Amelia sat in the room, her feet not quiet reaching the ground from where she sat on the exam table. She was nervous, she seemed to always be, and she was shaking her hand up and down, waiting. She wasn’t sure if she wanted the doctor to hurry up or for her to not show up at all.

The last week had been hell, and it had sucked and Amelia had to admit it was the worst week of her life, which she knew probably wasn’t the right train of thought, but she felt that way anyway. She couldn’t change how she felt anyway. The last week had been painful, to start. She had had stitches in her leg, her blood drawn multiple times, and 6 vaccines. It had also been exhausting. She was going through withdrawal and they kept making her walk around even though it felt like she couldn’t stand without falling over. Not to mention being sick. Sick from eating food, sick from the medicine, sick from the needles and the stress of everything. It had been hard. It still was hard. But Derek had convinced her that this was all for the better. Everyone was saying that it had to get worse before it improved.

So she stayed in the room, waiting for the doctor to show up because she had said that she would, and Sam was in the other room, doing the same thing with another doctor, and Savvy and Naomi had already done it, and they had been fine. Claire and Derek would be fine when they did the same thing later. They were all going to be okay. Everything was going to be okay.

If only Amelia was able to convince herself of that.

The doctor came in, and Amelia recognized the woman from before, when she had come into the room that Naomi and her had been sharing. She had taken their blood before too. “Hi, Amelia. I don’t know if I’ve ever formally introduced myself to just you. I’m Dr. Kendall.” The woman smiled and looked over a piece of paper that the nurse had left on the desk. “So, do you go by Amy, or just Amelia?

“Amelia.” The teenager said sharply, the name feeling unfamiliar to her still, even after a week. The idea of shortening it to something else would only confuse her more.

“Alright.” Dr. Kendall said with a smile, and then put her stethoscope on. “I’m just going to listen to your heart.” Amelia already knew this, they had been listening to her heart and everyone else’s since they had gotten here. She took breaths when Dr. Kendall asked her to, the same way she had done three times today already. “Good.” The woman said, jotting something down really quick before going through with the rest of the examination. Amelia did everything without complaint or resistance. She had done all of these things already.

Which only made her confused as to why she had to have come to another room and leave the one with her bed and Naomi in it, and the phone that some lady had showed her how to use so that she could call Sam in the middle of the night when she had a nightmare. Dr. Kendall finished checking Amelia’s pulse and her reflexes and her breathing and every other thing that she could check at that moment, and then sat down in the chair, turning it to face Amelia. “Alright. So, we need to talk.” The doctor said, and Amelia sighed.

She didn’t really care for talking. At least not to all of the doctors and nurses and social workers and police who always wanted to talk to her. She liked to talk to Sam, she had recently learned. She thought that Derek was annoying when he talked. Savvy was funny, but she got annoying quickly. Claire didn’t really say anything to Amelia, and really, Amelia didn’t care. Naomi and Amelia talked a lot, but their conversations weren’t anything substantial. They talked to each other to fill the silence in their room when it started to get to them. They talked about things that they already knew, and nothing important. Amelia only really talked to Sam, and she talked to him about how she felt and he understood and it was good.

But when the doctors or social workers or therapists or police wanted to talk to Amelia, she hated it. They wanted to know everything about her, things that she didn’t even know about herself. They wanted to know about what had happened, about everything that had happened, and they wanted to know about Claire and Savvy and Naomi and everyone else. They wanted to know about them, and Amelia hated to talk about them.

“Your medicine.” Dr. Kendall started. “Is it making you feel strange?”

“No.” Amelia said. “Well. It makes my head fuzzy.”

“Does it make you tired?”

“Sometimes.”

The doctor nodded. “That’s good then. That normally happens to people.”

Amelia nodded, now fiddling with her fingers.

“Do you think that you’ll be able to remember to take your medicine? Without the nurses?”

Amelia nodded again. “Yeah. Maybe.”

“You’ll have reminders.” Dr. Kendall said, and then looked at Amelia with a very serious expression. “Currently, you are almost medically healthy. You’re still experiencing a little bit of withdrawal, but it’s a lot better since you had the dialysis.” The woman picked up her clipboard of papers and flipped through them. “Your wound has almost healed completely. You’ll be able to have the stitches out soon. And from what I can tell, you’re in good shape. You’re gaining weight, which is a good sign, and it means that your body is adjusting to this.” She looked at Amelia again and then said, “You’re ready to be released from the hospital. We’re putting you in the care of Amber Donovan.”