At 6:41, I woke up in a cold sweat. It takes four minutes for the tears to clear.

"Are you okay?" Alli's voice rings through the heavy silence.

I pressed my cheek to the pillow and found her eyes glowing in the dark room. "Why are you awake?"

"How could I sleep?" she replies.

"I find these mattresses strangely comfortable."

"Not the mattresses. I have insomnia, Marley."

"Can't they give you meds?" I respond as the sleepiness in my voice falls away.

"I'm on thirty milligrams of Melatonin already."

"Is that a lot?"

"I guess. The average adult takes five." She pauses and licks her lips. "Marley, what do you keep dreaming abou—"

A loud thunk on the door stops her in her tracks. Myah pops her head through the door and grins like it's not seven a.m.

"Morning, ladies! Get ready, breakfast is in thirty minutes!" she cheers.

"Umf," I groaned, muffling my voice in the pillow wrapped around my ears.

"Oh, c'mon, rise and shine, ladies!" Myah cries one more time before slipping out the door and flicking on the light.

"Isn't she a ray of sunshine?" Alli moaned.

I giggled and slid out of my bed. I slipped a thick blue hoodie off of a hanger on our shared closet's doorknob.

I found some somewhat attractive sweatpants in my dresser and tugged them around my waist. For once, they didn't slip off. I'd gained what Dr. Smith describes as "therapy weight." I wasn't fat, I wasn't even borderline chubby. It was just than skin was finally creeping over my sharp rib bones and my knobby elbows.

I don't even bother with shoes. Most people here don't either. I just tug on a pair of tie-dye socks and yank a brush through my tangled, greasy hair.

"Boy howdy," Alli snorted, "when's the last time you washed that mop of crap?"

"Boy howdy?" I repeated. "Anyway, I haven't showered since..." I counted on my fingers. I hadn't showered once here or at the hospital. "Um, a week or so?" I replied sheepishly.

"God, no! Marley, that's disgusting!" But she's laughing. She wraps her fingers around my wrist. "You'll feel much better once you shower. C'mon. We'll both take a shower and then get ready for community group."

"Breakfast!" I cried in despair as she dragged me out the door.

"We'll grab a snack from the common room, dork."

I follow her to the end of our hall. Each hall has a community shower room, which is constantly monitored by a handful of nurses. A nurse assigns me a shower in the huge room. I estimate there to be about fifteen.

My shower is basically a shower head bolted to the wall above a cement floor with a drain. There are two curtains separating the humid bathing cubicle from the rest of the room. I hook the shower caddy the nurse gave me on the plastic rack screwed into the wall. Then I peel off my clothes that already smell slightly rank from my accumulating body odor.

As the warm water washes down my back, my soapy fingers roam my body. My breath catches in my throat when the pad of my index finger finds the raised pink scar on my hip.

"To remember me by, love."

I felt his hands again, hot knife hands, fingers digging into my waist, blue patches blooming beneath his touch. I remember the layer of grime he left behind, his breath in my neck, dirty dirty dirty.

I keep blinking back tears and now I'm scrubbing, and raw skin is peeling off and swirling down the drain, and I'm red and bleeding and

clean

never clean not enough because he's still there he's always there

•••

"So, yesterday you had an episode," Dr. Smith began.

I have yet to find any sort of enlightenment in therapy.

"Sure, is that what you call it?"

"Yes. An episode is generally.... a freak out, for lack of better words. It's usually triggered by something."

"Okay," I mumbled.

He raised his eyebrows. He waited. When I said nothing, he prompted, "Do you know what triggered you?"

He was touching me why was he going to do that what was he doing why would he touch me just like him him him

"No."

"Yes, you do," Dr. Smith said, not unkindly.

"Shut up." The words fell from my lips like firecrackers bursting in my chest. "Just shut up, okay?"

"Now, Marley, I—"

The door slammed behind me and his voice was cut off.

•••

"How was therapy?" Alli asked, flipping a page in her book.

"I hate therapy."

She grins without looking up. "Yeah, therapy is pretty stupid. They're so... I don't know..." Alli slaps her book shut. "Condescending," she concludes.

"Right?" I flopped onto my bed and slipped beneath my comforter.

"You left early," Alli stated with a smirk.

"Yep. I'm surprised he didn't come after me."

"No, everyone here is all about free spirit, so if you don't want to come they can't make you."

"I see. Well, I'm starving. You lied and never got breakfast with me. Let's go to the common room, yeah?" I suggested.

"Fine. I hate that you make me social."

"I'm not social! You just have to talk to me. The only one you talk to anyway."

"Ooh, true. Let's go."

The common room was relatively empty. Most kids were in one-on-one therapy still. Alli and I hit the snacks table and settled into our usual seats in the corner.

Soon, Reese joined us with a smile and funny story, as always. His dark hair brushed his eyes as he spoke. I felt drawn to him.

"Marley, I'd like to talk to you." I looked for the source of the deep voice and saw Dr. Smith.

"Why?" I asked nervously. Was I in trouble for leaving?

"Please, come with me."

I swallowed hard and followed him back to his office. He smiled at me and nodded for me to sit.

"I would really like to find your trigger, Marley. I have an idea what it is." Dr. Smith paused and stared at me. "How does this make you feel?"

I blinked and suddenly his hand was resting on my shoulder, completely stationary and yet it felt as though it was burning my skin. He didn't move, or say anything, he just kept his hand on me.

"Stop. Get off me." My heart is racing. They feel like his hands. "Stop. Move your hand."

I'm shaking and suddenly overcome with the same frozen fear. I can't move, or scream, or fight back because I am an idiot. I am the most useless person, I can't even move away.

"Please get off me stop please stop I can't do this please stop."

My chest is heaving now. Sweat pours down my temples and tears sting my eyes.

"Marley, you have to calm down."

I can feel it, scorching through me, his hand. And yet, I force myself to think about something different. I think of Sam, and the pastel sweaters she wears, and how she makes me tea when I'm sad even though I hate tea.

"Good job, Marley," he says finally. His hand is gone.

"Why did you do that?" I whimpered.

"It's called exposure therapy. We don't usually do it this early on, but..."

My head still swimming, I slam the door behind me.