Chapter 46

Dear diary.

Hi. I’m sorry I threw you in the trash and then ignored you for weeks. Looking at you still makes me feel all gouged up inside. But the fact of the matter is, I need somewhere to write. I have too many things in my head, and they need to go somewhere before I explode. And I looked to my right and oh! There you were. Like you’re haunting me.

Let’s start this off normal, okay? My name is Dany. I’m 11 years old. I had another diary before, but it got burnt to a bacon crisp in a high school. The funny thing is, I don’t even remember when I lost it. Everything happened so fast.

Anyway. Getting to the point. Lilian told me a lot of things about Marisa and the clinic. And I keep turning it over in my head like those bingo balls and I feel like I need to write it all down before I forget. And I know you might be thinking, “Why would you even forget such an important thing?” Well, I can’t help it, okay. My brain is still all groggy, like it got chopped up into little pieces. The doctor said the sepsis started destroying my organs and apparently I only had like a 15 percent survival rate or something. Yikes. So, yeah. I’m doing pretty well, considering All That.

So. Here goes.

I was born in Suddence. That one is true.

Marisa’s parents died in Suddence. That part is also true.

Marisa joined Doctor Heed because of that. Also true.

New info: Marisa is the one who adopted me, but Doctor Heed and Lilian are also my legal guardians. Doctor Heed is legally my dad. This creeps me out.

And then there’s just a bunch of things Doctor Heed straight up lied about.

Marisa didn’t suggest cutting me and the other kids apart. Nobody ever suggested that. The clinic’s plan has always been to study us and train us.

It’s true that Marisa ran away with me when she disagreed with the clinic. She agreed with them all this time, but when the day came to turn me in, she couldn’t do it. She didn’t run away to find somebody else to cut me up. She ran away to protect me.

You can see why I had to write all this down. Both of them lied. Both of them told the truth. What Lilian told me helped me realize which is which, but it all gets so tangled in my head. It’s all just too much.

Sometimes I wonder if Marisa would still be alive if we believed Lilian from the start.

I think Marisa lied because she didn’t think I would understand.

The worst part is, I think she was right.