Between the Lives by Jessica Shirvington

excited anticipation. I was finally telling someone.
    I waited.
    Dad would come and get me. I hoped that when he did, we’d get a few minutes alone together and he’d bring me up to speed on how Mom was taking it all.
    I waited.
    It seemed like the whole day passed, several hours at least.
    It was quiet. I’d run out of theories and practice speeches and had started to wonder if they were still even out there. I was about to go looking for them when I heard a knock downstairs at the front door.
    A stern knock. Three life-changing thuds.
    I wasn’t sure exactly why, but my stomach flipped and I started instinctively backing away from my bedroom door.
    I hadn’t even made it to the window when Dad opened the door and held it there for the man and woman who walked in. Our family doctor followed, standing beside Dad.
    The bed was between them and me – and since my bedroom basically only fit the bed, the situation became instantly defensive. I could see the man and woman calculating how they were going to close the distance.
    These people were not my friends.
    These people were my worst nightmare.
    ‘Sabine,’ my father – no longer Dad – said in a low commanding voice. ‘Sabine, we are trying to help you. These nurses are here to help.’
    They held their hands in front of them – reminding me of the way Dex had approached me the night before – like I was a wild animal. In that moment, that’s exactly what I felt like.
    Trapped.
    My eyes darted from the door, to the bed, to the people trying to entrap me, to my window. But I was cornered. My father and I both knew it.
    ‘It’s okay,’ he told the man and woman. They were dressed in white slacks and jackets, not unlike the drugstore uniforms.
    The air left my lungs. I knew what was coming next. ‘The window is jammed shut,’ he said.
    Bastard.
    I glared at my father, overcome with fury. ‘How could you do this to me? Oh, I get it. This isn’t about me at all – you just want the problem to go away!’ I screamed.
    ‘Sabine,’ the woman said in a deliberately calming tone. Her mouse-brown hair was tightly braided, highlighting her overly blushed cheeks. She sent me a fake smile, like the two of us had friend potential. I stared back at her with a ‘don’t fake a faker bitch’ look. She looked away first. A small victory, but it wasn’t going to last long. I was boxed in.
    ‘You’re not well, Sabine,’ my father said. ‘Your mother is petrified with worry. She needs you to get help. Dr Meadowshas come here as a special favour – he has a doctor he would like you to see at the clinic. He’s going to fit you in immediately. They’re going to make you better. Please, don’t make a scene.’ His look added the line he didn’t say aloud: They’re taking you either way.
    The man and woman took another sly step in my direction, the tall man with the buzz cut leading the way around the base of the bed. I was up against the wall, nowhere to go.
    I couldn’t stop shaking my head. I felt so betrayed. ‘Did you ever consider it? Even for a second as you nodded me on earlier? Did you even listen to what I said?’
    ‘Oh, I listened, Sabine. That’s why I’ve been forced to get you help. You’re suffering from delusions. You are clearly a danger to yourself, and possibly others. If you’re asking whether I , at any moment, considered it possible that mydaughter is living an alternate life, then the answer is no.’
    They took another step.
    My heart was racing, my pulse thumping in my neck.
    ‘So you’re just going to lock me up?’
    My father sighed, impatient with me. ‘If that’s what I have to do until you are well, yes.’
    ‘You can’t! I’m eighteen!’ I didn’t add that if you took my other life into account, I was almost as old as him.
    ‘You are a threat to yourself,’ my father said, his words snappy with a combination of embarrassment anddisappointment. ‘The state has been awarded control of your health until you are well