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the front fall around her face.
    She grabbed her makeup bag from inside the dresser. Her mother would never let her hear the end of it if she saw her with a bare face. Very unladylike , she could almost hear her scold. Her hands went through the customary motions—sweeping powder all over her face, painting her lashes with sticky black mascara, pressing her lips together after she dabbed on the pale pink lip gloss.
    She stared at herself but felt nothing. Her eyelids were swollen from crying, and the powder couldn’t hide how flushed her cheeks still were. Her eyes looked like they had sunken deeper into their sockets. How could she have gotten that much thinner in such a short time? She wasn’t upset by how she looked, though. The numbness agreed with her. It was better to feel nothing than misery. She could definitely live with nothingness.
    After grabbing her book, she walked down to the dining room, found an empty table, and sat down. The attendants opened up the buffet almost immediately. She didn’t have an appetite but figured she should make an effort.
    She grabbed a plate and served herself a runny egg, a slice of toast—after all, it was almost impossible to mess up toast—and orange juice that she had to pour into a cup that was only a little bigger than a shot glass.
    There were only a few people scattered around the dining room, eating. Caleb wasn’t one of them. A flash of disappointment stabbed its way through the numbness. She didn’t know what to make of it and didn’t want to think about it. The confused feelings that came along with him weren’t something she could deal with right now.
    Just as she was willing herself to put him out of her mind, a shriek echoed off the walls. The source was a heavyset man who began banging violently on a nearby table over and over again. With each pounding, the fork and spoon that sat on the tray leaped a few inches into the air and landed with sharp ping s. They finally fell off the table and landed on the floor.
    “What are you tryin’ to do to me?” the man screamed. “They’re everywhere! Get ’em away!”
    Anna, like everyone else, watched him cautiously. He kept banging the table and yelling. The other two men who had been sitting with him ran away. One of them had moved to a corner and was shaking, using his hands first to cover his ears, then his eyes, then his ears again. In his nervous confusion, it was like he couldn’t decide if he wanted to block out the sight or the sound of what was happening.
    “No! No!” the man yelled even louder. Two of the bigger attendants, whom the patients called the Bouncers, moved in and approached him carefully.
    “What’s wrong, Bob?” one of them asked firmly. Bob was now desperately brushing his arms with his hands.
    “Ants! Ants are crawling out of the eggs! They’re all over me, up my arms!”
    “Take it easy. There aren’t any ants,” the other Bouncer said as he tried to make Bob stop touching himself. He moved around to Bob’s right; his buddy took the left side.
    “No, stop!” he yelled as they each took an arm. “I need to get ’em off! Stop!” He flopped violently around as the Bouncers tightened their grip on him. In the struggle, he kicked his chair and it landed on its side. Everyone else watched silently. It wasn’t easy, but the Bouncers dragged a screaming and struggling Bob out of the dining room. They all listened as the screams faded and then abruptly stopped.
    Anna didn’t know what happened to him. She was sure drugs and restraints were involved, but she stopped herself from dwelling on it. If she thought about it too much, she might end up having another uncontrollable fit of her own. Eating the rest of her toast was the last thing she wanted to do. She made her way to the common area, taking a seat in one of the reclining chairs. When she took up her book again, trying to find where she left off, she couldn’t keep it steady; it was quivering between her trembling hands.