Her.

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

"Can I use the restroom?" asked Rocky.

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

"I have to use the bathroom, too," Janine interrupted.

Others started complaining that they needed to use the restroom.

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

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

"Yes," he struggled to get out, "I"m okay, Dr. Bent."

"I don"t think so," she said as she began dialing on her phone. She spoke with someone on the other end and asked them to come because Daniel needed help. When she hung up, she went back over to Daniel. Everyone stared at him. Tai and Janine asked him if he was all right, and he kept trying to say that he was fine, but he could barely speak.

Less than a minute went by, and Ms. Mosley entered the room with Geoffrey. Dr. Bent told them that Rocky and Janine needed to use the restroom and that Daniel wasn"t feeling well. When Dr. Bent said that Rocky and Janine needed to use the restroom, Tai and a few others said that they had to go, too.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"It"s a blood glucose testing meter. My blood sugar is low."

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

"Why is your blood sugar low?" I asked him.

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

"Why?"

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

"I had no idea you have diabetes," I told him.

"Since I was twelve. It"s called Juvenile Diabetes," he shared.

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

I felt strange inside, just sitting there with him in silence. I didn"t know what to say. I didn"t know what to feel. I wanted to say something to him, but there weren"t any words. All I could do was look at him. His hair was dark and long like John"s. I couldn"t allow myself to start thinking about John. If I did, I"d get weird right there in front of Daniel. I leaned my head on my hands as my elbows rested on the table.

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

"What"s so funny?" he asked.

"You have some stuff on your mouth. It"s just..."

"What?" He was smiling at me.

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

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

"What? Did I get it?" he asked.

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

I didn"t notice Tai standing nearby. She and Rocky walked over and sat down at the table with us. She gave me a strange look. She was grinning and twisting her lips at the same time. Cadence giggled at Rocky as she pa.s.sed our table.

"Shut up," Rocky fussed.

"What were you two talking about?" Tai asked.

"Nothing," I said.

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

"How come you can have candy and we can"t?" Janine asked him.

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

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

Interrupting the PG-13 moment between Janine and Daniel, Tai said, "Don"t go throwing that back up, Janine. He sacrificed his last bite of chocolate for you."

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

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

Everyone laughed, including Daniel. Janine was still poking at him, but I knew that he was laughing at what Tai had said. I wasn"t laughing because I knew that Tai was talking about me.

"Take a whiff," Tai kept on.

"Stop it," Janine kept laughing. "She can"t help it. She has st.i.tches, so she can"t shower. She can"t get the st.i.tches wet because they will melt or something."

That made them laugh even harder. I didn"t say anything. I felt exactly what I had expected to feel the first day that I arrived here. They were being just like the people at school. I hated being around other kids. I hated being here at Bent Creek. My cramps started kicking in hard.

Tai hit my arm jokingly.

"Come on, girl," Tai said. "We are just playing with you. We know you can"t help it."

They all kept laughing. I felt like such a loser. Janine was sitting next to Daniel, and they were laughing together. Tai got off the subject when Cadence decided to sit near us. Tai started going on about something that had happened at lunch. I missed what was so funny. I stopped listening to her, even though she was really trying to talk to me because I wasn"t at lunch with them.

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

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

Smiling at her, Daniel said, "Yes. I am now."

"Why are you being so quiet?" she asked him.

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

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

"You had caramel on your chin," he told her.

My stomach burned. I couldn"t take it anymore. I got up and went to the bedroom. I stayed there with the door closed, wishing I could lock it and keep everyone else out. I didn"t leave to go back to group therapy, and no one came to look for me.

I lay back on my bed and closed my eyes. I wanted to be far away. I didn"t want to be here with the other people. I wanted to be back in time to where I was happy. Back when I thought that mental hospitals were not real, and they only existed in horror movies.

I could almost see John"s face. I could almost see his hair and his eyes from when we went to the same school, and when he came over to our house with his little brother, James, so that he could play with Nick. He was considered my cousin because his father was Jack"s brother, but technically, he was not my cousin. We were not related.

"I remember you," he said to me as we sat on our front porch. "Do you remember me?"

I nodded, picturing him refusing to dance with his mother at Jack and Mom"s wedding.

"We go to the same school," he said, referring to the middle school we attended. "I"m about to go to the high school. What grade are you in?"

"I"m in seventh grade," I told him.

I saw his gorgeous eyes, and I remembered his lovely smile so clearly. He looked different in middle school than he did when I"d seen him at Mom and Jack"s wedding. He was much taller. His voice was deeper. He was a big brother now. At the wedding, he"d been an only child. My happier thoughts of him were before he knew Lexus. It was the pain of growing up that made me most bitter. Thinking too much made my head hurt. I let myself drift off into sleep.

It seemed as if time had been stolen from me. I fought back tears, which only made my chest fill up with pain. I closed my eyes, confused, and tried to focus.

"G.o.d, if you"re not mad at me, please help me..." I whispered. I couldn"t stop thinking. My mind was racing. I saw Janine"s face and I saw Daniel"s face. I saw John"s face and I saw Lexus" face. They were intertwined. "G.o.d, please, please help me."

Ms. Mosley appeared out of nowhere. She had come into the room silently. She must have come in to check on me. I was embarra.s.sed to see her standing in the doorway, staring at me, when I opened my eyes.

"Are you all right?" she asked. She moved closer to me, hesitantly and slowly. "I came in to check on you. Your group is about to go to their last meeting before dinner."

"I can"t," I said. "Everyone says I smell bad and I"m just disgusting," I cried. I could smell the dirt on my body. I almost felt sick.

Ms. Mosley sighed heavily. I could see the sincerity in her eyes.

"I am going to call one of the nurses tonight. Someone should have been here to draw your blood and help you with your st.i.tches. I will do everything I can, Kristen. I would help you myself, but I don"t want to do anything to mess you up. You"re excused from your meeting tonight. Don"t worry about it. I will see if Geoffrey can bring your dinner to you so that you won"t have to be around them. Just make sure you are at the nurse"s station when it"s time to take your medicine." Ms. Mosley smiled warmly.

Before she turned away to leave, I sat up in bed and called out to her. She turned back to me.

"How long does it take before someone can really get better and go home?" I asked her.

She sighed. "Listen to me, Kristen. I know it is hard being in this place. But while you are here, you can"t let your mind become occupied by the fact that you are here. You can"t get bogged down with feeling sorry for yourself. You should be pondering on why you"re here and what it will take so that you can get better, get out of here, stay better, and stay out of here. You want to try to get help from your doctors and try to find something that will help you appreciate life."

"Ms. Mosley," I cried. "I am punished with life!"

She put on a stern face and looked me right in my eyes. "Do you believe in G.o.d?"

"I believe that there is a G.o.d," I told her, confused.

"No," she said with her stern face, "Do you know who G.o.d is?"

"I"ve heard of G.o.d," I told her. "When I was a kid, my Mom and I went to church. We used to pray together. She always told me that I could pray to Him anytime, even if it was in the middle of the day. I used to know Him, but I think that He"s forgotten about me."

Ms. Mosley came towards me again. "Honey, He has not forgotten about you. He knows who you are, even if you don"t know Him. Do you know how I know that G.o.d has not forgotten about you? You have air in your lungs, you are able to speak, think, and move. This is what you are taking for granted. These are things that you tried to take away that G.o.d has blessed you with."

She sat down beside me and continued, "Your life is not yours, Kristen. It is G.o.d"s. He can never forget about something that belongs to Him. Even though you are suffering with this pain inside of yourself, G.o.d is helping you endure it. And He is not letting you do it alone. You are here, and you are getting help from people that He has directed you to. No, G.o.d has not forgotten you. He wants you to be alive. That"s why you are here."

The beating of my heart was steady and calm. I felt relaxed and secure with Ms. Mosley there beside me. She gently placed a hand on my shoulder as her sternness faded to sincerity.

She said, "He"s got you here. There"s no way He can leave you and not get you through the rest of the way." She paused and looked at me to make sure I understood.

With dry eyes, I stuck out my arms and wrapped them around her. She hesitated before she hugged me back. Ms. Mosley quickly let me go and smiled.

"You need to rest. We"ll talk later," she said as she began to walk away.

Her eyes were always serious, and her tone of voice was strong. I liked that. Ms. Mosley was the most real person I had ever known. I lay back down in the bed when she left the room. I rolled onto my stomach and closed my eyes. There was an ache inside of me. I wanted to get rid of it.

G.o.d, get me to endure this.

CHAPTER 15.

Ouch. No. Ouch. Stop it. No.

I felt a sharp, p.r.i.c.king pain shoot through my arm. I first felt it when I was asleep. It started on the back of my hand, and then moved to my wrist. When I opened my eyes, I could hardly see because the bright light from the sun was shining through the bedroom window. I tried to lift my hand to cover my eye, but when I tried to move, I realized that the pains were on the inside of my arm. I squinted and tried to lift my arm again. It wouldn"t move. It wouldn"t move because there was pressure on it, holding it down, face-up, on the bed. The pressure squeezed my wrist when I tried to lift it. There was someone holding my arm down by my wrist. I was hurting. I had to get up and make it stop. I tried to sit up.

"No! Keep still! I almost have it," a female voice yelled at me. She took her hand off my wrist and violently pushed me back down on the bed.

When my eyes focused, I noticed that there was a tall woman hovering over me. She had a needle in her hand. I watched her as she brought the needle down to my inner arm and stuck me again. It felt like she had stuck me in the same spot she had tried previously.

The pain was terrible. She was having a hard time drawing my blood. She s.n.a.t.c.hed the needle out of my arm, sending an excruciating pain up my arm to my head.

"Ouch! Please... Stop it...!" I cried helplessly. Blood squirted from my arm out onto the bed sheet. My arm felt like she had been sticking me with needles while I had been asleep all morning.