• When we arrive at the school, it looks different than I had imagined. I mean, yeah it’s Saturday, so school isn’t in session, but I thought there might at least be some people here. Other than a few cars in the parking lot, it’s completely empty.

    “Andrew, take Dawn to get some ice-cream down the street, we’ll pick you guys up when we’re done.” Jon says, turning around in his seat. Blair and Jon get out, at the same time as Andrew. Dawn undoes her booster seat by herself, and I get out of the car as well.

    “’Kay, dad. C’mon Dawn.” He grabs Dawns hand and starts skipping down the sidewalk with her. I wish I could have gone with them, but I really want to see what the school looks like.

    There is three flights of stairs up to the school doors. On either side of the stairs there is a row of maple trees. It looks like something that would be in a movie, and I feel like I’m in Hollywood. But, nope, it’s just plain old, Point Place, Wisconsin.

    “Jo- I mean, dad, mom. What do we have to do to sign up for school? Like, do we have to sign a ton of papers?” I ask, as we start on the first flight of stairs.

    “Yeah, we have to sign quite a few papers, but it’s not too many.” Blair answers. “It should take about half an hour. Not to long, right?”

    “Yeah, just stay calm. The people at this school are a bit… challenging, shall I say?” Challenging? What’s that supposed to mean? Whatever, I’m so excited!! We reach the top of the second flight of stairs and Blair looks at Jon and I with a strange look, like, ‘I wonder…’ What is that supposed to mean??? Blair and Jon are acting a little strange. It’s kind of starting to scare me.

    “Jon, are you sure?” Sure of what? I want to know!

    “Completely, honey, don’t worry. I’ve got everything figured out, okay?” What the hell are they talking about?! Maybe I should ask.

    “Sure of what, is something wrong? Something I should know?” They look at me. ******** I shouldn’t have asked. Maybe it’s something personal.

    “It’s nothing, Cassy. Just something with… uh, Jon’s work.” Blair looks at me, then quickly back at Jon. Ummm, okay…? Wait, whoa! That is so weird! Is it just me, or are the stairs moving? ********! It’s me! I hit the pavement and black out. Not again!

    Chapter Seven: Back in the hospital.

    My vision is blurred when I come to it again. Blair and Jon are standing over me. Andrew and Dawn are sitting in chairs next to me. The smell of latex returns, with something more. I can’t make it out though. I’m in the hospital again. The last thing I remember is that we were walking up stairs. But, what stairs? Where were we going? I can’t recall anything other than that.

    “Why am I in the hospital?” They look surprised, yet relieved, that I’m conscious.

    “Oh! Cassy! You’re finally awake! God, I was so scared!” Blair is in a panic, but she calms down as Jon touches her arm lightly. I can see tears in Blair’s eyes, and Andrew looks horrified. Dawn is just sitting in the chair, with no expression. Is she too young to understand? Am I too young to understand? I guess so, because I have no idea why I’m here.

    Jon pipes in, “Honey, you’ve been out cold for three days. You were in a coma. What can you remember?”

    “I… I remember we were walking up some stairs…”

    “Good! She remembers she’s fine!”

    “Wait, but I don’t remember where we were. Or why we were… why we were walking up the stairs. And, there… there were two people with me. But, I can’t recall who they were. What happened? Why am I here?!” Blair lets the tears out, she can’t hold them back anymore. At least, that’s what it seems like.

    “Cassy! You have to remember! Come on! Try harder! You can do it!!!” Andrew starts freaking out. What the hell? Shouldn’t I be the one freaking out?

    “Cassy, you’ve been in a coma for three days. You passed out when we were walking up the stairs to school. We were going to get you registered. As far as who the two people were, that was Blair and I.” Jon tells me. He looks at Blair, then Andrew, then back at me. Why the hell does everybody keep sharing glances?

    The yellow-and-white nurse from before, Debbie, walks in with a clip-board in her hands. Why is she here? Is it just coincidence that I have her as a nurse again, or is something weird going on here? I want to believe the first one, but I think the second one is more suitable for the situation. “Cassy, we have to do a few more tests, but after that you’ll be out of here in no time. Now, you just need to relax. Here’s some water. Drink up, you need it.”

    “Would you mind telling me why I passed out?” That b***h needs to go somewhere. She pisses me off! Where does she get off telling me to relax? Huh?!

    “Dehydration, you haven’t had enough fluids in your body. Please, drink the water.” Okay, so maybe I should calm down, but why more tests?

    “What’s with the tests, then?” Jon asks her. ********, these guys are like, mind readers or something.

    “We still aren’t completely sure about her condition, sir. They’re just minor tests. But for now, she just needs to drink something, and get plenty of rest. Visiting hours are over in five minutes. You may choose one person to keep watch on her for the rest of the day. Besides, shouldn’t these kids be getting to school?” Debbie looks at Andrew and Dawn, then back at Jon again. God damnit, STOP with the exchanging glances thing! It’s ******** pissing me off, and quite frankly, scaring me!

    “Yeah, Andrew, Dawn, I’ll meet you in the car.” Jon tells them. Dawn goes happily, but Andrew hesitates a second. After being glared at by Blair and Jon for about a minute, he leaves, reluctantly. “Blair, you can stay with her, I’ll take the kids to school. I have some paper work to do still, back at the station. And, if you’d like, we can order for dinner. Let the kids choose.” He winks at her, then leaves.

    “Okay, Mrs. Carter, we’re going to do the tests now, and I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave the room. But you may come back in as soon as we’re done.” Debbie says, calmly. Blair leaves the room and I can see her sit down in a chair outside of the door. She faces straight forward, almost like she doesn’t even want to see me right now. ********, what did I do?

    “What kind of tests do you have to do?” Debbie pulls out a needle, flicks the end of it, and tells me to give her my hand. “Why? What is this for?”

    “We need a dose of your blood to make sure there is nothing severly wrong with you.” Well, that seems fair, so I give her my hand. I wince as she draws the blood from the big vein in my wrist. Damn, that hurts!

    “OW! Jeez!” I shriek, I think she did something wrong! No, I know she did something wrong, blood is pouring out of my wrist now, and I start to cry. It hurts like ********! She presses one of the buttons on the remote thingy next to me, I think the one to call for help, and then she reaches under the bed and pulls out a box with a red plus sign on it.

    “Just stay calm, Cassy, it’s the best thing to do in a situation like this. Trust me.” She opens the first aid kit, takes out some gauze, and tape, and special scissors. By now two male nurses have come in, dressed the same way as Debbie, except their name tags read: ‘Hi I’m James.’ and : ‘Hi I’m David.’ I think they are regular nurses, or maybe even actual doctors, because they act more mature than Debbie. They push her aside, take the materials from her, and ask me for my hand.

    I shove my hand out in front of them, and they wrap my wrist in gauze, somehow in sync. The James cuts off a small strip of tape and tapes the gauze down. Whew! I feel really light-headed. I must have lost a lot of blood! I look at my other hand and realize its covered in blood as well, from holding on to the wound. I look over at the doorway, notice Blair isn’t there, look in front of me, and calm down when I see her standing in front of the bed. For a second I thought she left to go get something to eat - or something like that.

    “I don’t ever want her to touch Cassy again! She is not aloud to be her nurse - or anyone else in our family - anymore! And I know I have the right to say so!” One of the guy doctors, David, takes Debbie’s hand and pulls her out in the hallway, and it looks like he’s yelling at her. James explains to Blair what went wrong, but she doesn’t care.

    I don’t really know what they’re saying, because I’m thinking about earlier - three days earlier. “Blair, am I still going to be able to get signed up for school?”

    “Of course you are, but not ‘til next weekend. Okay?” I nod, then ask when I’m going to be able to get out of here.

    “Well, I guess we won’t be able to do the tests anymore, but you leave that gauze on your wrist until Friday - that’s three days - and it should be healed by then. So, I guess you’re free to go today, then.” James tells me, but it seems more like he’s talking to Blair, like, I won’t understand or something. What the hell? I’m thirteen years old! I know how to communicate! Jeez, can’t you freaking tell me?! Fine, you want to play like that, well two can play at that game! Think I’m a little kid, eh? I’ll show you how much of a kid I can be. Hah!

    “Mommy, my tummy is hungry.” I say, just like a toddler, and Blair looks confused. So does James, but who gives a crap.

    “Well, we better get going then. I’m sure there’s plenty to eat at home. Okay, Cassy?“ She smirks at me, and I catch a glimpse of Nancy’s eyes in hers. Even though it’s very sudden, it gives me chills. I hate bringing back the past, it’s already happened too much in the week that I’ve been staying with Jon and his family. But, this time, seeing it in Blair’s eyes is just plain weird, and I get a bad feeling of what’s to come.

    CHAPTER EIGHT: Flash Back #3

    After changing out of my hospital gown, Blair directs me out of the hospital and we walk down the street a little ways. We stop at a sign that has a picture of a blue bus, and some times on it. I guess this is what a bus-stop is like. Somehow, I thought it would be more crowded, and I was wrong. There is barely anybody in sight. It’s me, Blair, and a couple of older teenagers across the street. They have cigarettes in their mouth, and they’re lit. Nancy used to smoke. s**t! Why am I thinking about Nancy? And that weird look in Blair’s eyes earlier, that was really creepy!

    This whole time we’re standing here, and I just now notice that Blair has been trying to ask me something. “I’m sorry, did you say something Blair? I’m really sorry, I was ju-”

    “No, it’s okay, you don’t have to apologize. I was just asking if you had ever been on a bus before. But, I guess not, because of… never mind.” She doesn’t say her name, but I’m not exactly sure why. Maybe she’s scared of hurting my feelings, or maybe she’s afraid of bringing back memories. But when the bus pulls up I forget about it. It looks totally, completely different than I had imagined! The outside is blue with black stripes across the sides. The doors are black, and there is two of them, one in the front of the bus, and another towards the middle. In the back I can see an emergency exit, but I can’t see inside of the bus, the windows are tinted. Hmmm, an emergency exit. If only I had one of those when I was living with Nancy. Maybe it wouldn’t have gotten so bad, maybe I could have just ran away one day, and just kept running. I would have ran forever, not stopping for anything. But I couldn’t do that, she had alarms on all the doors, and the windows were barred shut. She put curtains on the outside of them so that nobody would know about the bars. How clever of her! I flash back to one time when she had gone to the store, and of course she left me home. I had a plan worked out in my head: I would undo a bar or two on one of the windows, since the doors were alarmed, and I would climb out to freedom. But, obviously, the bars were steel, I couldn’t do anything to get them to bend, not even just a little. But when Nancy came home she saw me trying to undo the screws on the bars, threw me onto the floor, grabbed a belt, and went to town on me. She beat me until my face started bleeding, then started on my arms and worked her way down. My chest, stomach, back, legs, and then put the belt on the floor. She went out of the room and came back within a few seconds. She had an electric razor in her hand. She plugged it into the wall, and told me to shave my head. She said if I didn’t she would cut one of my toes off, and that the longer I waited, the more toes she would cut off. My hair was the best thing I had, even if I couldn’t brush it. It was long, down half of my back. I didn’t want to cut it off, at all! But, I figured it would grow back soon, and that my toes were much more important than my hair, so I did it. Since I didn’t have a mirror I accidentally nicked some of my skin. I winced, and she threatened to beat me with the belt again. I tried to be as careful as I could but it was harder than you could imagine, I was shaking so bad.

    “HEY! Cassy, snap out of it!” Blair was standing in front of me, waving her hand in my face. The bus was still there. I realize I was spacing out, but I’m not sure for how long.

    “Sorry, we can go now. I’m really sorry. Honestly I am.” She tells me it’s fine, and I follow her onto the bus. She puts a few coins into a slot on a big box in the front of the bus. The guy driving has a beard, and mustache, with not that much hair on his head, it’s all a snow white color. He tells me I can sit where I like, I guess it’s obvious that I’ve never been on a bus before. Haha! Blair walks towards the back and I follow her. She tells me I can stand or sit, whichever I want. She sits, so I do the same, I don’t want to be a burden.