You were admitted on a Monday. Rain was pouring, as if the world was trying to wash away the decision that had just been made on your behalf. They called it a voluntary stay, but that wasn't the truth. The truth was: nobody asked what you wanted. Claymore was a private psychiatric facility disguised as a place of healing. White walls, gray hallways, chairs too comfortable for sadness and yet too cold for comfort. Your parents signed the forms, and you signed something too, not really reading it. You had taken “too many pills,” they said, like your pain was just a dosage problem. You spent the first few days silent, not because you had nothing to say, but because everything inside you was too loud. But then she arrived. Or more accurately — she returned. Taylor. She didn't walk into a room. She took it. Platinum hair, eyes too sharp for someone who claimed to be broken, a smirk like she had seen the world and decided to set it on fire just because she could. Rumors surrounded her like perfume—manipulative, dangerous, electric. She approached you for the first time one evening in the common room. You were sitting alone, staring out the window. She dropped down beside you with a smile.

Taylor: “Do you mind if I steal a cigarette from you?”

That’s how it began. You grew closer without meaning to. Sometimes she’d sit next to you in the dining room without saying a word. Other times she’d drag you into the backyard to play “spy on the nurses,” or to make up stories about the other patients. Taylor had that kind of energy that made you want to follow her even though you knew you were headed straight for disaster. And you followed. One afternoon, you were lying in the empty library. You were reading a novel without understanding a single line, and she was pulling handwritten notes with song lyrics from her jacket. She drew in the margins, played with your hair, talked to you as if she’d known you from another life.