Chapter One

I listened for the sound of peace as I awoke, but instead my ears were filled with the noise of my worst nightmares. I knew before I even opened my eyes that I wasn't dead like I wanted to be, and now this act of terror against myself would be just another inexplicable behavior my parents would try to understand so they could fix me. Hot tears slipped from beneath my pinched eyelids as I prayed for any god listening to please just take me. The force of my silent cries was painful as the body I'd long since decided was no longer my own shook on the hard mattress beneath me. They couldn't fix this, and neither could I.

I'd spent the better part of six months trying to disappear—not an easy task when you're the senior class president and an academic overachiever. Everywhere I turned I had adults looking at me with morose expressions, reaching out to try and help pull me up when all I wanted was for them to let me fall. Let me fall into the space where no one was looking, into that space where the unremarkable kids existed and weren't talked about. I just wanted to be forgotten. Erased.The urge to scrub at my skin washed over me again as it had so many times in the past months that where I was once smooth and unblemished I was now marred with healing scabs and open wounds. They itched and festered, but I wasn't sure if that was real or just in my mind.

When I was younger I used to play a game with my grandpa. He would tickle my feet and tell me not to laugh. "It's mind over matter, Koralee. Concentrate." I would close my eyes and try to think of other things, sad things, but in the end the sensation was too much and I'd give in, dissolving into giggles. He'd passed many years ago, but I always remembered his words and the way he seemed to have the answer for everything. I tried to use them that year when I felt the first tingle on my thigh. I told myself I was just imagining it, the memory of pressure and the slight dig of a nail into the skin above my knee, but my mind was weak and I'd drawn blood before I'd even realized how frantically I'd been wiping, clawing at the skin, desperate to rid myself of the feeling.

I could feel them then as I lay there, refusing to open my eyes and see for myself what I already knew. If I didn't open my eyes I wouldn't have to see my mom as she wept in the corner, her hope for my recovery fading as my dad held her, promising to get me the best help money could buy. I could feel each wound, but this would be the first time they were seeing them. I was exposed in the short hospital gown, six months of self-destruction on display for all to see. I wanted to tell my mom not to cry for me, that it wasn't my body anymore, but until I figured out how to get out of it I knew she wouldn't understand.

"We're going to fix this," my dad whispered comfortingly into my mom's hair as he held her.

"I don't want to be fixed," I managed to say, my throat tight from the tears and sore from the emotion I kept bottled up there. I turned my head and let my eyes drift open, looking straight into their faces for the first time in six months because I needed them to hear me—needed them to stop trying to save me. "I want to be dead." I didn't look away as their shock registered and as the hope they had mustered from finding me this time and saving my pitiful existence drained from their faces. It was the first time since the night of the party that I saw in them something like what I felt inside. In that moment they let me see that they feared I'd be successful at ending my life one day, and that they could do nothing to stop me. Fear and despair. Those were two emotions I could connect with.

The door to the hospital room opened and a young woman stepped through. Her face was cast downward, focused on the information shining brightly from her tablet. Her hair was piled in a messy bun on top of her head. She paused to look at the data as if she'd been in such a hurry she forgot to double check before stepping inside. Then with a quick shuffle of her thin tablet to her left arm she flicked up the sleeve of her white jacket and looked at the time on her wristband. Finally, she met my eyes. "Koralee Benson."

My parents jumped to their feet and I turned my attention up to the white ceiling. I expected her to speak with my parents about me as if I wasn't there. It surprised me that she didn't. Instead she sidestepped them and moved to the edge of my bed. She let her eyes trail over my damaged skin, taking time to study the marks at my wrists, thighs and neck. I watched her with curiosity, trying to figure out why she seemed different than other doctors. There was something about her expression that didn't have me curling up to get away from her stare.

"Interesting pattern," she commented, her eyes meeting mine again. I didn't look away. "Maybe we could talk about it some time."

"I don't want—" I started to say reflexively, but she smiled and checked that wristband of hers again, shaking it into a better position on her arm, and the words I was about to say trailed off as I noticed the thin white lines of scarred skin peeking out from beneath the band. I wasn't sure if she'd meant for me to see, but I had.

"I'm going to talk to your parents a minute. We'll have plenty of time to talk alone later." She turned and addressed my parents, standing together waiting for her assessment. "Mr. and Mrs. Benson?"

"Yes." My father stepped forward.

"Hi, I'm Dr. Crimm." She extended her hand to shake my father's quickly and then my mother's. "Dr. Baruwal called me last night after she admitted Koralee. I'm a psychiatrist with Right to Life. I run a department of their biomedical research." She reached into her pocket and handed them each a business card. They both looked down at the stark white formality. My mother's attention quickly returned to Dr. Crimm, but my father took a minute to read every letter past her last name, sliding his thumb over the raised ink as if it would unlock more information.

The doctor continued. "Dr. Baruwal and I believe that Koralee is an excellent candidate for a new treatment. It's still in clinical trials, but we have some exciting findings already. We're nearing the end of phase three with the FDA for the pharmaceutical portion." My father looked to my mother for approval. Dark circles around his eyes showed he'd been carrying the responsibility for making this better long before he found me unconscious last night.

"Um, I think we would like to hear more about it." He rubbed at the back of his neck, the way he always did when he was stressed and overworked.

"Unfortunately, we don't have much time," Dr. Crimm said nonchalantly, as if he would just have to take her confidence in the treatment as information enough. Before all of this, that would never have been enough for my father. "If you agree to her participation I'll have to take her with me now so we can make our flight." Flight?  "I'm emailing a document that explains everything I'm allowed to tell you about the group psychotherapy and the medication I will be administering. The group work will be similar in structure to what she will receive here if you choose to decline the study participation, but the role of the medication taken in combination with the therapy will be different." Her fingers slid quickly over the screen of her tablet as she sent the material. My father had to let go of my mother's shoulder to retrieve his phone from his pocket and open the document.

"So it's an antidepressant and group therapy?" My dad asked. "Koralee has tried many of the antidepressants and they were unsuccessful. The testing has shown she doesn't metabolize many of the antidepressant options." He sounded lost but was trying his best to swipe through all the information he'd received. He knew the terms well enough, as he'd been researching them for months in an effort to find something to pull me out of this depression.

"No. Not an antidepressant. Due to the nature of the research I'm unable to give you the exact chemical makeup of the medication, but it has many properties that will assist the facilitator in unlocking trauma. I've seen your daughter's metabolic panel and this medication's chemical composition is within the spectrum of areas she metabolizes effectively. You can read about the use of nanotechnology which will target precise centers of the brain on page forty-six of the informed consent." She spun her tablet around and held it out for my dad to read. She tapped her finger at the bottom and said, "I just need your signature right here, Mr. Benson, and we can be on our way."

"I'm not sure if this is what she needs right now." My father's brows drew together as he tried to read through what he could of the text.

"Martin," my mother scolded from his side. "She's from Right to Life. If Dr. Baruwal called her it must be our best option. What other choice do we have? I can't do this anymore." The rest of her thought went unspoken, but I knew what she was implying. Only a year ago, Utah had become the last state to pass legislation that extended the existing Right to Die laws beyond physical diseases like cancer and MS to include sufferers of mental health issues. The new legislation allowed anyone age eighteen and over suffering from a mental health issue they believed compromised their quality of life to appeal to their physician to prescribe Repose7, the FDA-approved drug that would ensure a quick, efficient and painless suicide. In three months I would turn eighteen and there would be nothing my mother and father could do if I decided to swallow Repose7 and leave this world behind.

"You said you will be catching a flight?" My father asked.

"Yes. We will be taking the group to a location where we can provide the best twenty-four-hour care. It is a one-week session. There is no cost for the treatment, in return for the right to use her data to determine the efficacy of the medication we're testing and to publish anonymous information regarding her case in the peer-reviewed journals."

My stomach rolled and knotted with anxiety at the thought of anyone reading about me, even if the information would not give away my identity. If my parents hadn't been so desperate to save me, they would never have agreed to those terms, but I guessed seeing your daughter in a hospital bed after another failed attempt at taking her own life changed the way you saw the world. Who you viewed as a danger had to be reevaluated. Maybe not all danger was found outside your family. Sometimes the biggest threat came from within. My father pressed his finger to the screen, leaned over me to kiss my forehead, and then cried for the first time in my whole life as he turned and left the room.