughing at what Tai had said. I wasn’t laughing because I knew that Tai was talking about me.

“Take a whiff,” Tai kept on.

“Stop it,” Janine kept laughing. “She can’t help it. She has stitches, so she can't shower. She can’t get the stitches wet because they will melt or something.”

That made them laugh even harder. I didn’t say anything. I felt exactly what I had expected to feel the first day that I arrived here. They were being just like the people at school. I hated being around other kids. I hated being here at Bent Creek. My cramps started kicking in hard.

Tai hit my arm jokingly.

“Come on, girl,” Tai said. “We are just playing with you. We know you can’t help it.”

They all kept laughing. I felt like such a loser. Janine was sitting next to Daniel, and they were laughing together. Tai got off the subject when Cadence decided to sit near us. Tai started going on about something that had happened at lunch. I missed what was so funny. I stopped listening to her, even though she was really trying to talk to me because I wasn’t at lunch with them.

Cadence seemed to like to antagonize new people because she was having too much fun annoying Rocky. Rocky was staring as if he wanted to snap her neck off her body. Cadence found this amusing. Janine and Daniel were in their own little world.

“Are you okay now?” Janine asked Daniel. She was showing her cute, pink dimple on the left side of her face as she smiled.

Smiling at her, Daniel said, “Yes. I am now.”

“Why are you being so quiet?” she asked him.

“I am just thinking about stuff,” Daniel said as he unzipped a small carry case and packed away his blood glucose meter.

He pushed the carry case aside and looked right at Janine. As soon as Daniel's eyes met Janine's, she blushed. He put his finger on her chin and wiped.

“You had caramel on your chin,” he told her.

My stomach burned. I couldn’t take it anymore. I got up and went to the bedroom. I stayed there with the door closed, wishing I could lock it and keep everyone else out. I didn’t leave to go back to group therapy, and no one came to look for me.