Part 9

Chapter 41

After I dial the last number, the phone begins ringing and my hopes that the number had changed are quickly dashed. My only realistic hope now is that no one will answer. I don't want to leave a message on a machine, but a machine at this point is a little more preferable than talking to an actual person.

Ring three comes and then ring four and I'm gearing up to leave a message along the lines of, 'Jenny, this is Melinda. I'm out of the hospital, bye' but my hopes are dashed when the ringing stops, a connection is made and Jenny's voice greets me.

At the moment, I really can't remember why I let Nikki talk me into this. Everyone, including Greg for some strange reason, is sitting downstairs enjoying something or other in the living room and I'm stuck up here in my room with a phone attached to my ear cause I said I'd give Jenny a call and Nikki held me to it. She wouldn't let me forget about it actually.

After we finished eating breakfast Nikki took me aside and helpfully reminded me that I still needed to give Jenny a call. The only reason why I bothered to listen to her and go upstairs into my room is because a part of me knew that she was right. Jenny did deserve a phone call from me. For all I knew, she didn't even know I was out of the hospital yet. Hence, my brilliant idea for the message.

"Hello?" Jenny asks from the other end for probably the fourth time. She's not getting annoyed like some people would, but then again she has caller ID so that probably let her know that someone from the Catherine Willow's residence is calling her.

"Hey," My voice sounds a little scratchy. "I was just calling because I've been told that you've been trying to get in contact with me." I sound formal like I don't really know who I'm talking to, but I do know Jenny. It's her that really doesn't know me.

"I wanted to see how you were doing," she doesn't sound any less formal than me, but I'd just guess that's because she's following my lead.

"I'm still alive," I respond making a conscious effort to lighten my tone. "I guess that's something more than a few of us expected."

"But how are you doing?" She's concerned, which just proves to me again that Nikki is right. Jenny can't turn off love like I can, like I've had to in order to be a survivor.

"I'm doing okay, better." At least now I sound like myself or at least sound a little more normal to my ears.

"Good. That's really good."

Silence fills the emptiness that has come between us and this conversation has managed to come to an abrupt end sooner than I expected it to. I was willing to dedicate a full ten minutes to this phone call but it seems like one was enough. One minutes seems like it might have actually been a gross overestimate.

There's a beep on my end signaling someone is trying to call putting to use the little invention of call waiting. "Look, Jenny, I'm glad we've gotten a chance to talk a little bit but someone is calling on the other line and I'm sure it's important." I haven't even checked to see who it is. "We'll talk again, sometime." I don't wait for an answer. I click the phone over to the other line thankful for my escape.

"Willow's residence," My voice is formal again but isn't nearly as strained.

"May I speak with Catherine, please?" I don't recognize the man's voice but that doesn't mean much. I'm not really acquainted with too many of Catherine's friends. I'm not really acquainted with Sara's friends either. "You can tell her Grissom is calling."

The name sounds familiar, but it's not hitting on any particular memory. "Let me go see what she's doing, hold on." The formality is gone now.

I jump off my bed and run downstairs to inquire about Catherine's whereabouts and am told she went upstairs to take a shower. I don't bother looking for her anymore. "Catherine is currently indisposed, can I take a message?"

My eyes take a quick survey around and I don't find any paper or anything to write with, so I'm just going to try and remember whatever it is he says. "Just tell her that Grissom called and needs to talk to her as soon as possible."

The guy sounds really serious. "Well if it's an emergency or something, Sara is around."

"Sara's there?" he sounds a lot more surprised than anyone should be by that. Sara is always here.

"Yeah, and she's not busy. Did you want to talk to her?"

There's that uncomfortable silence again, and I don't even know this guy or at least I don't really remember him.

"Just tell Catherine that Grissom called." He says shortly then hangs up. I don't even get a goodbye.

When I walk back into the most inhabited room of the house, everyone turns to look at me but Sara is the only one that asks why I was looking for Catherine. I tell her that some guy named Grissom called and something in her face shifts. It would seem that this Grissom guy might be somewhat important.

Sara asks me if he asked about her, and me being the smart person I am these days, I tell her that he didn't but that I told him she was around. It doesn't seem like she's very happy with my reply.

"Did I do something wrong?" I don't look at Sara when I'm asking, but I look at Greg who, for the first time since he got here, isn't talking. He's a really nervous little guy who seems to fill in is insecurity with too many words. That would be almost the exact opposite of me; it may be the exact opposite of Sara too. Maybe that's why she seems to be friends with him. Although, he really does annoy me.

"No," Sara gets up from her place on the couch. "You didn't do anything wrong."

She starts walking out of the room and towards the staircase. I think I know who she's running to, and think it's only best I follow her. "So what's so bad about this Grissom guy?" I ask to her back as she and I go quickly up the stairs.

"He was my boss. I think you met him once," Sara answers distractedly.

"Was?" Maybe Sara and Catherine don't have jobs anymore or maybe it's just Sara that doesn't have a job anymore. I still don't remember the last time either one of them left the house to go to work.

We stop at the top of the stairs and look at each other. Sara looks at me like she's debating whether or not she wants to tell me the truth or at least tell me what's going on. They've been really good about not filling me in on what's been going on since, well since I completely lost it. Like, they didn't tell me that Lindsey was being shuffled around from one person to the next depending on who had the time to take care of her. Greg had been taking over the time that Catherine's sister couldn't fill.

I had to find out that bit of information from Lindsey herself. During breakfast, she was regaling me with all her tales of what she's been doing while the rest of us were 'away'. It doesn't seem like she had that horrible of a time, but I can still tell that she missed us.

I feel bad about that. I kinda forced her out of her home and took her parents away and even disappeared myself. That couldn't have been easy for her and it all happened because of me. I mean, I realize it's not like I did any of this on purpose but it still happened.

Since I've had some free time on my hands, I've had a chance to evaluate some things. It's not something I try to do often and it's not something that is easy to do at all, but the life that existed here without me was a lot easier than the one that exists with me. When I walked into Sara's life, first as her sister not knowing anything differently, I changed everything. Her relationship with Catherine was turned to a slow burn and even the time she spent at work I think lessened.

Even now, I wouldn't call myself the easiest person to live with and I'm hesitant to blame everything on the disorder. I'd hate to think that everything I did could be attributed to this one little thing going on in my brain that the doctors can't even really explain to me to a point where I feel satisfied.

Do I feel any different since I started to take the medicine? Yeah, I guess I do but it's like I feel normal but with chains on. It's like my brain has slowed down to a slow laborious walk instead of the full out sprint it was in before. I guess I do almost feel like a different person, but it's kind of scary because my thought processes have changed.

When I get back in school, if I ever get back to school, I don't know what will happen. I don't know if it'll be as easy anymore. I'm not sure if all the sudden I'll turn stupid cause the way my brain works is being changed by these medications that are the best science has to offer at the moment.

Sara is still standing in front of me, and I'm just now realizing that she's been talking but I've been nowhere near listening. I hope she hasn't been confessing anything deep and meaningful to me, cause I'm just not paying attention. I do catch her last sentence or fragment of a sentence, "but I wanted to."

I'm sure if I tried to use contextual clues I might be able to figure out what it is she's talking about, but I don't have a lot of context to work with. She chose to tell me whatever it is or was going on with her and her job, something I've found means a lot to her and I choose to take a brain rant instead of focusing on what it was she was trying to tell me.

It wouldn't be out of line to call me a little bit self-absorbed. "You're going to go back right?" Hopefully she didn't answer this already in her confession to me. "I know how much your work means to you."

She doesn't get any weird looks on her face and she doesn't look like I'm asking something that isn't a valid question, so that must mean I'm going to get away with missing this moment that was supposed to be between us.

I've had a lot of moments lately.

Sara opens her mouth to answer me and this time I make extra care to pay attention. "When you're good enough to start up your life again and if I'm able to work things out so that I can go back, then I'll go back to work. You mean a lot more to me than my work."

I really wish I knew what she said before. I wish I could hear the story again just so that I could know what she really did give up for me. Did she tell Grissom that she had to leave because her daughter needed her? Did she claim a family emergency over the phone with him then skip town? Did she have Catherine tell him or did they both tell him that they were leaving together?

Catherine comes out of her bedroom, looking fresh and ready for a new day but stops short when she sees Sara and me standing at the top of the stairs facing each other. "Is there something wrong?" she asks immediately directing her attention to my body, looking me over probably searching out blood or tears whatever would signal that I'm in yet another moment of turmoil.

But despite my hand bleeding earlier, which has since stopped, and my little discussion with Lindsey, which has since been put on hold until a later time, and even before that the discussion I had with Nikki, which leaves us in a state of flux, and talking to Jenny on the phone, which was surprisingly empty of any real meaning, and learning that Catherine has a history with Cocaine, which is something we might get to talk about more at a indefinite later, today has been a good day. Perhaps a little full, but ultimately better.

This is the kind of day I've been looking for for a while now. I'm not in the hospital, and haven't had any flashbacks about my grandmother. I haven't even had to deal with my biological father. I've been thinking about him and sort of expect him to pop back up at any moment, but today he's not around.

"Nothing's wrong," Sara eventually replies. "Grissom just called."

The name grabs Catherine's attention and she focuses on Sara. I bet she assumes Sara was the one to talk to him. "What did he have to say?"

Sara can't answer the question, so I take up the job. "He just wants you to call him back."

"You talked to him?" Catherine asks her attention was again fully on me.

I shrug. "It wasn't anything in depth and meaningful. He asked for you, I told him you were busy, then I told him Sara was around, he wanted you to call him back."

"You told him Sara was here?"

I really wish I heard what Sara was saying. "Yeah, it may have given him a slight pause but it didn't seem like the world was ending or anything."

"Then he probably just wanted to know when I was going back," Catherine says looking at Sara, making me wish just one more time that I paid attention to Sara's words.

"And you're going back when?" She looks like she's dressed for work at the moment, now that I move my eyes away from her face down her body. She's in very work-like attire.

Catherine blinks a couple times before she answers me. I don't have a clue as to what those blinks meant. "Today. All my paid time off and vacation time is gone. I didn't figure that both Sara and I could resign."

So Sara resigned. "Well then you should get going so you're not late," I step away from my position atop the stairs so that she could move down them if she so chose.

"You're okay with this?" She steps up to me and does that comfort thing again by putting her hand on my shoulder.

Personally, I don't know why she's asking my permission. It's her job and her life, really. She's the one that has to decide to go back to it. "I think I've got enough babysitters for the night, Catherine, and someone has to earn a living around here. I'm probably not going to hold down a job anytime soon." I'm not even sure I could get a job, what with the interviewers looking at my hands and all. I really want them to heal along with all the scarring that have left my arms eternally marred.

When they first took off my bandaging at the hospital, to just change them, I wanted them to immediately put them back on. While I was alone in Nikki's bathroom that night, I managed to cut up both of my arms almost up to the elbow. I don't remember what I was trying to do that night even though I've been asked to answer that question a couple of hundred times now. It was one of the favorites the doctors asked, 'What were you trying to accomplish?' well hell if I know.

The best answer I can give is that there was a razor in the bathroom I don't remember picking up and I was remembering something that was really traumatic and when I came to Catherine and Sara were standing above me and I had blood all over my hands and arms. I'm not even sure I realized that it was my blood. At that moment huddled in Nikki's bathroom that blood was Laura Sidle's. It's crazy, I know, but it wasn't mine.

That might be something my therapist wants me to share with her.

Suddenly I realize that I'm stuck in my head again when I should be paying attention to the two other people standing here with me. Lucky for me neither of them has been saying anything. "Are you okay?" Catherine asks me and I don't think she's asking about what I think of her going back to work again.

"Better." That's more than I've accomplished in a long time.

Catherine nods and I decide it's probably best I leave Sara and her alone now. They've got to talk about stuff, like they usually do and I'm not supposed to be a part of some of those conversations. I kind of get that now, even if the curiosity hasn't gone away yet. But I bet that when I went downstairs this morning and saw them huddled up on that bench outside they were talking about Catherine going back to work today.

Maybe Catherine is having problems with the idea. Maybe she feels like she's abandoning me or Sara or maybe even Lindsey or maybe just all of us. Maybe she had nightmares last night about seeing me in the victim's face instead of the actual victim.

The two of them probably talk about stuff like that.

And I'm not sure I want to be part of those conversations. Not really.

So I should walk away now so they can have that one last conversation, before Catherine goes off into the world. For some reason, that I can't even remotely try to understand now, I lean over and place a delicate kiss on Catherine's cheek. "Thanks," I whisper to her as I pull away.

They're both looking at me like I'm completely insane so now it's really time to leave before they start asking questions. I turn and fly down the stairs leaving the parentals alone. I get downstairs and return to the room occupied by the other people in this house. They're still all sitting around the living room watching something or other on TV. Greg is talking to Nikki, it almost sounds like he's flirting with her but Nikki for the most part is ignoring him.

She must realize I'm finally back, cause she turns and looks at me and smiles. She hops off the back of the couch and approaches me. I bet she's going to ask if I'm okay.

"Is everything going okay? Something happen?"

It's a common question these days. "Not really," I shake my head. "Just some stuff about Catherine's work and Sara's former work." I pause for a moment debating my next question, but ultimately decide it's worth the shot. "You know what happened with their work situation?"

"Not really," Nikki shrugs. "I asked about it once and they said they took time off. Although, I kind of got the feeling it was a little more than that. Well, to be specific, Catherine said she took some time off and Sara said she flat out quit. She's the one that stayed with you in the beginning."

Was there a beginning? If there is then I would put it at the moment I was born. "So what did you do about your job?" Suddenly I feel like I'm waking up to the world around me. Time means something again now, so that means that what people do with their time means something too.

Nikki smiles, "I told them they could kiss my ass."

That sounds like something Nikki would do. "So what are you going to do about your apartment?"

Nikki takes my hand and runs her thumb across the back of it. "Something more important came up instead of worrying about rent."

So when I stopped, everything just stopped with me? That doesn't seem right. Cause, like that would mean that possibly if I stopped forever then they might not start up again either, but wouldn't they have to anyway? What with the whole world keeps on spinning thing?

But the world didn't keep spinning for them. All of them made it stop until I started up again. That's why I thanked Catherine. That's why I'll thank Sara and Lindsey and Nikki and even little nerdy Greg.

I hear footsteps on the staircase and since there's a pair of them I assume it's time for Catherine to leave now. It's time we all see Catherine off to work cause she's the breadwinner now. We're certainly a representation of the modern day household or at least some skewed version of it. Either way when Catherine reaches the door I hug her goodbye and tell her to be safe. It's kind of the family thing to do.

I'm getting more into family things. But then again, I might be getting more involved in the life thing too and the reason for living it.



Chapter 42

"So are you going to, like, act all crazy and stuff forever?" Lindsey wanted to have a sleepover tonight with Nikki and me, and my guilt being what it was, I agreed to it. I don't have a lot of experience with sleepovers, but if I base them all on the current experience I'm having with Lindsey then that means the word 'sleep' is misused in the word sleepover.

We're all spread out on the floor tonight since I thought it was only fair that if all of us didn't fit on the bed then no one would sleep on it. Lindsey is between Nikki and me asking more questions than I thought was humanly possible.

"I don't know," I answer the younger girl through a long sigh. "As long as I take my medication and keep up with everything, then chances are that I won't actually go crazy, again, like you're so fond of putting it."

"But you're going to have to take the medication your whole life." Lindsey props herself up on her elbow as she tells me this so she can look at me while she's informing me of something she apparently thinks I don't yet understand myself yet.

"Yeah it looks like."

I lift up my head and peer over Lindsey's body to get a quick look at Nikki, or at least the best look I can get in the dark. She looks like she's sleeping but that's probably because Lindsey already played twenty-thousand questions with her earlier.

"So what happens if you forget to take it?" Lindsey seems really worried about this now.

"Well I tell you what, why don't you help me make sure I remember so nothing bad happens. You'll be able to help me get better." I think what I'm doing involves something with an Olive Branch or something here cause it's really not like I need another person to help me remember to take the medication. I've got plenty of those already. They're all afraid of what will happen if those pills aren't popped into my mouth on time.

I can't say that I'm not afraid of what will happen if I stop taking them either, though. I guess I'd go back to normal, which means I'd go back to abnormal since that's what I am.

Lindsey nods her head very seriously, and I know from now on I can expect her to be on top of my pill popping behavior. Every time the hour falls when a pill needs to be in my mouth I'll have plenty of people reminding me to make sure I swallow.

"You should go to sleep now, Lindsey." I'm tired of talking about this. It's not exactly something I'd choose to converse about for the entire night. If Lindsey has anymore questions she can ask her mother them. I can't keep up with having to explain to her how messed up I really am.

It's pretty obvious that Lindsey gets the way I'm feeling because she de-props herself and lays fully on her back. I can see her staring up at the ceiling and it's almost like I can hear her pushing back everything she still wants to say to me. It might be unfair that I haven't given her all the answers she wants, but I can't keep this conversation going all night.

Like most things in my life, I guess, I need to take things in little doses. I've got to learn what I can handle now so that I don't go off acting crazy or insane. I'm positive that I can't handle Lindsey tonight. I probably won't be able to handle her tomorrow night either.

I almost feel like I've gone through social paralysis since I got out of the hospital, though I've actually probably felt like this my whole life but I had the disorder to keep me somewhat unaware of it. Before the big "D", I didn't worry about what others thought of me as much. I didn't think about much beyond what I was doing or what was happening to me.

My parents were horrible parents. They didn't exactly nourish my social skills. They didn't exactly nourish anything except probably my disorder.

So now that the veil has been pulled away. Now that I can see who I am and how I act without that thing in my brain telling me not to look because it doesn't matter, I'm afraid. I'm afraid of dealing with people. I'm afraid because I don't know who I am.

Before I never had to learn because I didn't care. I didn't need to care. All I wanted was to get out of my environment and to run away from my experiences not just physically but mentally as well.

Well, now I care. I care that I'm telling Lindsey that I can be dangerous to myself and to others. I care that I have to deal with telling her anything at all. What's worse, I care of what she thinks of me. I haven't known her long enough to care about that. I've never known anyone long enough to really care about what they think.

Possibly, I cared about what Sara thought. Possibly I cared more about that than I want to admit to myself, but Lindsey is new. Catherine is new. Everything that is in my life at this moment is new. Not only is my reality completely different than what it was not even a year ago, but my eyes and the way I see things feels different too.

I'm really slow in wanting to blame it all on the "Disorder". I'm really slow to blame it on anything really. Who am I to hand out responsibility? I can't even touch anything close to what is responsible. I've run from that big 'r' word for what seems like my entire life.

In the beginning, I never handed the responsibility to those who raised me for my behavior. As far as I was concerned, I grew up in a normal household. Didn't all parents treat their kids like shit? If they didn't then that was news to me. A lot of things became news to me in those definitive early years.

It's official now, I can't sleep. Maybe Lindsey asked me too many questions and got me thinking way too much. Right now, although I don't really feel like I could complete the conversation with Lindsey it would at least give me something to do instead of guarding away the ceiling from miraculously crushing down on us.

I turn to Lindsey but she's already asleep. That makes me wonder how long I've been lost in my head again. There's no clock within my direct view so time once again escapes my acknowledgment of its existence. Nikki is asleep too and basically I'm left up all alone.

Last night I didn't get much sleep either. I hardly slept at all. Logic would assume that I'd be really tired now, but I'm not tired. If anything, I feel wide awake and ready for something to happen. Maybe I can stay up because I'm waiting for that something, or maybe these pills I'm on are effecting my sleep behaviors. I should read the entire list of things these pills can do to me instead of just those side-effects which put me near death.

Perhaps I'll do that now. It sounds like as good of an idea as any other.

Since I'm already on the floor, my feet have nowhere to drop to. Instead, I plant my feet and lift myself up. I'm used to not relying on my arms for much support these days, so my legs are used to the added work. No one stirs when I remove myself from our makeshift bed or when I open the door and sneak out.

If I had to take a guess, then I'd guess that everyone around me is really exhausted. I'd even go as far as saying that they have a right to be. It takes a lot to keep up with me. It always has taken a lot to keep up with me.

My pills are actually in my room, so reading the label or whatever came in the bag from the pharmacist isn't my goal. I have no urge to read anything at the moment. Reading might cause me to think even more.

So I make my way downstairs and don't stop until I'm outside in the backyard on that bench. The cool night breeze feels good on my skin that I haven't even realized was overheated until this very moment. Getting outside in some relatively fresh air doesn't feel so bad either. I haven't been given a lot of outside time lately.

When the back door opens I jump a little and turn around to see who is going to bother and check up on me. I can't be without company for too long before someone comes and seeks me out. There's no such thing as my own personal space anymore. I think I gave that up when I scared the hell out of everyone and almost died.

It's Catherine this time who makes sure my alone time is shortened to about three minutes. She has a glass in her right hand with what looks like some sort of alcoholic beverage in it. Her clothes are wrinkled and she looks like she's gone ten rounds with a person exactly like me but lost the fight.

She sits down next to me and holds her cup out for me to take from her. Without thinking I take the cup from her and take a sip. It's not an alcoholic beverage. It's just diet soda. I haven't seen either her or Sara pick up a single alcoholic beverage in a long time.

I'm not too compelled to ask why that is either.

"You really are addicted to caffeine if you're drinking it at this hour," I set the cup on the ground. "I thought the point of the night time was to go to sleep."

"If that's your definition then why are you still up?" Catherine curls her feet under her and looks out across the yard. I don't think she's made eye contact with me at all.

"Lindsey got me thinking, something I've been trying to tone down on doing lately."

Catherine nods. "Sara told me that Lindsey would be sleeping with you and Nikki tonight. That's really nice of you to do that for her."

I can't help the sardonic snort that comes from my body. "She deserves more from me than just my niceness."

"Maybe." Catherine releases a long sigh. "Maybe she deserves more from all of us."

So maybe Catherine had a really bad day at work. It was only her first day back. First days aren't always the best days. "So how was that first day back?"

Now Catherine looks at me. Her eyes are clear in the moonlight and I don't like what I see, because I see that she's about to talk to me about something that is going to make me think again. These are the times where I wish for my 'old' self to come roaring back, because if I was that 'old unmedicated' self I wouldn't sit here and wait to hear what Catherine has to say. I wouldn't care to listen at all. But because I am medicated and because I'm too comfortable to move in this uncomfortable environment, I'll stay.

Catherine releases another long sigh. "Working has never been harder to do than it was today."

"Las Vegas have some kind of mass murdering spree that I failed to hear about on the news?" It's not out of the realm of possibilities considering I don't watch the news, but I'll put forth a guess and say that's not what's got Catherine down.

"No," she looks away from me again and is focusing on some spot in the dark that I can't quite see. It's probably some spot that I'll never be able to see. "It's all too personal now. In every face I looked at I saw you or Lindsey. I even saw Sara once or twice."

I feel very unqualified for this conversation. Now would be a good time for Sara to pop up and surprise us all with her presence. But I don't think that's going to happen. I think my chances for that are really slim at this point. "So is this because of how I was when you, uh, saw me? Before? In Nikki's bathroom?"

Despite the question being completely disordered in the asking, I think it was surprisingly perceptive. Maybe I'm learning something from all that psycho talk I've been having to put up with lately, or maybe it's just that I can't get the picture of looking down at my cut up, mangled flesh out of my mind. Maybe every time I enter any bathroom at all I can see myself on the floor completely lost to the world.

Catherine is still focused on that distant point, and if she wasn't thinking about how I looked at that moment in Nikki's bathroom then she probably is certainly thinking about it now. "That's part of it."

Her voice is strained and I swear that she's about to cry or something. Have I ever seen her cry before? Am I ready to see that now? "Maybe you need more time. I know I'm not up to jumping back into school or, well or anything else."

"And if I can't ever get over it? What then?"

Does she even remember who she's talking to now? I'm not the first person she should talk to about this stuff. I'm more than willing to go upstairs and wake Sara up. She can handle this situation and I can go back up to my room and go back to fending off the ceiling.

"I've still got all that money, I think. You and Sara could use that for a while until everything gets a little better." It's the best thing I have to offer. It's the only thing I can offer her.

"It's not just about money, Melinda." So she does know who she's talking to. "It's about getting on with our lives."

"So you noticed that your lives sort of stopped too, huh?" Here I was thinking I was the only one. Their worlds stopped because of me and I don't know how to start things back up again. That's really what I should be thinking about these days. How do I make sure that everyone keeps on going even if I don't?

"And it happened so quickly. I don't think any of us noticed how quickly, and now a lot of things have changed. A lot of things inside of us all have changed."

"Yeah. I'm starting to catch onto that myself."

"So how do we begin again?"

She's not asking me this. She's asking the sky, maybe she's asking God, but Catherine doesn't seem like the type to ask God for anything. Neither of us are the type to ask the Big G for anything.

I completely understand why she's asking now.

"We begin by taking a hint from Nike and just doing it."

At least I get a very small, hardly even there, wouldn't see it unless I was looking for it smile from Catherine. "That's the plan?" The smile has turned possibly into a grin.

"Yes. That's the only plan I have. I say, we just keep on doing it until we find our normal again, which inevitably will fall far away from anyone else's normal."

Catherine's eyes focus once again on me. They look clearer. She looks better. I'd like to think that maybe I have something to do with that. It's possible that I do. "You're a really good person, Melinda."

I wasn't expecting that. "And you're a good person too?" I stumble over my words but at least I don't ramble on into another topic.

Now I see a real smile. "I mean it. You really are a good person and it amazes me every day how good a person you are, despite everything. The same thing amazes me about your mother. That's probably why I love you both so much."

"And you're a good person too and I mean that too." I still sound like I'm impaired in some way from getting my words out correctly, but I do mean it. Even if I just said it as a response the first time, I do mean it. Catherine's a good person. "And I can guess that part of the reason my mom loves you so much is because of how you've stood there with us through everything, and how you're still standing with us."

It's in me right now to tell Catherine that I do love her. It's in me right now to share with her how much she means to me, how much it means that she hasn't turned her back on me. After everything I've done, she's still here. Actually, she isn't just still here because I'm living under her roof. I'm sharing her home. I've become her daughter too.

Catherine nods and maybe she understands what I'm not saying. Hopefully she can get why I can't say anything now even if I don't get it myself. "We should both get some sleep," she gets up and offers her hand to me. Like a fool, I take it and am unexpectedly pulled into a monster of a hug.

I don't resist her touch and I don't hesitate to put my arms around her. It feels good when she hugs me. I haven't had too many experiences when it comes to getting parental affection. I'm starting to clue in on what I've been missing.

"What are you two doing up?" So Sara finally decides to show up too little too late. I pull away from Catherine and stand in front of Sara. She doesn't look entirely innocent right now. She almost looks a little guilty, almost like she's just now deciding to come outside with us once she's noticed our conversation has come to some sort of resolution. I have no way of proving this of course, but that's what I'll hold onto until Sara admits differently.

"We're hashing out how we're going to continue our lives." I tell her.

"We're going to be like Nike," Catherine adds with that smile that I put on her face. I'm just going to take credit for it now.

"So now I'm going to go to bed." I'm still in the mood for hugs, so before I make my escape I put my arms around Sara and give her probably one of the best hugs I've ever given in my life. The only reason why I'd say it was the best is because I meant it. "When I can do it," I whisper into her ear, "I'm going to let you both know just how much I love you."

Faster than I've probably ever moved before, I untangle myself from Sara's arms and make a dash for the back door. I open and close it without looking back and run my way back up to my room where Nikki and Lindsey are still fast asleep. I retake my place on the floor and instead of thinking about what just happened outside, I'm just going to let it go and let it be. There's nothing to really think about this time, because I'm okay with it.



Chapter 43

It took me forever to talk everyone into it, but they finally caved in and let me leave the house completely alone. It's been almost three weeks since I came home from the hospital and in that time the only reason I leave the house is to go see doctors. I wanted to get out just for the sake of getting out, without any bodyguards and no one sneaking around hiding behind bushes every time I turn around.

Ultimately, I just wanted a bit of freedom and everyone eventually understood that. They just told me that I couldn't go that far from the house and that if I was gone longer than fifteen minutes then I would have to call and check in with them.

It's time I got out of the house before I get too used to being in it. It's my safety net place. It's the fake world that lives inside the real one. My psychologist is saying it's time for me to start participating again in the real world. I have to ease myself back into society, and part of that has to be done alone.

That's really probably why Sara and Catherine and Nikki and even little Lindsey decided to let me go alone, my mental health professional said that I needed to. I'm sure the Doc had to do a lot of yelling to talk them into it, but ultimately if I've got to listen to her and trust her and everything then don't they have to too?

This would all make a lot more since, though, if I actually had somewhere to go to. I'm pretty sure it doesn't count if I just go out alone and don't interact with anyone else. Isn't this supposed to be some kind of personal test or something?

Thus far, I've just been walking around. I picked a direction and went that way. I've been walking for a while now, and my body is starting to remind me that I'm not in the same physical shape as I was just a little while ago. My muscles are starting to get a little sore and I can feel the beat of my heart through the sores that are still on my forearms.

I've still got them all patched up, and it seems like they're healing up nice enough, but sometimes I swear I can feel the cuts more than I can feel anything else on my body. One time, I even caught myself thinking there was blood there when there really wasn't. How funny is that?

All it took was me blinking and the blood went away, but still it was weird. The last thing I need is to start hallucinating about blood flowing down my arms. I don't think anything like that should happen considering I'm actually still talking to all kinds of doctors.

I've got a psychologist for my behavior issues. I've got a psychiatrist for the pills. I've got a medical doctor for my arms as well as a reconstruction surgery lady for further down the line, like when my arms are healed enough to have surgery.

They're all working really hard to make all the scars go away. I even think they genuinely have an interest, besides the money interest, in helping me out. But they are all really insistent that all these scars go away and I'm not sure I want them to.

Cause the way I see it, they want to remove everything and make things normal. They want to take away all the scars and all the pain and make believe like it never existed in the first place. It's like, not only do they want to forget about everything but they want me to forget too.

The sound of a car horn rips my focus away from my arms and I realize I'm about to cross a busy street without looking both ways. I have one foot off the curb.

The car honks again and I place my foot back on the firm ground of the sidewalk. Maybe I'm really not ready to be outside alone yet, walking around freely. My brain has been taking a lot more solitary trips than it used to.

I'm looking at my feet and am even telling them to take me back to Catherine's house. I'm telling them to take me back home, but I'm not moving. I can't get myself to move at all and when my gaze shifts away from my feet and I look ahead of me I can see where I'm at.

I've been walking for a lot longer than I thought I have, because I'm across the street from my high school or maybe it's my former high school. Catherine lives closer to the place than Sara does or rather did, but not too much closer. It's still far enough away for me not to want to walk to it, but I've ended up here anyway.

Standing across from the place, it doesn't look so big. It doesn't look scary. It looks like a school. It looks like any other school I've been in. So I cross the street, this time looking for cars. I walk up to the doors of the school and when I reach them the bell rings. It doesn't take too long before the students are pouring out of the building running away from their little daytime prison, a prison I don't share with them anymore.

So many students rush by me hardly even acknowledging my existence. Some of them look at me like they should know me, but they keep on walking. They don't recognize me anymore. The one that was so popular and the one that captured everyone's attention is capturing no one's attention anymore, at least no one here.

Maybe they want to forget all the scars too.

"Mel?" Or maybe not.

I turn around searching for the body that is attached to the voice.

"I thought you left forever."

I still can't find the body.

"We just heard you went crazy or something."

Maybe I don't want to find the body.

A hand goes on my shoulder and I'm thinking that the voice found me. At first, I don't recognize the face which means I really don't know the name. But the face is familiar enough for me to place reference to. She was at the basketball games. I think she was a cheerleader. I think she might have been good at it. I think she even tried to proposition me once and I think I didn't take her up on the offer because I was still trying to play my cards right with Sara. I only wanted there to be reasons for me to hate her, not any reasons for her to hate me.

Standing here, looking at this cheerleader who I think name's Erin, I realize I was showing a lot of restraint. I guess since I had the restraint that would mean, psychologically speaking, that I wasn't going through a manic episode or something at the time. I couldn't always have been in an 'episode' when I didn't show restraint though. I don't know what to blame on the…thing and what not to blame.

"So are you coming back to school?" I don't answer her, instead I stand and watch her looking at me. Her eyes shift down to my patched up forearms and I can tell she's trying not to stare but there is just so much to look at.

"Does everyone know what happened?" I run my left hand across my right forearm where the cuts are the deepest. I even try to talk myself into believing that it doesn't matter if these strangers know anything about what's happened, or if they know anything at all about me.

Erin shakes her head. "No, I'm sure a lot of it is just lies. You know how things can get around here."

She's still trying to tear her eyes away from my arms. "A lot of it is probably true." I say softly as I stop the motions of my left hand. My arms are starting to hurt even more.

She laughs, but it's not a real laugh. It's a fake one because she doesn't know what to say. "It can't all be true?"

I feel like I'm about to tell her that there really isn't any Fairy Tales that come true. Cinderella's foot really didn't fit in the glass shoe and Snow White is still in the woods playing maidservant to some short old men with questionable morals. "It probably isn't as bad as you heard."

Why should I ruin Erin's perception of things? What does it matter if she knows what happened or not? "I didn't think so." She's smiling now. "So are you coming back to school now that you're better?" Why is she so insistent about this?

"I'm not completely better yet," I hold out my arms giving her full permission to stare now. "These still need to heal up all the way."

Then I hear someone else call my name. It's attached to a face I don't recognize either. Suddenly, more people are surrounding me and I feel the beats of my heart shooting through my arms and I suddenly wish that I hadn't given up the pain medications so soon. When I look down at the cuts I see blood again. It would make sense for them to start bleeding now.

"I need to go," I tell Erin because she's the nearest face for me to focus on. "I don't feel so well."

Before I can walk away, Erin grabs my shoulder preventing me from moving anywhere without throwing her out of my way. She's not that big of a person, but I don't think I could throw her anywhere. I don't think I can throw anyone anywhere anymore. I've gotten weak. I've gotten pathetic.

"Melinda!" I recognize that voice. It's my mom's voice.

I'm surrounded by people so I can't see her, but I don't want to find her. I just want to get away from everyone around me. Why are they attached to me like this? Don't they know that I'm not anybody? Don't they understand that I'm not the person they thought I was?

"We knew you were strong enough to make it through everything," It's some guy's voice that I don't recognize.

"We never thought there wasn't anything you couldn't do," It's someone else's voice I don't recognize.

"I need to go now," I say softly, so softly that I don't think anyone heard me.

My right hand is grabbed and I recognize the touch. It's my mom, it's Sara. She's leading me away from them, telling them that I'm really glad to see them but that I have somewhere to be. She's trying to make me look less like the freak that I am.

She pulls me into the building and through the hallways until we're in a room alone. It's one of the band practice rooms that are mostly always empty. "You had to come here?" She asks me as she pulls me closer to her body and guides my arms around her. "Of all the places you could wander off to, you chose it to be here?"

"I don't think I really chose," I say softly as I pull away from her. I don't want to get blood on her shirt.

"Melinda," She steps closer to me but doesn't touch me. "What's going on?"

"I don't want to get blood on you." I pull my arms up to my chest, hugging the wounds to me. I don't want her to see the blood even.

Sara's face falls and she looks like I just punched her in the gut or something. She reaches out her hand and runs it down the side of my face. "Melinda, you're not bleeding."

I look back down at my arms and without all the people around me and while alone in this room with Sara I realize that she's right; my arms aren't bleeding. The bandages were only put on fresh a couple of hours ago. They're white and pristine and they don't have a drop of blood on them.

My body falls, luckily, against the wall behind me. I slowly slide down its length until I reach the floor. Sara just sits down across from me. We both know that this isn't a good thing.

"This can't happen like this to me again." I don't know if I can live through it all again.

Sara's hands go to my knees. "The doctors warned us that you might start hallucinating again under stressful situations."

"But I just went outside." I'm almost convinced that I'll never find the strength in my voice again. "I just saw people I don't even care about."

"Your, recovery, won't happen over night." She doesn't like the word recovery. I can tell by the way she fumbles over the word like she doesn't even want to say it.

"So I guess this means I'm not ready to interact with the world yet." The doctors were wrong. They can't help me. They don't know anything about this. They can't possibly know.

"We need to give it time." Sara moves from in front of me so that she's sitting beside me. Her arm goes around me and she pulls me to her body.

I swallow a couple of times, trying to figure out what I want to say or if I want to say anything at all. Eventually my brain settles on, "I don't have forever to get better."

"Let's just try to work through today, then."

I burrow further into her body. "Okay then," I speak to her shoulder, "it's only today then. So you followed me huh?"

I'm not looking at Sara's face but I can almost feel the smirk that probably reveals itself. "Of course."

"What about Catherine and Nikki?"

"Catherine and Nikki stayed with Lindsey. We didn't want to make it look like we thought you couldn't handle this."

"I'm glad at least one of you followed me and I'm a little surprised you held off as long as you did." Talking about this is much easier than talking about the other stuff, I think, for both of us.

"I'm surprised you didn't see me when you almost stepped out in front of that car."

"I don't think I was seeing much of anything."

Silence blankets us in this room and it helps make me feel comfortable again. I'm really getting into silence these days. It seems so much less complicated than everything else.

A knock on the door breaks us apart. The world is invading again, and this time it's the vice principle asking us if we're okay. I let Sara handle the situation, cause I don't want to talk to anyone, but as they're talking I do look back down at my forearms. There still isn't any blood.

"Are you ready to go?" Sara asks me.

"There's no rush," The vice principal whose name I've forgotten almost yells at me. "You can take all the time you need, Mel. Though, it really is good to see you up and about."

I ignore him. "Yeah, it'd be good to go." It's time I go back to my safety net and surround myself with my group of safety net people.



Chapter 44

I'm laying back on my bed with my legs hanging over the edge throwing a basketball up in the air. It's been a long time since I've touched this thing. I don't know what prompted me to pick it up now.

It does hurt my arms a little bit, but not enough for me to stop, not enough for me to stop now, at least. Plus, it's got to be some sort of good physical therapy for my arms. It's not exactly what the physical therapist told me to do, but it's something. It's even a little more exciting than the physical therapy crap they give me. That's nothing but me sitting around flexing and un-flexing my hands.

The therapist said eventually I would be going into their therapy center to do more 'intense' work, whatever that means. So I get to add yet another appointment into my stream of appointments. Even if I wanted to go back to school now, I'm too busy to be able to.

After that little, thing, that happened at the school Sara decided that I needed to go see my psychologist as soon as she could fit us all in. I didn't fight with Sara about it because… well I don't think I wanted to. However much me going to the school freaked Sara out, well it might have freaked me out a little more.

I had talked myself into believing that I was getting a lot better, and obviously I was wrong about that. The Doc didn't agree with me about that though. She said that I got overwhelmed and should realize blah, blah, blah.

She also suggested that I up my meds.

So, Catherine is off at work. Lindsey is out having fun with some of her friends from school and Sara is off with them having that fun, which I think is a good thing.

I've started to feel a little guilty about all the attention that has been taken away from Lindsey and put on me. She needs parents too; I think she might need them a little more than I do.

She's at least still got a chance of not ending up like me. That's only if she's got some adult figures in her life, though, because the girl has some things inside her that she's not letting out. I can spot them but I think that's because I know what to look for.

It's not like I think she's going to end up being bi-polar or anything. I just think she's got some things under the surface she's not talking about or dealing with. She's got potential to be a 'troubled' teen. There are so many of us out there today.

"Maybe you should stop it with the ball," Nikki's voice tells me from the doorway of my room.

I throw the basketball up one more time, catch it then throw it off to the side somewhere. I watch it bounce a couple of times then roll into the wall across from me.

"I'm going to get some fresh bandages," Nikki says and I hear her bare feet walking away from the door.

Her comment prompts me to look at my arms and they're bleeding a little bit. I must have been throwing that ball a lot longer than I realized. I look over at the clock on the nightstand near the bed and read the time. I've been in this room for two hours.

I'm surprised Nikki left me alone for that long.

When Sara and I came home after my little adventure out, Sara felt the need to tell everyone what happened. I wasn't exactly against it, but I didn't want to have to deal with it either.

Catherine kind of freaked out, but she held back as much as she could in front of me. She was trying to be worried enough as to not worry me. I don't quite remember what she said exactly, but I know after she said it I felt like I had just been given a "better luck next time" type of pep talk.

She probably would have pulled off the blasé a little better if I couldn't see the worry in her face, the tears forming in her eyes, and her body shaking. I started feeling a little worried for her, actually. I didn't know how much was riding on me going out alone that day, or rather I didn't want to know how much was riding on it.

If that was a test, then I failed.

Nikki took the information in stride. At least she did when everyone else was around. When we were alone she put her arms around me and told me that she was sorry, but never told me what for. She didn't need to tell me because I already knew.

She was sorry she couldn't take the pain away. She was sorry I didn't have a 'good time' out. She was sorry I had to deal with this. She was sorry I wasn't better than I was. She was sorry for everything: sorry she wasn't strong enough to not be disappointed, sorry she hoped I could make it all go away.

Nikki comes back into the room with the bandages and takes a seat next to me. She doesn't do anything with them. She just sits next to me with them. I don't really feel like changing them again anyway.

"This is getting old isn't it?" I stare down at my hands and arms. "They don't bleed as much, but they still bleed."

"That's because you keep on tearing open the wounds," she grabs one of my hands and starts removing the bandage that wraps it. "They aren't really getting a chance to heal."

"I have to use my hands, though, and my arms." I hardly recognize the pain changing the bandages causes me now.

Nikki says nothing in reply and the only sounds that fill the room are that of the tape being removed from my hand. I can't even hear either of us breathing and the house is completely silent. The television isn't on downstairs, Nikki has given up on television and taken up books, and not regular books either. She's reading a list of college books about political science, history, English composition, and whatever else seems like college core curriculum.

I haven't brought up her current reading list. I don't really see the point. She has to do something with her time other than worrying about me, and if that something means that she has an ambition to go to college then that's great. If it means she wants to catch up with what is going on with the college readings today, well that's great too. She's been sitting around waiting for me to break for way too long now.

"I'm going to get my own apartment."

So the silence is broken.

"I can't live off of Catherine and Sara forever. It's about time I get a job again and start paying my own way and maybe start to help paying for all the doctor's bills that have been stacking up."

Nikki has finished applying the last of the bandages and I flex my hands to make sure they aren't too tight.

"So what do you think?"

I guess I've been silent for a little too long. I wasn't sure she wanted a reply from me. I don't know what to tell her. "It sounds good to me. To pay the doctors Sara has started taking out of the inheritance my grandparents left me so I'm sure she won't accept any money from you for that." I didn't even pause that time when I said grandparents. I'm getting better at these label changes.

"Your inheritance?"

Perhaps I'm not getting too much better at sharing information, though. "Yeah, in an irony I can't even begin to understand, my grandparents decided to take out a life insurance policy of some million or something and signed me as the sole recipient."

Nikki props her feet up on the bed and it looks like she's preparing for a long conversation, which is certainly something I haven't had in the last day. "Why didn't you say anything before?"

"I don't know what to say about it," I jump off the bed before she can reach out for me and walk to the door. Everyone is out of the house, I should at least have a couple of hours where I don't have to talk about all the important stuff or the emotional stuff or any stuff at all.

I get to the door but Nikki calls out my name and I know my feet will never cross the threshold. "Why did you decide to come to Vegas, Melinda? I never understood why you wanted to come."

"I'm a minor. The authorities aren't too cool with kids my age running around without a legal guardian."

"And you cared about what the authorities said, when?"

I cross my arms in front of me and lean up against the wall. "What is it you're wanting me to say, Nikki?"

Nikki gets up off the bed and walks until she's standing right in front of me. "I want to hear the truth from you."

"I didn't disappear because I wanted to know who she was, Nikki. I wanted to know who my sister was." I push off the wall and past her. "I didn't plan on staying but somehow…" I make a pointless gesture towards the ceiling hoping it can maybe finish my sentence for me. "When I saw her at the funeral I got stuck to her somehow or something and then I got stuck here." I feel a warm hand on my left shoulder but I ignore it. "I never wanted to stay, but somehow I started thinking I had two years with her, there was only supposed to be two years and then I'd leave. I'd have a life of my own without people who beat me or hurt me or…anything."

"And now?" I can feel her breath on the back of my neck.

"I'm not as confident about having my own life and I'm a little more than stuck to Sara now."

"You sound almost disappointed by that."

I turn around to face her. "The stuck to Sara part, I mean," she quickly amends.

"Yeah," I sigh. "I haven't figured that out yet. I consider her my mom, now, I think. And she's proving at least that her guilt from leaving me back then is at least strong enough for her to stick around now."

Nikki gets this look in her eyes. "Do you really believe Sara is sticking around because of her guilt?" she asks me probably already knowing what my answer will be.

"I don't want to, but part of me is convinced that's how it really is."

"Then, in your head, why is it that Catherine is sticking around?"

"Because she wants to." Things are simpler with Catherine. They have been simple since the first day I met her. We don't have any history standing between us, but that doesn't mean she'll stay forever.

"Sara loves you, Melinda."

"I don't think that she doesn't." My body deflates and I take a small step away from Nikki. "It's really hard for me to believe that anyone will stick around with me because they want to." I whisper. "No one really wanted me with them before, no one who really mattered."

"Should I be offended?" Nikki asks with little seriousness in her voice. She knows I'm not talking about her. I almost expect her to stay around me forever. That's what we're supposed to do for each other. We don't have anyone else, neither of us have really ever had anyone else in the past.

"You should feel privileged I'm talking to you at all," I reply. "Because I know that you're in tight with Sara and Catherine these days."

"Hey," Nikki grabs my shirt and pulls me to her. "Your secrets are my secrets too. I don't tell them anything that you don't want them to know."

"You just serve as a translator," I say to the floor. "You're helping them try and understand me."

She laughs. "Is that really so bad?"

I shrug. "No. I guess it shouldn't be."

"So what's the problem?"

"I don't even understand me, anymore, Nikki. I need a translator for myself because I'm remembering all these things I've done and said and I can't make sense of any of it. I can't make sense of anything anymore." My voice keeps gaining strength as I go on. My eyes have shifted from the floor to Nikki's face. "I don't want to be with Sara but I do want to be with Sara. I don't want to have this family but I do want to have this family. I don't want to expose myself to them but I want to be exposed. I don't want…" I catch myself before I reveal more than I want to admit out loud.

Nikki won't let me let it go. "You don't want?"

"I don't want a lot of things." My voice is soft again.

"You don't want?" she asks again. She's not going to drop this.

"I don't want to be left alone in a corner again bleeding believing I deserve it because I'm not good enough," I swallow and the sound fills my ears. "But part of me still thinks I do deserve to be alone bleeding in that corner because I'm so weak."

"My dad said the same things to me when he, you know." Nikki's hands drop from my body. I've managed to lead us both back into our torturous isolated worlds. "I was a bad girl and my punishment was, you know, and I believed him and I always figured my mom didn't do anything to stop him because she thought I was bad too. She called me, once, weak and pathetic after she knew he had…I started taking heroin that night."

We've done this before. We've talked about our experiences in our homes and it has brought us closer together, but at the same time it separates us because we were in those homes alone. No matter how much detail we put into our retelling of our memories we are always alone in the story. We are always those two little girls who grew up believing something was wrong with them.

"So what is it you're saying to me?" I ask lightly. "Am I supposed to start taking heroin?"

"You didn't let me continue taking heroin so I'm not going to let you start."

"So what is it you're saying to me?" The seriousness is back in my voice.

"Do you believe I'm weak and pathetic and deserved the things I got?"

I get what she's saying. "Of course I don't. I've never thought that and never will. I've said that before."

"Yeah, but sometimes I have a really hard time believing it and sometimes if I do something I still think my punishments should be like they were before."

This time it's me who grabs Nikki by the shirt and pulls her closer to me. "You really need to stop thinking like that."

Nikki smiles, "It's not that easy."

"I know."

"But sometimes people like us, just have to believe something completely different than what our head is telling us. Sometimes even if we are looking at something and our brain is telling us it's blue but everyone else is telling us it's red, then we sometimes have to believe it's red."

"Because our heads are just that messed up?"

"Of course," Nikki responds quickly.

"So do you have any solutions for the hallucinations or the not being able to go out in public and remain sane problems?"

Nikki sighs heavily. "No. I'm sorry, I don't. I wish I did. The only thing I can think of is time and the support of your family: the family who loves you and wants you with them healthy and alive."

I nod and let my doubts go away for the moment. For right now, I'll believe that I might deserve to have a family that loves me and that will help the hallucinations go away.

I can hear the front door open accompanied with the yells of girls. At least one of those voices is Lindsey's.

"I didn't know Sara was bringing Lindsey's friends back with her." Nikki looks across her shoulder towards the open bedroom door.

"I didn't either. I thought I was still too crazy to have company." Nikki gives me a reproachful look but doesn't say anything or at least doesn't get a chance to say anything because the doorway is filled with Lindsey and two other girls I haven't seen before.

"You need something?" I ask Lindsey ignoring the two sets of eyes that are widely opened and staring at Nikki and me.

"Uh," Lindsey looks between Nikki and me then closes her mouth and shakes her head. "Just wanted to say hi?"

"Hi." I say back making sure to direct it to all the younger girls standing at my door.

"Hi." Nikki mimics.

"Okay. Bye." Lindsey runs away from the door and her friends eventually follow her.

Nikki pulls away from me and puts her hands on her hips. "What do you suppose that was about?"

Before I get a chance to answer Sara appears, comes into the room and closes the door behind her. "I tried to call the house, but I didn't get an answer."

"So you rushed over here to make sure nothing bad happened and brought the girlies back with you?" Nikki helpfully fills in some of the blanks in Sara's sentence.

"Kinda," she admits.

"I'm sorry we didn't answer. I didn't even hear it." I offer lamely.

"Neither of us did." Nikki throws in quickly.

Sara nods and it looks like she's going to let this phone thing go. "Okay." She turns around and cracks open the door. "I'm sure if something happened then one of you would have called me." Her statement sounds more like a warning instead of a comment.

I nod. "If I go crazy while you're gone, I'm sure Nikki will call you."

"That's not all I'm afraid of, Melinda." Sara says softly then walks out of the room but before she can close the door for some reason I yell out, "That's not all I'm afraid of either."

Sara looks at me, but doesn't say anything. She just stares at me.

"Nikki says she's moving into an apartment," I say quickly. "You should talk to her about it."

I grab the edge of the door and swing it completely open. "Get me when you're done." I add before I rush through it and cross the hall down to Lindsey's room.

I knock on her door and one of her friend's open it. "Can I play too?"

"We're not playing," Lindsey yells from her bed.

"Then what is it you're doing?"

"Listening to music and studying." She tells me, but I don't see any books out. I've done this kind of studying before.

"Well then I can help you 'study'," I shamefully make air quotes and step into the room mostly ignoring the girl who is standing in front of me. "You should find your manners and introduce me to your friends though." I sounded a little too much like a parent saying that.

Lindsey gives an exasperated sigh, but I know she's only faking her annoyance for the benefit of her friends. Looking at her, I can tell she doesn't mind at all that I've decided to seek her out. She gets this glow in her eyes or this sparkle when I start paying attention to her. It's almost like she enjoys my company or looks up to me or something.

"Lauren, Laurie," Lindsey points to each of the other girls. The one who opened the door is Laurie and the one who is playing with Lindsey's stereo is Lauren. Lauren, Laurie, and Lindsey. Lindsey and I have had very different childhoods. I'm thinking that's a really good thing though.

"So what did you tell the parental you were supposed to be studying?"

"You two are sisters?" Lauren takes her attention away from the stereo to ask Lindsey this all-important question.

Lindsey doesn't answer. She looks at me to do it.

"Of course we are," I say not bothering to look at Lauren.

"Why didn't you say you had a sister?" Lauren's a very curious young lady.

Again Lindsey looks to me to give an answer.

"Probably because she knows I'm a lot cooler than her and she didn't want me to override her cool factor." I can't believe I just said that. I give Lindsey an apologetic look. I'm not good with this kind of stuff. My normal answer would be something along the lines of 'fuck off' or 'what's it to you'.

Lauren gives me her full attention now. I've always had Laurie's. "What happened to your hands and arms?"

"Cut myself," I answer shortly. "So what is it we're supposed to be studying?"

"History," Laurie speaks and her voice sounds very soft. I don't think she's exactly digging my presence.

"Oh. Well I don't like history," I turn around and start walking out the door but Lindsey stops me.

"We're talking about Jared," Lindsey says. "He asked me to the movies when we ran into him at the mall."

"Oh really?" I close the door then run over and jump onto Lindsey's bed. I can fake being normal and interested for Lindsey's sake. "Tell me everything and don't leave anything out."

"Lindsey's liked Jared since, like, the beginning of the school year," Lauren begins filling me in, "and finally he started talking to her after we spread a rumor that Lindsey wasn't afraid to have sex with him."

Lindsey throws a pillow at Lauren as she screams the girl's name out and suddenly I feel like I should have stayed in the room with Sara and Nikki instead of running away from talking about things with Sara, again.

"You did what?" My voice sounds a lot calmer than I think it should.

"I didn't mean it," Lindsey's voice is an irritating whine. "Please don't tell Mom."

"Of course I'm not going to tell Catherine," I reply incredulously. "I don't think she'd want to know her daughter would do something so stupid."

The sparkle in Lindsey's eyes just went away and has been replaced with a pained look instead. I probably shouldn't have used the word stupid. "Don't get me wrong," I say to her managing to bring my voice back down, "I don't think you're stupid. You're one of the smartest people I think I've ever met, which is why it's hard for me to believe you would do something like that at all."

Lindsey shrugs. She doesn't have an answer for me.

"People who like you only because they think they're going to get sex out of you aren't exactly the best kind of people. Believe me, I know."

"It's not really that big of a deal," Lauren takes a seat next to me on the bed. "I'm not a virgin anymore either."

Immediately my head swings back to Lindsey. "You're not a virgin anymore?"

Lindsey reaches out and grabs my arm. "No, I am! I swear!"

"If you tell me differently I'm not going to get mad," I hardly have any ground to stand on when it comes to sex or the amount of partners or the frequency.

"I am," Lindsey squeezes my arm. "I swear."

"I'm not going to preach to you about abstinence before marriage or anything like that, but you are young, Lindsey." I look at each of the girls individually. "Each of you are young and I know you're not that much younger than me but--"

"--Are you still a virgin?" Lauren asks and her question gives me a sudden urge to push her off the bed.

"She's not," Lindsey answers for me. "Nikki and her are girlfriends and they sleep together."

"That's not true!" I reply with a little more force than necessary. "Nikki and I have never had sex, not once. She's not even technically really my girlfriend."

Lindsey's face contorts with her disbelief. "Really?"

"I swear."

"Your sister is gay too?" Lauren asks with her own version of disbelief written on her face. "Do you breed gays here or something?"

"Shut up," Lindsey puts voice to my thoughts.

"Are you gay?" Lauren asks and moves towards the other end of the bed, as far away as she can get from Lindsey and me. Laurie, on the other hand, is still standing off to the side but looking on with a certain amount of interest.

Lindsey ignores the question. "So does that mean you're a virgin?" she asks me instead.

Maybe we should revisit the gay question. "No that's not what that means. I've had sex before but I was older than you when my first time came around and our circumstances were completely different, you know that. Please, Lindsey, all of you really, make better choices than me."

Lindsey look's down at her bed and starts playing with a small thread hanging on her blanket. "So what should I do?"

"Do only what you really want to do. Don't do things because other people want you to do them." I'm feeling like a huge hypocrite and feeling a lot older than I actually am. Next all I need to say is 'stay in school, don't take drugs, and help prevent forest fires'.

"Okay." Lindsey says softly.

"Okay?" I don't know what that means. It can mean so many things.

"I'll only do what I really want to do."

Hearing Lindsey say that doesn't offer me any comfort whatsoever. I remember really wanting to do the majority of things I did that were really bad decisions. Of course, there were those times when everything seemed like a good idea, but I've been told that was the bi-polar in me talking.

I lean closer to Lindsey and say to her softly, "You're trusting me to do my best to get better so I'm going to trust you to do your best in making decisions about your possible future." If that doesn't give her some pause then I'm going to have to talk to Catherine, or maybe I'm going to have to talk to Sara who will talk to Catherine, or maybe I'm going to have to talk to Nikki who will either tell Sara or Catherine or perhaps both of them at the same time.

There's a knock on the door but whoever it is on the other side doesn't wait for an answer and goes ahead and pushes it open. I'm not really surprised to see Sara and Nikki standing there.

"What's going on in here?" Sara asks directing her question completely to me.

"Homework?" I really don't have a better answer than that. "I think it's history homework."

"We were talking about whether she's a virgin or not," Lauren helpfully explains as she points her dirty little finger at me.

"Oh really?" Nikki crosses her arms in front of her and leans up against the door.

Sara has the more parental question of, "And how did this come up?"

"Apparently this is what teenage girls talk about behind closed doors." I shrug. "Who knew?"

Sara and Nikki don't buy it, but at least it seems like they're both going to leave it alone for now. I get up off Lindsey's bed but first give her hand a quick squeeze for some kind of reassurance to her. She needs to know that this conversation is somewhat confidential. "We should leave them alone to the studying."

I walk out into the hallway and Nikki and Sara follow me shutting the door behind them.

"So what's really going on?" Sara immediately asks.

"Can you accept that I think I handled it and if I find out differently then I'll speak up?"

"We're worried about Lindsey, Melinda. If there's something serious going on then I'd really like to hear about it." Sara's eyes plead with me to tell her something, anything at all.

"She's becoming interested about sex and boys." I don't think that's giving away too much. "She's just growing up and is becoming a teenager."

I can tell that deep down Sara doesn't want to accept my answer, but she accepts it anyway. "Okay. So if you find out differently then you'll speak up?"

"I promise."

"So I'm still moving out," Nikki adds into what might become a very long silence.

"I figured you'd eventually would. You have a life you need to take care of and I want you to take care of it." I want everyone to take care of their lives. Maybe if everyone starts being normal then I could start getting back to normal too. The fact that the most normal conversation I've had recently is about my sexual history with a girl who is dealing with the 'sex' issue is frightening almost.

What's the most frightening thing about that, though, was the fact that I was the one sitting there handing out advice like I was some sort of qualified advice giver, but Lindsey did seem to listen to what I had to say. She trusts me to keep her secret to myself and Sara trusts me to handle this sudden responsibility of acting like…well kind of acting like a big sister, and damn it that means something to me now. It means something big and it almost makes me believe that what happened at the school, like my psychologist said, really wasn't that big of a deal.



Chapter 45

"As you can see this apartment is great for two people," Mary, the woman showing Nikki and me around says as she opens the door to what must be the fiftieth apartment I've walked through today. Nikki is being really picky about where she wants to move to for the kind of money she has. When we walked into the apartment office Mary took one look at us and I thought she was going to kick us out. She looked at us like we walked into someplace we definitely didn't belong in.

It probably doesn't help that Nikki decided to do her apartment hunting in loose fitting torn jeans and an army green tank top. She looks good to me, but I don't think her attire screams out 'valuable tenant'. The only reason why the woman even agreed to take us seriously was because we threw out a down payment in her direction in cash and asked her to show us what she had.

Nikki's probably really happy right now that she let me talk her into getting some money out of my account to take along with us for the ride. Her argument against it was that she didn't want to pretend to be something that she wasn't, as in she didn't want to pretend like she had money when she really didn't.

And I'm supposed to be the crazy one.

"The two bedrooms are both very open and we have walk-in closets in both rooms," Mary leads us into one of the bedrooms and walks to a door which I can only assume is the closet. "We have a washer and dryer hook-up and we…"

I don't think I can hear another speech like this one so I choose to interrupt, "Mary, we don't need a two bedroom apartment. I'm not going to be living here."

"Oh," Miss Mary gets a very confused look on her face. "I was sure Nikki asked to look at our two bedrooms."

I take a look over at Nikki and she seems to currently be taking a very high interest in the walk-in closet. I follow her into the space and close the door behind us. "Two bedrooms?"

"Only for if you and Lindsey wanted to stay over," she answers to the shelves built inside the closet.

"You don't need two bedrooms for that. You can't afford two bedrooms for that."

Nikki turns to me with her arms crossed in front of her. "Melinda, look, I'm not going to lie to you. I want you to live with me. I think it might be good if you got away from Sara and Catherine for a while. I mean, take a break from them so that you can give yourself a chance to get better and to give them a chance to settle down a little bit."

"Did you talk to Sara about this?" I can't imagine that she has. I can't imagine Sara thinking in any shape or form that it would be good for me to leave or even good for Nikki to ask me to leave. It took a lot of reassurances just for her to let me leave today to go apartment hunting. This is the first 'real' outing I've had since that little episode I had at the school. I haven't had any hallucinations yet, but then again, the Doc did up my dosage a little bit. I'm still trying to grow accustomed to the change. Every time my meds get messed with, I feel weird for a couple of weeks afterwards. The shit messes with my brain.

My Doc told me that the meds weren't supposed to make me feel really high or really low, they're just supposed to make me feel 'normal'. When she said it I laughed; I couldn't help it. I have no idea what normal is supposed to feel like. I don't know what normal happiness is or normal sadness is or what normal anything is. Every emotional level I experience now is a 'new' experience.

"I mentioned it," Nikki tells me softly. "She wasn't too happy about the plan but she said she was willing to give anything a try."

Her words make my entire body deflate. I feel an emotion coming along. I think some might call this one pain. "Is she that desperate?"

Nikki uncrosses her arms and reaches for my hand. I don't let her make contact. I take a step back and push my back against the door. "Don't touch me…please."

She nods and crosses her arms again.

"Is she that desperate?" I feel the need to ask again since the first time I didn't get an answer.

Nikki does a half shrug. "I think maybe we all are, even you."

There's another emotion coming that's adding onto the pain. Sad. Really sad. "They haven't talked to me about anything." My voice is hoarse but that's probably because I'm trying really hard to hold back all the emotion.

"They don't want to influence you." Nikki offers. It's one of the weakest excuses I've ever heard.

My eyes turn down to my forearms and hands. They're still wrapped up in bandages but they've been doing a lot better. I haven't had any bouts of excessive bleeding recently. Suddenly I get the urge to rip off the bandages and cut everything back open.

It's not the first time I've thought about doing that.

I've talked to the doc about the thoughts too. She tells me that for me they are normal. Apparently, she thinks it has something to do with me punishing myself when I feel I've done something wrong because that's how I was punished when I was a kid. I was hurt and given pain.

So does that mean I feel like I've done something wrong now?

I shake off the thoughts of cutting open the wounds and look back up at Nikki. "I haven't failed yet and I don't plan to either."

The words seem to surprise her. She acts almost as if I've slapped her in the face. Her body falls back a step and her arms drop from in front of her. Her mouth moves but no words come out.

"I think we can hold back on the 'last resort' plans."

Unexpectedly Nikki comes out of her daze and throws her arms around me. She lifts me off the ground and spins me around. I don't fight her, but that's probably because I'm in shock. "What the hell!"

She puts me down and cups my face in her hands. "You're fighting," she says through tears that have seemed to have suddenly appeared from nowhere.

I'm not getting this. "What?"

"Sweetie," Nikki whispers to me, "for the first time in months you're fighting to get better."

"I thought that's what I've been doing?" I can't help but make this sound like a question. I'm confused.

"No," Nikki shakes her head. "You've been struggling to try and get better, but now you're fighting." Her hands drop from my face and go to my own wrapped appendages. "You're even letting these heal."

She might need to call me stupid but, "What?"

"Just take this as something that's really good, okay?" Her shifty hands move to my waist. "Take this moment to realize that when you found out our 'last resort' plan that you didn't hallucinate or start bleeding again or run away or have any flashbacks."

"Were you afraid I was going to do those things?"

"We were very afraid," Nikki tells me. "This wasn't our idea," she admits, "it's your doctors. She thought it would best if we tried removing you from your environment. We were running out of options, Melinda. If getting you away from the house didn't work, she wanted to admit you to a hospital."

"Oh." Nikki moving out suddenly makes a whole lot more sense to me. Sara and Catherine agreeing to her moving out seems to make a whole lot more sense too.

Maybe the upped meds made a difference after all.

There's a knock on the closet door and Mary asks us if we're okay. Nikki opens the door and apologizes to the woman, who I quite honestly forgot even existed. "We got a little sidetracked," Nikki offers as an excuse.

Mary smiles brightly. "Things like this happen." She pauses for a moment then asks, "Did you decide in there that you wanted a two bedroom?"

Nikki opens her mouth to answer but I beat her to it, "You might want to show us a one bedroom instead."

Mary nods completely unaffected by my answer but Nikki doesn't quite have the same reaction.

"The reasons you gave me for moving out, the fake ones, they made a lot of sense to me." It took me a couple of weeks to get used to the idea but once it sunk in it got stuck in my brain as a good thing. "And maybe one of the reasons I'm 'fighting' now" I stop just short of using air quotes, "is because I've realized that if everyone can go back to their lives then I can too."

Mary takes a look between the two of us. "I'm going to go make sure that the kitchen is ready for viewing." She steps out of the room and shuts the bedroom door behind her. I'm beginning to like her a little.

"So you want me to move?" Nikki asks.

Another emotion takes off from where the confusion left off. This one might be called anxiety. "Of course I don't, but you need to. You need to do this just like Sara needs to go back to work. I feel so much pressure from you all, y'know? I mean, everything is dependent on how I'm doing. If I don't do well then no one does well. Everyone's sanity is resting on me and I think I'm just now beginning to realize how hard that has been on me.

"I want you all to have your own lives and to be able to survive without me and now I don't even think that just because I want you to continue on if I die. I think that now because I want you to continue on so that 'I' can discover who the hell I am without trying to carry everyone else's sanity along with me. I want to be able to walk outside without having to think about whether or not everyone in the house is going to survive me being alone. I just want to worry about being alone without anything else attached to it.

"Granted, the first time I kind of completely totally freaked out and I was really happy that my mom was there to help me out because I really wasn't at all prepared to be with the people at school. I wasn't prepared for much really so if I go out maybe I should still be followed. I'm not too sure about that point, but I am sure that I need to see the people I love live so that I can live too." I've only stopped talking because I need to breathe.

Nikki is looking at me wide-eyed.

I take in a big breath. "Maybe I'm only now able to realize this because of the meds. I'm thinking that's probably why. My head is clearing up now but that's not to say that I still don't think bad things or don't want to do something a little crazy, because I have those thoughts every day. I have them just like you have them and probably just like Mom has them. Catherine probably even has them every so often. Lindsey probably does too, but I'm not really sure about her. I'm not talking about them anyway.

"What I'm talking about is that we all have them, probably, and it's what we do with them that matters. The other day I felt really depressed and instead of doing what I normally do, which is dwell on the cuts on my arms, I went downstairs to Sara and Catherine and asked them if they wanted to play a fucking board game. Me! The person who hates Monopoly with a burning passion. That's what my doctor told me to do though.

"She said if I think about something then I need to do something else. I need to distract myself until the thoughts go away, and I'm actually starting to listen to her. I don't know why that is either, but I'm really thinking it probably has something to do with you telling me that you were going to move out. You set off some kind of trigger in my brain or something. So, yes, I think it's probably best that you move out and try to do something with your life instead of waiting for me to drown or swim."

Nikki looks at me for a long moment and I almost feel like ranting some more, but I've run out of rant. "Then I'll move." She says simply well into a way too long silence. "But I'll still get a two-bedroom just in case you ever need it for anything."

I nod, not quite sure if this is a true victory for me.

"You should talk to your parents too," a grin covers Nikki's face. "But you might want to slow down for them and maybe not tell them all that on the same day. If they heard you say so much in one sitting they might admit you into the hospital thinking you're crazy or somethin'."

It's a joke about my sanity that didn't come from me and isn't supposed to be taken negatively. I'm not sure I'm ready to joke about it yet, but I smile for Nikki anyway. Plus, I think she might be tellin' a semi-kind of truth. I'm not exactly a born ranter. Talking too much might send the parentals off balance a little too much.



Continued…