Chapter Two

The irony of trying to take your life by overdosing on too much aspirin is the killer headache you get when it doesn't work. You'd think I'd have taken care of that forever with the amount I'd taken, but I guess when they'd pumped my stomach and given me something as an antidote, it had worked. With my parents out of the room, Dr. Crimm set my clothes from yesterday at the edge of my bed. "Get dressed. I'll explain everything when the group is all together." So there would be more of us. There was a swooshing sensation in my head as I sat up and I closed my eyes against the throbbing pain of my pulse hammering inside my skull.

She turned her back so I could have some privacy, which was more than I would expect from a doctor after what I'd tried. Weren't they all supposed to be watching my every move? I slipped into my pants and worn T-shirt. She was taking me away from here and away from the watchful eyes of my parents. I just needed a moment of quiet to figure out how to finish what I'd started. I'd need a better plan.

I knew all about Right to Life, the company Dr. Crimm worked for. The owners were the founders of Virtual Now, the world's leading virtual reality company. Their son's story had made headlines a few years back when he took his own life with Repose7, effectively denying them the pleasure of watching their only child take over their Fortune 500 company. I'd watched his story, as every news organization had reported the details for days after his death.

Jared Wilkinson had been only eighteen when he came to the conclusion that he couldn't live another day knowing he had carelessly contributed to the death of his best friend. One night he'd helped Ryan Banning get high just minutes before he plummeted to his death from the top of the Virtual Now building in Los Angeles. The news stories outlined a year's worth of drug treatment and mental health care as his parents struggled to pull him out of the depression that quickly threatened to consume him. On his eighteenth birthday he attended yet another doctor's appointment, but this time he had reached the legal age of consent and instead of filling his prescription for antidepressants, he filled a prescription for Repose7 and followed his best friend into the great unknown.

Shortly after his death, his parents, who had been major financial supporters of the Right to Die movement, pulled their funding from the campaign and began looking into suicide prevention research and treatment for suicide ideation. A year later, Right to Life was launched in Jared's honor and quickly rose to become one of the top research and development companies in the business of saving suicidal patients. It was a highly controversial company that often found itself at the center of protests. Picketers were still camped outside their headquarters, fighting each day to convince the workers and Jared's parents that everyone should have the right to die without being subjected to further medical and mental health evaluations. Even the President of the United States took a stand backing their research and their mission during her campaign, when news of her brother's suicide with Repose7 was reported.

"Are you a nervous flyer?" Dr. Crimm asked as she turned back around.

"No."

She nodded once, swiping her finger over the screen on her tablet and closing out one window of text for another. "The next one is."

"I thought doctors were supposed to keep things like that confidential."

She laughed softly, kindly even. "You will know so much about each other by the end of this month I hardly doubt a little fear of flying will be big news." She looked at me quickly from my head to my toes. Her hand moved to touch my forehead. "How are you feeling?"

"Been better."

"We have to hurry, but if you get lightheaded or feel feverish at all I want you to let me know immediately. The effects of the aspirin can last for a few days. I know they pumped your stomach, but I'm sure there was some they didn't get to in time. You won't have any sort of constant heart rate monitor on so we'll have to keep track of your vitals the old-fashioned way."

I nodded my head and stood up slowly. My legs felt weak beneath me but I was determined to walk out of there. Dr. Crimm used her thumb to quickly enter her password to open the display of her phone screen and then typed out a quick text message. "All set." She used some sort of plastic card at the reader near the door and it slid open. Things were going much differently than I had thought they would when I woke up earlier to the sound of my mother crying. I thought it would be padded walls and mysterious drug cocktails until I confessed all my secrets to some hospital shrink who cared more about department meetings than my mental health. Something about Dr. Crimm told me it would be different with her.

As we passed a waiting room, I could see people gathered around a large screen where a news broadcast was playing. Dr. Crimm stopped for a moment to watch the update. The police mug shot of sixteen-year-old Braden Ertz stared out at the room with his tortured eyes as the ticker beneath his picture unnecessarily reminded us that he had been convicted of the murder of his fifteen-year-old girlfriend, Elsa Petran. The case had captured the attention of the nation when Ertz was found unconscious in Elsa's family pool the night of her murder and later claimed to have no memory of the crime. He was prosecuted as an adult even though he was only a teen, and when he was convicted of first-degree murder, he was given the death penalty in the state of Texas.

The newscaster's tone was ominous as she delivered the latest information. "Braden Ertz has written a letter to the judge handling his appeal, Judge Lawrence Coates, requesting the dismissal of all legal counsel. He has asked that his case be forwarded to the governor of Texas, Rabia Alvi, so that the date of his execution can be set." There was a sharp intake of breath as those around me gasped in shock. Dr. Crimm stood unmoving beside me, her face unresponsive as the story continued. "In the letter, Ertz also requested that the judge consider allowing him to take Repose7. He was found to be of sound mind during his trial and notes that finding in the correspondence to the judge. Ertz says he can't live with the possibility he played a role in the death of Elsa Petran and believes his quick demise would be best for her family and the rest of society. If denied, he could potentially spend up to a year on death row awaiting execution."

Guilt is an insidious cancer for which we have no cure. It takes root deep inside our brains and hearts, the faintest whisper—I've done something wrong—that only we can hear. It's not rebuffed because it is hidden beneath our skin, protected by our bones and flesh, nurtured with each heartbeat until it grows louder: I'VE DONE SOMETHING WRONG! Only then, it's too late to correct—too shameful to pull from our hearts and our heads to hand over to someone to examine. So instead we push it further inside and it sprouts new branches until we are so full of it we can't breathe.

I believed Braden Ertz wanted to poison his guilt with Repose7, but would the judge allow it?

Dr. Crimm's phone chimed. She didn't answer it. Instead she turned to me with a renewed look of determination. "We need to go."

When we approached the wide double doors at the end of a long hallway, she stopped. "I won't treat you like a patient beyond those doors until we get to R2L. We have five other kids to pick up. That's five cities, five hospitals, and five airports. We can walk around among the travelers as if we are going somewhere fun, or I can medicate you and wear my lab coat, making a spectacle of both of us, something I have a feeling you've been trying to avoid for a while now. It's your choice, Koralee."

I shook my head. I'd do whatever she asked. She slid her jacket from her shoulder and then transferred her tablet to her other arm so she could remove it completely. When we finally stepped outside, all evidence of her being the doctor and me being the patient was gone. It occurred to me that something about her and the treatment she offered didn't fit within the normal confines of customary medicine. But what I'd been through these last six months didn't fit within the normal confines of customary teenage life. It was unimaginable, unfixable, and unlivable, so maybe Dr. Crimm would be exactly what I needed.

A black sedan pulled up outside and she quickly ushered me ahead of her into the back seat when the door opened. The car pulled out of the parking lot and headed for the airport. Once again Dr. Crimm checked the time. She retrieved her phone from her pocket and connected a call as she stared out the window. "I have Koralee Benson." My heart raced inside my chest, sweat gathering on my upper lip as I listened to the stilted conversation. "Yes. They gave consent. We leave in thirty-five minutes and should land in Seattle at 6:30 p.m. Has anyone spoken to the girl's family yet?"

I thought about this other kid, somewhere in Seattle, lying in a bed much like I had. I wondered if she'd tried to kill herself too, or if there were other reasons Dr. Crimm took an interest. I leaned back against the leather seat and watched as the city I'd grown up in sped by outside my window. We didn't turn down the street near my high school and I was able to release a breath as we passed through a green light instead of stopping at the corner I crossed every day on my way to school. Maybe I'd never needed to try and take my life; maybe just continuing to live here would eventually have suffocated me.

"I can get to Washington before the end of visiting hours and maybe Colorado, but after that we'll be coming in through the emergency room and I'll need you to call ahead to get us cleared to enter the patient room floors. The news is reporting the letter to Judge Coates." She didn't say goodbye. Instead she just tapped the screen and it went dark before she returned her attention to the tablet in her lap. Maybe Ertz's story bothered her more than she'd let on—at least enough to gossip about it with whoever she was talking to.

"Are they all like me?" I asked. The car slowed as we approached the freeway onramp.

"In some ways, sure. They all tried to take their own lives this week. You're all around the same age, some seventeen like yourself, a few sixteen. There will be two other girls." She watched me as she spoke but dropped her eyes back down to her tablet again as if she was trying to remember something else. "I think you will get along well with one of the girls. You both do very well in school and participated in extracurricular activities before the depression took over."

I nodded my head and closed my eyes. I felt exhausted from the events of the last twenty-four hours. Scooting my body down, I curled up and rested my head against the cool window.

"You've had a long day. Rest. I'll wake you when we get to the airport." Her voice was soothing and reminded me of the school counselor who had called me to her office when I received the first "F" of my entire life. She'd promised me she could help and that we could talk about whatever it was that had caused me to be distracted. I hadn't wanted to talk to her, and I didn't want to talk to Dr. Crimm, either.

If the dark sedan and mysterious Dr. Crimm hadn't hinted enough that something was unusual about this research project, the fact that I woke up inside a private hangar at a large airport was enough to confirm my suspicions. I stepped out of the car and followed the doctor up the stairs and onto the small aircraft. She climbed them like she'd done it a million times and when the woman at the top welcomed her back, I knew that she certainly had.

"Sit wherever you'd like," the doctor instructed as she handed her jacket to the flight attendant. When she sat down in her reclining seat, a flight attendant appeared again and confirmed her earlier order of a Mediterranean salad with grilled chicken. Turning, she asked casually over her shoulder, "Are you hungry, Koralee? There's soup. You should probably stick to liquids for a while until your stomach has a chance to recover." The attendant seemed unfazed by Dr. Crimm's words, her expression neutral. She was a true professional—or maybe I was in the Twilight Zone.

"No thank you." I chose a seat next to a window and fastened my belt without being told. I didn't want to give any adults a reason to have to speak to me. The doctor was seated across the aisle from me, retrieving an item from a bag on the seat beside her. I looked around. There was a purse and a few other things hanging in an open closet, and some items protruding from an overstuffed bag at the doctor's feet. The plane appeared to be some sort of mobile office.

"Doctor," the attendant said as she delivered a beautiful salad. Even in all its colorful glory it still made my stomach lurch into my throat. I closed my eyes again and turned away, praying the scent of her dressing wouldn't reach across the aisle. How long would I continue to feel sick at the sight of food? With my eyes shut, images of the black activated charcoal being pushed into my stomach flooded my thoughts. I remembered gagging as the tube was stuck down my throat and then the full feeling of the liquid as it was forced without my permission down into my stomach. I opened my eyes quickly, breathing out slowly and sucking in air again in an attempt to ward away the nausea that came with the memory.

I'd never been on a private jet before, but I was in no shape to enjoy the ride. I pressed my palm to the window, watching some trapped moisture race down in-between the panes. It would be a beautiful flight once we were in the air. Just before the plane took off, Dr. Crimm reached across and tucked a small pill into my palm, telling me I should take it to help me sleep and to keep me from getting sick while in flight. I shook my head and turned my attention to the window beside me. I extended my palm flat in her direction and allowed her to remove the offending medication. But no matter how hard I fought it, it didn't take long before the hum of the engines forced me into a fitful sleep. 

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