My Soul to Lose (6 page)

television played in the corner, tuned to the local news,

but no one watched it. As far as I knew, the other

patients weren’t up yet. Neither was the sun.

Lydia watched me just like she had the day before,

in mild interest, no surprise and almost total

detachment. Our gazes met for a long minute, neither

of us blinking. It was an odd sort of a challenge, as I

silently dared her to speak. She had something to say. I

was sure of it.

But she stayed silent.

“You don’t sleep much, do you?” Normally I

wouldn’t have pried—after all, I didn’t want anyone

else poking into my alleged mental instability—but

she’d stared at me for hours the day before. Like she

wanted to tell me something.

Rachel Vincent / 45

Lydia shook her head, and a strand of lank black

hair fell in front of her face. She pushed it back, her

lips firmly sealed.

“Why not?”

She only blinked at me, staring into my eyes as if

they fascinated her. As if she saw something there no

one else could see.

I started to ask what she was looking at, but

stopped when a purple blur caught my attention on the

other side of the room. A tall aide in eggplant-colored

scrubs checking in on us, clipboard in hand. Had it

been fifteen minutes already? But before she could

continue with the rest of her list, Paul appeared in the

doorway.

“Hey, they’re sending one over from the E.R.”

“Now?” The female aide glanced at her watch.

“Yeah. She’s stable, and they need the space.” Both

staff members disappeared down the hall, and I turned

to see that Lydia’s face had gone even paler than

normal.

Several minutes later, the main entrance buzzed,

then the door swung open. The female aide hurried

from the nurses’ station as a man in plain green scrubs

stepped into the unit, pushing a thin, tired-looking girl

in a wheelchair. She wore jeans and a purple scrubs

top, and her long pale hair hung over most of her face.

Her arms lay limp in her lap, both bandaged from her

wrists to halfway up her forearms.

“Here’s her shirt.” The man in green handed the

aide a thick plastic bag with the Arlington Memorial

46 / My Soul to Lose

logo on it. “If I were you, I’d throw it out. I don’t think

all the bleach in the world could get rid of that much

blood.

On my right, Lydia flinched, and I looked up to see

her eyes closed, her forehead furrowed in obvious

pain. As the aide wheeled the new girl past the

common area, Lydia went stiff beside me and clenched

the arms of her chair so tightly the tendons in her

hands stood out.

“You okay?” I whispered, as the wheelchair

squeaked toward the girls’ hall.

Lydia shook her head, but her eyes didn’t open.

“What hurts?”

She shook her head again, and I realized she was

younger than I’d first guessed. Fourteen, at the most.

Too young to be stuck at Lakeside, no matter what was

wrong with her.

“You want me to get someone?” I started to stand,

but she grabbed my arm so suddenly I actually jerked

in surprise. She was a lot stronger than she looked.

And faster.

Lydia shook her head, meeting my gaze with green

eyes brightly glazed with pain. Then she stood and

walked stiffly down the hall, one hand pressed to her

stomach. A minute later, her door closed softly.

***

The rest of the day was a blur of half-eaten meals,

unfocused stares, and too many jigsaw puzzle pieces to

Rachel Vincent / 47

count. After breakfast, Nurse Nancy was back on duty,

standing in my doorway to ask a series of pointless,

invasive questions. But by then I was annoyed with the

fifteen-minute checkups, and beyond frustrated by the

lack of privacy.

Nurse Nancy: “Have you had a bowel movement

today?”

Me: “No comment.”

Nurse Nancy: “Do you still feel like hurting

yourself?”

Me: “I never did. I’m really more of a selfpamperer.”

Next, a therapist named Charity Stevens escorted

me into a room with a long window overlooking the

nurses’ station to ask me why I’d tried to claw open

my own throat, and why I screamed loud enough to

wake the dead.

I was virtually certain my screaming would not, in

fact, wake the dead, but she seemed unamused when I

said so. And unconvinced when I insisted that I hadn’t

been trying to hurt myself.

Stevens settled her thin frame into a chair across

from me. “Kaylee, do you know why you’re here?”

“Yeah. Because the doors are locked.”

No smile. “Why were you screaming?”

I folded my feet beneath me in the chair, exercising

my right to remain silent. There was no way to answer

that question without sounding crazy.

48 / My Soul to Lose

“Kaylee…?” Stevens sat with her hands folded in

her lap, waiting. I had her undivided attention, whether

I wanted it or not.

“I…I thought I saw something. But it was nothing.

Just normal shadows.”

“You saw shadows.” But her statement sounded

more like a question.

“Yeah. You know, places where light doesn’t

shine?”
Much like a psychiatric hospital itself…

“What was it about the shadows that made you

scream?” Stevens stared into my eyes, and I stared at

her crooked part line.

They shouldn’t have been there. They were

wrapped around a kid in a wheelchair, but didn’t

touch anyone else. They were
moving.
Take your

pick…
But too much of the truth would only earn me

more time behind locked doors.

I was supposed to be learning how to handle my

panic attacks, not spilling my guts about what caused

them.

“They were…scary.” There. Vague, but true.

“Hmmm.” She crossed her legs beneath a navy

pencil skirt and nodded like I’d said something right.

“I see…”

But she didn’t see at all. And I couldn’t explain

myself to save my life. Or my sanity, apparently.

***

Rachel Vincent / 49

After lunch, the doctor came to poke and prod me with

an entire checklist of questions about my medical

history. According to my aunt and uncle, he was the

one who could really help me. But after my session

with the therapist, I was skeptical, and the doc’s

opening lines did little to help that.

Dr. Nelson: “Are you currently taking any

medications?”

Me: “Just whatever you guys shot me full of

yesterday.”

Dr. Nelson: “Do you have a family history of

diabetes, cancer, or cataracts?”

Me: “I have no idea. My dad isn’t available for

questioning. But I can ask my uncle when he gets here

tonight.”

Dr. Nelson: “Do you have a medical history of

obesity, asthma, seizures, cirrhosis, hepatitis, HIV,

migraines, chronic pain, arthritis, or spinal problems?”

Me: “Are you serious?”

Dr. Nelson: “Do you have any family history of

mental instability?”

Me: “Yes. My cousin thinks she’s twenty-one. My

aunt thinks she’s eighteen. I’d call them both mentally

unstable.”

Dr. Nelson: “Do you now, or have you ever, used

or abused caffeine, alcohol, nicotine, cocaine,

amphetamines, or opiates?”

Me: “Oh, yeah. All of it. What else am I supposed

to do in study hall? In fact, I better get my stash back

from your rent-a-cop when I check out of here.”

50 / My Soul to Lose

Finally, he looked up from the file in his lap and

met my gaze. “You know, you’re not helping yourself.

The fastest way for you to get out of here is to

cooperate. To help me help you.”

I sighed, staring at the reflection shining on his

sizable bald spot. “I know. But you’re supposed to

help me stop having panic attacks, right? But none of

that stuff—” I glanced at the file I was secretly

desperate to read “—has anything to do with why I’m

here.”

The doctor frowned, pressing thin lips even thinner.

“Unfortunately, there are always preliminaries.

Sometimes recreational drug use can cause symptoms

like yours, and I need to rule that out before we

continue. So could you please answer the question?”

“Fine.” If he could really help me, I was ready to

get cured, then get out. Short and sweet. “I drink Coke,

just like every other teenager on the planet.” I

hesitated, wondering how much of this he’d tell my

aunt and uncle. “And I had half a beer once. Over the

summer.” We’d only had one, so Em and I had split it.

“That’s it?”

“Yeah.” I wasn’t sure whether he was happy with

my answer, or secretly making fun of my seriously

deficient social life.

“Okay…” Dr. Nelson scribbled in the file again,

then flipped up the top page, too fast for me to read.

“These next questions are more specifically geared

toward your problems. If you don’t answer honestly,

you’ll be crippling us both. Got it?”

Rachel Vincent / 51

“Sure.” Whatever.

“Have you ever believed you had special powers?

Like the ability to control the weather?”

I laughed out loud. I couldn’t help it. If that was a

symptom of crazy, maybe I was sane, after all. “No, I

don’t think I can control the weather. Or fly, or adjust

the earth’s orbit around the sun. No superpowers

here.”

Dr. Nelson just nodded, then glanced at the file

again. “Was there ever a time when people were out to

get you?”

Growing more relieved by the second, I shifted

onto one hip, leaning with my elbow on the arm of the

chair. “Um…I’m pretty sure my chemistry teacher

hates me, but she hates everyone, so I don’t think it’s

personal.”

More scribbling. “Have you ever heard voices that

others could not hear?”

“Nope.” That was an easy one.

Dr. Nelson scratched his bald spot with short, neat

fingernails. “Have your family or friends ever

suggested that your statements were unusual?”

“You mean, do I say things that don’t make sense?”

I asked, and he nodded, nowhere near as amused as I

was by his questions. “Only in French class.”

“Have you ever seen things other people couldn't

see?”

My heart dropped into my stomach, and my smile

melted like a Popsicle in August.

“Kaylee?”

52 / My Soul to Lose

I crossed my arms over my chest and tried to ignore

the dread swirling through me, like the memory of that

dark fog. “Okay, look, if I answer this honestly, I’m

going to sound crazy. But the very fact that I know that

means I’m not really crazy, right?”

Dr. Nelson’s wiry gray eyebrows both rose. “
Crazy

isn’t a diagnosis, nor is it a term we use around here.”

“But you know what I mean, right?”

Instead of answering, he crossed his legs at the

knee and leaned back in his chair. “Let’s talk about

your panic attacks. What triggered the one you had in

the mall?”

I closed my eyes.
He can’t help you if you lie.
But

there was no guarantee he could help me if I told the

truth, either.

Here goes nothin’…

“I saw a kid in a wheelchair, and I got this horrible

feeling that…that he was going to die.”

Dr. Nelson frowned, his pencil poised over my file.

“Why did you think he was going to die?”

I shrugged and stared miserably at my hands in my

lap. “I don’t know. It’s just this really strong feeling.

Like sometimes you can tell when someone’s looking

at you? Or standing over your shoulder?”

He was quiet for several seconds, but for the

scratching of pen against paper. Then he looked up.

“So what did you see that no one else saw?”

Ah, yes. The original question. “Shadows.”

“You saw shadows? How do you know no one else

could see them?”

Rachel Vincent / 53

“Because if anyone else had seen what I saw, I

wouldn’t have been the center of attention.” Even with

my brain-scrambling screech. “I saw shadows

wrapping around the kid in the wheelchair, but not

touching anyone else.” I started to tell him the rest of

it. About the fog, and the things twisting and writhing

inside it.

But then Dr. Nelson’s frown dissolved into a look

of patient patronization—an indulgent expression I’d

seen plenty of in my two days at Lakeside. He thought

I was crazy.

“Kaylee, you’re describing delusions and

hallucinations. Now, if you’re really not on any

drugs—and your blood work will confirm that—there

are several other possible causes for the symptoms

you’re experiencing—”

“Like what?” I demanded. My pulse pounded

thickly in my throat, and my teeth ground together so

hard my jaws ached.

“Well, it’s premature to start guessing, but after—”

“Tell me. Please. If you’re going to tell me I’m

crazy, at least tell me what kind of crazy I am.”

Dr. Nelson sighed and flipped my file closed.

“Your symptoms could be secondary to depression, or