Before She Was Found - Heather Gudenkauf Page 0,121

hard for me to remember exactly what happened that night. It was cold, but I barely felt it. It was the dark that scared me. But I was kind of excited, too. I thought Joseph was going to come and take me away from Pitch and we’d never come back.

I remember my arm hurt. Bad. Jordyn pushed me down after I grabbed her backpack. I was so tired of her bullying and teasing and tricks. She made me so mad saying that Joseph wasn’t real. That it was all one big joke. We heard something then. Footsteps or maybe just the wind.

I hoped it was Joseph coming for me like he promised. I looked around but I couldn’t see him. Jordyn and Violet had run away and I saw the knife on the ground at my feet. Jordyn must have dropped it. For a second I wanted to find Jordyn and use the knife on her, I hated her so much.

Then I saw someone in the tall grass. I thought it was Joseph but they told me later I was wrong. They told me it was Gabe Shannon and that he was in on the prank. I can’t believe I ever liked him. But at the time I believed he was Joseph and thought he was going to leave without me. I couldn’t stand it. After all the messages and promises I thought Wither was going to leave me behind and never come back. And worst of all I thought he was going to take Jordyn instead.

I tried to follow him but he sprinted away from me and in that second I thought that nothing mattered anymore. I was going to be stuck here in Pitch forever. Our messages back and forth meant nothing. His letters meant nothing. He never loved me.

I don’t really understand what happened next but it was like I was outside my body. Numb. Like I rose up above myself. That happens to me sometimes when things get too hard, when life doesn’t make sense.

I took the knife and shoved it into my stomach. The pain was terrible and the blood pumped out but I wouldn’t die. I was still there. I couldn’t bear to stab myself again and I prayed for the train to come and run me over but it didn’t. So instead I banged my face and head against the railroad tracks just wanting the world to go black. And I watched it all from above myself.

Dr. Kim tells me it’s called depersonalization and I tell him that I call it being crazy.

The first time I was in the psych ward was after I tried to pull out all my stitches. It was in Grayling and I stayed there for about a month. One girl I met on the floor said that most kids get kicked out after a few days and I must be pretty crazy to have been there that long. The second time I ended up having to go all the way to a hospital in Des Moines because no other place had open beds.

My mom was so mad. She started yelling at the doctor and begging him to let me stay closer to home. He said it was out of his hands, that the patients had to go where there was room.

After Des Moines, they said I was well enough to go home. That lasted about a week. I don’t remember much about it, but in the middle of the night my mom caught me in the dark, standing on my desk with my ear pressed to the air vent, talking to someone who wasn’t there.

That was when I was sent to the Iowa Institute of Mental Health in Claiborne and that’s where I’m at today. In a locked adolescent psych ward, in a rec room where sometimes I’m allowed to use a pen and, if I’m being really good, I might even get a scissors. And I’m trying to be good. You get more stuff that way.

At the time, I thought it would be better to die instead of being left behind. Sometimes I still feel that way. I remember hearing a dog bark and I remember seeing Skittles run by—and yes, I know that Skittles isn’t real. Never was. But I still see her sometimes. And I hear things, too. I try to ignore them if I can and I don’t tell anybody, not even Dr. Kim.

When I meet with Dr. Kim, we don’t always talk about that night or Joseph Wither even, but between the medicine I’m taking and talking with him, sometimes I feel better. But usually I don’t.

Last time my family came to visit, Kendall told me Mr. Dover quit being a teacher and moved away. She also told me that Jordyn got in big trouble by the police for lying to them and that she has to go to counseling and check in with a parole officer for kids and that Violet moved away. Good.

Kendall treats me like I’m a broken doll. I don’t like it. Sometimes I wish she would just call me a pest like she used to. She feels so bad that she and Emery pretended to be Wither. But I feel bad that she tried to kill herself. Sometimes I wish she wouldn’t even come to visit me at the hospital. We don’t know how to act around each other anymore so most of the time we don’t do anything or say anything. We just sit there quietly.

* * *

My mom and dad were the ones who told me they were suing Dr. Gideon. They thought she acted recklessly because she didn’t alert someone soon enough when she learned that I had been talking with someone pretending to be Joseph Wither. My dad said Dr. Gideon committed malpractice because she failed to protect me from harm, which I think is hilarious. Maybe my parents should sue themselves.

They had to turn over all my medical records and a copy of my journal to a lawyer so they could be used in the court case against Dr. Gideon. I hope my parents lose. I liked Dr. Gideon. I think she really cared about me. But then, what do I know.

My mom says they’re just trying to protect me. But if I thought my mom and dad were overprotective before I was wrong. Parents can be pretty clueless. And so can doctors and nurses. Computers are everywhere. Even in hospitals.

* * *

Read on for an excerpt from Heather Gudenkauf’s gripping thriller, Not a Sound.