I had been dreaming about flirting with danger when my eyes flutter open. It’s a rush, teetering on the edge like I have these past few days, and this has a way of making dreams feel more real. As I slip further from sleep, as I try to recall what the dream was all about, it dawns on me how bright the room seems. I shield my face and then twist in an attempt to pull the covers free of whatever is holding them back so I can cover my head. They refuse to budge.

I sigh at how a pleasant dream can so easily slip from your grasp, how quickly real life can thrust you head first into annoyance. It’s just like Tom to open all the draperies in order to coerce me from sleep. I rub at my eyes, and then as my vision comes into focus, I shift slightly. Suddenly, I realize nothing about where I am is familiar.

A small moan forces itself from my lips as I sit up in bed with a start. I wince. My body aches. I feel it before I see it, and when I look down, there is an icepack shoved between my thighs. This is all wrong. I force myself out of bed. It isn’t pleasant to move, but the adrenaline pulsing through my veins sees me through. I cradle my abdomen, an instinctive measure, made before it slowly dawns on me I no longer have to lie. The pretend baby has left the building. The secret remains safe with me.

“We all have our terrors, I suppose,” a small voice says. Still shielding my eyes, I survey the room. Once my vision steadies enough, I settle in on the woman. I wait for her to say something further, I wait for her to explain who she is. I wait for her to tell me why I’m here. She doesn’t. She stares back at me, curiously.

Edging my legs over the side of the bed, I scoot slowly until my feet reach the floor. Everything is happening so fast and so slow all the same. I tell myself it’s possible I’m still dreaming.

The woman, who looks more like a girl, closes the book in her lap. She uses her fingertips to smooth her long, chestnut hair. “I’m Vanessa.”

“Mel,” I say, noting our surroundings. Two metal-framed twin-sized beds are situated adjacently to one another. I occupy one. Vanessa is perched on the bed opposite me. The walls are white. Bare. Florescent lights hang overhead. Other than the beds, the room is empty, save for a pair of matching nightstands. The top of mine is empty. On hers rests a stack of books.

Carefully, I push myself upward to a standing position. I waddle toward the door. Twelve steps, I count. Each one jabs worse than the one prior. When I reach the door, I desperately jiggle the handle, only to find it’s locked from the outside.

I glance over my shoulder at Vanessa. She watches me carefully at first, but when I look back again in search of answers, her eyes have glazed over. It’s as though I’ve vanished all together. I press my face against the small windowpane until I feel the cool of the glass on the tip of my nose. My knees could buckle at any moment. “Hello?” I call out. I feel eyes on me.

I clear my throat. “Hello,” I call again, my voice louder this time.

“I wouldn’t do that, if I were you,” Vanessa says. “Screaming doesn’t bring help. Quite the opposite actually.”

I turn to her. “The door is locked.”

She smiles wickedly. Her round, cherub-like face, her large eyes and her perfect nose, don’t fit the expression she wears. Her eyes are on her book, which gives me a chance to properly study her. She’s young. Maybe my age, maybe slightly younger. It’s hard to say.

“Why is the door locked?”

Her eyes meet mine like a challenge she refuses to answer. I notice her eyes match her hair.

I scream this time. I scream out, asking if anyone can hear me. I pound on the door with my fists. If a challenge is what Vanessa wants, fine. You have to be good at manipulation to manipulate. You have to be meticulous in your planning and diabolical in your execution to pull it off. Judging by her simple, perfect face, I don’t think she has it in her. But I plan to find out. She can either give me the answers I seek, or we can go about this the hard way. It’s her call.

Nothing happens. No one comes.

“I really wish you wouldn’t do that,” Vanessa chides. I open my mouth to give it another go. My eyes are on her. Her voice lowers to a whisper. “We’re the lucky ones.”

I lean against the wall for balance. It freaks me out when strangers speak with this kind of honesty, even if I’ve asked for it.

“Right now, they are out of rooms,” she offers. Her expression has turned serious. “That’s why we’re together.” Finally, I think we’re getting somewhere. “This never happens,” she assures me, shaking her head. “You’re going to ruin it.”

I can’t help but stare when she speaks. She’s gorgeous, stunningly so, or rather she could be in another circumstance. Most people aren’t beauty queens in hospital gowns. “What kind of hospital is this?”

Vanessa doesn’t immediately answer, so I turn my attention back to the small window. I can see a long hallway, which is empty. “Hello?” I say to her and to anyone who will listen. I don’t want to repeat the question. I realize I’m afraid of what she might say.

“Oh,” she murmurs, and when I turn back, she laughs, the corners of her mouth edging more deeply as she does. “This is no hospital.”

I look on as Vanessa motions grandly around the room. “This is a center for healing.”

I turn the word over in my head. “Healing,” I repeat aloud.

This isn’t my first rodeo. She’s insane.

I am rewarded with another small smile. “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all. Psalm 34:19.”

I make my way over, carefully sitting on the edge of my bed. I don’t feel righteous. I feel numb. I feel weak. I feel like sleeping forever. I feel like getting the hell out of here.

“I don’t understand.” I look over at my roommate. She raises her brow like she expects me to say something. I rub at my eyes with the palms of my hands, willing myself to wake from this nightmare.

“Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. James 5:16”

A small laugh escapes my lips. Pray. It makes me want to play in traffic. Prayer can’t help me now.

“Okay, fine.” I relent. “I get it. This is a mental institution.”

“It’s no such thing,” she says, contradicting me. Her tone is pleasant. Sweet even. “This is The New Hope Center for Rejuvenation.”

“Really.” My eyes narrow. “What kind of rejuvenation are you in for?”

“Whoa, you really are new.” She sets her book aside. “Like brand new.”

She is legitimately crazy. I pinch the bridge of my nose. I don’t know what’s worse, being in here alone or being in here with someone who is of no use to me.

“Anyway,” she continues, trying to change my mind. “We’re not supposed to tell.” I feel like I could be good with this. It’s not like I’m getting anywhere anyway. Eventually, her face breaks into a full grin. “But tell you what…if you show me yours…I’ll show you mine.”

Her offer feels like a test and only alcohol makes me swing that way so I tell her thanks but no thanks.

She nods at my waist. “Your surgery—”

I know then to lie. It always helps in situations where one is unsure. Call it a power play. “I lost the baby.”

“I heard that.” She looks away, exhaling deeply. I watch as her breath comes slow and heavy. This could get me somewhere, I can see. “I’m sorry.”

My mouth folds in. “It’s for the best.” Her sympathy feeds me. Like one of those gel packs marathoners use. A quick hit. It’s something. But it’s not enough.

Her face turns serious. “I didn’t mean…”

I stare at the door. I pretend my mind is somewhere else, on something outside of this room. She needs space to give me what I want. I give it to her.

“My breast enhancement is tomorrow,” she offers finally. “But I had vaginal rejuvenation last month, so if it’s any consolation, I know what you’re going through.”

I feel it then. I’m not sore from the exam that confirmed my uterus is empty. It’s more than that. When I look at her, I see it in her eyes. I think I’m going to be sick.

“Where’s the bathroom?”

Vanessa offers a sympathetic look before nodding to the puke bucket at the foot of my bed.

I can’t help myself. I hurl into the container, white-knuckling the sides. My stomach is empty. I hardly manage any bile, so mostly, I just dry-heave.

It feels like it takes forever for the waves to stop but when they finally subside, I breathe deeply. In and out. In and out.

“Don’t worry,” she says quietly. There is hope in her voice. “Your recovery won’t be so bad. It’s your head you’ll have to work to get right.”

I want to tell her she is wrong. There’s nothing that can help me there. I bite the inside of my cheek instead.

A windowless room. So there are no distractions, I would later learn. White walls, for purity of thought. Ten chairs in a circle, to face one another. We all wear hospital gowns like patients.

“Gather round, ladies,” an old woman announces. “It’s circle time.”

She softly claps her hands as we file into the open room, taking our seats one by one in perfect synchronization.

“What is circle time?” I whisper to the woman to my right. She doesn’t answer, so I turn to Vanessa on my left. I still haven’t decided if I can trust her, but the unexpected is rarely a good thing, and I want to know what I’m walking into. Usually, she’s not much help. She talks without saying anything. Still, I listen. I know that she has a young son, but that she’s not in a hurry to get home. Not like the others, she says. In here she tells me she has time to think—and at least she gets to go to the bathroom on her own.

“You have to watch your back,” she replies under her breath.

That much I know. I’ve always known.

“Don’t worry,” she offers as she folds her hands in prayer. I wait expectantly for her to go on until she elbows me so I do the same. “The first time is the hardest.”

I have no idea what she means. I wasn’t the one weeping last night. Now, I’m exhausted, which I want to tell her makes watching my back a little more difficult.

I asked the woman who escorted me to the bathroom this morning when I get to make a phone call.

She only laughed and said, this isn’t jail.

“All right, ladies, take your seats,” the matronly woman instructs the group. Finally, the clapping ends. The fog ends. I feel like I can think again. I count six of us.

“Yesterday there were women in those chairs,” the girl next to me whispers.

I don’t ask what happened to them. The old woman claps her hands, only once, and louder this time. Everyone waits. All eyes are on hers. Hands folded. Ankles crossed. I glance around and follow suit.

“Let’s begin with introductions, shall we?”

There is hesitation in the room. This, a touch of loneliness, expectation, and also something I can’t name.

“As some of you are new, I’ll go first,” the woman says. She wears a floral, full-skirted dress. The kind school teachers used to wear back in the old days. “You may call me Mrs. Elizabeth.” Addressing her this way, the direction, this is the first thing anyone has said that makes any sense.

“Now,” she points at Vanessa. “It’s your turn.”

My roommate stands. Her face is expressionless. It’s her hands I watch. She picks at the cuticle on her thumb with her pointer finger as she speaks. It’s the only blemish in an otherwise perfect manicure. “My name is Vanessa.”

“And what brings you here to the rejuvenation center, Vanessa?”

She digs deeper. She picks harder. The skin peels back. Blood rises to the surface “I wasn’t attentive enough at home.”

“Elaborate please,” the woman demands. “So that we may all have a better understanding.” Her voice rises with each word she speaks. It bounces off the walls and sticks itself between my ears. It’s a nasty sound, the kind you’d be fine with never hearing again.

Vanessa’s eyes are glued to the floor. But her voice is calm and low. “Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”

“Well said.” Mrs. Elizabeth smiles proudly. “Verse please.”

Vanessa’s eyes shift. “Timothy 5:8.”

Finally, Mrs. Elizabeth motions for her to take her seat. “Don’t forget—” she says to Vanessa but every bit as much to the rest of us. “God is in the detail.”

The women nod in unison as though this is the most profound statement they’ve ever heard.

Next, Mrs. Elizabeth looks at me. “Your turn, dear.”

I stand. The truth is, I don’t know why I am here. But I do know one thing. “I am a liar,” I say. And before she can ask me to expand upon that sentiment, I offer the only Bible verse I know, one my mother taught me. “All men are liars.”