Sparrows For Free

by Lila Felix

  When we arrive back at the house I don’t even bother to change my clothes. I dive in immediately to a stack of papers on the kitchen counter. There’s so much to file through that everything is starting to blur together. Most of it is old junk mail that just never got thrown away and miscellaneous papers that were shoved into random drawers around the house. When I reach the bottom of the stack I find a manila folder with Gracehaven Boarding School for Girls written on it. I open up the folder wondering when Gram and Gramps entertained the idea of sending me to boarding school. Whoa this place is expensive! I can only assume they would have used my college fund to pay for it. It’s not much, but probably enough to pay for a few years. I scan the application and see that it’s dated for three days ago and signed by Luke and Claire. My heart stops.

  “Ready for a break? Luke’s going to run out and pick up some food,” Claire says as she and Luke enter the kitchen. The visual of this application is rolling around in my head like a pinball and I haven’t had to time to process it at all.

  “Are you…sending me to boarding school?” I ask abruptly.

  “Oh…Layla…” Claire says in quiet shock. Obviously this is not how they planned on telling me. “We were going to talk with you about that tomorrow.” Claire is nervous, her voice faltering.

  “You don’t want me to live with you,” I stutter out. It’s not a question but an observation. I feel so stupid. I actually believed that they were riding in like knights on white horses to free me from the prison I’d been living in, but the reality is that they want to send me to another prison.

  “No, Layla. That’s not it at all,” Luke protests. He takes a step forward and it’s the most emotion I’ve seen from him since they arrived.

  “What is it? I’m too old? You’re too busy? You don’t want a kid around?” How could my gut be so wrong?

  “It’s not like that. We…” Luke stammers.

  “I’m not going to be any trouble. I promise. I just…I need to get out of here. I need…I need a real home.” I pause as I watch Luke and Claire look at each other, not knowing what to do now that I’ve interrupted their plan. “But…if that’s not what you want, I understand. I don’t want to be anywhere I’m not welcome anymore.”

  “It’s complicated, Layla. Claire and I…” Luke begins but Claire cuts him off.

  “We didn’t think you’d want to live with us,” Claire explains awkwardly.

  “Well…don’t I get a say?” I plead.

  “Of course you do,” Claire says softly. There’s a surprised smile on her face.

  “I’d…like to come with you…if that’s ok.” I squeak out the first declaration of my own desire in five years and beam with pride on the inside.

  Claire steps forward and takes me by the shoulders. “You are more than welcome to live with us. We want you, Layla.” Claire’s tone is soothing and evokes a feeling of belonging in me that I haven’t felt in a long time. Her words echo in my ears and I think I’m going to cry.

  “Ok. Thank you,” I say after a moment. I watch Luke and Claire smile at me and then at each other.

  “Good. No more talk about boarding school or living anywhere but with us. Ok?” Claire says brightly. I nod in reply and smile as best I can.

  We spend the next two days cleaning and packing up the house. Luke handles the items in the attic. I’ve never been up there, and won’t have a clue what I’m looking at, so I let him decide what should be kept. I figure it’s probably stuff he’ll recognize from his childhood and will know better. Luke and Claire take just a few things from the house and let me decide what to do with the rest. I determine that donating it to the church is the best thing. I’m keeping only a few things. Old photos, the blanket Gramps used to snuggle up in with me when I was little and both Gram and Gramps’ wedding rings. It doesn’t seem right for them to go to just anyone.

  And just like me, the rest of it is being set free from this place.

  An Excerpt of Breakable by Aimee Salter

  breakable

  Chapter One

  As the Psychiatrist enters the room, he offers a patronizing smile. I return it in kind.

  He sinks into a plump chair, looking just like a doctor should: greying hair, a well-trimmed beard, badger-stripes framing his lips, and wire-rimmed glasses he must have purchased in the last ten years – unlike the rest of his polyester ensemble.

  His office looks like a living room, complete with coffee table squatting between us.

  Too bad there’s only two doors here – one into the hospital, the other with a combination lock. Kind of kills the good-time vibe.

  “How are you, Stacy?” Doc’s voice is too loud for the muted tones of the room — all earthy browns and soft corners. Even the furniture whispers. The clock in the corner ticks quietly, tells me it’s only 9:34am.

  It’s already been a rough morning. But I can’t tell him that. Not yet. So I start to shrug, then freeze. My stitches are nothing but a memory now, but searing pain lights up along the hard, pink lines spiderwebbing across most of my upper body. I breathe and wait for the jagged bolts to fade. The other doctors in my life say I’m healing. Yet, underneath I am still many layers of mangled nerve endings and fractured flesh.

  Doc hears me catch my breath and his eyes snap to mine. The benign disinterest was an act. He is measuring me.

  “Pain?” he asks, softly this time.

  “Yes. But it’s not bad. I just moved wrong.”

  The pain crackles under my skin until I want to scream. I won’t tell him that. For him I will be untouched. Ready to face the world. Sane.

  I will get out of here today. I must. If I can get home in time, I can fix…everything.

  His lips press together under his perfectly trimmed mustache. After a second he smiles again.

  “I see you brought your bag.”

  The duffel bag my mother packed when she shoved me in this place sits on the floor under the combination lock. I don’t plan to touch it again until he’s opening that door for me.

  “Yes.”

  “So you’re confident about today?”

  “I’m confident that I’m not crazy.”

  Doctor’s smile twists up on one side. “You know we don’t use that word in here, Stacy.”

  There are a lot of words they don’t use in here. See you later, for example.

  I take a deep breath. Cold. Calm. Sane. “Sorry.”

  He meets my gaze, face blank. “I’m glad you’re sure of yourself. However, I do have concerns.”

  “Concerns?”

  He smiles in a way I’m sure is meant to be reassuring. But when he sits that way, with the over-bright anticipation behind his eyes, it kind of makes him look like a pedophile. Someone should mention that.

  “Stacy…you’ve changed therapists three times during your stay. Do you know what I think when I hear that?”

  I think the question is rhetorical, but he waits for me to answer. “Um… no?”

  His eyes lock on mine. “I think as soon as anyone gets close to the truth, you flee.”

  He hasn’t looked away. I can’t break the gaze without confirming his suspicions. But I’m suddenly certain I can’t talk without him hearing the lie, either. So I swallow and stare and wait.

  His calm is maddening.

  Then he starts talking again in the cool tone of a professional. “Your three-month assessment is coming and you’ve requested to leave our facility.” He plants his hands on his knees and eases to his feet, speaking as he turns to reach behind his chair. “As the Dean of this hospital, I have a responsibility to make sure it’s in your best interests to return to the rigors of daily life. I’ve read your file, spoken to your nurses, and been briefed by your therapists. Now I want to talk to you. About this.”

  He stands straight and – with a flourish – reveals a round mirror about the size of my head. The brass frame is hinged, allowing it to pivot.

  He watches me from the corner of his eye as he places the mirror on his side table. I
t’s positioned at enough of an angle that I can’t see myself in it – a kindness, or a challenge? Doc sinks back into his chair without taking his eyes off my face.

  The gauntlet is thrown.

  My eyes slip to that shining surface, glinting under the light of the lamp at his side.

  What if I look and she’s there? She wouldn’t understand why I’m ignoring her. She’ll freak out. She’s been through enough. We both have. And breaking her heart is breaking mine.

  “I have a hunch if we examine whatever it is you see in the mirror, we’ll find the truth about the rest, Stacy,” Doctor says.

  Preoccupied, I nod because he’s right.

  One of his eyebrows kicks up. “Well, then…?”

  “What? Now?” I tear my gaze off the mirror and back to his face.

  Doc tips his head. “Unless you have a better idea?”

  I guess I’d better find one.

  I bite my lip and look away to buy myself some time. I’d expected this session to be like all the others – glib exploration of my past, patronizing questions about my psyche, along with self-congratulatory compliments when I “make a breakthrough”. I was prepared to do whatever it took – would have agreed to anything – to convince him to let me out of here.

  But we haven’t been here five minutes and he’s already got me scrambling. I shift in my chair, hissing through my teeth when the scars on the back of my shoulder catch. For a moment I just breathe and force my body to relax. Let the needles of fire ease.

  When I’m ready to talk again, he hasn’t moved. He’s still waiting. If I don’t come up with something, this will be over before my second cup of coffee. But his eyes are on me like spotlights in the dark. What was I thinking, agreeing to talk to this guy?

  “You won’t understand,” I blurt, cursing the humming nerves that make my voice shake.

  “Try me.”

  “No, I mean the mirror. It won’t make any sense unless… unless you have the whole picture.”

  His face remains impassive, but his eyes narrow just a hair. He’s onto me.

  “I know the story you’ve fed your previous therapists. If there’s more, I’m willing to put the mirror aside for a time–”

  I sigh with relief. But he raises a single finger.

  “–if you tell me everything. In fact, I don’t hesitate to say there’s only one route to getting my signature on your release forms, Stacy. That’s the unvarnished, comprehensive truth.”

  Our eyes lock again and this is the moment. The marble of his patience rolls along a slim edge, precariously balanced between examining me and sending me back through the door without a lock, to let me rot in that cell they call a bedroom.

  If I don’t give him something, I’ll lose. Right now.

  Swallowing again, I try to make myself pitiful. I drop my head into my hands. “Okay,” I breathe into my palms.

  “Okay, what?”

  “I’ll tell you the truth.” As much of it as I can. I’ll let him think he’s gotten through where others failed. Hell, I’ll even consider what he has to say if it means he’ll let me out today.

  “Excellent.”

  It takes a good minute of staring into the blurring shadows of my own palms to realize he’s waiting for me to start. I raise my head, frowning at him. “So…?”

  His eyebrows drift up again. “So, start. The truth.”

  “Which part?”

  “All of it.”

  I snort. I can’t help it. “Well, we could be here a while.”

  “That’s fine with me.”

  In my head I roll out a flippant, fairy-tale version of my life, just to irritate him. It might be fun. But he has to take me seriously. I can’t afford to actually piss him off. Or be here past two-thirty this afternoon.

  “Okay… How far into the sordid tale of my life do you want to skip? Where do you want to start?”

  “Nothing too dramatic. Start with the night you planned to give Mark the letter.”

  Nothing dramatic, he says. I feel the grin slide off my face. I’ve got one shot at this. And I’m planning on giving him more of the truth about my life than I’ve ever given any other single human being. Except one.

  I can’t help glancing at the mirror.

  He follows my gaze and, when he sees where I’m looking, opens his mouth. I launch into the story before he can speak.