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ASHWOOD RANCH is a rehab facility in The Middle of Fucking Nowhere, Utah. Known for their discretion, they've catered to an exclusive group of clientele for decades. Clients—like my parents. My dad owns Syncore Technologies, a multimillion-dollar tech firm. Mom was a beloved daytime soap star in her heyday. She had a starring role in As The Sun Sets. It's where parents, like mine, send their troubled offspring to avoid scandal, keeping them out of sight, out of mind, and out of the public eye until whatever shit hit the fan can be wiped away from society's radar.
My brother has always been the hell raiser in our family, and I was the boring one. Mom and Dad probably bet good money that they'd be sending Brookes to Ashwood someday. Not me. Never me. Much to everyone's surprise, I was the one who ended up there.
Dr. Liu was my therapist from Ashwood. When I first arrived at the facility, I told him how my classmates wouldn't stop calling me names.
Bitch.
Murderer.
Psychopath.
I asked whether or not he believed what everyone said about me. Dr. Liu never answered my question. Apparently, he's not allowed to diagnose me until I'm older.
He simply explained that, as with all mental disorders, psychopathy exists on a spectrum, and people with psychopathic traits tend to display some tell-tale signs. Lack of remorse or shame. Antisocial behavior. Pathological lying. Failure to empathize. Inability to love. Among several other quirks that make them a bit repellent to the rest of society.
Do I tick the boxes?
Who knows.
The only thing I'm sure about is this. If you treat a sane bitch like she's crazy for long enough, she'll become crazy. After only one week at Ashwood, I desperately wanted out. I was beginning to feel psychotic. Three little words kept screaming in my head.
Run, bitch, run.
The staff dictated when I could sleep, when I could eat, what I could think, how I could act. They confiscated my phone. Brookes sent me a care package full of my favorite books and snacks, but they confiscated that, too. Every time I resisted in any way, they'd give me pills that I didn't want to take. The guards were mostly middle-aged men who would watch the other teenage girls and me strip down to nothing in the communal showers.
Fucking creeps.
Escape became my obsession. But I was surrounded by trees, trees, and more goddamn trees. My sense of direction was shit. I'd never been the outdoorsy type. It'd take days to get out of the forest on foot, and I couldn't build shelter or start a fire to save my life. If my dumb ass attempted to waltz out of here, I'd probably trip over a fallen branch and crack my skull within the first fifteen minutes.
