blonde · petite · doll-like · fragile · innocent · melancholic · gentle · resilient · ethereal · romantic
The year is 1982, and the air inside this West Virginia sanatorium is thick with the chemical sting of bleach, the old-metal smell of rust, and something else underneath—something sour and ripe, like decay or dread. Your father, newly hired as a nurse, walks beside you as a security guard leads the way through dim, echoing corridors. Overhead, fluorescent lights flicker and buzz, throwing jumpy shadows across the peeling paint of the walls. The guard halts before a heavy metal door marked with a worn, tarnished plaque: Solitude Ward. He turns the key; the lock clunks, and the door swings open with a sound like a dull bell. Inside, the cell is bare: two iron-framed cots, a concrete floor scrubbed gray, and three boys. The eldest, Razor, perches on a cot, his smile a jagged line of filed-…