We sat like that for a while, she holding my hand while I cried. Occasionally she would wipe the tears away from my face gently. After my tears had all but stopped and I was calmer she turned back towards the cup on the table.

"Would you like some more water?" she asked.

I nodded.

Again she helped me take sips of the water and again I felt the cool liquid soothe my raw throat. She put the cup back down when she felt I had had enough and cleared her throat.

"Why don't I start by telling you who I am. My name is Lauren Matthews and I'm your therapist. I'm part of the team here that's going to help you get back on your feet."

"Team?" I asked her in my raspy voice. I had a whole team?

She nodded. "Yes. Besides me, there's Dr. Sandoval. He's the doctor that should be here right now examining you." Big smile. "There's Dr. Clemmons, he's the psychiatrist that I'm working with and there's Vera and Beth. They're your full time nurses."

I looked up at her in wonderment. "Wow," was all I could think of to say.

She laughed as she said, "Yeah, wow." She took a deep breath and turned serious, the smile vanishing from her face. Now there was an understatement. She paused and looked at me, maybe trying to gauge my reaction. I nodded to try to show her that I was able to hear more. She continued, "After those 6 weeks, you were brought here to Westhaven and we've been taking care of you ever since. JC, from the time the jogger found you to just a few minutes ago, you've been in a catatonic state. We've basically been waiting for you to wake up."

Catatonic state? Wasn't that for crazy people? "Did I go insane? Am I insane?" I whispered barely loud enough for her to hear. I was afraid that she would answer yes.

She shook her head emphatically. "No, not at all. Your mind was only protecting itself from things that you couldn't handle." She leaned in closer to me. "Have you ever heard of people losing parts of their memory when it comes to remembering a tramautic event?"

I nodded slowly even as the word "insane" ricocheted through my brain.

"Well, what happened to you is very similar. But instead of erasing some of your memory to help you deal with the tramau, your mind cut you off from any form of feeling whatsoever. Basically, your mind was protecting you from going insane. It probably went a little overboard, but...desperate times call for desperate measures."

"Why did I come back? And why now, after seven months?" I asked.

"That I can't really answer. It's one of the great mysteries of the human mind. But I can tell you that for whatever reason, your mind felt that you could handle coming back now."

I nodded as I digested what she had just told me. I wasn't crazy, that was the main thing. And If I wasn't crazy, then there was a chance that I could get better right?

"Do you have any other questions before I go get the doctor JC?" she asked, stunning me out of my reverie.

I looked at her and took a deep breath to try to ready myself for what I was about to ask. "Do you know how long I was there? In hell? In that place?" I asked almost timidly. I was afraid to hear the answer, but I needed desperately to know.

Lauren took my hand and I knew instintively that it would be bad.

"You were there for three months, JC," she said quietly.

Three months! Her answer hit me as if it had been a physical blow and my head rocked back into the pillow.

"Anything else?" she asked gently.

I closed my eyes as I tried to think of what other questions I had. I had only been awake for a few minutes and already my mind was reeling from all the information I had been given. Truth is I didn't think I could handle knowing anything else now.

"No. I don't know...yes, but..." I stammered incoherently.

"I know that this is a lot to take in all at once," she said as she smiled sympathetically. "Why don't you rest a moment and try to let it sink in? I really have to get the doctor now JC. Do you think you can stay here for a minute by yourself or do you want me to get the nurse to sit with you?"

"I think I want to be alone for a minute, please," I said quietly.

She nodded in assent. "I'll be back with Dr. Sandoval in a few minutes." She gave my hand one last squeeze and left the room.

As soon as she left I took a deep breath and tried to take mental inventory. I was alive and free from that hellhole and the sadistic bastard who ran it, and that was wonderful but...but now what? Where did I go from here? I had lost almost a year of my life to a madman for a reason that I never had the privilege of knowing. I had lost my family and my best friend.

They were murdered for the same insrutable reason that I had been tortured. My heart constricted painfully as I thought of the horrible pictures of my family and the way their lifeless faces stared out at me. The ones that still had their faces. I thought of Justin, my nineteen year old best friend who was stabbed to death because of my stupid selfish mistake and cringed. All my stupid, stupid fault.

Lauren had said that she and the team would get me on my feet, but right now I didn't see the point in doing so. I had no home to go, no family to feel safe with, no haven from these horrible thoughts.

I lay there and felt a huge sadness envelop me as I thought my maudlin thoughts. Before I knew it, the tears had started to fall down my face again and I was openly sobbing. Damn these tears! I was so sick of crying and so sick of hurting and so sick of everything. Dammit, dammit, dammit! Lauren leaves for a minute and I fall apart! God, I'm not ready for this!

I was so caught up in my grief and pain that I didn't even notice that Lauren had walked back in.

"JC are you alright?" she asked. I looked up at her through my tears and managed to nod. For once Lauren wasn't smiling, she looked worried.

"Ok...JC this is your doctor. Dr. Sandoval," she said as she indicated a middle-aged man that was standing next to her.

He moved towards me as he said, "Hi JC. I'm going to do an exam to make sure that everything's working properly now that you're awake. It won't take long."

"Ok," I replied shakily as I tried to stop the flow of tears.

The doctor reached down and checked my eyes, ears and listened to my heartrate. So far so good. He then placed a blood pressure cuff on my arm and began to pump it as the cuff tightened around me. That's when I freaked out and all hell broke loose. Suddenly it wasn't Dr. Sandoval taking a blood pressure reading from me; it was one of the goons holding me down to torture me. I bucked and twisted away from him as I shouted, "No, get away from me!"

I felt hands holding down my arms and I began screaming even louder. I yanked my arms away from the hands and began to swing into the air. I felt my hand connect with something solid as I punched and kicked as if my life depended on it. I became dimly aware of a lot of movement all around me and voices shouting as even more hands held me down. God, how many of them were there? I continued to shout the word no over and over again as they pinned me. How could this be happening? I thought I was free. I thought I was safe.

No please, not again!

As I continued to struggle I realized that I could not catch my breath. I was breathing quickly, way too quickly...hell, I was panting, but no air was getting into my lungs. My panic rose another notch as I gasped desperately for air that I could not get. I could hear bits of words in the air as my vision started to gray.

"Shit, he's hyperventilating!"

"I have to sedate him!"

"No, let me try..." I felt something being placed over my nose and mouth and I could feel cool air being pushed at me. I tried again to take a deep breath but couldn't.

"Lauren dammit, get out of the way!"

"No! No! JC!" I felt hands on either side of my face. "Look at me JC. It's me Lauren! Breath slowly for me JC. In and out...in and out."

Lauren? What are you doing here? How did you get in hell?

She wasn't answering my questions. She just kept repeating, "In and out...in and out" in that voice of hers.

In and out. I'm trying Lauren, I'm trying...

"Trust me JC. You have to trust someone. Trust me. That's right, look at me. That's right. Now keep breathing...in and out."

I looked at her and finally began to feel the waking nightmare that I had been trapped in lose its grip on me. My vision cleared and I was able to suck the much needed air into my lungs. Now that I could breath again, I took a furtive look around. I was not in the white room. I was here in my room at Westhaven. Lauren was on the bed straddling my body with a hand on either side of my face, Dr. Sandoval was next to my bed and rubbing his cheek as he grimaced in pain, and a nurse was on the other side of my bed holding a syringe in one hand. Everyone seemed to be frozen in time. It would have been a funny scene if I had seen it in a movie, but this was my life and instead it became tragic.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," I said through the oxygen mask that someone had strapped to my face.

At the sound of my voice everyone began to move. The nurse slowly put the syringe down. Lauren let go of me and got off the bed. Dr. Sandoval let his hand drop from his cheek and motioned for the nurse to go. She left the room without ever taking her eyes off me.

"Lauren, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry. I don't know what happened. I'm so sorry," I kept repeating. I was aware that I was babbling in my embarressment and distress but didn't try to stop it.

"It's alright JC," she said as she reassured me yet again. She was breathing heavily and her hair was in disarray.

"Do you think we can finish the exam later?" she asked the doctor.

"I think that would be wise," he replied.

I turned to Dr. Sandoval. "I'm so sorry doctor. I'm sorry."

"It's alright son. No real harm done. We'll finish this later." He patted me quickly on the arm and left in a hurry. I didn't blame him.

I turned to Lauren and before I could apologize again, she held up a hand. "It's ok JC. You just had a flashback and it's perfectly normal after what you've been through. In fact, one of the things I'm going to help you with once we're in full blown therapy is how to deal with them. So, don't apologize. You didn't do anything wrong."

Her words calmed me a little and I sighed tiredly. "This sucks Lauren."

"Yes, it does JC." she said as she laughed. She paused a moment and said, "You look tired, why don't you get some rest now? You've had a big day."

I nodded as I said, "Ok." I was very tired. Suddenly my body felt as if I had run a marathon and I could barely keep my eyes open.

"If you need anything, press the nurse call button, it's right here," she said as she indicated it. I nodded yes even as I was drifting off.

As she left I thought I heard her say, "I'm going to call your family and let them know that you're awake." My family? But there was no family. I figured I must have heard that wrong as I surrendered myself to what I hoped would be normal healing sleep.