The Girl In Between series: Books 1-4

by Laekan Zea Kemp

  We spent another hour opening file after file before I finally spotted the word Dear scribbled across the top of one of the pages. There was a date too but the cursive was so manic I could hardly make it out.

  Patient X responded negatively to electroconvulsive therapy. Voltage was delivered in progressive increments up to 300 V both during and after a neurological episode during a three-week period.

  I clicked on a few more images before I found another letter.

  The staff was made aware of the new protocol. The nurse in question has taken temporary leave and Patient X is now being supervised at all times.

  “Patient X? Wait…” I scrolled through the muddied scans of the journal again, the print easier to read. I scanned every sentence, flipping through page after page. And then… “There.” I pointed. Next to Eve’s name was “Patient X”

  Felix found another letter in English and opened it.

  Neurological episodes seem to be increasing in their frequency. Patient X is often lethargic and mildly delirious even in times of wakefulness. Other motor skills seem to be deteriorating. She is still complaining about having strange dreams.

  “Dreams…”

  “Like you,” Felix said.

  “Like me.”

  Before becoming unresponsive, Patient X suffered an episode lasting approximately nine weeks. She was unresponsive during that time and showed no physical response to food or water. Electroconvulsive therapy was once again unsuccessful in waking the patient and despite intravenous therapy the body slowly deteriorated. Time of death was 3:36 AM, December 20th, 1979.

  “What?”

  Felix shook his head. “We shouldn’t have looked at this.”

  “She…”

  “Bryn…”

  He reached for me but I pushed out of my chair and grabbed my bag. I glanced at the clock. I had fifteen minutes until my Spanish final, yet another test I’d barely studied for in the past week.

  I used to care about grades, about being able to measure my success in numbers and letters, the culmination of an entire semester boiled down to a few small digits in black and white. But that was when I thought going away to school was more than a possibility. That was when I was certain I’d get better. But after reading about Eve, about her dreams, about her death, I wasn’t so certain anymore.

  “Bryn,” Felix reached for me. “Where are you going?”

  I headed for the door. “To find out the truth.”

  Dr. Sabine was in her office when I pushed through the door.

  “Bryn.” She stood.

  But I wasn’t there to see her. I was there to see Dr. Banz.

  “Who is Eve?” I said.

  Dr. Sabine took a step toward me. “Bryn, what’s wrong?”

  Dr. Banz was still, his face pained. He tried to get to his feet.

  “Who is she?” I pressed.

  He clutched his cane, let out a deep breath. “My daughter.”

  I couldn’t remember how I ended up sitting in Dr. Sabine’s chair, a styrofoam cup full of water balanced in my hand. I couldn’t remember how it ended up empty, my throat dry and tasting like tears.

  Eve was seventeen years old when she died. KLS had struck her like a bolt of lightning when she was just nine, her episodes a violent dance between comatose and hysterical. The dreams started out as hallucinations, or so they thought, a cat named Blue who was invisible to everyone but Eve, the first sign of an oncoming episode.

  It had been misdiagnosed as schizophrenia and they’d tried treating it with everything from electro-shock therapy to insulin shock therapy. The latter made her slip into a medically induced coma and it was thought that her periods of “unresponsiveness” were just a lingering side effect.

  She died after an experimental treatment had induced an episode, one that had numbed her biological needs and left her to rot from the inside out. And that’s exactly what she did. Her body rejected all forms of nutrients and she starved to death. Because she couldn’t wake up. She died.

  My mom finally arrived, face a stark patchwork of grief.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  But she just shook her head.

  We all sat in Dr. Sabine’s office, everyone both waiting for me to break so they could pick up the pieces and waiting for me to tell them how I knew. I didn’t do either.

  Dr. Banz was wilting in the corner, trying to keep his composure. “It was never my intention to be dishonest,” he finally said. “But I was…because I’m a doctor but I was also her father. Because this is personal to me. I’m so very—”

  “I’ll go,” I stopped him.

  “What?” My mom turned to me.

  “To Germany.”

  “Bryn…”

  “I’ll do it.”

  27

  Bryn

  When I got home the first thing I did was pop my iPod onto the base, turn up the speaker, and let it shuffle through every song I’d found by Mismatched Machine from live versions recorded on someone’s cell phone to leaked studio recordings that never made it onto an album.

  The small speaker rattled against my desk, drowning out everything—the fear, the truth—and burying it under guitar solos and growling vocals.

  I’d learned most of the words over the past four weeks, screaming them into the showerhead until my grandmother banged on the door and told me to turn off the Satan music. My favorite song, Stabilizer, bled through the speaker and I whispered every word until my throat was raw. I’d scribbled the verses all over my notebooks, the chorus engraved with the hot tip of a nail onto one of the leaves on my sunflower sculpture. My sculpture that still wasn’t finished.

  I’d been meaning to get back to it but with everything else going on, it just didn’t seem like the most important thing. Not like it used to. Part of me wondered if it ever would again, if come fall I’d be getting ready to start school again, if I’d still want to.

  I used to yearn for it, fingertips itching for the flame, for something sharp to press into my skin. I needed that. But lying there in my bed, thinking of Eve, I needed something else. The kind of distraction that didn’t make me feel, that didn’t remind my body that it was alive.

  I muted the song but I couldn’t maneuver the quiet either. So I sat up and checked my email, plucking Dr. Sabine’s correspondence with Dr. Banz from out of my spam folder. I read through a few, skimming mostly.

  Felix was right. It was all pretty straight forward. There was talk about the trial and about my diagnosis. I opened some attachments containing my medical history and a list of the previous trials I’d participated in, the name of the drug to the left, the results to the right. None were successful.

  My phone buzzed. I was dreading a message from Drew but it was another text from Felix.

  -Hey, so, I kind of need a favor.

  -I guess I owe you one. Shoot.

  -I need you to distract Dani tonight so I can break into her bedroom and steal her underwear.

  -Don’t you have enough pairs already?

  -I want to ask her to prom.

  -So you’re going to hide in her closet, sniffing her underwear until she comes in and then you scare the shit out of her?

  -No. I’m going to hide under the bed.

  -Oh. Well, in that case, what do you want me to do?

  I managed to lure Dani out of the house with guilt. My mom had been driving me everywhere for the past week and I told Dani she was out and could she give me a ride to the grocery store. In truth I was leading her to our once favorite little ice cream shop on Main, hoping to cheer her up. Luckily she said yes and I was able to convince my mom to let me go before she ran herself ragged running back and forth from my bedroom.

  The minute she learned that Eve was dead she’d been reassuring me that I was different, that my case was too. Every few minutes she’d knock on my bedroom door, slipping inside to leave behind more words of comfort but when she realized those words meant nothing she stopped saying anything, just pushing the door open to make sure I was
still there.

  Dani and I sat by the window, headlights blinding us every time someone parked in front of the shop. Dani’s eyes were swollen, red freckles spotting her cheeks.

  I wasn’t really in the mood for Dani’s drama. Next to the tragedy of Eve it felt vain and stale and all I wanted to do was grab Dani’s shoulders and shake some sense into her. I thought about telling her about Eve, about what had happened, but part of me thought it could wait and every time she was almost on the verge of tears again, I knew it could.

  She started talking about her fight with Matt again and I sunk against my chair, taking my cue.

  “He was a waste of space,” I said, mouth full of Oreo ice cream.

  “He was—”

  “Hot. I know. Whatever.”

  “You’re in a foul mood,” she said. “I thought you dragged me out of bed to try and cheer me up, not to mock me.”

  “I did.” I gave her cup of ice cream a little nudge. “So eat.”

  “Yeah, then I’ll be fat and alone.”

  “Oh God, Dani. You’re not fat and one scoop of ice cream isn’t going to kill you.”

  “I don’t want it,” she whined.

  “Fine.” I reached for it. “Then I’ll eat it.”

  Dani’s mild eating disorder was definitely the most annoying thing about her. One Christmas break I’d gained ten pounds and went up two cup-sizes—a post episode binge that finally made me look normal, like a woman. I would have killed to hold onto that version of me and all Dani did was count calories and complain about her non-existent cellulite. She was lucky. Most people were, they just couldn’t see it.

  Dani leaned against the window, a long sigh pouring from her mouth. “Distract me?”

  I fiddled with my spoon, staring out the window. My mind immediately went to Eve but I thought better of it and chose something slightly less tragic.

  “Drew asked me to prom.”

  “He did?” She sat up. “When?”

  “Today.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I said I wasn’t going.”

  “What? You’re not?”

  “No, I mean I doubt it. It’s only a matter of time before I have another episode, anyway. Why waste money on a dress I’ll never wear?”

  “Because it’s your senior prom.”

  “So? That doesn’t mean anything to me. I barely even went to high school. I don’t need some epic moment to commemorate this experience I didn’t even get to have.”

  Dani was quiet, eyes suddenly dry.

  “Sorry, I don’t mean to sound bitter or angry or anything like that,” I said. “I really don’t even care.”

  “If you do, that’s okay. And if you’re angry or bitter about it, that’s okay too,” she said. “I mean I’d probably be pissed too.” She reached for her cup of ice cream, taking a small bite. “And you’re right about Matt. He was a waste of space.”

  “Totally.”

  “And he always smelled like Vaseline.”

  “What? Why?”

  “He’d grease up before a match, make it harder for the opponent to pin him down.”

  “Isn’t that, like, cheating?”

  “Yeah,” she huffed. “Got a scholarship and everything. What a prick.”

  “You should turn him in. Write an anonymous letter or something.”

  She cleared her throat. “Dear Mr. Wrestling Coach, believe it or not but the slime oozing from Matt Thompson’s pasty orifices is not a convenient physical ailment but it is in fact artificial and can be purchased at your nearest convenient store in the aisle marked Masturbation Starter Kits.”

  I choked on my ice cream, eyes tearing up. “Shit. Oh God. Please do it.”

  She smiled. “I think I just might.”

  I rode back with Dani to her house, claiming that I needed to borrow her notes for the Stats test the next day. Really I just wanted to see her face when she found Felix strewn across her mattress with accompanying candlelight, rose petals scattered across her bedroom floor. This was going to be good.

  I hung back as she opened the door. The window was open, curtain fluttering. But there was no Felix. She reached for the light but it didn’t turn on.

  “What the hell?”

  She looked up to the fan where the bulbs had been stripped and there along the ceiling were tiny constellations, glowing green, and spelling out the words—Prom? Felix.

  “What?”

  Dani stared up at them, at the tiny stars she’d ripped from her ceiling the night after her dad’s funeral. The night she decided to grow up.

  She looked at me. “He did this?”

  “For you,” I said.

  The stars spilled down towards the top of the window. Dani pushed back the curtains and there were more trailing down the side of the house, jumping from one tree trunk to another, dotting the pavement before disappearing across the street at the window to Felix’s bedroom. For a minute I just stood there, remembering the way I’d placed those stars on the trees leading to that empty clearing.

  The kites.

  I startled, taking a step back from the window. But it wasn’t like it had been before. This time I hadn’t just seen them on those trees in the dream-state. This time I’d put them there.

  My lips parted and I almost said something but then I saw Dani’s face. I saw her smile, try to bite it back. Then she reached for the window and slid it closed.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Bryn, don’t.”

  “Me? You. You should go with him,” I said. “Stop being such a fucking coward.”

  Her lip trembled between her teeth. She bit down harder, eyes narrowed at me. “Just leave.”

  I shook my head. “Fine. I’ll go. But if you don’t you’re going to regret it. You may think you’re protecting yourself from something but all you’re doing is making yourself miserable. Because as much as you don’t want to believe it, the truth is you need him just as much as he needs you. But he’s not going to wait forever.”

  I stormed out and then I stood by the front door waiting for Dani to climb out of her bedroom window and make the walk to Felix’s house. I watched her bathroom light flick on, then off, and then nothing.

  Nine years of riding bikes and chalking the sidewalk and copying each other’s homework and spying on the neighbors. Nine years of growing up together and she still wouldn’t trust him. She wouldn’t trust herself.

  I passed our old tree house, moonlight sifting through the leaves and luring me inside. It felt small. Not the way it did in my head when Roman and I were staring up at the glass bottles that in the real world had all smashed or rotted away. Not the way it did when he’d almost kissed me.

  I remembered his mouth. The way it had felt hovering over mine, that anticipation throbbing like a pulse on the edge of my lips. And then the way they’d felt when we finally touched—warm and soft and electric.

  I knocked against the hollow trunk of the tree, finding the hole. When I reached inside I felt the cold plastic of the Pez dispenser, the rough grain of the fake gold, and then I felt something soft. I pulled it out, moonlight turning it to blood. The Cardinal’s feather. The one that I’d tucked behind my ear, that Roman had slipped free.

  I gripped it tight, thin bone snapping. He’d touched it. He’d put it there. And now it was here.

  Headlights cut through the leaves and I tore my way back out. I tucked the feather into my pocket, and after taking one last glance at Dani’s window, still closed, I headed home.

  The street was dark but I knew the way. Dani, Felix, and I had snuck out of our bedroom windows for top secret, late night meetings at the tree house enough times growing up that I still knew which fences hid dogs and which yards ran their sprinklers at night.

  I cut down an alley to avoid a cul-de-sac and ignited a barrage of loud barking against the slats to my left. I kept walking but suddenly there was more barking, more gums thrashing against the slats, more nails scraping at the wood. I turned, walking bac
kwards to get a better look at the fence line and making sure there were no holes where one of the dogs was trying to tear free.

  More howls rose up around me, some faint and far away, pouring over the tops of the houses. Dogs in the entire neighborhood were in a frenzy. I faced the street again, concrete edging onto the gravel road and then I saw why.

  I could barely make out the silhouette, moonlight trapped behind the clouds. But I could feel the cold. I could feel it racing through my veins, trying to pin me there.

  And then it did.

  I was still and I was cold and I was sinking. The shadow grew dense, not animal this time, but standing upright like a man. It drifted closer, a slow cyclone winding all around me as the frozen air fell in sharp pricks against my skin. That’s when I realized that it was raining. I felt the mud beneath my feet and saw the grass, thick and climbing to my knees. Vines twisted out of the ground and I felt the thorns bite at my ankles.

  The nightmare from my childhood was alive and all around me, ripping up from the pavement, shredding reality like the thorns that were shredding my skin. The vines tightened the more I tried to struggle, like locked jaws dragging me down to my knees. I sunk into the wet ground as the dark shadow solidified, slithering out, reaching for me. It scaled my scalp, curling into my hair like fingers. And I couldn’t run. I couldn’t move. Not like before when it was just a dream. When I could wake up. When I could just open my eyes and…

  My back arched, spine twisting and heaving. I tried to fight it but it was so cold.

  Headlights flashed against my skin, tires grating to a stop, and suddenly the cold lifted and I could feel my pulse again.

  “Bryn? Bryn, what happened? Bryn…” Dani reached for me and I stumbled to my feet. “Are you hurt?”

  I looked down at my hands, the sting trailing out of my fingertips, every inch of me dry.

  “I…”

  “Bryn, what happened?”