Chapter 10

I frown and look once again in the direction of the patients. There are two patients laughing insanely, a man and an elderly woman. There are two patients shrinking at each beat of the song, another man and another woman. The girl who danced while lifting her blouse looks at the boys with a strange expression on her face, the same expression I've ever seen on Henry's face while he looked at me. There is a girl with the sleeves of her blouse rolled up and her wrists are covered by a bandage that reaches up to her elbow. A boy presses hard on the temples, the same way I usually do when the voices find a gap and dominate my thoughts. There are forty people in the room, twenty disturbances, one pair.

That's why my father needed to authorize the treatment and took the trouble to come to the clinic. He wanted to see with his own eyes the results that the doctors said they had noticed. I needed to see that I was well enough to follow a path that would never go back.