Chapter Six

Shima stared down at her pasty mashed potatoes. She dragged her plastic Spork across the top of the bland, beige heap of instant spuds. Four lines appeared in its wake and I thought of the tiny desktop Zen garden my grandmother had given me during her visit over Christmas. I used to love when Grandma and Grandpa would come into town and stay with us for the holidays. We would bake cookies and shop at the mall even though the crowds were almost unbearable. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get myself to leave my room the last time they came. I didn't want to face them or answer questions about my life and friends. I came out for meals because my parents forced me to, but I made excuses to stay out of any other family activities.

How exactly did a tray of sand and a miniature rake make us feel Zen? It didn't. Nothing helps. Which was exactly why I was in that stupid hospital staring at this awful food. Another tray was plopped down on the metal table inside the small dining room, but Shima didn't even lift her head. I guess they could make us stay there, but they couldn't make us be friendly. Her Spork dove beneath the paste again as she demolished the orderly lines. The thin recyclable tray made a cracking sound as the points of the safety-approved Spork pierced the bottom below her potatoes.

"I think they're already dead," Aideen spouted sarcastically as she sat behind the tray she'd just set on the table. She waited for Shima to respond, but when she didn't she just pushed forward. "You're pretty badass for volunteering."

"What's there to lose?" Shima practically whispered, still not moving her eyes up to make contact with Aideen's. I got the feeling she hadn't done it to be cool, she'd done it because the sooner we got the whole experiment over with, the sooner she could go back home and do it right. Or maybe I was just assuming we all had the same plan.

"Have you ever done any drugs before?" Aideen speared a lump of meatloaf and brought it up to her nose for a sniff. Her face pinched with a disgusted look. Gross. It fell from its perch back down to the tray with a thump.

"No."

"Not even weed?" Aideen asked, surprised. "I thought everyone our age has at least tried weed." She dug a small chip out of the pressed meat and raised it toward her mouth. "Why'd you say you'd try the medication then? Don't you want to wait to see what happens to someone else?" She placed the brownish-grey meat into her mouth, chewing it carefully as if it might start fighting back.

"Not everyone does drugs. You must watch a lot of movies or old high-school dramas."

Aideen tossed the meatloaf around on her tongue before spitting it into a napkin with a sour face. She motioned for Shima to continue.

"I volunteered because I don't care anymore. We need to get this over with, and it just so happens I'm great at helping people abuse substances."

"So if you weren't the addict, who was?" Aideen moved on to the tiny compartment of chewy corn kernels.

"I'm sorry. I didn't realize this was the sharing table." Shima reached for her tray and started to get up, but Aideen's shaky hand landed on top of hers.

"Don't go." Their eyes met again and for a moment, and I thought Shima might actually draw a healthy boundary and move from her spot, but then she sat back down. "Thank you. I just thought we should get to know each other since we are going to be the first to do it and all."

Marco turned in our direction from the end of the line with two trays and his eyes found mine. His lips tipped up slightly in a way that made my heart rate speed up and for a second, I almost forgot where we were. With a sinking feeling, I remembered. I let my gaze fall back to the table as he approached us. "What's up?" he asked as he set the trays down across from mine. Ken wheeled himself up to the table and the former star athlete struggled to move aside a plastic chair so he could fit.

I didn't dare reach out to help him, but I also felt like an asshole for not trying to do something. I could do nothing but look away and try to push down the guilt and growing anxiety. My heart was beating quickly and my face flushed with heat. The noise around us started to warp until it sounded like I was at the end of a tunnel, listening to audio of the room spin around and around before it landed in my ears. I spotted Damien standing between two tables, his shoulders and his chin tucked as if he was trying to be as small as possible. He was swaying—no, it was more of a rocking motion, like earlier—and then he looked up but I could tell it was insurmountably hard for him to do. Pushing past my own crazy, I waved him over.

I jumped when Ken's chair crashed against our table unexpectedly and my hand flew to my chest. Marco noticed and studied me for a moment. His attention made my skin prickle with nervous energy that raced from my fingertips down my spine. I used to love attention from boys like him. He was good-looking and confident, two characteristics that once would've had me dying to get on his radar. I moved so that my elbow was on the table and I could easily hide behind my arm. My bangs were long enough now to hang over my eyes and for months I'd used them to help me disappear.

Damien took a seat and cleared his throat. "So is anyone else going to do it?" He took a bite of his dull apple and glanced around the group. I'm sure we were all thinking it, but he had finally voiced it out loud. Eyes met and then darted for a few seconds before Marco answered.

"Open invitation to try something new." He shrugged one shoulder, resting his elbow on the table and adjusting to give me more room. "Why not?"

"Because it's fucking crazy is why not." Ken said around a bite of food. "We don't know exactly what that medication is and what it will do to us. We haven't talked about the risks yet."

"You do realize your argument is that it might be dangerous and yet we are all here for the same reason?" Damien said, launching into another bite of his apple.

"I want to be dead, not high or crazy," Ken returned, his voice hushed and his head low. "What if that shit makes us crazy and we can't finish what we started? Did you think about that? Maybe we'll just be stuck in some coma or even worse—some catatonic state left to drool onto our shirts forever. Fuck that." He was right, and judging by the cast on his leg, he knew better than any of us how dangerous and potentially scarring dipping into death and returning could be.

"I'm going first. I've done everything out there and nothing has killed me yet. I'll take the doc's medicine and let you know what it's like. I don't think she brought us all here to let us OD on something." Aideen played with her food for a minute longer and then pushed it away. She crossed her arms and turned her face away from the group, a shadow of something passing over her eyes. Her chest expanded with a breath, but it stuttered for a brief second and I had to look away. If she was going to cry, I didn't think I could watch without shedding tears of my own.

Our group was silent except for the occasional crunch of Damien's apple, but all around us there was chatter as other residents descended on the dining room and began to eat. At first glance it would appear like any high school lunchroom, but upon further investigation, it would become clear that the people gathered around us weren't your typical teens. The six of us were wearing what we had on when we were brought into the ERs after our attempts, but the others were all dressed in variations of the same outfit: black pants or shorts and gray T-shirts with the hospital logo on them. They also wore medical bracelets on their right wrists.

There were a lot of looks thrown our way, and hushed conversations meant to be secretive that were actually not as covert as intended. I pulled my lip into my mouth again. I hated to stick out and at that moment, we were the pimples on the tip of a nose—red, angry, and screaming for attention. A smooth tone filled the air and the room fell silent as everyone stopped talking to listen. Marco's eyes met mine again before darting to the speakers at the corner of the room.

"Attention please," the soothing voice instructed, "Dr. Chen's grief group will be attending the Ropes course at 2:30. Please check out your gear with Ms. Jennifer after lunch and remember to take an extra water bottle with you." I quickly glanced around the lunchroom and was unable to find any kids disgruntled with the announcement.

"What is this place?" Ken asked, looking up to the camera mounted above us and then across the room to another one mounted over the dessert portion of the lunch line. No one even ventured a guess. Damien set the core of his apple down on his tray. He took a sweeping glance around the room and then turned in his chair. A boy with a worn T-shirt was sitting behind us, close enough to talk to, but too far to touch, so Damien pushed his lips together and created a quick hissing sound that made the boy turn in our direction.

"How long have you been here?" Damien asked.

"Four months," the boy answered. He smiled as if he was in on a secret we didn't know. "It's your first day." It wasn't a question. He spoke as if he'd seen this play out before. Marco turned in his seat and propped himself up with an elbow on the table in a way that made me feel intimidated even though his piercing eyes weren't directed at me. The boy didn't even flinch. "You're Dr. Crimm's group. You lucky bastards won't be here longer than a week."