Second Chance

Chapter 6

Demi's P.O.V.

Class was boring as hell, to say the least. Patients were competitive about literally everything. One girl was in their second to last week of treatment. One boy only had a couple days left. This other boy had been here a month, and he still didn't know when he'd ever get to leave. Others were competing with the number of visitors they had on their list. As soon as the session ended, we were instructed to find something to do around the campus while visiting hours went on. I had to go to daily therapy with the nicest woman on campus: Molly Wilson.

I seated myself on the green couch in her office, leaning my head against the cushion behind me with my eyes closed. Did I ever sleep? Sometimes I blinked, if that counted.

She shuffled in, her notebook in hand, and settled into her chair. A fake smile appeared on her face, and I just wanted to slap it away. Lisa Black was understanding. This old hag was not.

"Good morning, Demi. How are you?" Stupid question. Next joke please. The best joke I could think of was her. The way her face sagged, she could mop up the mess that she had become with it.

Faking a cough, I pulled the inside of my elbow up to my mouth, closing my eyes tightly as if it would make me less tired. Yeah. Right. Opening my eyes was the hardest part of the whole ordeal. "Terrific."

She rose an eyebrow. 'Do I sense a hint of sarcasm?"

I nodded. "I'm fucking exhausted."

Her frail, crinkly hand scribbled it down onto my record. "Sarah told me about your episode last night. Mind telling me why you did something like that?"

"Because I can't be tamed."

It may have been my drained feeling, or hallucinations from lack of sleep, but I could have sworn the old bitch almost smiled. Just then did I realize my Miley Cyrus reference.

"Is there anyone here – maybe a nurse or staff member – that could help me understand what happened better?" The pen in her hand was readied again. Maybe, if I gave her a long explanation for her to write down, she'd write so much so fast that her hand would break. Wouldn't that be something?

There was only one person that the "episode" had been explained to. "Ask Taylor."

For the first time since she walked in, she put her pen down. Finally. "How has everything else been? Did you feel any impulses to harm yourself?"

Quite possibly the most common question anyone in my situation could ever be asked.

Back before my parents found out about all of my issues, they thought I only dealt with self-harm, so they sent me to therapy for it. Every single session: "How's it going with the cutting?" It was so obvious, at that point, that the therapists had never harmed themselves, so they didn't understand that asking such a small question was triggering. I'd go home from therapy and tear up my skin with a blade because she mentioned it. Usually, when someone was in the mind set of harming themselves, they needed to be distracted. Bringing it up did the opposite. It was safe to say half of my scars were my therapist's fault.

But yet I continued to blame other people for my problems. Like blaming Nick for me ending up here. If I wasn't so messed up, I wouldn't have been here in the first place; I would be on tour with Kevin and Joe and Nick, and Shorty wouldn't have a blue face, and my mom and Eddie wouldn't be wasting all this money "fixing" me, and Dallas and Maddie wouldn't cry into their pillows every night in fear that they'd wake up without a sister, and Selena and Miley and Taylor Swift and Marissa and Wilmer wouldn't think I'd lost my sanity. But I had. I lost my sanity a long time ago. It took me a while to realize that I lost everything I ever had. It was like I was starting life over again.