All I Never Wanted (Excerpt)

Chapter Two

For a moment everything went black, the whole world running dark. White noise hummed between my ears—some satellite channel long since lost—as my brain shut everything out, scrambling.

Then, the restart.

First the pain. Then the stars behind my eyes.

Then the alarm.

Then the screaming.

"Get off of me! Get off!" But this time the words weren't directed toward me.

The orderlies I'd spotted wandering the halls earlier were there with their broad arms and irritated frowns. They had the girl by the elbows, dragging her away despite her resistance. She pulled and kicked against them—her blue eyes fully open now. Awake. On fire.

The siren wailed, piercing my eardrums at intervals.

It was like a scene out of a movie, only I couldn't determine if she was wrongfully accused and desperate to get away, or guilty as hell and refusing to go down without a fight.

Crewe stood by, arms crossed, seeming unimpressed, as if what unfolded was typical for Fairhaven. Meltdowns a daily occurrence. Just another day in rehab.

My cheekbone throbbed, stinging, and my eyes watered. I touched the tender spot and could already feel the swelling.

"Let me at least get my shit!" she demanded, no longer sleeping beauty but beast, struggling to twist her way free as they carried her out the door.

The pad and pencils lay strewn across the floor.

I don't know what I was thinking as I took a few quick steps, knelt, and gathered them as fast as I could, closing the notebook on a sketch of a girl with dark features wearing a string of pearls, or as I followed them down the hall.

"Hey!" I called.

The girl jerked loose, and, in a moment, she'd closed the distance between us and I was pressed against the wall, her left arm across my chest, her weight pushing into me, her right hand fisting a pencil, its point inches from my eye.

"Touch me again and I will destroy you," she warned through clenched teeth, face lit with anger, lashes still rimmed with tears.

The alarm, the footsteps of the orderlies, my heart, the blood roaring in my ears—everything pounded in unison.

They ripped her away from me.

The pencil splintered in half.

"Goddammit! You're fucking hurting me!"

She hit the floor, thrashed wildly.

They dragged her down the hall by the wrists, and when the double doors shut behind them I could still hear her screaming. Her shoe—a red Sketcher—the only thing left behind—lay tipped on its side.

Laceless.

"Are you okay?"

I jumped at the touch of the hand on my shoulder. "Shit. What?"

The alarm stopped.

The nurse smiled. "All clear," she assured me. "Your eye. Are you okay?"

My eye. That girl had just tried to stab me in the eye with a pencil. I glanced back at those double doors. The red shoe. She'd cornered me out of nowhere. "I think so."

My cheek throbbed. My heart thudded erratically against my rib cage. She'd punched me in the face, then tried to stab me in the eye.

The nurse cupped my chin in her hand, turning my face this way and that, clicking her tongue and shaking her head. She didn't seem surprised by any of this, either. "Come with me."