- Back at the Blau home, Deborah's parents are trying to cope with her transfer to D ward. What does it mean?
- Jacob has a hard time dealing with the fact that something is really wrong with his little girl. He keeps thinking about the screaming and the bars on the windows of the mental hospital.
- Esther tries to comfort Jacob by putting a positive spin on things, as usual, but it doesn't work.
- The emotional strain on the entire family comes to a head at the dinner table one night, when Deborah's little sister Suzy exclaims "She has doctors and stuff! Why is everybody always crying over poor, poor Debby!" (10.3).
- Back at D ward, Carla smokes a cigarette, and Deborah plans to get her hands on paper and a pencil to do Carla's portrait. Deborah and Carla are able to devise a plan to steal the items and hide them in their room.
- Esther writes to the hospital and says she wants to at least meet with Dr. Fried, even if she can't visit Deborah or D ward.
- After Esther meets with Dr. Fried, she feels she's just being lied to about Deborah making progress.
- Esther's sadness becomes more intense on the train ride home, when she looks at the pictures in the magazines the hospital wouldn't let her leave for Deborah. The magazines are filled with images of young girls getting ready for prom and graduation. Yeah, those would have made Deborah feel really good about herself.
- Esther returns home to share the news of Deborah's "progress" with Jacob and put on that happy face she makes herself fake so often.
- Jacob announces that he's going to the hospital the next time Esther does.
- During another session with Dr. Fried, Deborah explains how she feels her very "essence" is poisonous and capable of destroying people she comes into contact with. She even thinks she destroyed her sister Suzy.
- During this intense session, Dr. Fried calls Deborah out on her pity parties. The doctor flat-out calls them "camouflage" that allows Deborah to avoid dealing with what really happened to her, like the way the doctors treated her during her tumor operation, or the way her parents set up unrealistic expectations of perfection for her.
- But the continued pity parties are also a kind of camouflage that prevents Deborah from taking responsibility for continuing to feel like a victim. Deborah glorifies her self-loathing and then doesn't have to do anything to change it.
- Deborah becomes uncomfortable with what Dr. Fried is making her face. The process makes Deborah feel physically cold. Dr. Fried informs her that it's August, and the cold is merely inside of her. This makes Deborah feel like her tumor is waking up and hurting.
- The Censor warns Deborah that she's sharing too many secrets, but Deborah persists and confesses to Dr. Fried that she remembers trying to kill her sister when she was five and Suzy was just a baby.
- Deborah says she tried to throw Suzy out the window.
- Dr. Fried asks if Deborah was punished for that attempted murder, but Deborah says her parents never mentioned it again and treated her as if it never happened.
- Deborah feels like a monster her parents treated like a person. She feels she has buried tremendous secrets.