Friday is a much better day than Wednesday or Thursday. I have my head completely back on and another good thing about Friday is that Dr. Lombardi signed the form that omits me from honesty circle, which means that I have Friday to do whatever I want until three, when I still have my session with Dr. Lombardi. She'll probably want to talk to me about how the past two days have gone for me but for obvious reasons, I won't want to talk about it at all.

Wednesday, after I talked with Niles for a little bit, I went back to my room and I laid in bed with nurses bringing me food and checking on me about every fifteen minutes to make sure that I was still breathing. I read the list of reasons to live about thirty times in total just to remind myself not to even think about trying to break a spoon or turn my sheets into a noose. Mia just got Renée back, she doesn't need to lose me too.

As for Thursday, the nightmares didn't come back which was really good because sometimes, I'll have them for as long as a week and I'll get so exhausted because I won't let myself sleep but this time, it was only one night and then it was gone. I was still pretty distant on Thursday but I found it in myself to go to the cafeteria for lunch and assure Mia that I'm okay. It was just a bad day and when I told her that, she understood and told me that she hopes that I feel better soon. We played a deck of cards before I feel too exhausted from all of the mingling so I went back up to my room. It wasn't much but it was better than Wednesday.

Today, though, I had breakfast with Mia and Desiree and then we watched a movie with a few other people before we went to go to lunch when a nurse approaches me, telling me that Dr. Lombardi wanted to see me early today so I say goodbye to Mia and Desiree before going to see what Dr. Lombardi wanted to talk about.

When I get into the office, she's sitting behind her desk, typing something on her computer and when she hears me walk in, she looks up and smiles, stopping what she's typing. "Hello, Ana."

"Hi..." I trail off curiously. "What's up?"

"Are you feeling any better today?" She wonders.

I shrug. "Yeah, much mutter than yesterday, I suppose. That's not what you wanted to talk about, is it? Because that could have waited until our session this afternoon."

"No, that's not all," She says, leaning forward on her desk. "I was wondering if you felt up to an adventure with Niles today. Only if you want to."

"Really? Today?" I wonder, surprised at the randomness of the offer considering I hadn't heard from Niles since Wednesday and I thought that, if he still wanted to take me around town (which I doubted that he would) then he would show up next week. "No. I don't think that I can face him after what happened on Wednesday."

"Why do you think that?"

Sitting down in my normal chair, I let out a long sigh. "Because I was so out of it and I told him more than I'd like him to know. I feel so embarrassed. He shouldn't know about things like that."

"You told him about what happened to you?" Dr. Lombardi looks like I just told her that I found a piece of gold up my butt, she's so surprised by what I just said.

I shrug. "Only the big picture but that's still way too much. I can't believe he even still wants to talk to me after how I acted on Wednesday."

"Ana, he knows that you aren't completely healed," She tells me, which is her polite way of saying that he knows that I'm crazy, which is kind of obvious since I'm in a crazy house so clearly, I'm crazy. "But Niles is willing to help you work through that. He isn't surprised that you weren't feeling well on Wednesday, he understands that sometimes, you're going to have bad days. It's okay. Maybe you should talk to him about it. I'll stay here if you'd like."

"No," I sigh. "It's fine. You're right. He probably doesn't even care. I mean, maybe he cares but in a good way. Is he here right now?"

She nods and then tells me, "He's in the visiting room. Would you like to change before you go?"

"Yeah. Thanks," I mumble, still kind of hesitant about seeing Niles again after basically crying on his shoulder just two days ago. I'm just going to suck it up though because after the craptastic few days that I've had, getting out of this place is the best thing that I can ask for right now. Especially spending that time with Niles, even after what happened, because he's really easy to talk to. Which, honestly, both terrifies me and makes me want to keep him forever, like a puppy that I can tell everything to. No judging. No laughter. No "you can be stronger than this" speech. No "but I thought that you were better" talk. No glancing down at my wrists. Just ice skating and popcorn and secrets.

Once I get dressed in the outfit that Sienna had sent me- a black cotton shirt with sleeves down to my elbows, black and white sneakers, with the same jeans that Sophie had gotten me and the same bra- I make my way back to Dr. Lombardi's office. The nurses had put it them in with the rest of the laundry, which was really nice of them to do. 

"Here's your emergency pills," Dr. Lombardi hands me the small canister of pills that only holds about two pills (gotta make sure that I don't just swallow a whole bottle of pills) and I stuff them in my pocket.

"Thanks."

"Make sure that you're back by two," She reminds me with a small smile. "And Niles has the number to my office just in case you need to get ahold of me."

"I'll be fine," I assure her. "I know the rules."

"Okay. Have fun," She tells me as I walk out the door and make my way down the hallway to where Niles is waiting for me in the visiting room that is now open so there are other families reuniting with their crazy relatives in there as well.

When I see him, I feel a lot more relief than I thought that I would. I was kind of worried that after seeing me like I was on Wednesday, he'd freak out and not want to talk to me again, which I would understand because I can get really intense on my bad days. But he didn't run. He's standing right there, ready to greet me again. And I know- because I know Niles- that he won't ask any questions at all that he knows that I won't want to answer. He'll ask me if I'm okay now and I'll tell him that I am and that'll be that. And that is so nice. I feel so relieved that he is standing there right now that I find myself wanting to hug him, which is really strange considering that I can't really hug anybody other than my family without going into a complete spas attack.

But even as I tell myself that, I still want to hug him and I want him to know that I am so happy that we're friends and that I'm so glad that he's too stupid to walk away from me and the luggage that I carry with me.

I won't be afraid this time.

I tell myself. I mean, it's just a hug. Just one, little friendly hug. Nothing to be afraid of at all.

I won't be afraid this time.

I say it again in my head before I get the courage up to walk across the room to Niles and without giving myself enough time to panic, I do it. I wrap my arms around his broad shoulders in a hug. His shoulder is poking my cheek and he's probably really confused but for a long moment, I don't offer an explanation- I'm not sure that I even have one- I just stand there like that, hugging Niles and after a long moment of confusion, he hugs me back and I'm very relieved when my body doesn't decide to be afraid of him. I don't feel that spike of fear down my spine that I usually do when anybody other than family touches me.

I'm not afraid this time. And that's magical.

"Are you okay?" Niles asks me apprehensively.

"Yeah," I mumble, my words kind of muffled by his t-shirt (this is only the second time in my short friendship with Niles that I have seen him without his leather jacket. I feel like it's part of him or something). "I'm just really glad that we're friends. I know I kind of said that on Wednesday but I was so beside myself that I'm telling you now too so that you know that I mean it. I don't know why you put up with me or why you've continuously decided to stick around but I'm really glad that you do. And I'm sorry about Wednesday."

"You don't have to be sorry," He assures me softly as I pull away from him and we start walking towards the exit of the building. "Honestly, Ana, did you think that I would just stop talking to you when things got bad?"

"Most people do," I shrug. "So I wouldn't blame you if that's what you wanted to do. I know it's not easy dealing with crap like that."

"You're right, it's not easy," He agrees with me. "For you. It's not easy for you to deal with crap like that and you need people around you to help you through it."

"Maybe but you don't have to be that person. Look, Niles, I'm not trying to push you away right now or anything I just want you to know that if you want to not be friends anymore, you don't have to feel bad about it. It's okay."

"Don't worry, Ana," Niles says as we get into his car. "I don't scare that easily."

"So where are we going?" I change the subject as we drive out of the parking lot of the rehab facility towards wherever it is that we're going. "To the park?"

"Sure, if you want to," He nods.

"That sounds good to me," I say with a small smile. "I haven't been outside in a long time."

"Do you want to stop for lunch first? If you're hungry, we can go eat before we head over to the park," Niles offers.

I just shrug. "Yeah, I guess I'm a little hungry. Are you hungry? Because I'm not a dictator here, you have a say in what we do too."

"Don't worry about me, Ana, I'm just going to go along with whatever you want," He tells me with a laugh and a wide grin.

"Okay well then I'm not hungry right now. But maybe we can stop later? Lunch will be over by the time that I get back to the crazy house," I suggest, running my fingers through my dark hair.

Niles nods in agreement. "Sure, that sounds like a plan."

And so that's what we do. Niles takes me to a park that's about a ten minute drive from the facility and, because it's such a nice day out and it's summer, the park is super crowded with people. There's kids playing on the gym thing and the swings and the parents sitting on benches, watching from a distance and a few pushing their children on the swings. Away from the jungle gym, there's a wide open grassy area where there's a man playing fetch with a golden retriever and a couple having a picnic and a few joggers running along the perimeter of the park. We find a bench to sit on that's kind of distant from the park and not too close to the golden retriever or the joggers. It's far enough away to observe everything without actually being a part of anything.

"Don't you have hockey practice today?" I ask Niles randomly after we'd been sitting for a while in a comfortable silence, just soaking in the sun of the nice day.

"Yeah, it ended early today," He tells me. "Our coach had a thing. Do you remember my practice schedule?"

"No. Only that it's on Mondays and Fridays," I tell him. "And sometimes other days too. It's kind of confusing but I know it's definitely Mondays and Fridays."

"Yeah, that's pretty much it," He agrees with a small chuckle. "Practices are pretty relaxed right now but they're going to get more intense when we get closer to the season starting, which starts at the end of August."

"Do you think that they'd let me go to one of your games? I'd love to go to one," I say although I'm pretty positive that Dr. Lombardi would say no with a capital N to letting me go to an event with so many people in such a crowded place. It's loud, chaotic, and a little violent. I think that I could deal with it but I just don't know. I guess it's for her to decide.

"I don't know. Maybe. It'd be cool if you could though," Niles tells me, leaning forward so that his elbows are resting on his knees and I get a good look at the tattoo that's etched into his right forearm. It looks like it's a tree. The trunk is growing its roots out of the inside crook of his elbow and it grows down his forearm, the branches winding around his arm like veins.

"What does that mean?" I ask him, absent-mindedly running a finger over the trunk and then I follow one of the branch's path with the very tip of my pointer finger as if it'll take me on a journey.

He looks down at the tattoo on his skin as well and then he says, "It's a family thing. When my grandma was alive, she'd always say that no matter what, you always had people with you. And when they died, they weren't gone. But she wasn't talking about ghosts or anything, she'd always say that the dead remained in your veins. This right here," He points to a quote that I hadn't seen before that's etched into the wooden trunk of the tree. I squint so that I can read it but after I try for long enough, I realize that I can't read it because it's not even in English. "It says 'We run in your veins. We are with you.' But my grandma was a crazy Italian lady, so it's in Italian. I know it's kind of a creepy theory to some people but I don't know, I think it's kind of comforting."

"Do you speak Italian?"

"No," He laughs. "But I know that this says 'Noi usiamo nelle vene. Siamo con voi.' But that's about all of the Italian that I know."

"I think that's beautiful," I tell him, continuing to admire the tattoo for a little while longer. "I would get a tattoo but I have a thing against needles."

"That's understandable," He chuckles. "They aren't very fun at all."

"I guess I kind of have tattoos, they just aren't in ink," I explain to him. "They're scars. Even more permanent than ink and ten times more painful. Obviously, I'm assuming, since I haven't actually gotten a real tattoo."

"You mean these?" Niles wonders, running his thumb lightly over the long pink line on my left wrist.

"No, those will fade in time," I say and then I hold one hand to my chest and another one to my upper thighs. "I mean like, from here to here, I look like I was thrown into a wood chipper. It's disgusting."

"It was really that bad?" He asks curiously.

He's doing it again, making me tell him things that I never tell anybody ever. Not even my therapists. And it's not like he's forcing me to tell him things, he just looks at me and asks a question and I just feel like I should answer it. I don't know why but I just do. "Yeah, it was really that bad. I mean, not all of it's from the attack. Some of it is from the surgeries afterward. They all look the same now though, and they aren't going away ever."

"You don't have to look at them as something bad though," He suggests and when he sees my look of incredulity, he elaborates on his statement. "I mean, what happened to you was awful, I'm not saying think of that as a good thing. But the scars, the fact that you have them, it means that you're one of the strongest people on the planet because you have all of these scars and you've been through hell and back and you're only eighteen. You've experienced more horror in this world than most people will in their whole life, but you're still here and you're still alive. The scars mean that you got through it. Like giving a middle finger to all of the people who did this to you."

"I didn't exactly come out mentally unscathed though," I remind him. "If I was so strong, I wouldn't be in a mental rehab facility, I'd be home. And it's not my fault that I'm alive anymore."

"But you are," He says. "And that's the important part. Maybe it still hurts but you're still pushing through it."

"Whether I like it or not," I add.

"Right. Whether you like it or not, you're the strongest person that I've ever met, Ana," Niles tells me and by the look in his eye, I think that he's being incredibly sincere, which is just so bizarre to me because nobody ever thinks that I'm strong. Everybody always treats me like a baby- a child who is incapable of adult thoughts. Not some big huge heroine or anything.

I purse my lips in thought and then I lean over and rest my head on Niles' shoulder, waiting for that shiver of fear that I always get but it doesn't happen. Again, I am unafraid. "Can I tell you a secret?"

"Of course, Ana."

"I have a theory," I tell him quietly, watching over all of the people playing in the park.

"And what is that?"

"Perhaps," I start out as we're sitting on the bench, looking around at all of the kids playing on the swing set and the guy playing fetch with a golden retriever. "If we had met in an alternate universe where I was not ripped to shreds at fifteen and you were not cheated on by your mean ex-girlfriend, we could have fallen in love."

"Yeah, Ana," Niles agrees with me. "Maybe."

"I wouldn't want flowers though," I tell him as if it even matters at all. "Because they make me think of the hospital, where I get so many different types of flowers. I would want something strange. Unorthodox."

"I would blow your mind," He goes along with this alternate universe-type scenario.

"I'd like it if you held my hand a lot," I say. "Because nobody ever did that with me and I think that it would be nice."

"We could drive out to this cliff just outside of town and watch the stars. It's really pretty out there," Niles says. "I think that you'd like it."

"And then we could make out in the backseat," I add with the hint of a smile tugging at the corner of my lips at the ridiculousness of this universe that we're building between the two of us. "And I could go to every single one of your hockey games."

"Some of them are pretty far away," He warns me.

"That's alright," I assure him. "I can drive. But I suppose that if I never got sick, I wouldn't be here in the first place. I'd still be home in California and we would have never met."

"You make a good point," He tells me. "So you'd fall in love with somebody back on the west coast and be just fine."

"I don't think so," I say quietly, watching the blond dog running around the green grass with his fur stained green and a ball in his mouth as he runs to his human.

"Why is that?" He wonders curiously and I can see in my peripheral vision that he looks in my direction.

I turn to look at him and offer him a heavy smile and I notice that my palms are getting sweaty and I know that I shouldn't say what's about to come out of my mouth but I can't help it. Before I can stop myself, I'm already speaking. "Because I don't think that I could ever fall for anybody the way that I would fall for you."

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Song: Hold Onto Me by Mayday Parade
Picture: Ana's outfit