Every Time I Check My Score, It Resets to Zero Chapter 04

Before I even reached the next intersection, a gray minivan slammed on its brakes and stopped in front of me.

The side door slid open.

Dad and Uncle Victor jumped out, each grabbing one of my arms.

“What are you doing?” I struggled with everything I had.

“Get in the car!” Dad’s face was iron gray as he forced me into the back seat.

The door slammed shut and locked.

“Dad, let me out! I need to go to the education office and audit my Scantron!” I pounded on the window.

Dad did not even look back.

He stepped on the gas.

The car tore through the night, and the route was not taking us home.

“Where are you taking me?” I demanded, watching the passing streets.

Uncle Victor sat beside me, pinning my shoulder down with one hand.

“Somewhere you should’ve gone a long time ago.”

Half an hour later, the car stopped in front of the outpatient entrance at Brookhaven Behavioral Health Center.

The fluorescent lights glared down, nearly blinding me.

A doctor in a white coat sat behind a desk, skimming a thick stack of files.

Mom was already waiting inside, her eyes swollen and red.

“Doctor, please take a look at her,” she said, handing him a form.

The doctor pushed his glasses up and looked at me.

“Elena Chase, correct? Do you know why you’re here?”

“I’m not sick!” I wrenched myself free from Uncle Victor. “They’re all lying to me! They stole my score!”

The doctor did not argue.

He simply opened a drawer and took out a school mental health screening form.

“This is the psychological survey you filled out at school last month.”

I stared at the form.

The handwriting on it was mine.

At the bottom, one sentence had been added.

[I’m so tired. I don’t want to take this test anymore. I just want to sleep.]

“I never wrote that!” I trembled violently.

“That is a projection of your subconscious,” the doctor said calmly. “You were so afraid of failure that your brain blocked out the reality of turning in a blank answer sheet and created a perfect false memory of a flawless performance.”

“You’re lying! I remember every step of every question!”

The doctor sighed.

“Then do you remember what you had for breakfast the morning of the test?”

I froze.

What had I eaten that morning?

porridge? Toast? Eggs?

My mind went completely blank.

The memory of that breakfast had vanished.

“See?” The doctor tapped the desk. “Your memory is already severely fractured.”

Fear pushed me backward.

Why couldn’t I remember?

Was I really sick?

Mom rushed forward and hugged me, crying.

“Elena, we’ll get you help. Mom will stay with you.”

“Classic paranoid delusions with severe dissociation,” the doctor said, setting down his pen and sliding the file toward Dad. “She needs involuntary intervention. Medication should stabilize her.”

“I’m not taking anything! Let me go!”

The door opened, and four strong psychiatric nurses rushed in.

They pinned me down on the exam table.

Leather restraints locked around my wrists and ankles.

I thrashed with everything I had, but it was useless.

One of the nurses walked toward me with a syringe.

The needle pierced my vein.

The liquid slid into my bloodstream.

“Just sleep,” Mom’s voice seemed to drift from somewhere far away. “You’ll feel better after you sleep.”

My vision blurred.

The fluorescent light above me broke apart into soft, glowing circles.

I opened my mouth, but no sound came out.

In that room, even my own body no longer belonged to me.

I stayed in the hospital for half a month.

Every day, pills were pushed into my mouth on schedule, leaving me groggy and slow from morning to night.