Break

by Hannah Moskowitz

  “I’ll shove it down your fucking throat, Jesse.” I stand up. “Eat it. Now.”

  He doesn’t move, so I grab his scratchy jaw and force his mouth open. He coughs on me.

  “Eat now. Eat the apple.”

  He doesn’t move—doesn’t fight, and doesn’t lift the apple to his parted lips.

  “I’m not giving up, here, Jesse. Eat.”

  When he latches his teeth around the apple, I let him go and watch him bite. All the terrible things I’ve ever done to him come back to me. The time I convinced him to come leaf-jumping with me and he swelled up like a sprained ankle. The time he was choking from an egg reaction and I just stood there with his EpiPen reading the directions because I couldn’t remember how to give it to him. All the foods I’d given him that ended up making him sick. All the hives I’d ignored.

  He chews and swallows.

  “All right?” I say.

  “Yeah.”

  He looks at me with drizzly eyes that are somewhere between angry and grateful.

  I try to ignore it all. “Okay. Listen . . . take care of Mom and Dad. Don’t touch Will. Let the parents worry about him, okay?”

  Jesse swallows and takes another bite.

  “And don’t let them make you too crazy,” I add. “Remember that whole family thing, okay?”

  “You and your Confucianism.”

  “It’s important.”

  He says okay and I hug him.

  “Don’t think I’m leaving until you’ve finished that,” I say, and I don’t. He finishes.

  twenty-nine

  THE RANDELLY CARE HOME DOESN’T LOOK LIKE home at all. It’s just another name for a hospital building, and it’s brown and hides behind a grove of cherry trees, like this will help it go away.

  Dad carries my duffel bag. Mom hits the buzzer on the door and identifies us. We’re admitted with this awful grinding noise.

  Yeah. They’re both out of the house at the same time. They left Jesse with the baby, which is the worst idea ever right now.

  “The waiting room’s lovely,” Mom says, examining the curtain and the upholstery. The room’s been sprayed so heavily with lemon air freshener that I can taste it and feel it between my teeth.

  Dad and I slug up to the front desk. “This is Jonah McNab,” he says. “He’s here for evaluation.”

  I wonder who wrote that little speech for him.

  The girl behind the desk wears a volunteer polo and has matching barrettes in her hair. She couldn’t be older than eighteen. But still, you’ve got to wonder what kind of person wants to volunteer here. Probably a little nuts herself.

  She makes that study-me-like-she’s-not-studying-me thing.

  “Hi,” I say. “I’m Jonah.”

  Dad looks at me like I’m not supposed to speak. Like I’ve broken the law of the crazies.

  She doesn’t. She just smiles. “I’m Mackenzie. You’re going to be in room 215, Jonah. That’s second floor, all right? Elevator’s there, and the doctor should be in to speak with you and run you through inspection within the hour.”

  “Okay. Thank you.”

  I walk with Mom and Dad over to the elevators. When the doors swish open, a boy’s already in there. He’s barefoot and wearing pajamas. He looks normal, if a little high-strung.

  He nods at me when I walk on, then he eyes my parents. “New kid?” he says through the side of his mouth, like a spy.

  I nod.

  “Welcome to the clan.”

  Well. I’ve always liked clans.

  Mom and Dad look at each other, pissed-off-worried. Yeah, parents, I get it. They don’t want me associating with these kids, but . . . do they really expect me not to talk to anyone the whole time I’m here?

  “What room are you?” the boy asks.

  “215.”

  He nods. “I’m 212. Stop by sometime.”

  My room’s just off the elevator and to the left. The boy stops a few doors before me, hits it with his hip, and goes inside.

  Dad puts his hand on my back as he opens my door.

  The bed and desk are nailed to the floor, but there is threadbare carpet and a drippy radiator and a closet—it’s not a prison. The bedsprings squeak when I sit down.

  “No roommate,” Dad says. “That’ll be nice.”

  I shrug.

  Mom sits down beside me and holds my hand. “Do you want us to stay until the doctor comes?”

  “No. Please don’t. I want you to be home in case the baby wakes up.”

  “Jesse can get him.”

  Dad says, “Jesse should not be touching the baby, Cara.”

  Mom stares into my face like she’s expecting something more.

  “I kind of do want to be alone,” I say.

  Dad chews the inside of his lips, and Mom keeps watching me, her cheeks shaking in that about-to-cry face.

  It’s insensitive and awful of me, but I get so fucking pissed off when my Mom cries. It’s just never what I want to see. It doesn’t help.

  “I’ll be fine.” I hold my hair.

  Mom wipes a minuscule tear off her eye. “We’ll come visit every day.”

  I hug them good-bye. Dad holds me and puts his hand on the back of my head in this totally way-affectionate-not-Dad way. “You’re a good boy,” he says. “You’re going to be fine.”

  Once they’re gone, my stomach feels gross and empty. I take a handful of strawberries out of my backpack and eat them while I put my clothes away, but it doesn’t really help.

  I wonder if they’re going to confiscate my straw- berries.

  “Hey, new kid?”

  I bring my head out of the closet. The boy from the elevator and a chubby blond girl stand at my doorway.

  “Hey,” I say.

  He jerks his head to the side. “You want to hang out? We’re all in the lounge. I’m Tyler. This is Annie.”

  She waggles her fingers.

  “I’m Jonah,” I say, trailing down the hallway behind them.

  “Good,” Tyler calls over his shoulder. He takes one of my strawberries.

  We walk down the hall, away from the elevators, pass door after door. Most of the rooms look cold and empty; I guess October isn’t a popular month for crazy kids.

  “They let the boys and girls stay on the same floor?” I ask.

  Tyler says, “There’s only one floor. I guess they assume we’re too fucked up to get it on. Though the stains on my mattress suggest otherwise.” Strawberry juice drips down his chin.

  At the end of the hall there’s a wide room with two propped-open doors. Four kids sit around in armchairs, throwing playing cards onto the floor.

  “Hey,” Tyler says. “Look what I brought. New kid.”

  Most of them wear sweatpants and socks, and I know I overpacked. One of the girls pulls Tyler onto her lap and gives him a few cards. Annie sits on the floor, picks up the pile of cards in front of her, and hands them to me.

  I edge to the floor beside her. “Thank you.”

  She nods.

  They all look like regular kids who got squeezed out. Empty teenage tubes of toothpaste. It’s not that bad.

  “We’re letting Mariah win,” Tyler says. “Because she’s going home today.”

  “They’re not letting me win.” Mariah has lime green toenails and wears more makeup than the rest of the girls combined. She shifts Tyler over on her lap and hides her cards from him. “I’m just full of mad skills.”

  I make an awkward smile.

  “You better be spelling that with a z,” Tyler says.

  She wrinkles her nose. “Like . . . skillz?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Only you, babe.” She turns to me. “When’d you get here?”

  I look at my cards. Nine of clubs, four of spades, six of spades, queen of hearts. “Like, five minutes ago.”

  Tyler leans his head against Mariah’s. “His parents were so middle-American.”

  “Mariah was trying to stay here longer than me.” This slack-face guy with a bit
of a beard and a haunted voice throws two cards into the center pile. “But nobody can. I’m out.”

  Tyler says, “You’re hiding cards in your pocket.”

  He sighs and takes them out.

  “And stop complaining, Stephen.”

  He sorts his cards. “I’m just saying. It’s been three weeks.”

  “If you stopped sneaking in candles, they’d probably let you go home.”

  “I’m not burning,” he mumbles. “I just like candles.”

  “Yeah, but they see a burner with candles . . . and they think you’re burning.”

  I feel almost like laughing. He’s been here three weeks for burning himself. . . . I’ll probably be here for fucking months. I guess I’ll have to avoid sneaking in sledgehammers or skateboards.

  This skinny-skinny girl from the corner reaches out and takes all the cards from the middle. “We’re gonna miss you, Mariah.”

  “Shh.” The brunette next to the skinny girl captures her under her arm. It reminds me of me and my father at Jesse’s hockey game, and I look away.

  Tyler flicks through his hand. “Leah, I don’t know if you should have taken those cards.”

  Skinny girl says, “I needed them.”

  “That’s hardly letting me win, though.” Mariah taps her green fingernails over her lips. “Oops.”

  Annie drops some cards into the pile.

  Tyler says, “Wanna go, Jonah?”

  “I don’t know how to play.”

  He shakes his head. “Just play, man.”

  I flick the six of spades into the middle. I’m rewarded with a host of approving nods.

  Everyone plays. Tyler throws down the rest of his hand. “I lose.”

  On my turn, I take all the cards.

  Everyone applauds, and Tyler smiles. “Yeah, man, you’re gonna fit in just fine.”

  I’ll take this as a compliment.

  thirty

  “THOUGHTS OF SUICIDE IN THE PAST WEEK?”

  I shake my head. The doctor shoves his glasses up his beaked nose and pulls his chair closer to my bed. From my experience, I can conclude that all doctors wear glasses. This guy. Dr. Schneider. The ER docs. Even Jesse’s immunologist.

  I can’t picture Will’s pediatrician, but I assume he wears glasses too.

  “Taken any drugs?” he asks. “Alcohol?”

  “In the past week?”

  He glances up from his clipboard. His eyes look crossed from behind those enormous lenses. His cologne is the same stuff my math teacher wears, and I’m drowning in the sweaty pepper smell.

  I run the bed sheet between my fingers. “No. No drugs or alcohol.”

  One beer on Naomi’s car doesn’t count, right?

  “Have you hurt yourself in the past week?”

  I nod.

  “Are you in any pain right now?”

  “Uh-uh.” Just my head and my damn toes, but none of it feels real enough to mention.

  “All right, then . . .” He snaps a bracelet around my wrist. “We’re going to have you in for counseling once a day after lunch, all right? You’ll be expected to check in for meals three times a day. Most activities will be downstairs. One of your friends can show you the way.”

  Friends?

  “Your curfew is eleven—make sure you’re in your room. One of the volunteers will check your vitals before bed and when you wake up. There’ll be nurses around all day and all night if you need anything.”

  “Okay.”

  “There are activities during the day—arts and crafts, exercise time. You’ll have to report to those. And that’s really it.”

  “So . . . what do I do the rest of the time?”

  He fiddles with his sleeves. I think he’s more uncomfortable than I am. “Keeping a journal can help. You’ll have visits from your family. Maybe a close friend.”

  I imagine Charlotte here, but I know it’s just a dream. “I don’t have to be doing anything?”

  “No. This isn’t a jail, Jonah. You’re here for observation and diagnosis, not punishment. You can keep your cell phone, some comforts from home. You’re free most of the day to relax, talk to the other kids. We believe this time for self-reflection will be useful, and that it can motivate one another to get better. Our goal here is to lead you toward self-sufficiency, and that’s why our rules here are simple—take care of yourself, and support the other residents as they work toward their recovery. But you’ll have access to doctors or nurses all the time, if you need anything, and they’ll have access to you.”

  He shakes my hand and wishes me a speedy recovery, and I’m so fucking tired. I’m halfway under the blanket when a girl appears in my doorway. She pauses, her toe pointed in the beginnings of a step.

  “Sorry,” she says. “Do you want to be alone?”

  She’s dressed like someone from the real world, and I realize it’s Mackenzie, the volunteer from the front desk.

  I scoot into the open air. “No, come in.”

  She waves a blood-pressure cuff. “Just here for your vitals. They like to know what you’re at when you come in.”

  “Okay.”

  She wraps the cuff around my good arm and starts to pump it up. “How you feeling today?”

  “Okay.”

  “Homesick at all? Do you need anything?”

  “I’ll be all right. My family’s coming to see me tomorrow.”

  She nods. “Your parents looked nice.”

  “They are.” Nice isn’t the problem.

  “Siblings?”

  “Two little brothers.”

  “I’m an only child. Always wanted siblings. Are they a handful?”

  I smile. “Mine are.”

  She stops talking and deflates the cuff, counting seconds on her watch.

  “Eighty-two over fifty. You’re really not stressing, are you?”

  “I’m not the stress type.”

  She studies me, head tilted to the side. “How many broken bones do you have? If you don’t mind my asking . . .”

  “Eighteen, right now, if you count toes.”

  “Man. How’d that happen?”

  I wonder what it’d be like to explain this all to someone who’s never met Jesse.

  She keeps her eyes on me, but I just smile and say, “It’s kind of a long story.”

  She smiles back. “Well, maybe you’ll tell me someday. You’ve got arts and crafts at three thirty, okay? Downstairs, off the lobby to the left. Don’t be late.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  Mackenzie pauses at my door. “Let me know if you need anything.”

  I fall asleep on my bed and dream about Charlotte. She’s telling me something, but I can’t hear over the damn baby.

  thirty-one

  TYLER POUNDS HIS PILE OF PLAY-DOH INTO submission. “I hate arts and crafts,” he mumbles, shaking the table with his smacks. “Arts and crafts is bullshit.”

  Annie, next to me, doodles thousands of cottages with smoke uncurling from the chimneys.

  Leah’s wrist is about as big around as her paintbrush. “You’re just pissed Mariah’s gone.”

  “No, I’m not.” Tyler carves the Play-Doh with his fingernail. “I’m just pissed.”

  “You loved her.”

  The art room is wicked bright and smells like clay. A sink runs continuously by the window. The kiln sits open, a fake-me-out suicide oven. “I know you wouldn’t, and what’s cool is you couldn’t fit in there anyway,” Stephen mumbled to me when we came in, and it scares me how well he gets me.

  Tyler says, “I didn’t love her. I don’t like girls. I told you.”

  “Rrrright.”

  “I don’t.”

  Stephen comes over and observes our progress. “Very good,” he says, like he’s our teacher. “Now, Jonah, why aren’t you arting and crafting?”

  “I don’t know what to do.”

  He throws me a mound of clay.

  Our real teacher is a big woman with wiry hair who reads a romance novel in the corner. Every once in
a while she shouts out something inspirational. “You kids are doing great!” and “Keep it up.” “Feel the healing.” This place is such a joke.

  I wonder what healing really feels like.

  The walls are covered in dirty blue wallpaper that’s probably supposed to make me feel calm. It works.

  I start shaping the clay into a tree. “This is kind of hard one-handed.”

  “So what happened to you?” Stephen says. “Were you in some kind of accident?”

  I shake my head.

  “I bet he did it himself.” Tyler nudges Amy. “You did it yourself, didn’t you, Jonah?”

  The brunette, Belle, says, “You don’t have to sound so fucking enthusiastic.”

  “It’s hard-core. I’m appreciative of his hard-coreness.” Tyler raises his eyebrows at me. “So you did do it yourself, right?”

  Ah, what the hell. “Yeah.”

  “Intense.”

  “It wasn’t like that.”

  “Man, I know.” Tyler slaps my good shoulder. “It’s never like that.”

  “No, I mean, it’s not a suicide-type thing. It’s not even a self-injury thing. It’s not like that. I’m not depressed.” I stand up my tree trunk and start adding branches.

  “I’m manic-depressive,” Tyler says.

  Leah says, “It’s ‘bipolar,’ now, Ty.”

  “Fuck that. I like manic-depressive. Belle’s depressed, unlike you. Leah’s obviously anorexic.”

  She smiles at me.

  “Stephen’s a burner, and Annie doesn’t talk.”

  “I talk,” she whispers.

  Tyler looks at me, his voice gently urgent. “And you’re what, then?”

  “I’m . . . an obsessive self-improver.” I make leaves.

  “Looks more like self-destruction to me.”

  I shrug at Belle. “They’re similar.”

  Stephen smiles. “Yeah. Yeah, they are.”

  “You get hurt, you grow back stronger,” I say.

  “Yeah.” Stephen nods, his grin widening. “Yeah. Yeah, you do.”

  I feel all warm and soft inside despite the air conditioning and the lemon pledge. It’s this comfort of being understood.

  “You’re doing great, kids,” the teacher says, and we all turn back to our art projects. Even Tyler. A slow smile spreads across his face.

  thirty-two