Week 2:

Kalia wanted to be a doctor. Not the kind of doctor that she met this week though; he was mean to her, the female sheriff, and her dad. She said she saw her stepmom and started crying when her stepmom called her Baby, like she was young. She doesn’t know who her real dad is but she asked her mom and her mom didn’t know (although I thought her mom died, based on what she said last week?) and she’ll see them on Friday (dad and stepmom). She doesn’t want to be here next week because the doctor’s physical was all that needed to happen and it didn’t work out. Also, she almost got bitten by a shark! After some Google sleuthing based on the words “grandmother,” “arm,” and “august 2022,” I found out that the event actually happened—a grandmother saved her grandson from being bitten but got bitten on the arm herself in Myrtle Beach, SC. Kalia watched it happen and I don’t know how that didn’t traumatize her forever. Her stepmom made the fin symbol but she thought it meant dive; her dad yelled “shark” and raced into the water. She wants to go to Dubai someday because of the water and the atmosphere. We also talked a lot about superpowers. We agreed that we would have the superpower of photographic memory for school. Even if we only had the power for 24 hours, we could just read every textbook we could during that time so we could remember forever. She wanted to be a doctor because her aunt had diabetes that somehow led to having a hole in her foot (is that the truth? Can that happen from diabetes?) and Kalia did the gauze and everything for her. She watched herself get stitches and was fine (fourth finger, right hand, I don’t know why). We also talked about if we could tell people were lying. She said having that superpower might end her back up here. She has instincts, she says, and she can tell usually, but it would be nice to know for sure and almost read minds. We decided it might be nice, but it’s also probably best not to know because it would really hurt sometimes. She will be really sad and mad if she has to spend her birthday in this place. I hope, for her sake, she’s gone. Just in case, I think I want to bring stuff for her if I can the next few times because I’ve realized how many choices I have. I can do anything, but she’s stuck here. She wants to help people; she’s sweet but also has a steel spine and I know that. She’s had some really traumatic things happen to her and yet she and I breathe the same air, for an hour a week. There were roaches in the place, apparently, some several inches long. We both don’t like bugs, except ladybugs.