INTERLUDE

Dagny sat on the squishy sofa with her feet tucked under her. The light blue pajama pants she wore were too long for her, something rare for a girl of 5'10", and covered her socked feet with an extra layer of warmth. She retracted her hands into the long sleeves of her robe and bunched up the extra material into her fists.

"Are you cold?" Dr. Chen asked.

He sat in his armchair across from her with his always placid smile fixed on his lips. He was a handsome Taiwanese man with bright, dark eyes and always neatly dressed. She would have a crush on him if he wasn't so mean to her all the time.

"I'll be fine. I was dancing in the hallway, and you know the heat isn't very good out in the open spaces. You can ask me your questions now."

Dr. Chen scribbled something in the yellow legal pad balanced on his crossed knees. Dagny tried to stretch and read what he wrote, but it was pointless as always.

"Your birthday is coming up soon. It's a big one, and the nurses want to have a party for you. What kinds of gifts should I tell them you want?"

"I'd say I want a pony, but then you'd make me start taking pills again," the girl deadpanned. "So, I guess … I don't know. What do supposedly sixteen-year-old girls want for their birthdays?"

"Supposedly?" Dr. Chen prompted. "Do you not believe you're sixteen?"

Dagny sighed deeply and ducked her head. Of course she was sixteen. When she looked into the mirror, she saw a sixteen-year-old girl's body. She had feminine features, not yet mature but certainly not child-like, and decent sized breasts. She was also too tall to be much younger than sixteen.

But she didn't feel sixteen. How could anyone feel sixteen when they'd spent the last four years in a drug-induced haze in the "I went bat shit crazy when I realized this was really happening" ward in Here's hospital. Those four years were a blur of white walls, screaming for her mother to save her, and nonsense conversations with Dr. Chen.

So, yes, she had been born sixteen years ago. But she wasn't sixteen. She was twelve.

"I know that it's 2007, and I was born in 1991," she grumbled.

"I know this isn't an easy thing to come to terms with. For an adult, losing four years would be troublesome. But I know it's even harder for you because you're a child. Nothing about this is fair, Dagny, and it never will be."

"What am I supposed to do? I can't go back to sixth grade because everyone will think I'm super stupid, but I can't be in tenth grade either. I want to go the playground and really swing, not just sit there and try to look cool. I want to go to a dance in the school gym with a terrible DJ before I go to prom. I want – I want my mom to show me how to put on make-up, and I want m-m-my …"

She looked away when tears sprang to her eyes. If she got herself too upset, Dr. Chen would want to give her an injection. She always got so tense whenever she saw the orderlies coming in to hold her down, and she'd probably throw something at them without even realizing what she was doing. Then she'd end up strapped down to her bed again for the next two days "for her own safety."

"You've made tremendous progress since we've lowered your doses. You remember how difficult it was to accept that this isn't a game of make believe, don't you?" She nodded. "But you worked through it because you're strong, Dagny. You can make a full recovery and become a productive member of society, I'm sure of it."

She accepted the tissue he held out to her and dabbed at her eyes.

"As for what you can do …. I would suggest we start by moving you out of the psychiatric ward and into a room on the pediatric ward. You'll be able to make friends your own age there. And by 'your own age' I mean teenagers in general. There's no rule that says you can only be friends with people born the same year as you."

"Umm. No? No one is going to want to be friends with me. It's too weird that I look sixteen and act twelve. I used to be the most popular girl in school, and now I'm a total outcast."

"You might be surprised who you meet. No one here is without their quirks. It's what makes us unique that brings us here in the first place. So what do you say? Will you give life on the pediatric ward a try?"

Dagny dipped her head while she considered.

Saying no might make it seem like she was pretending to be better, and then she'd have to start taking all the pills again. Anyway, she'd had enough of these white walls and crazy faces peering out of Plexiglas windows in locked doors. She would enjoy the splashes of color and freedom of movement on the pediatric ward. And maybe Dr. Chen was right. Maybe there was a friend waiting for her there.

She nodded. "All right. I'll give it a try."