was incredibly used to the whole psychiatry thing by the time January rolled around.

She was used to the prying and the regressing back in time and such.

Daisy had yet to use the box of tissues on Dr. Sen's desk, and she took that as a personal accomplishment. Daisy didn't want to cry in front of Dr. Sen, she knew that would fatally mortify her.

Some days Daisy talked about Mom, and that made her want to cry, but she never did.

Some days Daisy talked about Dad, and that made her want to cry, but she never did.

Today, Dr. Sen had decided that he wanted to deep dive into Daisy's time with the Walters. That didn't make Daisy want to cry, it just made her want to curl up in a ball and hide from the rest of the world.

"So it was ten months with the Walters?" Dr. Sen asked, wanting to confirm the information he thought he had been given earlier.

Daisy nodded slowly. It was ten horrific and agonizingly slow months, from last August just up until this past June. It hadn't even been a year since the girls had been away from the Walters, and each event was burned so clearly into Daisy's mind

Ironically, their foster placements prior to the Walters had never gone farther than six months. Of course their most abusive and traumatizing placement would turn out to be the longest.

"Could you tell me about that?"

Daisy winced, feeling a little uneasy. Her brain was constantly plagued with thoughts of the Walters. But putting those thoughts into words? Daisy was positive that would send her into a breakdown.

"I don't really want to."

"That's okay." Dr. Sen nodded understandingly. He still wanted to get a little bit more information out of her, though. "What about just the basics? Do you remember their names?"

"It was, um...Violet and Chris." Daisy recalled softly, her eyebrows furrowing. Mr. Walter had demanded the girls only ever call him by his surname, it felt so foreign to speak his first name out loud.

"Violet." Dr. Sen echoed as he frowned, a tidbit of information pulling at the back of his brain. "Isn't that your sister's name?"

Daisy nodded slowly.

"Is there any connection there?" Dr. Sen questioned. "Between Mrs. Walter and your sister deciding to go by a different name?"

Daisy frowned at that, slowly nodding again. She didn't want her brain to take her back to everything, but of course she never had any choice over what her brain did to her.

Violet Walter was a cowardly woman. Even though she never hit the girls like Mr. Walter had, Daisy hated her just as equally as her husband.

The woman watched her husband torment the girls, and she never said a word.

Daisy would forever wonder why Mrs. Walter never stepped in to protect the girls, or why she didn't call their social worker.

It probably had something to do with not wanting to get her husband into any legal trouble. But Mrs. Walter seriously couldn't have asked her husband to stop it? She couldn't have at least tried to act like she was concerned?

She was the biggest coward, and nobody hated cowards more than Calypso.

Calypso's first ever big girl decision was deciding to go by her middle name instead of her first name.

She'd made tons of decisions before, of course. But as a six-year-old, those decisions primarily consisted of which ice cream flavor to choose or which color crayon to use for her drawings.

This was her first big girl decision.

It was a couple days after Octavia had taken them from the Walters. They were in a holding facility, both girls struggling with the adjustment of going from such a violent place to such a peaceful place. Calypso had spoken so certainly to Daisy that afternoon about the fact that she didn't like the name Violet anymore. She had such a serious talk with her big sister in a way that made Daisy feel like Calypso was growing up too quickly—despite only being six.

"It makes my tummy feel funny," Calypso used to say. "And it...it makes my brain sad. It feels scary when I hear the name. It makes me feel like we're back there, and...and I don't want to be back there."

Daisy completely understood Calypso's want to change her name, and she supported her sister, no matter how hard it was to go from Violet to Calypso.

The name change made Daisy reevaluate her own identity. Calypso seemed so confident with the name change, like any and all trauma from the Walters had been erased. Daisy ached for that kind of confidence.

Daisy was so sure that maybe if she went by her middle name too, it would be like the old Daisy would be gone. The old Daisy that Mr. Walter used to hit would be no more.

It seemed to work for Calypso, and Calypso's name fit her so well.

But Daisy's middle name was Noelle, and Noelle didn't fit Daisy at all. It wasn't a name she could pull off like Calypso could.

Maybe that's why Daisy's trauma never left her. The old Daisy never got to escape the Walter horror house, and it carried with her. The old Violet had left the majority of her bad memories in that bleak house, and Daisy was envious.

At least...Daisy decided to believe that her trauma never left her because she never changed her name like her sister had. It was a much easier truth to accept as opposed to the fact that maybe God was just playing favorites with Calypso, so Daisy had to carry enough trauma for the both of them. That wouldn't be a fair reality, and Daisy chose to believe it was the name thing.

"The Walters, did they hurt your sister too?" Dr. Sen spoke up, dissipating Daisy's thoughts as she snapped out of it a bit.

"No." Daisy shook her head, hesitating slightly as she rethought the question. "Er...yes. Kind of, but...not really."

Dr. Sen cocked an eyebrow, clearly confused by that comment. "What do you mean?"

"I don't know, she just..." Daisy sighed as she tried to find the words to explain everything. "She had to do something bad to get hit, you know? She used to have these accidents all the time in the middle of the night and that's usually when Mr. Walter would hit her. But...but with me, Mr. Walter never cared. He hated me, and he always just..."

Daisy winced at her thoughts, all the bad and intrusive things coming back.

"He took his anger out on you instead of her." Dr. Sen concluded, Daisy nodding slowly in agreement. "Does that ever make you resent Calypso?"

"Yes." Daisy was quick to speak almost immediately after Dr. Sen, the psychiatrist frowning at that. "That...makes me a bad person, doesn't it? The fact that I get angry with her sometimes even though she didn't do anything?"

"That doesn't make you a bad person." Dr. Sen shook his head. "What Mr. Walter did was out of Calypso's hands, yes. But it's normal to feel some sort of tension because of what he chose to do to you instead of her."

"She always talks about it like she went through what I did." Daisy spoke, her eyebrows furrowing. "She doesn't even understand what it feels like to get beat on every day."

"Well let's...not go that far." Dr. Sen spoke up, Daisy frowning at his words. "Just because she didn't experience the hitting to the extent that you did doesn't mean that she didn't experience it. When we go that far, it's invalidating the victim's trauma."

"But she didn't." Daisy countered, trying to defend her thoughts. "She got hit maybe once every...what, month? Mine was a daily hitting. I came home from school knowing what was waiting for me. She hardly ever got hit, she never had to go through that."

"Abuse is still abuse. No matter how often it occurs. Your sister did go through what you did, it's invalidating to her to say otherwise."

Daisy furrowed her eyebrows. "You're my psychiatrist, why are you on her side all of a sudden?"

"I'm on nobody's side, Daisy. I'm a neutral party to offer an unbiased opinion." Dr. Sen shrugged. "And...maybe to offer you a little more perspective."

Daisy's frown deepened at that. She hadn't meant to invalidate Calypso at all. She knew that they had both been through a lot.

But it just made her so frustrated. Why was it always Daisy that got hit? Why was that fair?

Dr. Sen looked at his wristwatch. "Our hour is almost up. Is there anything else you wanted to talk about before I let you go?"

There was so much that Daisy wanted to talk about.

She wanted to talk about how scared she was to go back to school tomorrow. Winter Break would be ending, and she would be forced back into the ruthless routine of waking up early and being isolated in a middle school of judgmental kids. She had liked her time home with Calypso and Mark, and she wasn't ready to go back.

Daisy also wanted to talk about that breakdown she had at the Christmas party last week. She wanted to dissect every bit of it with Dr. Sen and come up with a solution that would allow her to never feel that way again.

Daisy just wanted a cure. For the PTSD and the OCD, the constant anxiety and the depression. Daisy knew that Dr. Sen couldn't just magically wave a wand and fix everything, and she knew that her mental illness couldn't technically be "cured", but she wanted a cure so badly.

Rather than word-vomiting and letting loose all of the painful things that Daisy wished she had the courage to talk about, the girl merely shook her head. She decided to just let the thoughts linger inside of her rather than sharing them outside of her brain.

"I think we're done then." Dr. Sen nodded. "Thank you for coming in. Maybe you could talk to your sister about everything before our next session. Explore some of those feelings you're harboring."

Daisy nodded, but she knew she wouldn't dare express to Calypso how she was feeling. Calypso was like warm sunshine, and if she thought Daisy was upset with her, her warm sunshine would drain dry. Daisy would devastate Calypso, and Calypso would blame herself for the weird feelings that Daisy can't control. The weird feelings that should be aimed at Mr. Walter, but Mr. Walter isn't here to harbor feelings against.

Besides, Daisy's only job as Calypso's older sister was to protect the girl, not make her upset. Daisy wanted to do everything in her power to never make her little sister upset.

Daisy slowly stood up from the leather couch, walking out of Dr. Sen's office. Mark had told her to come find him once she was done, so Daisy was sort of on a mission as she walked.

He had said he wanted to talk about something, and that kind of made Daisy nervous. She wondered if she was in trouble.

Except Daisy hadn't done anything bad recently that was deserving of a stern talking to, so she was incredibly confused.

Daisy allowed herself to wander a little bit. She wasn't too worried about getting lost. With so many psychiatry sessions, Daisy had gotten used to the hospital and all its winding halls.

It was only a couple minutes until she spotted Mark at a nurses' station.

For someone who was so unpopular among the nurses, Daisy thought that Mark spent far too much time at the nurses' station talking.

The man spotted Daisy before she had even gotten within a ten foot radius of him. He quickly approached her, leading her across the hall into an examination room.

Mark shut the door, looking out the window and into the hallway very urgently as he did so. His body language gave Daisy the impression that something was wrong.

"Is...everything okay?"

Mark only nodded, reaching for the box of nitrile gloves. "There's a flu outbreak here, you need your flu shot."

Daisy frowned. She was pretty sure she was way behind, she should've gotten that a couple months ago. "Why?"

"What do you mean why? It'll help protect you. Us, actually, because if you get the flu, then Calypso gets the flu, then Mark gets the flu, and...Mark does not want the flu." Mark mumbled as he grabbed a new syringe from the sterile packaging he had retrieved.

Mark had built up quite the immune system from working at a hospital for so long, but he knew that influenza was no joke. He didn't care to be on the receiving end of the virus.

"No, I mean...why now? Aren't I way behind?" Daisy questioned. The Walters hadn't taken the girls to get their flu vaccine last year, Daisy knew the couple would care less if the girls keeled over and succumbed to the virus. But the years prior, Daisy always got her vaccine around October, right around her birthday. It was already the beginning of January.

"I know, it slipped my mind and...I thought I had more time." Mark sighed, filling the syringe with the liquid in the vial he had gotten from the fridge. "Flu season doesn't get too bad until February. But there's an influx right now, for some reason. Everyone and their mother's got it in this hospital."

Daisy understood a bit more why Mark was so eager to get out of the hallways and into a more secluded room, she understood why he had looked so nervous.

But the girl didn't even have time to react before Callie burst into the room.

Callie looked just as nervous as Mark had. Except Callie was fully dressed in hospital garb, a mask covering her nose and mouth and nitrile gloves on her hands, a long blue cloth gown overtop of her scrubs. For such a common virus, Daisy wondered why Callie and Mark were treating this like some sort of zombie outbreak.

"I hope you're wearing that because you just left the OR and not because of the flu going around." Mark frowned, not tearing his eyes away from the syringe as he finished filling it up with the liquid from the vial. "Because you look absolutely ridiculous."

"Uh-uh, you do not get to judge me." Callie snapped, looking panicked. "A little brat with the flu coughed in my face, I'm taking precautions to take away that access from other little brats. Arizona and I are scheduled for Cancun next week, and if I get the flu and miss Cancun I swear to God I'll dropkick somebody's child."

"It is a blessing that you're not a pediatrician." Mark mumbled, retrieving an alcohol wipe from the cabinet to prep Daisy's arm with as he made his way over to the girl. "Left or right?"

Daisy nodded to her left arm, Mark moving to the girl's left side. As much as Daisy would love a needle to her right arm that would prevent her from writing anything in school, she knew her teachers wouldn't care. They would just make her work through the soreness. It was better to get the shot in the arm that wasn't dominant.

"You're way behind on that." Callie commented as she watched Mark prep Daisy's shoulder with the small alcohol wipe.

"Better late than never." Mark shrugged, uncapping the needle. He looked ready to insert the needle before hesitating slightly, turning his attention to Daisy. "You don't have some weird phobia of needles I should know about, right? You're not gonna like...punch me in the face as soon as I start?"

"Punch you?" Daisy questioned

"Mhm. Some patients are punchers." Callie nodded solemnly, almost as if she were speaking from personal experience. "Punchers don't mess around when it comes to needles."

"I'm...I'm not a puncher." Daisy furrowed her eyebrows, still incredibly confused.

"Wonderful." Mark nodded. "Small pinch."

Daisy winced a little as she felt the needle inserted into her arm. Her pain tolerance was relatively high. Mr. Walter's beatings made every ounce of pain she ever experienced seem like a cake walk.

But the needle did still hurt a little, and she tried not to let it show on her face.

"What about Calypso?" Callie questioned. "Where's she at? Won't she need the flu vaccine too?"

"She already got hers." Daisy decided to speak up, letting the conversation take over her mind to distract her from the needle. "In October. Her school has some sort of open clinic they offer."

"And your school doesn't?"

"Are you kidding? That middle school is filled with all sorts of gross things, my classmates are pigs. I'm shocked I haven't caught swine flu yet." Daisy mumbled, earning herself a smile from Callie.

Or...at least Daisy thought that it was a smile. It was kind of hard to tell with the mask covering half of the woman's face.

"Done." Mark spoke as he had removed the needle, placing a small bandage over the injection site. "Good job."

"Don't I get a lollipop or something?" Daisy mused.

"You can have a high-five." Mark joked, holding his hand out.

Daisy ignored the man's gesture, standing up from where she had been sitting. She tried to stretch her arm out a little, not wanting the muscle to go stiff.

"Naomi's here to pick you up." Mark informed Daisy as he briefly looked down at the text message on his phone, pocketing the device as he swiftly got back to putting his materials away. "I'll get off work later tonight. Make sure you clean the litter box when you get home."

"The litter box?" Daisy frowned, wrinkling her nose at that.

Mark was very unhappy with Daisy's comment, that was evident in the way that he stopped in his tracks and frowned. "Uh-uh, don't do that. You all were so 'we'll feed the cat, we'll clean up after him, we'll take care of him'. This is your responsibility, I didn't want anything to do with that cat."

"I also didn't want anything to do with that cat." Daisy pointed out, feeling majorly confused when Mark raised his eyebrows. "What? That was all Calypso's fault. And...your fault too for letting her play you like that, she can't take care of a pet rock. I had nothing to do with the cat."

"Clean the litter box, Daisy." Mark spoke sternly, Daisy only grumbling.

She was annoyed that this was yet another thing placed on her. She hated cats, and now she was responsible for taking care of one? It was all Calypso's fault, and yet it was all on her.

Daisy walked out of the exam room, not even mumbling so much as a goodbye as she set off to find Naomi's car.

"So...you took him to the vet? He's gonna be okay?" Callie asked once Daisy had left.

"Sadly."

It's not that Mark wished that the cat wouldn't be okay, but that's sort of exactly what he wished for.

Mark had everything disposed of, ready to exit the examination room and get back to work when he noticed that Callie had taken a seat. "Are...you coming?"

"I'm gonna hide out in here for a little bit, just until I get paged." Callie spoke sheepishly. It was obvious that she was quite scared of the flu influx that was going around. "Daisy was upset, huh. Why do you think she hates you so much?"

Mark chose to ignore the question, getting fed up with his friend as he exited the room.

Daisy was also fed up as she walked, but she was fed up with Mark as opposed to Callie.

She'd never liked cats.

Daisy's psychiatry session today had already brought up so many negative feelings against Calypso, this whole cat situation wasn't making her feel any better.

It wasn't entirely Calypso's fault, but her little sister was making her...angry. Annoyed. Resentful.

Calypso was making Daisy resentful, and she didn't know how to stop those feelings.