even severe anxiety…”
But there was something he wasn’t saying. I could
see it in his eyes, and my stomach started pitching.
“What else?”
54 / My Soul to Lose
“It could be some form of schizophrenia, but that’s
really jumping the gun. We need to run more tests
and—”
But I didn’t hear anything after that. He’d brought
my life to a grinding halt with that one word, and
hurtled my entire future into a bleak storm of
uncertainty. Of impossibility. If I was crazy, how
could I possibly be anything else? Ever.
“When can I go home?” That dark, sick feeling in
my stomach was churning out of control, and all I
wanted in that moment was to curl up in my own bed
and go to sleep. For a very long time.
“Once we get a definite diagnosis and get your
meds balanced…”
“How long?”
“Two weeks, at least.”
I stood and was almost bowled over by the
hopelessness crashing over me. Would I have any
friends left, if this got out? Would I be that crazy girl
at school now? The one everyone whispered about?
Would I even go back to school?
If I was really crazy, did it even matter?
***
My next four days at Lakeside made the phrase
bored
to death
seem like a distinct possibility. If not for the
note from Emma that Uncle Brendon brought, I might
have given up entirely. But hearing from her, knowing
that she hadn’t forgotten about me—or told anyone
Rachel Vincent / 55
else where I was—brought relevance back to my life
outside Lakeside. Made things matter again.
Em was still planning to humiliate Toby that
weekend, and crossing her fingers that I’d be back at
school in time to see it happen. And in case I wasn’t,
she’d made plans to broadcast his downfall on
YouTube, just for me.
That became my new goal. Doing and saying
whatever it took to get out. To get back to school, and
back to my life.
Nurse Nancy started each morning with the same
two questions and faithfully recorded my responses on
a clipboard. I saw Dr. Nelson for a few minutes every
day, but he seemed more concerned with the side
effects of the medication he’d prescribed than with
whether or not it was actually working. In my opinion,
the fact that I hadn’t had any more screaming fits was
total coincidence, and not the result of any of the pills
they made me take.
And the pills…
I decided early on not to ask what they were. I
didn’t want to know. But I couldn’t ignore the side
effects. I was groggy all the time, and spent half of the
first two days sleeping.
The next time my aunt and uncle came, they
brought two pairs of my own jeans and
Brave New
World,
and I spent the next day reading it between
naps. That night, Paul gave me a ballpoint pen and a
legal pad, and I started writing my paper longhand,
56 / My Soul to Lose
desperately missing the laptop my father had sent for
my last birthday.
On my fifth night in La La Land, my aunt, uncle,
and I sat on a couch in the common area. Aunt Val
prattled endlessly about Sophie’s dance-team routine,
and the many rounds of debate with the team’s faculty
sponsor over the new uniforms: unitards or separate
tops with hot pants.
I personally didn’t care if Sophie danced in the
nude. In fact, the life experience might open up some
interesting career opportunities for her some day. But I
listened because as dull as Aunt Val’s story was, it had
happened out in the real world, and I missed the real
world more than I’d ever missed anything in my life.
Then, in the middle of a detailed description of the
unitard in question, several simultaneous bursts of
static caught my attention from the nurses’ station. I
couldn’t make out the actual words coming over the
two-way radios, but something unusual was obviously
going down.
Moments later, shouting shattered the
overmedicated hush from somewhere beyond the
nurses’ station, and the main entrance buzzed. Then
the door to the unit flew open, and two large men in
scrubs came in carrying a guy about my age, with a
firm grip on each of his arms. He refused to walk, so
his bare feet trailed on the floor behind him.
The new boy was thin and lanky, and yelling his
head off, though I couldn’t understand a word he said.
Rachel Vincent / 57
He was also completely nude, and trying to toss off the
blanket someone had draped over his shoulders.
Aunt Val leaped to her high-heeled feet,
predictably shocked. Her mouth hung open, her arms
limp at her sides. Uncle Brendon’s scowl could have
paralyzed anyone who saw it. And all over the unit,
patients poured from their rooms to investigate the
commotion.
I stayed on the couch, paralyzed with horror not
only for what I saw, but for what I remembered. Had I
looked like that when the aides had buckled me to the
restraint bed? Had my eyes been so bright and distantlooking? My limbs so out of control?
I’d been dressed, of course, but I wouldn’t be if my
next panic attack struck while I was in the shower.
Would they haul me out naked and dripping to strap
me to another bed?
While I watched, spellbound and horrified as the
aides half pulled the newcomer through the unit, Uncle
Brendon tugged Aunt Val to one corner of the now
nearly empty common room. He glanced at me once,
but I pretended not to notice, knowing he wouldn’t
want me to hear whatever he was about to say.
“We’re handling this all wrong, Val. She shouldn’t
be here,” he whispered fiercely, and inside I cheered.
Schizophrenic or not—and no diagnosis had been
confirmed yet—I didn’t belong at Lakeside. I had no
doubt of that.
58 / My Soul to Lose
On the edge of my vision, my aunt crossed her
arms over her narrow chest. “Dr. Nelson won’t let her
out until…”
“I can change his mind.”
If anyone could, it would be Uncle Brendon. He
could sell water to a fish.
One of the aides let go of his charge’s arm to
reposition the blanket, and the new guy shoved him
backward, then tried to pull free of the other aide, now
shouting a random stream of curses.
“He’s not on call tonight,” Aunt Val whispered,
still staring nervously at the scuffle. “You won’t be
able to reach him until tomorrow.”
My uncle’s scowl deepened. “I’ll call first thing in
the morning. This will be her last night here, if I have
to break her out myself.”
If I weren’t afraid of drawing attention to my
eavesdropping, I would have jumped up and cheered.
“Assuming she doesn’t have another…episode
between now and then,” Aunt Val said, effectively
raining all over my parade.
And that’s when I noticed Lydia curled up in a
chair at the back of the room, face scrunched up in
pain, watching all three of us rather than the scuffle up
front. She made no effort to hide her eavesdropping,
and even gave me a thin, sad little smile when she saw
that I’d noticed her.
When the staff had the new guy under control and
safely sedated in the closed restraint room, my aunt
and uncle said a quick goodbye. And this time, when
Rachel Vincent / 59
the unit door closed behind them, my usual bitter wash
of loneliness and despair was flavored with a thin,
sweet ribbon of hope.
Freedom was eight hours and a phone call away. I
would celebrate with a designer jogging suit bonfire.
***
The next morning marked my seventh day at Lakeside,
and my first waking thought was that I’d officially
missed the homecoming dance. But it was hard to be
too upset about that, because my second thought was
that I would sleep in my own bed that night. Just
knowing I was getting out made everything else look a
little brighter.
Maybe I wasn’t crazy, after all. Maybe I was just
prone to anxiety attacks, and the pills the doc
prescribed could keep that under control. Maybe I
could
have a normal life—once I’d put Lakeside
behind me.
I woke up before dawn and had half finished a fivehundred-piece jigsaw puzzle by the time Nurse Nancy
came into the common room to ask about my
gastrointestinal health and my suicidal impulses. I
even smiled while I bit back a suggestion about where
she could shove her clipboard.
The rest of the staff seemed to find my sudden
good cheer alarming, and I swear they checked on me
more often than usual. Which was pointless, because
all I did was work on puzzles and stare out the
60 / My Soul to Lose
window, aching for fresh air. And a doughnut. I had
the worst craving for doughnuts, just because I
couldn’t get one.
After breakfast, I packed all my stuff. Every stupid
sparkly jogging suit and every fluffy pair of socks. My
copy of
Brave New World,
and my handwritten,
fifteen-hundred-and-twenty-two-word essay, each
word counted, just to make sure. Three times.
I was ready to go.
Nurse Nancy noted my packed bag and my neatly
made bed with a single raised eyebrow, but said
nothing as she checked me off on her clipboard.
By lunchtime, I was fidgeting uncontrollably. I
tapped my fork on the table and stared out the window,
watching the visible portion of the parking lot for my
uncle’s car. Or my aunt’s. Every time I glanced up, I
found Lydia watching me, a silent frown painted on
her face, along with a now constant grimace of pain.
Whatever was wrong with her was getting worse; she
had my sympathy. And I couldn’t help wondering why
they didn’t give her stronger pain pills. Or if they were
giving her any at all.
I’d been working on the puzzle for nearly an hour
after lunch when a loud crash echoed from the boys’
hall, and startled aides took off in that direction. As
they ran, that familiar grim panic grabbed me like a
fist around my chest, squeezing so hard I couldn’t
breathe.
Despair settled through me, bitter and sobering.
No!
Not again! I’m getting out today…
Rachel Vincent / 61
But not if I started screaming again. Not if they had
to strap me to another bed. Not if they had to shoot me
so full of drugs I slept through the next fifteen hours.
My heart pumped blood through me so fast my
head spun. I stayed in my seat while the other patients
stood, edging eagerly to the broad doorway. The
screaming hadn’t started yet. Maybe if I stayed
completely still, it wouldn’t. Maybe I could control it
this time. Maybe the pills would work.
Down the hall, something heavy thudded against
the walls, and dark panic bloomed inside me, leaving
my heart swollen and heavy with a grief I didn’t
understand.
Lydia rose from her chair with her back to the
boys’ hall. Her eyes closed, and she flinched. As I
watched, frozen, she fell forward, bent at the waist.
Her knees slammed into the vinyl tile. She held herself
off the floor with one hand—the other pressed to her
gut in obvious pain—and cried out softly. But no one
heard her over the splinter of wood from down the
hall. No one but me.
I wanted to help her but I was afraid to move. The
shriek was building inside me now, fighting its way
up. My throat tightened. I gripped the arms of my
chair, my knuckles white with tension. The pills
weren’t working. Did that mean my panic attacks were
neither schizophrenia nor anxiety?
Wide-eyed, I watched as Lydia hauled herself up,
using an end table for balance. One arm wrapped
around her stomach, she held her free hand out to me,
62 / My Soul to Lose
tears standing in her eyes. “Come on,” she whispered,
then swallowed thickly. “If you want out, come with
me now.”
If I weren’t busy holding back my scream, I might
have choked on surprise. She could talk?
I sucked in a deep breath through my nose, then let
go of the chair and slid my hand into hers. Lydia
pulled me up with surprising strength, and I followed
her across the room, through a gap in the cluster of
patients, and down the girls’ hall, while everyone else
stared in the opposite direction. She stopped once,
halfway down, bent over in pain again as a horrifying
screech ripped through the air from the other side of
the unit.
“It’s Tyler,” she gasped as I pulled her up and
pressed my free fist against my sealed lips, physically
holding back my screams. “The new guy. He hurts so
bad, but I can only take so much…”
I had no idea what she was talking about, and I
couldn’t ask. I could only pull her forward, moving as
much for her benefit now as for mine. Whatever was
wrong with her was somehow connected to Tyler, so
surely distance from the commotion would be as good