A Thousand Butterflies (SAMPLE)

Chapter 1: Invisible Halo

"It might have been a new way for her heart to beat."
— Philip Pullman

I wanted to scream.

I wanted to bawl until my lungs ached and gave out. Until my body was entirely void of oxygen. Of everything.

For now, this grisly bellow was contained within the deepest pits of my stomach.

But had I allowed it to emit from my body, it would've eviscerated me on the way out. 

It would've shattered champagne flutes.

It would've forced bystanders to break into a cold sweat.

Although I remained frozen in place, the urge to run was buzzing through my veins. My limbs were on fire. And the exit doors looked exactly like the cool lake I would've thrown myself towards for relief.

I would've done anything to escape this place and surround myself with the familiar comforts of my family's home. Of my disease.

All I wanted was to be back in my bedroom, spending time with my first and only boyfriend.

But it was all useless. Absolutely pointless. The place was crawling with staff members who were all hell-bent on ensuring I'd see little more than the four corners of this clinic for the next few days. Weeks? Maybe months. They hadn't given me a time-frame yet.

Having spent my whole life in Upstate New York, and having also learned to uphold the highest respect for all parts of nature, I used to find nothing but beauty in the Adirondack Mountains that surrounded us here. Now, I viewed them more as an added layer of protection for my captors to ensure that evasion was impossible.

Well, "captors" may not have been a fair description, per se.

Despite being grown at twenty years old, my family had made it clear that this stay was compulsory—beyond any negotiation. I had nowhere else to go but here. Under threat of worse fates, I was signed in as the newest patient at Horizons... of my own not-so-free will.

So, for all of these reasons, I stayed quiet instead of screaming.

A particular spot on the wall caught my eye, where a sign hung slightly off center. Patterns of light and dark grain seemed to dance together in the wood. Pine, I would've guessed.

"Welcome Home," it read, in broken, white paint.

As disgusted as I was to have landed myself in such a situation, for the foreseeable future, this residential treatment center in Old Forge, New York was my new home.

Or more like my new prison.

"What else can you tell me about your symptoms?" the woman asked, with a click of her pen. "Personal history? Past challenges? Current life stressors?"

I shifted my weight around in an incessant way, trying to find some relief from the scratchy fabric of the chair.

"It should all be right there." I nodded toward the charts in her hands. What was the point of conversing with the medical and psychiatric people if she was just going to ask the same questions right after they did?

"And this is your first time receiving in-patient treatment at Horizons, correct?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"And you'd estimate the onset date of symptoms as... five years ago?" she asked. "So, fifteen is when you first noticed there was something unusual going on?"

I nodded in an exasperated fashion.

"Sorry, I know you've already met with the rest of the team," she said. "I'm just playing catch-up. We always want to be thorough."