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glance. She resembles Mari, Suicide Girl. Same flaming hair, same determined expression. Her face is inches from mine, her breath hot against my neck. The temptation to stare pulls at me. I resist, focusing instead on memories too foreign to be my own.
    Laughter and games.
    Screams and torture.
    Death.
    The macabre vision wields a power similar to the ghostly girl who refuses to move. My heart beats once, twice, three times. Her gaze burns into my skin as she reaches for my soul like some Grim Reaper determined to claim her next victim. I swallow hard, my sight glued to the floor, examining the frayed ends of my shoe laces.
    Look at me.
    I know who you are.
    Look at me now.
    The mantra repeats over and over. I’m compelled to peer into the eyes of the motionless apparition. My pulse pounds harder in my veins as I resist. Silent alarm bells rattle my mind as my instincts warn against moving, looking, breathing.
    Another series of heartbeats chip away the time. I strain, tethered by an invisible force pulling me toward the girl. The attraction is both foreign and familiar, like an echo of something I’ve forgotten. Sounds chime in the distance. My resistance falters. Doors open and close. I raise my head and dark green eyes meet my own.
    “Dakota, honey. Are you okay?”
    The trance is broken. Suicide Girl fades.
    “Dakota.” Mom’s fingers drape over my shoulder and the tension leaves my body in an instant. Tears prick behind my eyes. I reach for Mari as she vanishes.
    “Honey? What’s wrong?”
    Relief rains down on me as the last images of the phantom disappear. I turn to Mom, wrap my arms around her neck and beg to leave.
    “You’re okay, Dakota,” Mom says, returning my hugs.
    I glance over Mom, searching. There is no phantom now, no pictures of familiar children in a sterile lab. Whatever happened, the memories have disappeared as swiftly as the girl.
    If she was even here.
     

     
    The car ride is quiet, nothing but the relentless tap of the rain against the windows and the hum of the tires as they speed along the highway to break the silence hanging in the air between my parents and me. I don’t know what to think. The visions, the memories, I need to believe they didn’t happen; they’re just a by-product of stress like I said in group. I imagine what the others would say. Cutter Girl would understand. Maybe even Mari. They’d both say I’m losing my grip on reality; anyone would. One problem: everything inside tells me it’s real.
    The hallucination.
    The memory.
    Mari’s phantom appearance in the lobby.
    I should be freaked out again, begging for a long-term stay at the nut-house. Instead I’m intrigued. I want to understand what the visions are telling me, let them answer the unyielding questions now circling my thoughts.
    I stare out the window, searching for meaning. Shades of grey, varied and complex, paint the sky. The rain continues to pour. A slate-colored ocean stretches out to my right, matching the imposing skyline. My mind blurs as Dad pulls off the near empty highway and the car winds up the road to our home.
    We live on one of several bluffs in this quiet town. Dad slows the car with each turn, his hands wrapped tight around the steering wheel. He’s warned me about these roads since before I can remember. “You have to pay attention here,” he’d say every time someone sped past us. “These turns come fast and that guard rail won’t stop you if you miss one of them.”
    He wasn’t wrong. Each year we’d read about at least a few crashes, usually by drunks or teens racing down the hills that define this part of Cambria.
    I refocus my eyes as Dad continues up the hill in silence. I stare at the front console. A newspaper sits between Mom and Dad, crumbled and damp. “Mental Health Crisis in California Rages On as Another Teen Suffers a Breakdown In A Small Central California Town.”
    Crap. I’d made the news.
    “Say something you guys.” My voice cracks the fragile silence.