Note to Readers: This is a continuation of “The Incident”, which I strongly recommend you read before continuing beyond this point. Most names have been changed or omitted.

Seventh grade in an American school in Germany; the year had just begun and I was well-known among the administration for my chronic absences. I convinced myself and my doctors that I had some sort of mysterious digestive disorder that resulted in my weekly vomiting that sometimes drew bile. I knew that extreme stress was the culprit, but I was too ashamed to admit that a psychological problem was the cause of such intense physical pain.

I had just wormed my way out of going into foster care and the mental hospital only a few months prior to starting my middle school career (though it was held in a high school due to our odd overseas setup) and my health was a mess, not to mention my personal relationships had taken a turn for the worse. My body was so thin from being sick all the time that I was regularly accused of being anorexic. My hair had started to fall out, and I had stopped growing in height, in weight, and in every other aspect of development (my nine remaining baby teeth never fell out and were pulled two years later; I didn’t even go through puberty until age fifteen). Despite the hardship, I stayed close friends with German-American Leone, and kept my grades at or above the “average” line (I had been a straight-A student, but my collapsing psychological and physical states had brought my grades down to Bs and Cs).

Fortunately, most of the bullies had left to attend school elsewhere, likely in different countries. However, Stacy, the girl who had reported my mother that January, was attending school with me and regularly tormented me by spreading vicious rumors and stealing my things with the help of her newfound friend, Joanna, a girl who was equally mean-spirited.

Around late September, my English teacher, Mr. P, introduced us to writing. I give him full credit for presenting me with what became a life-saving release and a passion that is evident even today. It was in his class that my story, X4592 (now on ) was born, under the name “Sophie’s Magical Midnights”. It was 4,481 words of frustration about the first incident, however disguised by different twists, circumstances, and of course, different characters. I think Mr. P knew that there was some honest basis to my tale, because what seventh-grader writes zealously about false child abuse cases without having either watched too much television or experienced it firsthand? He never questioned me about the sources for my story plots. In any case, we developed a close student-teacher relationship. I could tell he knew there was something very heavy that was going on in my life, and with his extra attention and encouragement I started gaining some of my strength and color back as I threw myself into literature.

This new beginning lasted only two months. By November, when the weather was already a sickly mixture of gray rain and thick steel clouds, my improvement tentatively reached its final stages. My twelfth birthday was approaching on the weekend, November 23rd, and I had plans to spend it at my house with Leone; a classic cake-and-ice-cream sleepover.

Leone and I had grown even closer over the past few months. She nurtured me, trying to bring me back from the brink of disaster. During this time I visited her home, where she lived with her German mother and American step-father, her younger brother and her baby half-sister. She also had two pets, a black Labrador retriever and a beautiful black cat.

My trips over there were great. We enjoyed her mother’s cooking, the in-home wooden sauna, and sharing Leone’s basement bedroom. Of course since I frequented their home I witnessed a couple of short family disputes, which weren’t severe and dissipated quickly; nothing more than minor quarrels. Usually they were between the young brother, Thomas, and the step-father.

At the beginning of the week before Leone’s turn to visit my place, I remember sitting in English class, rain pelting the windows, sketching characters from one of my upcoming stories. The assignment was “journal planning” (Mr. P’s assignments were called ‘journals’, though they literally could be about anything and everything, as long as it was original and school-appropriate). Since I illustrated my stories, I spent journal planning drawing character guides. The dusky quiet of the room was uninterrupted save for the soft tapping of silver rain on the large picture windows.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the yellow door, which opened soon afterward by way of a red plastic door handle. In walked in Dr. Brewer, the school counselor. She was a heavyset woman who wore too much perfume and was fond of tying very feminine scarves atop strings of pearls around her barely-there neck. Her dark brown hair curled ridiculously just above her shoulders, and despite the thick layer of makeup she always wore, her chronically sagging eyelids and drooping jowls were the most prominent features upon her pasty face.

I was instantly struck with a thrumming slam of anxiety. She had never personally violated me, but given my recent experience, older perfume-marinated women in the professional setting (especially one of psychological or educational nature) sickened me with terror, and I did my best to avoid them.

Dr. Brewer cheerily waddled to Mr. P’s desk, whispered something into his ear, and bustled out, trailing thick vines of nearly visible perfume. I gagged, once again tasting bile in my raw throat.

I tried to resume my sketching, but the pencil was like a deadweight in my numb hand. Something rotten in the pit of my stomach just knew that her short-lived business with the teacher involved me. My ears began to ring as if they had been infiltrated by dozens of humming insects.

Calming self-talk did nothing for me. I swallowed my fear over and over again, struggling to draw, wondering why I would get the idea that she had been here to collect me. I decided that the best way to avoid the entire situation would be to go home sick. It certainly wouldn’t be a lie—already I had a band of cold sweat streaked across my pale forehead, and the bones and tendons in my wrists seemed to glare more than usual. I could feel a ripple travel down the entire length of my digestive tract, and decided to get a move on before the bile decided to show itself.

I approached Mr. P’s desk with caution. He looked up over his large glasses as I opened my mouth to ask him if I could go to the nurse, where I planned to testify my dire stomach problems and hopefully get sent home via my mother. I didn’t mind spending the rest of the day, or rather, the rest of my life in bed.

Before I could get a word out, he said, “Oh good, I needed to tell you—Dr. Brewer wants to see you in her office, hopefully sooner than later. Why not go now?” His voice was very gentle and kind, not rich with alarm like the voice screaming warnings in my head.

I weakly asked if I should take my things, and since it was already an hour into the ninety-minute class period, he advised it. I gathered my backpack, stuffed full with more drawings than anything else, and ignoring the unkind stares from my twenty classmates, I took the paperweight hall pass Mr. P handed to me over his stack of assignments and infamous green-covered grade book.

I made my way out the door, up the stairs which, like the rest of the flooring in the halls, were tiled in big squares of varying shades of browns and reds, and past a long series of yellow lockers. As I traveled down the senior hallway, already decorated with a German-shepherd-sized panther (our mascot) sporting a red Santa hat, I did my best to concentrate my attention and energy onto the paperweight hall pass. It was an ancient Irish stamp mounted upon a piece of black material trapped underneath a dome of green-tinted glass, essentially. Cold and heavy in my shaky, skeletal hand, it offered me no comfort.

The guidance center was up one flight of the stairs at the opposite end of the building from the English classroom. The stairwell that ascended to it led right off of the main forum, a high-ceilinged, geometrically-designed chamber that usually echoed but was now dead silent. The safety glass doors to the nearby main office were wide open, but still I heard nothing. I smelled a vague vegetable smell; it was almost lunchtime and the cafeteria workers were cooking something that turned my unstable stomach.

I entered the guidance center with a very violent feeling of apprehension pinching at the sinews inside my chest. I felt so vulnerable; I was just a feeble little girl, underweight and traumatized, trembling in track pants and a hoodie three sizes too big, slouching under the weight of a backpack half my size, all the while gripping a paperweight that seemed to grow heavier each time my heartbeat increased its speed.

Dr. Brewer’s room was at the end of the office, which was nothing more than a cramped space taken up by a mammoth copy machine, and shaped like a long triangle. Her door was open, and I poked my head in, almost overwhelmed by the horrible sickly-sweet stench of too many scented candles in glass jars.

“Hi, Becky!” she chirped, calling me by my nickname, “I’m so glad you came!”

By venturing in further, I realized she was not alone. The nurse, Ms. Schmidt, was cozy in the corner with a mug of tea. She greeted me with a smile.

Seeing the pair of them in there together, I knew something was very wrong. I did what I was told and took a seat on the couch that directly faced the counselor’s desk. My backpack nestled at my feet and I hung onto the paperweight for dear life. My hands were now sweating profusely. A roadway of sweat slicked the fine skin between my prominent shoulder blades as well. I was afraid of an extremely hot anger boiling inside of my veins—I wanted to do something violent: break something, throw a chair, jump out the window. But being submissive and frightened, those were the last things I would do.

I sat on the edge of a couch backed against the wall to the right of the door. I remember pulling my arms into my body as tightly as they would go and holding the paperweight to my chest. As I developed this tense posture, which I’m sure the adults picked up on right away, the nurse stood, set her tea mug on the edge of Dr. Brewer’s desk, and made her way to the door. I relaxed, thinking she was about to leave. To my horror, she stuck a key in the silver lock, turned it until it clicked twice, then pocketed the key. I was trapped inside the room.

My heart probably increased its speed by three times; I was certain I would faint. All I could do to anchor myself was trace the geometric patterns on the oriental rug beneath my feet with my eyes.

Dr. Brewer wasted no time in bringing up the issue at hand. She claimed that a student had approached her about a girl whose stepfather was abusing her. Apparently, this student knew me by name and knew I was friends with this nameless “victim”. I was immediately aware that they were talking about Leone—she was my only friend at that time. My mouth dried out and I stuttered, “I-I’m not s-saying anything.”

Both women went back and forth, trying to convince me that this was a dire situation and that the girl’s name was needed. I was absolutely certain Leone was not being and had never been abused, so I remained as resilient as a rock. “I’m not telling you two anything,” I said, now gaining some confidence. “I know what will happen if I do. You’ll throw her to social services and her life will never be the same.”

The women were taken aback by this; from what I gathered, they were unaware that I had ever had anything to do with the social service nuts. This surprised me, knowing how tight-knit the local community of mental health professionals was.

My stomach was still in knots. I demanded to leave.

“We can’t allow you to leave until you give us your friend’s name,” Ms. Schmidt said. “You don’t seem to know how important it is that we know.”

I wish I had said, “Just keep guessing!” but sarcastic humor was the last thing on my mind. I was too busy concentrating on keeping Leone’s name from leaving my mouth to bother with much else.

“Just tell us,” Dr. Brewer said. “No one’s going to know you said anything; it’ll be a total secret.”

I stiffened. “No.” At this point I was actually sort of proud of myself. I was resisting, something I hadn’t been able to do this successfully in the past. I was adamant.

Ms. Schmidt switched tactics. “So you do know who we’re referring to?”
“I have a guess,” I replied, “seeing as I only have one friend.”

Now that I look back, I realize this was probably a big mistake. But they didn’t catch on. Their faces, however, brightened a little bit. They figured they were making good progress. I was still trying to imagine my jaws being wired shut, in addition to trying not to choke on the horrible scented air (if you could even call it “air”).

Something that was really quite terrifying to me was how nice they were being. They were treating me like I was five, which of course undermined my intelligence. But they, like most adults do when conversing with young children, were very kind—in the fakest of ways.

Unfortunately they were also very impatient. I could read on their faces that deep down they knew I had serious emotional problems and thought I was either wasting their time or didn’t fully comprehend what was going on. The latter was only partially true; I was aware of what was taking place, but I was unwilling to accept that another thing of such grave magnitude was about to rear its ugly head. After all, this was occurring just ten months after the first incident. As for serious emotional problems, I definitely had those.

Dr. Brewer, keeping her unwavering lipsticked smile, said with a poisonously-sweet voice, “You know that if you don’t tell us who’s being hurt, we have to report you to the military police. It’s breaking the law to keep quiet about something so serious. Do you really want this abuse to continue? Do you really want to keep hurting your friend?”

The tears came suddenly. I was breaking. “No. Nothing’s happening; why can’t you just believe me?”

Still smiling, she patted my knee. “We have to look into every case.”

The nurse interjected, “and who would lie about something as serious as this?”

I could name a few people.

“You could be arrested,” Dr. Brewer said. “You have to tell us.” The nurse was nodding along to every word.

I couldn’t believe that could be true. At eleven years old, I certainly didn’t know the rules and laws concerning these situations, but something did not seem right. As much as I didn’t want to think that someone could be this cruel, I couldn’t help but believe this was a way they were planning to trick me. Still crying, I remained steadfast. “I’m not telling you.”

“You seem upset,” Dr. Brewer said in a perfectly sympathetic voice. “Let’s talk about something else, okay?”

I nodded even though I didn’t want to say a word about anything.

“What does your friend like to do?”

This was harmless. “She writes, she draws, she shops. She enjoys everything a girl her age would.” My heart was starting to calm itself. The adrenaline had taken a break.

“What’s her favorite subject?”

I thought for a moment. “I think it’s either English or Video Productions.” I didn’t even think about them looking into class rosters.

They both smiled. The nurse spoke up. “She sounds like a creative person.”

“Oh, she is.” I couldn’t help but relax even more. Just thinking about this wonderful person calmed my nerves. I had never met anyone as kind and loyal as Leone. I would die for her any day.

I traced the black, blue, and red of the geometric patterns on the oriental rug at my feet with my eyes. I was allowing myself to become distracted. I wanted to go downstairs and meet Leone for lunch, like I always did. The bell had already rung, and I knew she was probably waiting, confused, wondering where I was. I tried to send her a mental cry for help: “Leone, I’m trapped up in the guidance office! And they’re asking me about you!”

“Has anything been bothering your friend? Has she been stressed lately?” Dr. Brewer wasn’t giving up.

“Leone’s upset because she has to give away her dog—,” I stopped short. I had just buried my best friend. The world froze, there was no sound, I was numb.

Dr. Brewer looked at Ms. Schmidt. Ms. Schmidt looked at Dr. Brewer. Smiles of satisfaction crept across their faces. “You have been such a good girl!” Ms. Schmidt said happily. “You’ve done the right thing. Now we can help your friend!”

The tears burst. I tore at the hem of my sweatshirt. “No! No, no, please don’t do this! You can’t report her family, you can’t!”

Ms. Schmidt, still smiling, stood and unlocked the door, opening it for me. “You’ve been a great help,” she said.

I left without another word. I scrubbed at my face, faintly knowing that it didn’t matter if people saw me crying—they always saw me crying. I kept having to stop and clean my glasses on my sweatshirt, but I eventually made it downstairs and to the far table, where Leone was waiting anxiously in the glow of white winter light the open door allowed through. [Note: I don’t remember what happened to the paperweight. I think I left it in the office and it was eventually returned to the teacher.]

“Becky, where have you been?” she asked, then grabbed me when she saw that I was sobbing heavily. I couldn’t catch my breath so I could tell her she was in danger.

Poor Leone, she sat helplessly as I tore off my glasses and smashed my face into the cold wooden table, my arms circling my head. I shook and the table shook with me. Leone’s hand on my back was soothing, and I forced myself to slow my breathing. “Le-one! Le-Le—!” I struggled.

“Shhh, calm down, things are going to be fine…”

“No! N-No, they’re n-not! Leone—you’re in t-trouble!”

Her hand left my back and her tone was sharp. “What do you mean?”

I peeked from behind my arms. The cafeteria was loud with kids laughing and screaming. “T-They made m-me say t-things! S-Social services is g-going to come for y-you!” This started a fresh wave of crying.

Leone stared at me helplessly. “I don’t know what you mean! What did they make you say? What’s going on?”

I took another deep, wet, shuddering breath. “S-Someone told g-guidance you’re being a-abused, but they didn’t k-know it was you, so they b-brought me in to give them y-your name!”

“You told them?” Nearby students glared as Leone shrieked.

“I refused, b-but they locked the door and then t-they tricked me!” My teeth chattered, rattling my skull, causing my jaws to ache. “The person who r-reported you didn’t k-know your name, but knew m-mine and knew I was f-friends with you.”

Even though Leone was my best friend and we had always shared everything with each other, and I had never lied to her, I was terrified she wouldn’t believe me. This had become a deeply eroded fear because of my parents’ blatant refusal to believe my honest statements that I had never reported them. Even to this day, I am so desperate for people to believe me that I frequently find myself documenting things for others; taking photos, writing things down, saving objects from places I have been, (tickets, stamps, etc.) and talking about the events with people who were there with me to essentially “back me up”.

Leone knew of the ridiculous, paranoid, safety-obsessed nature of the school staff, and she knew I would never, ever betray her on purpose. She also was aware that I had gone through hell at the beginning of the year, and that hell had involved the people the nurse and counselor were on the phone with now. Why would I want to reconnect with that? Nevertheless, she clung to the side of the table and whimpered, “what am I going to do?”

I wondered that myself. I wanted to run back up to the counseling center and fight to the death, shed blood, slam them into the wall and make them believe me. But the damage had already been done. Leone was a ticking time bomb.

The bell rang; we jumped at the sound and realized the world was still turning, time had not stopped, life was resuming as normal. Leone and I stumbled over the icy walkway to the Annex, where our geography class took place. I remember I felt the sky pressing down on us with all of its grayness and opacity. The weak light was heavily obscured by the layer of foggy precipitation, as if it hid behind a thick storm window. It was so dark.

We filed into the classroom and took our seats at the back. Kids were laughing, conversing, buzzing with life and vigor. Leone and I remained sullen and numb. I was having excruciating upper stomach pain, radiating into my chest and drawing bile into my throat. It was the same kind of pain that had sent me into the hospital a few months earlier, but this time I didn’t seek help because I felt I didn’t deserve it. I wanted it to be a heart attack so I would die swiftly and tragically. Stress-induced heart attack; I’d die unwaveringly maintaining my innocence. Give me the death penalty. The world was already treating me like a prisoner.

The teacher’s mouth was moving but his words were not audible under the ringing in my ears. My hand moved over my paper, writing words, class notes, that weren’t connected to anything. Word salad. A drawing emerged; a black cat staring out with wide, empty eyes, pleading. It reminded me of my best friend sitting at my side, her future about to be twisted, her family about to be damaged. I reached for an orange gel pen and colored in the eyes, made them shine by leaving blank spots.

Our lesson was interrupted when the yellow door opened. My heart sank. A boy entered, carrying a small piece of paper, a summons slip. He handed it to the teacher, Mr. R, and quickly left the room. The teacher looked it over, and called Leone: “Leone, they need you up in Guidance.”

I grinded my teeth into powder, holding onto the edge of the desk, white-knuckled. My body felt like it was on a plane that was swooping down for a crash landing. Leone stood, clumsy with fear, and stumbled to the front of the room. She took the note and disappeared out the door without glancing back. Time resumed again; it had never actually stopped, but I didn’t comprehend that. As my innards writhed like snakes, I lurched up violently. My classmates looked at me with annoyance and curiosity. Shaking, I approached Mr. R. “I need to go to Guidance with Leone,” I said.

The teacher took me by my arm and led me into the hallway. I backed up against the brick wall across from the closed classroom door. Tears streamed down my face; my teeth were chattering again.

“What’s wrong? Are you two involved with something?” Mr. R asked, his eyebrows pressed into a line of concern.

“I-I don’t k-know!” I sobbed. “Everything’s f-falling apart!” I tore at the collar of my shirt, trying to mop up the tears on my cheeks. I was gasping, hyperventilating.

“Calm down,” Mr. R said softly. “Try to relax.”

I took some deep, shuddering breaths that left me coughing and gagging.

Mr. R touched my hand. “Get some water, and go see Leone. Take as much time as you need, okay?”

I ran from the Annex at incredible speed, slipping on some of the ice outside. The sick-looking sky was already producing snowflakes, small and hesitant, falling in what looked like slow motion. I saw no color, not even the orange of the entrance doors. The world was black and white, wet, heavily shadowed and blurred. I wondered if I was going insane.

As I entered the main building and slid past the principal’s office, headed for the brown tile stairs ascending into darkness to the left, I tasted the cold air. It was like I had licked at a layer of dust off a sheet of metal. My head was spinning.

I met a large lobby, the chairs organized into a square, all of the surrounding doors shut tightly. No one was there except for stout Dr. Brewer, hovering outside of the nurse’s door at the far left corner of the space.

“You have to let her go!” I screamed, prepared to fight. The scorching feeling brimming inside me was not courage, it was a homicidal rage. My hands shook, balled into fists. I had nothing on this woman: I didn’t even weigh sixty pounds. I screamed louder, tearing up my throat. “Get her out of there!”

Startled at this sudden reaction she had never expected of me, Dr. Brewer held up her hands and slowly advanced, as if approaching a frightened animal. Speaking in a level, sickly-sweet voice, she threw at me phrases like, “relax for me, don’t do this, she’s fine,” and even, “you’re having a psychotic episode.”

“I’m not psychotic, I’m damn fucking pissed off!” I growled, stepping backwards away from her. “I told you to get her the hell out of there!” Cursing was not at all like me, but I felt that this would be the only way she would take me seriously.

Dr. Brewer interrupted my violent ranting and said in a chilling tone, “Rebecca, you need to calm down right now or I’m calling the police and having them take you to a hospital.”

I couldn’t talk, I could barely breathe. What was with all of these people trying to commit me? The bile once more climbed into my throat. My back hit the beige lacquered wall. I was trapped, stupidly opening and closing my mouth. Things around me began to flatten and move from side to side. I couldn’t faint, not now!

“That’s it,” the repulsive woman murmured encouragingly, “things feel so much better when you’re calm. Don’t you worry about Leone, honey. A social worker is with her and she’s getting the care she needs.”

I broke down crying yet again, and turned away, half-ran half-fell down the stairs. The walk back to the Annex felt like walking to my execution. At this point, I was so suicidal that words cannot even begin to accurately describe it. Everything that held me together, every hair, every cell, hungered for a tragic end. That’s how I wanted to die now—tragically. I wanted it to be glaringly obvious that the troubled eleven-year-old, who had once had so much potential and so much to give, had taken her own life. Then, maybe, people would start believing me.

Leone was the only thing stopping me from clearing the fence and running for the major highway behind the military base. I couldn’t do this to her, she was faced with enough pain already. She would be the only one negatively affected by my death, or so I thought at the time.

I entered the classroom, bedraggled, damp, and shivering. I brushed off Mr. R and ignoring the harsh stares that reminded me of how pathetic I had become, I curled up in my chair at the back of the room, cradling the jacket Leone left behind. “Lesbian,” someone hissed.

At the end of class, as we were leaving, Leone appeared in the doorway of the Annex, ringed with the reflected light from the rapidly piling snow on the ground. I handed her things to her, and timidly asked, “What happened?”

Leone’s face was white and pinched, looking as if someone had shoved a hose down her throat and sucked the life out of her. Before she answered she said, “I heard you screaming.”

“Dr. Brewer threatened to have me committed,” I whimpered.

She gave a weak nod. It looked like she was having trouble standing upright. She leaned against the doorframe for support. “Bad things are going to happen,” was all she managed to say.

The day ended like a thunderclap. Before I knew it, Leone and I were hesitating in the lobby of the after-school center on base, known as the “Youth Center”, or “YS”. Leone was waiting for her parents. Like a coward, I remained lying low on the couches, under the windows and out of view of the road. My heart ripped through my chest as I attempted to hide beneath my awkward layers of bad clothing. Leone kept a nervous watch; I flinched at every sound of a car going by.

Finally, she said, “They’re here, got to go.” I cried into the arm of the couch as she picked up her book bag and left the lobby.

My father fetched me a couple of hours later. We said nothing to each other, which wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. My parents hated talking to me, providing for me, having me around. I was a constant reminder what happened in January.

That night I huddled on the couch in my large room, the yellow ceiling lights cutting out harsh shadows among my belongings. I didn’t sleep because the relentless events of that day kept grinding through my head, and eventually into my stomach. I was in and out of the bathroom all night, vomiting large quantities of bile. My hands shook the whole time and I was so sweaty it was as if I’d jumped into a bathtub with my clothes on. Several times, my heart would race for a few beats and then flutter, skipping. Each time, I thought with relief, “This is it, I’m finally going to die.” As twisted as it sounds, I wanted to die of a heart attack, on the floor, all alone, right before my twelfth birthday. I wanted my mother to find me that way.

I went to school more of a zombie than I’d ever been. My joints felt rusty and I moved stiffly. Leone was also in bad shape; she seemed very pale and didn’t look like she’d slept last night either. She told me she was missing her third period English class to go to Social Work Services with her family. I didn’t respond. Instead I slid my left hand under the long sleeve covering my right arm and dug my nails into my skin until it broke and I felt the satisfying bubbles of blood.

By this point, I hadn’t eaten in about forty-eight hours and my insides felt like sandpaper. I liked it this way. My self-hatred had reached such a high peak that I was glad for any bit of physical discomfort I experienced. I was actually growing to like seeing my ribs through my back and chest. I’d bend my fingers until the cracks from the winter’s bite opened up and bled. Pain was the only thing assuring me that I was getting every bit of punishment I deserved for all my fuck-ups.

Leone returned around lunch time, during which I pressed my hands into my pained stomach and listened to her talk about it. No one matching Maureen’s description had met with her; instead, a social worker visiting from Garmisch had conducted the investigation. I was surprised that Leone had returned to school so early. She seemed confident that they were going to be left alone, although they were instructed to attend a few more mandatory family counseling sessions. It was a precaution, Leone said, mostly to assure the safety of her baby half-sister.

Much to my relief, Leone informed me that she had not told anyone that I’d been coerced into revealing her name. She had everyone: her parents and the social workers, convinced that some other student had just mistaken something she’d said.

I thought I was in the clear.

Just before the weekend of my twelfth birthday and Thanksgiving break, I was waiting at the YS until dark for my father to come and take me home. I remember it being an unusually cold and damp night; the black asphalt glittered under the orange streetlights as we walked across the barracks to his office parking lot, where the car was waiting.

Again, he hadn’t spoken to me at all. Instead, he seemed incredibly tense, more so than usual, so I figured he’d had a rough day at work. Then, as we approached the side of the building, he stopped short and turned on me.

“I am so disgusted with you!” he snarled.

My heart lurched, and I started to tremble. “What?”

He started walking again. “Got something you want to tell me about Leone? Tell me, why do you have this pathological need for attention, for getting innocent people in trouble? What the hell is wrong with you?”

“I didn’t—”

“—Don’t even start.” He cut me off. “All you do is lie. Lie, lie, lie. You’re an absolute disappointment. How did you ever get this way?”

“Daddy, please!” I cried. “Why won’t you even let me explain?” The tears were gushing down my face. I was having difficulty breathing.

“Because you’re a liar, that’s what you are! A sick and twisted liar. I knew you’d done something the minute I got the call from that social services yahoo. I couldn’t believe it! I thought you were done with this! I thought you’d gotten enough joy out of the suffering you caused your mother, but no! You had to ruin your best friend’s life, didn’t you? Because of you, her dad could be demoted! He could lose his job because of you!”

“They c-called you?” I whispered.

“They say they want you to see the psychiatrist again, and guess what? I’m going to make sure they take care of you this time. Because you’re sick.”

Sobbing, I crawled into the backseat of his new blue Audi. I don’t quite recall much of what he said until we passed under the first highway overpass, but it was probably a repeat of what he’d said in the parking lot. However, something happened as we passed under that first overpass that remains vivid and clear in my mind as if it had occurred yesterday.

My father was suddenly calm, his voice gentle. In the nicest, most loving tone, he said, “You’re sick; something’s wrong with you. You’re mentally ill and we’re going to get you some help, okay? We’ll take you somewhere where they can get you better and you can talk to someone about this.”

I wish he had just screamed at me some more, because this turn in his attitude increased my anxiety and depression. I didn’t want to acknowledge that something could be messed up in my head. He was going to lock me up because he thought that all of these frightfully unfortunate events were caused by some mental illness I supposedly had. Really, these frightfully unfortunate events had caused the mental illness I supposedly had.

Prolonging my suffering, my father pulled into a manual car wash. He asked me to get out and press the button to turn on the hose. I shivered as the mist wafted from the car roof and blanketed me. My father was saying things, trying to get me to laugh, thanking me for helping him wash his damn car. I was so confused and not at all placated by his sudden lift in mood.

Upon our return home, it was extremely obvious that my father had called my mother and told her everything that had happened—the way he believed it had occurred. My mother’s face was white and grim. She looked at me with darkened eyes that went blank when I tried pleading with her that I was not at fault for either incident. It was like trying to convince a closed door of my innocence. All she said was, “You’re really sick for what you’ve done to your best friend and her family, when all they’ve ever been is nice to you.”

I crawled back to my bedroom, tore off my clothes, and balled them into a cold heap at the bottom of my closet. I yanked on a shirt, some baggy sweatpants, and a gray sweatshirt Leone had given to me the previous year. Then I dropped onto my couch and didn’t move until morning.

My mother shook me awake before dawn and reminded me that we were going on our road trip to Switzerland. I normally would have welcomed a trip to the refreshing country, but it made me nauseous. I grabbed for my trashcan and dry-heaved until it felt I would choke. It had been about three days since I’d eaten, and I’d begun restricting fluids as well. I planned to starve to death, and I wanted it to be agonizing.

Rolling her eyes, my mom said, “Is the guilt finally beginning to sink in? Be ready to leave in twenty minutes.”

I don’t recall much of the trip except for a few things: I drifted in and out of sleep because I was so fatigued from not eating, the weather was gorgeous, and my parents did not speak to me. I think we drove past an ostrich farm. On the way back, I forced myself to eat a granola bar. Then, I slept some more. I never took off Leone’s sweatshirt. My birthday came and went without a word. My present was not vomiting.

The idea of suicide never left my head. On a daily basis, I did the sneak-and-look in my parents’ medicine and cleaning cabinets. I made small, pitiful attempts, usually banging my head as hard as I could against rigid surfaces. Finding that the pain brought temporary relief, I became addicted. I would slam doors on my fingers, bite the insides of my mouth, slam stacks of books on my legs. There were less complicated ways of hurting myself, but I had never heard of cutting and couldn’t think straight anyway, what with being cripplingly depressed and malnourished. Even when the weather warmed up, I was bitter cold because I had hardly any body fat. I was constantly sick with colds, bronchitis, the flu. Sometimes I got light-headed and fainted. This happened once between classes and kids who saw me fall actually made an effort to stomp on me.

Spring came and I was unfocused, my misery was raging, and my parents treated me with more disdain than ever. Leone and I had even drifted apart around Christmastime, because I had become so sick that it was pushing her away; she couldn’t help me, so she started to leave me. Seeing her outside of school was out of the question; my mother had called her parents and told them that I had gone up to the guidance office and announced that they were abusing Leone, as if the idea had been mine all along. Leone’s step-father did not get an important promotion he had been looking forward to, and although the reasons for that were unclear, everyone pointed their fingers at me.

On a Saturday shortly before Leone’s thirteenth birthday, I decided it was going to be the day I would kill myself. I was completely devoid of emotion and words, and was sluggish as I hugged my dog for the last time; the confusion in his eyes didn’t affect me much then, but now it hurts to remember. I walked into my parents’ bathroom. The tiles glared harshly; my vision had changed in a way that made everything so clearly outlined, in focus, in vivid color. It was as if the world had increased its contrast.

I opened the door to the medicine cabinet, and began reaching for as many bottles of pills as I could. I planned on taking a few of each kind until I passed out. Mixing them in my hands, I was reminded of assorted candies. I had always been terrible at swallowing pills, but when I tipped them back, one at a time with a glass of water from the faucet, I was so relaxed that they went down easily. My heartbeat increased from a combination of excitement and fear. I lost count of the pills but guessed I had swallowed around eleven when my ears began to ring. As the room slid in and out of focus, I quickly downed a few more pills, then carefully replaced the bottles and retreated to my room. Now piled in my stomach were Tylenol, ibuprofen, vitamins, some prednisone from a past lung infection of mine, Imodium, and others.

Within about twenty minutes, my vision was dissolving in and out of black and my heart was racing. I was soaked through my clothes in sweat. I thought I smelled blood, though there wasn’t any. My legs shook and I writhed on my carpet in severe pain. Suddenly, I did not want to die this way. I started to cry hysterically as I lost my ability to hear outside noise. The sound of the blood pounding in my head was deafening, however. I kicked at my desk chairs, reached up to my windowsill and desperately pulled everything so it came crashing down. A stack of books and papers fell heavily to the floor and must have made terrible noise, but I couldn’t hear it. Even if my parents heard the racket I was making, I knew they would not come because, aside from not wanting to have anything to do with me, they would probably think I was having a tantrum.

I was losing bits of time; one minute I was on my bedroom floor, then I was stretched out in the hallway, and then I was slumped over my bathroom toilet, vomiting. The pain in my stomach was just incredible, knifelike. I had been eating fairly regularly for the past three days, and it all seemed to appear again. I saw flecks of color and recognized some of the pills. I was practically wrapped around the toilet bowl and could barely get a breath in between the intense vomiting. A wave of pain traveled through my body and then seemed to hang in my lower left stomach; it was so agonizing that the only way I can describe it would be to say it was as if I had swallowed a live firecracker and then had it explode somewhere among my insides. It was gruesome. Then, I lost consciousness.

The first thing I remember about coming to was that the right side of my face hurt really badly. I also remember smelling something terrible, and feeling completely limp, like a ragdoll. I heard my breathing; it was cloggy and sounded kind of like purring. When I opened my eyes I saw the crack under my locked bathroom door. Someone was banging on it.

It was my mother. “Becky,” she said, sounding more annoyed than concerned, “You’ve been in there forever. Are you okay?”

I realized my face hurt because I had been lying with it pressed against the bathroom floor, apparently for a while. I could barely lift my head, but I curled my toes, felt my arms stir, then pushed myself into a sitting position. “I’m very sick,” I gasped.

“Ugh,” she scoffed. “When are you going to realize that I’m so tired of this. I’m so tired of you playing your little con games with me. Take some Mylanta and go to bed. If you’re still sick tomorrow, I’ll take you to the doctor.” I heard her walk away from the door.

I cried silently and calmly as I surveyed the damage. The aftermath was disgusting. I didn’t know how long I had been lying there, but apparently it had been a while. Shakily, I cleaned up enough to be able to leave the bathroom, after making sure no pills were visible, partially-digested or not.

After a shower in my parents’ bathroom (mine was only a “half-bath”, or “no-bath”, as it didn’t have a bath at all), my mother had found some of the evidence that I’d been sick. I passed it off as “the stomach bug that’s going around.”

I looked at my clock before going to bed and, stunned, saw that it was Sunday evening. Unbelievably, I had been in my bathroom for a little more than twenty-four hours.

I didn’t vomit anymore, but I had chills and was extremely tired, weak, and achy. My stomach hurt something awful, but the pain that I had likened to a firecracker was only a throb. I felt like I was pulling out of a severe flu.

The doctor diagnosed me with “gastroenteritis” and prescribed bed rest and soup. I breathed a sigh of relief because no one knew that it was the result of a failed suicide attempt. My mood hung somewhere between “chronically sad” and “enduring” until our time in Germany was cut short when my father found an assignment in Virginia.

In my simple, eleven-year-old mind, I believed that by leaving the place where these perverse events had occurred, I would be cured. If I left the world where my pain began and had a new beginning elsewhere, I would no longer face those feelings again.

But what I didn’t realize was that post-traumatic stress disorder follows you wherever you go. When something so terrible happens to you, you are scarred for life. My mind was mangled and my trust in people was completely gone. In addition, I had to face the obstacle of living with parents who didn’t believe me and therefore, refused to show any support.

So I was faced with a new beginning, and handed the tools to rebuild my life and start the long, slow process of recovery. And it was up to me to decide how I would begin this process.

Note: This process will be recounted in a later story.