by Emiko Jean
When the music has been playing for a while, when the room stays still and no one enters for a long time, I let my hand drift over and close my fingers around the iPod. Clutching it, I bring it up and hold it against my chest where it hurts the most. I look down at the screen and click backwards to see the playlist. It’s titled “Maya’s Comatose Mix, Music to Emotionally Break Down, Cry, and Be Depressed To.”
Another song starts and a tiny fissure, a hairline fracture, starts to form in my closed-off heart. Light begins to pour through a pinhole in the dark. Stupid Chase and his epically bad taste in music. A small, very small smile touches my lips. I turn up the volume and let Styx’s “Come Sail Away” drown out the shadows and take me into a merciful sleep.
I ignore the surprised looks as I walk down the hallway the following evening. I listened to Maya’s mix for hours, the songs playing while I drifted off to sleep and when I was eventually drawn from it. When I woke, my stomach grumbled, and for the first time in the last three days I was hungry for food, for company, for life. The clock on the wall indicated that it was free time. So I got up, stuffed Chase’s iPod and headphones into my hoodie pocket, and left my room.
A couple of techs line the walls a few feet away and eye me as if I’m a bomb under a car or the pedophile next door. I run my hand through my hair and pull up my hood.
I get to the community room. Patients are scattered all over; some of them rock back and forth, some pace, and some sit in pairs playing games or chatting with each other. I scan the room, searching for a black hat or a wave of pink hair. No Amelia. But I see Chase. He’s sitting on the couch that appears to be perpetually frowning, watching Back to the Future.
I go and stand in front of him so that I’m blocking his view of the television. I withdraw the iPod and headphones and throw them into his lap. “You have shitty taste in music.”
He catches them. A slow smile, part relief and part happiness, creeps across his face. He looks up at me. “There’s that dirty mouth again.” He pats the seat next to him. I sit down and pull my legs up to my chest. I play with the grommets on my shoes. I wish I had origami paper, but Dr. Goodman took all of my sheets. He said they were getting in the way of my progress, that I use them to deflect and shield myself from others.
There’s an explosion on the television, the crackle of electricity, and a man with white hair shouts, “Roads . . . Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.”
“This movie sucks,” I say.
“Well, aren’t you just all sparkles and unicorns today.”
The word sparkles makes me think of the Fourth of July bonfire—brilliant colors, Roman’s burning house, and Jason’s sick happiness. I bow my head in my hands. Before I can stop it, I’m quietly weeping, big, soft, silent tears that leak through my fingers and run down my arms.
“Hey.” Chase turns to me. “Hey.” He pulls my hands from my face. “Your hair will grow back, and you know I dig the new look—I’ve always had a thing for pinup girls.”
Despite trying not to, I give him a watery smile. But he doesn’t understand. I’m not crying because of my hair, that’s the least of it, a piece of sand in the desert. “I think I’m falling apart,” I say, and the honesty of the admission startles me.
He shrugs like it’s nothing. “People come undone all the time, Alice. We’re all unraveling here. You’ve just done it in the most spectacular way. In fact, you could be our queen,” he jokes.
I smile, but it’s wan and distant. “Queen of the Undone?”
“It has a certain charm to it, don’t you think?”
My smile fails and the dark tide pulls me under again. “Nothing makes sense anymore. That night in the field, when we went to the D ward, I thought I saw Jason . . .” I trail off. I don’t tell him the rest, because it’s too embarrassing, too humiliating to say how Jason was a thief, a criminal, an arsonist. It’s even more embarrassing that despite all that, despite my new knowledge, I still miss him and love him. I’d do anything to have him back for just a day, an hour, a minute.
“Maybe it’s your grief you’re seeing,” Chase suggests.
I wipe my nose with the back of my hand. “Really?”
“Yeah, I think. Sometimes I think I see things. Like my sister—she’s dead, and I think I see her all the time, especially here.”
My mouth gapes. This is the most Chase has ever shared with me. His sister. Maya. Dead? “Your sister Maya?”
He shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “You remind me of her, you know. A little bird with a broken wing.”
I smile. “You know you’re kind of a sick bastard. You’re into me because you dig 1950s pinup girls and I remind you of your sister?”
He smiles back. “Don’t forget your dirty mouth and fascination with paper animals.”
“You’re such a fucking weirdo.”
“Takes one to know one.”
We go silent again and watch the movie.
“I don’t need you, you know.” I’m not sure why I say it, where the words even come from. They just kind of bubble up and float into the air. I imagine that Dr. Goodman would say something like I have a pathological need to push others away, to not get close to anyone, hurt them before they can hurt me. Maybe he’s right. Maybe I am part jellyfish, and all I have is poison running through my veins.
Chase doesn’t look at me, doesn’t even deign to move his head in my direction. “That’s not true. I’m the wind beneath your wings,” he says jokingly. Then he grows serious. “Besides, even if you didn’t need me . . . maybe I need you.”
…
FROM THE JOURNAL OF ALICE MONROE
Thanks to Jason, Cellie’s new favorite pastime (aside from setting fires) was catching bugs. Sometimes she’d catch two different species, like a bee and a grasshopper, and then she’d shake the jar, agitating the bee so she could watch them fight. It was in these moments that I thought my emotional life might be less connected to Cellie’s and more connected to the bugs she tortured.
At night, when the house was quiet and Candy had fallen asleep on the couch, the three of us would sneak out onto the roof and stargaze.
“Ooh, I hear crickets!” Cellie said one time. She scrambled off the roof, using a dead maple tree as a ladder.
Jason chuckled at her exuberance. He lay next to me, his gaze pointed at the blackened sky. Light pollution from the city obstructed most of the stars, but we could see some, and Jason told me that the stars that burned the brightest were the strongest ones. They were like us, he said, light shining through all the bad shit that humans created. He leaned over me.
“I’m so glad I found you again,” he said. He touched my face, and I felt it all the way through me, to the ends of each strand of hair and the tips of each of my toes.
“Me too,” I murmured, allowing my fingers to explore his face as well, to lightly graze the scar from Roman over his right eyebrow. I kissed his cheek, and there was a sharp intake of breath from both of us.
“I won’t lose you again,” he said as he traced my eyebrow. He said it in such a way that I thought it might literally kill him if we were ever separated. I could hear Cellie in the backyard, her small movements as she stalked her prey through the grass. She couldn’t see us, because we were on the other side of the roof. The shelter from her watchful eyes made me feel safe and wild.
Jason buried his head in my hair and kissed me right behind my ear. Every one of his movements was an electric current running through me. He rose up so he was looking into my eyes. “You’re so pretty,” he whispered. His hand drifted down and splayed along my hip, brought our bodies so close that even the barest sliver of moonlight couldn’t penetrate the small space between us. My hands combed through his hair, and his hands swept under my thin T-shirt. A million tiny flames sprang to life inside me. Every sense became heightened, the smell of dying grass from the yard below, the sound of the wind through the cottonwood trees, the feel of his skin against mine. I ached for him. We kissed, meeting each other halfway. It w
as as if we were trying to bridge the gap in all that time between us, make up for everything we’d lost. And I knew we were both thinking the same thing. It was such a waste, our being apart. His lips broke from mine, quickly traveling to my jaw, my neck.
The maple by the roof shook, and it was like a seismic shift. We tore away from each other. Cellie’s voice quickly followed. “You should see how many I caught,” she said, hoisting herself from the tree to the roof.
Jason grinned and leaped to his feet. He took her hand and helped her up the rest of the way. I rose up on my elbows. Cellie caught our labored breathing, and suspicion darkened her eyes. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” Jason said, not missing a beat. “Show me what you caught.” Cellie waited a minute, her eyes still narrowed, and pointed at me. Jason picked up the jar and examined it under the moonlight. “Wow,” he said. He put the jar down and lit up a cigarette. “You caught a bunch.” He looked at her as if she had just lassoed the sun.
She bloomed under his attention, like a child with a piece of artwork on display. He asked what she was going to do with them, and she said she was going to wait until morning, leave them up on the roof, and then watch them fry as the sun rose.
We stayed up on the roof a little longer, until our eyes were heavy with sleep. The whole time Cellie sat between us, carefully watching. It was like she knew. She knew what I was feeling—that a beam of happiness as soft and shiny as the moonlight had found its way in. She couldn’t wait to carve it out.
We climbed down from the roof and went to our rooms. When we were safely tucked in across from each other in our twin beds, Cellie spoke, her tone harsh and unforgiving. “You know he’s just playing with you, right?”
I didn’t know anything of the sort, but I didn’t say so. I just stared at her, watched her face as she cut me down and sliced me up.
“You can’t actually believe that he would want you or me. He feels sorry for us. But that’s all.”
She turned her back on me to face the wall. Anger and sadness ran through me, her words shredding my tiny ribbon of hope. Tears formed in the corners of my eyes and spilled over my cheeks. I sniffled.
Cellie sighed and got up from her bed. She touched my hair. “Don’t cry, Allie. You have me, isn’t that enough?” She climbed back into her bed, tossed and turned, and went to sleep.
It wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. And Cellie wouldn’t ever understand that because, to her, I was enough. Aside from setting fires and watching bugs squirm, I was the only thing she wanted. I tossed off my covers and crept barefoot out of the room. Before I knew it, I was back up on the roof. The jar was exactly where she’d left it. The crickets chirped noisily, almost frantic, like they knew all about their impending doom and wished to sing one more time. One last song.
I picked up the jar and walked until I was a couple feet away from the roof’s edge, where the browning, dying maple tree rested against the house. I unscrewed the lid of the jar and dumped the crickets out into the thicket of branches. Cellie will be furious, I thought.
Just as I was about to go back inside, a soft mewling stopped me. I searched it out. In the bushes up against the cracked yellow paint of the house was a small long-haired kitten. I scooped it up and peered into its dark eyes. It was mangled and flea-bitten, and it looked more criminal than cute. But it was mine. At the back of the house, across the lawn, there was a small rusted toolshed that nobody, except for Jason, ever used. I knew he’d never tell. Holding the kitten close, I made my way over the dry grass and into the shed. I deposited the kitten there, making sure there wasn’t anything it could get into. I wished I could stay longer, let the kitten curl into my side and drift off to sleep, but Cellie waited.
That night, I tried to dream of crickets and the soft purrs of kittens. But all I dreamed of was Cellie. Cellie and her terrible love.
CHAPTER
14
The Doctor’s Office
CHASE AND I WATCH THE MOVIE FOR A WHILE, SITTING IN COMFORTABLE SILENCE. Sometime during it, I’m not sure when, his hand finds mine. We’re sitting like this, with our fingers linked, when Donny comes to tell me it’s time for my one-on-one with Dr. Goodman. I follow behind him and watch his mullet sway as he walks. When we get to the door, Donny knocks for me and Dr. Goodman opens up right away. He smiles warmly and pushes his glasses up from the bridge of his nose. “Right on time.”
Like I had a choice. I shuffle into his office, hood still drawn tight around my face, my hands jammed into the pockets of my sweatshirt. On his desk I spy my stack of origami paper and a plastic ziplock bag containing my folded animals.
“Welcome back.” He gestures to our usual positions and I fold myself into the chair, wishing I had the paper between my hands. “How are you feeling, Alice?”
How am I feeling? That’s a complicated question. I’m not sure how to answer it. I pick through the emotions ranging from black sadness to grim hope. “Better,” I lie. I’m not worse. Just the same.
He crosses his legs and reaches for a yellow legal pad. “I’d like for us to talk about what happened, what brought you to the point where you decided to cut your hair.”
I shrug. “Just felt like a new look.”
He scrutinizes me. “It’s kind of an impetuous decision, don’t you think?”
I ignore the question. “Can I have a piece of origami paper?” I rub my hands together, anticipating the smooth surface and sharp creases.
“In time, Alice. Right now I want you to focus.”
I clench my fists.
“Let’s talk about what happened leading up to the event. You went to Jason’s funeral. How was it?”
“There wasn’t a funeral.” Only a gravedigger and a six-foot pile of dirt.
He writes something on the notepad. “Did anyone show up besides you and Sara?”
“No.” I peer out the window at the steel mesh and the gray fog. “Sara didn’t even come.”
“Sara didn’t go with you?” He sounds surprised.
“She parked by the gate. I asked her to stay in the car.”
He sighs and lays down the pen. “Do you want to know what I think? I think something happened that day, something significant. I think, perhaps, you recalled something you had repressed. How’s your memory, Alice?”
Dim and cloudy around the edges. “I don’t know.”
He leans forward. “Did something happen during the funeral, Alice?”
“I’m not sure.” I start to crumble, decay under his perpetually concerned face.
“I can help you, if you let me.”
I don’t think he can. I don’t think anyone can. Maybe I belong here. Maybe this really is my punishment. How could I love someone who was so bad? Doubt washes over me and fills my lungs. No, nobody can help me. I rub my eyes. “Can I go back to my room now? I’m tired.”
He leans back in his chair, coolly assessing me. “You’re free to go whenever you wish.”
I get up from the chair and wipe my palms on my scrubs. When I get to the door he stops me. “Alice.” I turn around. He holds two paper cups aloft. I go to him and take the cups from his hands. The nightly white pills make me sleepy. In the mornings when I wake after taking them I feel disoriented, queasy, and I have to remind myself of where I am, who I am. In one fluid motion I pop the pill in my mouth. Usually I tuck it in my upper lip, but this time I take the swallow of water and let it slide down my throat. And in the morning I won’t mind if I can’t remember. Because that’s the point. Tonight, I want to forget.
When I get back to my room, Amelia’s already asleep. She sleeps a lot now. When she’s not asleep, she’s distant. I’m scared to talk to her, afraid she’s angry at me about the razors. I climb into bed and stare out the window. The moon is full, its face glassy and bright. I wish I could howl at it.
“What do you think she’s in for?” Chase points to a chubby blond girl in the corner. It’s Monday. Four days since my freak-out. I’m still red-banded, forced to wear ratty
scrubs, and Amelia and I still haven’t spoken. We orbit each other, existing in the same space but never interacting. Chase hasn’t left my side.
An intern social worker is leading us in arts and crafts. We’re supposed to be making collages, but Chase and I are playing a game instead. We’re trying to guess why people have been committed to Savage Isle. So far we have one ax murderer, one phantom pooper, and someone who keeps jars of spit under his bed. Chase seems to have an odd fascination with bodily functions today.
I chew the inside of my cheek and try to form a hypothesis about the chubby blond girl. “I don’t know. She looks pretty normal.” I use my kid-friendly scissors to cut out the eyes of a model in a magazine. “But looks can be deceiving . . . I got it! I bet she’s a barfer.” I stick my finger down my throat to emphasize my point.
“No. You got it all wrong. You’re looking for the obvious. You’ve got to look below the surface. She’s got sexual deviant written all over her.”
“Sexual deviant?” I cock my head.
“Yeah, you know . . .” He waggles his brows at me suggestively.
I open my mouth for a comeback, but Chase’s huge roommate draws my attention. He sits at the next table over and quietly mutters at his collage. He raises his voice, slams his fist down, and says, “I hate fucking forks.” A tech comes over and places a hand on his shoulder to calm him. I watch for another minute and then go back to gluing the eyes into my collage.
“That’s fucked up.” Chase gestures at my collage. I look down at what I’ve created, a face of a woman with huge offset eyes. It looks like a schizophrenic Picasso painting, and that makes me laugh, on the inside of course.
I smile, sweet and buttery. “I made it for you.” I thrust the picture at Chase.
He chuckles and starts to say something, but we’re interrupted.
“Alice and Chase. How are my two favorite patients?” Dr. Goodman stands in front of us, his hands jammed into his pockets.
