"This isn't about me," Sid protested, dark brown eyes growing in surprise and embarrassment.

"It's all about you. And me. And Manuela , and Wallace. It's about the doctor and Saoirse and Benny. Devika and Vonda and Tish. It's about all of us. I'm calling it like I see it, because this playacting shit is wasting my time. I want to go home and holding your proverbial hair while you take a proverbial vom is a poor use of my money. Am I a mess? Fuck yes. Are you? Fuck yes. We're all a mess. Let's start from there. Anybody else?"

Manuela raised her hand, but Manuela was a follower and that was expected. Wallace shrugged lazily and crossed his legs at the ankle to show off his polka dot socks. Devika at three o'clock raised her hand calmly. Devika talked like a gattling gun in the rec room (her manic episodes were exhausting to watch but she put up with Lea's so no complaints) and said almost nothing in group. Had they all been unaware of what she was really like, they'd think she was suffering from selective mutism like Vasily at one o'clock, the recent immigrant to the States who'd come for school and buckled under expectations and the horrid xenophobia he faced on arriving.

America was only interested in the world giving them its poor, its sick and dispossesed when they were a certain kind of poor, sick and dispossessed. Gay artisans with soft, effected voices and a pronounced limp need not apply. Vasily sniffed and raised his hand. His nails were bitten to the quick and rimmed rusty red where they'd begun to crack. Lea fought the urge to hold his hand. Giving boys the idea they could touch her was never worth it in the end, no matter how much they might need a hand to hold right now. She'd had little brothers once; she used to look after them too.

"You hear me, Doc. We're all a mess. That's plenty of progress for one session, right? Can I take a fucking nap now or what?"

Dr. Vanderbilt looked around the group where less than a quarter were staring at their shoes for a change. There was a lot of navel-gazing in group, but it was usually too easily mistaken for a group of cacti sunning under a UV lamp. For a change, at least they were moving, some in discomfort and some with purpose. Lea had a feeling Tim at eight-thirty was jacking off on the low again, which was gross as shit because germs and spunk and now she felt slightly nauseous. Fantastic. There went any chance of ending group on a high note this morning.

"We're done here. Good job, guys. I think we made a breakthrough."

"I think she had a breakdown," Sid muttered.

"I still like your face, though."

"She's trying to kill you with kindness," Wallace offered.

"I can't be killed with anything. Trust me, I've tried."

"Then maybe you weren't supposed to be. I survived poison punch and a house fire my sister set. She did it for me. I'd do it for her. That's just how it is."

"So now you're a believer?"

"I believe it's time to get out of this room and I believe my bed is calling my name, so cool, yeah, I'm a believer. Queue the Shrek soundtrack."

The meeting broke up with the evening hours heading for individual therapy sessions while the afternoons departed in a loosely-gathered clump to go take their meds.

"A word, Lea?" Dr. Vanderbilt beckoned her to the top of the circle.

"'Sup?"

"You know you could be a great force for good in this group if you put your mind to it. They look up to you."

"That's their mistake. I'm as bad off as they are."

"You're the one they want."

"I'm not the doctor here. I'm just another screw-up serving time to keep from serving real time, if you know what I mean."

He chuckled. "Yeah, I know. Just don't count out doing some good while you're here. I have a good feeling about you."

She twitched, pretended not to have done it when his eyes followed the muscle tic. His sympathetic glance ramped up to 11. Gross.

"Lea, you're doing fine."

"I'm not. I'm never fine. I'm never gonna be fine."

"Why? You're here now. You keep coming back for some reason instead of jumping bail. This is your sixth time in-patient. Clearly you're hoping to get something out of this someday."

"I don't know about that."

"You can laugh it off all you want, but I've known you a while now. You're tired and you're looking for somewhere to lay down your burdens. Anytime you wanna start, I'm game."

"What about right now?"

"Okay. Now it is."

"It's. They had a lot of rules, yeah? Back at home."

"Where was home, Lea?"

"Stargazer. It was in Wyoming. Dry grass for acres and acres. Hundreds of them. We raised our own crops. We had an irrigation system. People think we were all backwoods hicks. My...Father had a degree in engineering."

"What about your mother?"

"I didn't know her. We didn't...it didn't work like that. The group was our mother."

"In what way?"

Lea shrugged. "There were rules. If you broke the rules, they broke the skin. That was the rule of law and I still remember it. Don't break the rules."

"Did your sister break the rules before she lashed out?"

"No, that was everybody else. They all did wrong and she was trying to make it right. That was who she was. I guess it still is."

"Is she alive?"

"Yeah, she's alive."

"Do you plan to get in touch with her?"

"I'm the last person who should come anywhere near her. She can do better than hearing from me. I'm bad luck. She's...gold."

"Never had a sister, but you make me wish I did."

Lea smiled. She wanted to write to Virgo. They'd been thick as thieves as little girls, Lea the older but quieter whereas Virgo had been obedient yet outspoken. She'd been beloved. Not the most loved, not like Mini, but you couldn't beat Virgo for being full of life. Not till she started ending it. They broke the rules, baby sister. But you broke 'em, too.

But when your sister was the monster, it was easy not to mind.