21


"That little girl is lucky I got here the other day, or she woulda been paralyzed," the doctor said as the pine box containing 16-year-old Alizee Hortensen was dropped with a splash into its grave next to Myron.


"Ali was a real good kid," the OCD boy named Jason said as he polished the stainless steel plaque in his hand with hand sanitizer. The plaque said "Here lies Alizee Hortensen, free at last."


"She never knew freedom," her friend Mo'nique spoke up. "She was locked up all her life. They even punished her before she got to Hope House. They called her mentally retarded because she banged her head against the wall instead of using faster methods of death, because she was locked up with no weapons... how else COULD she commit suicide? The being labeled as retarded is what hurt her more than anything else."


"I tried to talk to her about it, but she was too traumatized to even admit it had happened to her," the 3--I doctor went on. "I feel her death is partially my responsibility because try as I might, I could not do much to help her. She clearly felt she was still at Hope House, or rather, just at another place that would punish her. It was all she ever knew. She could have easily got her hands on a knife, on medication, on a gun even, but she did not think she could. She thought this was another lockup. And that is why she suffered so much before she died."