“And that’s all it took. For the rest of the summer, I got up every day at seven a.m., sometimes even six, and helped my grandparents with farm work and the like. Some days, we’d go down to the creek behind their house and swim, or lay out. And you know, I learned so much that summer. I learned to cook, I learned to drive a tractor, I learned what the difference between a tomato plant and a squash plant is, I learned how to drive a stick shift truck, I learned how to milk a cow, but most importantly, do you know what I learned?"
She paused. Everyone was listening intently, including me.
“I learned who I was,” Julianne said, smiling slightly. “I thought I’d had some big identity those first eighteen years of my life, but that summer I realized that I hadn’t had a clue. For that one summer, I didn’t worry about showing off for a boy, for my friends, or even for my parents. I didn’t worry about movies or TV shows I was missing, or wild nights at clubs with my friends. I was so free that summer. Not only did I get to spend time with two of the most amazing people I’ve ever known, and learn from them, but I was also able to finally figure out what life is all about.”
“What is it all about?” Shakespeare asked. She looked at all of us for a moment before replying.
“It’s about the little things,” she told us. “All the little things in everything in this world that add up to make life so beautiful. A hug, a kiss, a minute’s chuckle with someone about something you really find funny. Watching fish swim through a stream, planting a seed in the ground and then watching it grow before your very eyes, knowing that you gave that gorgeous plant life. Getting a sunburn and letting your grandpa tell you what nasty, gunky stuff you can mix together to put on yourself to make it all better.”
She fell quiet then and let us all reflect on what she’d just said.
“My grandparents died a few months later,” Julianne began to speak again, in a much softer tone. “My grandmother had a heart attack, and then my grandfather just wasted away and died a month afterwards. I never got to say goodbye to them, but I’ll always be at peace in my mind because I got to spend that one last summer with them. And I know it was just as enlightening for them as it was for me.”
I heard a sniffle and looked over at Henry who had tears in his eyes.
“That’s the most wonderful thing I’ve ever heard,” he said, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. Julianne smiled.
“Thank you, Henry,” she replied. “But I know deep inside of you, you have a memory just as wonderful as mine.”
“Did that have any impact on you deciding to become a therapist?” Shakespeare asked her.
“Oh yes,” she replied, smiling even wider. “I knew that if the world was that beautiful and I’d been able to see it, then maybe I could help other people…people in darker places…to see it as well.”
I had to admit she was good. But I could still see through it. It had been a beautiful story, true, but it’d still rung trite in my mind.
“My brother died when I was eleven,” Max abruptly spoke. We all looked at him, surprised. “It was June 7th. At the funeral, my dad cried. None of us had ever seen him cry before. He never had much of any emotion, to tell the truth. But after we all saw him at his most vulnerable that day, he changed. He told my mom and me that he loved us more, he hugged us more, and he actually took off work sometimes just to spend time with us. I know it sounds morbid and sick, but that’s the greatest memory I have, of my brother’s funeral. I can still see the tears rolling down my dad’s face. It was perfect.”
“You are sick, Max,” Aurelia said, causing Max to slightly smile and the tension to ease in the room.
“What about you, Aurelia?” Julianne asked. “What’s your memory?”
The smirk on Aurelia’s lips disappeared and she didn’t reply right away.
“My dad used to read to me when I was little,” she said finally, and I noticed a strain in her dark eyes. “One summer, all he read was ’The Princess and the Pea.’ I loved it. He used to tell me I was just like the princess. That was beautiful. But as the years went by, I realized my father was a liar. I was never the princess, but instead the pea under the mattress.”
The tension was back and even thicker in the room.
“But, hey,” Aurelia added, with a dry laugh. “At least I’ll always have the memory, even if it was a bunch of bullshit.”
Everyone was silent, even Julianne. Suddenly, Aurelia stood up from her chair and left the room, letting the door slam loudly behind her. I was surprised when Julianne didn’t budge from her seat.
“Shouldn’t you go after her?” I asked. Julianne looked at me.
“She’ll be all right,” she replied, simply. “What about you, Ava? What’s your summer memory?”
I looked down at my hands.
“I don’t have one,” I mumbled. I expected her to be more forceful and pushy in making me dig for a memory, but she didn’t ask me again. Instead, Henry began telling us about his most wonderful summer memory, then Shakespeare, then Larry, and finally Channing. I barely listened to any of them. I fell into a dark, boring daydream about how my life couldn’t get any worse.
At two p.m., the group therapy session was finally over. I started to walk out of the room alone, when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around and saw Princess, standing there.
“Hey,” she said, in a kind voice.
“Hi,” I replied.
“You want to sit with me for lunch?” she asked.
“Sure,” I replied. We walked out of the group therapy room without saying a word until we got to the activities room.
“I hate the food here,” Princess commented, as we walked towards the food table. “I was raised on home grown, southern food. This stuff is gross.” I managed a small laugh and we scoped out our choices for the day. Vegetable stew and sandwiches. Gross. A part of me wished then that I hadn’t tried to kill myself three times, just to avoid eating this slop.
We got our food and sat down at a table. We didn’t exchange much conversation and I wasn’t exactly very comfortable, but that was nothing new. I hadn’t been comfortable in my own skin since Tyson had died. After we were done eating, Princess asked me if I wanted to go watch some TV with her for a while. I agreed and as we walked out of the activities room and over to the patient lobby, we still didn’t say a word.
“I’ll grab the remote,” Princess finally spoke up, and picked up the remote control for the TV from the table next to the sofa. I sat down on the sofa as she turned on the TV.
“I like TV,” she said to me, sitting down as well. “It makes time go by so quickly.”
I nodded.
“So is Princess your real name?” I asked her. She smiled.
“Yes,” she replied. “Is your real name Ava?”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” I said quickly.
“I know,” she giggled. “But I do get that question a lot.”
“I can imagine,” I said. “Does it symbolize something?”
“Sure,” she said with a shrug. “My parents thought I looked like a princess from the moment I was born. It’s not really complicated.”
“Oh,” was all I said. “How long have you been here?”
“Seven months, two weeks, and three days,” she answered, not looking at me, but instead concentrating on flipping through the channels on the TV.
“Oh,” I said again.
“Do you like The Simpsons?” She asked then. I smiled slightly.
“Yeah,” I said and for the next half-hour, we watched The Simpsons in silence.
After the episode was over, I told Princess I was going to go take a nap in my room. I walked past the nurse’s station and saw Josephine doing some paperwork and humming under her breath. She caught me peering at her and gave me a big smile.
“Hey, honey!” she greeted. “How you doin’ today?”
“Okay, I guess,” I replied. “It’s dreary weather today.”
“Mm hmm,” she agreed, glancing out the window. “
We’re s’posed to get this nasty rain for the next two days, too.”
“Oh,” I found myself saying for the hundredth time that day. Josephine just looked at me for a second.
“First days are always the hardest,” she told me, her voice becoming softer. She reached out of the window of the nurse’s station and patted my hand. “But I promise you’ll get through it, baby. And if ya need anything - I mean anything at all, you just let ol’ Josephine know.”
I actually smiled then.
“Thanks,” I mumbled and then walked away. There was a nurse sitting in a chair by the Ward 4 doors, reading a magazine. I politely asked her to let me through so I could go to my room.
Once in my room, I flopped down on the bed and let out a heavy sigh.
“I’m so bored!” I exclaimed aloud. Could this get any worse? Really? I looked at the alarm clock on my nightstand. It was only three-fifteen p.m. I still had over an hour until my one-on-one therapy with Julianne. I closed my eyes and tried to take a nap. But, as always, every time I closed my eyes, all I saw was Tyson, so I opened them again. I wanted to just die.
I got up from the bed and walked over to the lidless trunk across the room. I moved some of the clothes in the trunk aside and saw that it was bolted down. So I couldn’t flip it over on myself. Good thinking.
There was a knock on my door then. I walked over and opened the door. There stood Aurelia.
“What do you want?” I asked her. She smirked.
“What is your major malfunction, Ava?” She asked, with a dramatic wave of her hand. “I just want to be friends, you know?” I rolled my eyes.
“Sure you do,” I replied. “Go away. I want to take a nap.”
“No,” she said, pushing past me and walking into my room.
“Aurelia, you can’t just barge in here whenever you feel like it!” I told her. “Will you just leave me alone?”
“No,” she said again.
“Why?” I demanded.
“Because you’re too interesting,” she replied evenly. I shook my head and walked over to the bed, laying down on it again.
“Listen, I don’t know how you handled your first day here,” I said. “But I’m not exactly comfortable in my own skin right now. So I really wish you’d stop trying to poke and pry at me.”
She giggled then.
“See?” she sighed. “That’s what I wanted to hear. I’ll see you at dinner.” And just like that, she left the room. I sat up and stared at the closed door. What the hell had just happened?
Oh, wait, I was in a nuthouse. How could I have possibly forgotten? Behavior like this was probably the norm.
My eyes were closed for the next hour, but I didn’t sleep. When I did open my eyes to the world again and I was hit like a ton of bricks by a feeling of utter hopelessness. And I wasn’t even through the first day yet.
I glanced over at the clock. It was four-twenty p.m., so I sat up, blinked hard a couple of times, and then walked over to the bedroom door. I was in hell.
The walk from my room to Julianne’s office felt like it took forever, but when I finally got there, I was almost relieved to see her face. She was the only ally I had in this place.
“Hey, Ava,” Julianne said pleasantly, as I walked into her office, shutting the heavy oak door behind me. I walked over to the cushy loveseat facing her desk.
“Hey,” I replied, sitting down. She leaned forward in her chair, resting her elbows on the desk.
“What’s on your mind, Ava?” she asked me immediately.
“What’s not on my mind,” I replied, with a nonchalant shrug. A small smile slowly spread across her lips.
“That’s a good one,” she said. “Props to you, Ava. You’re clever.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that I’m nuts, though, right?” I asked her. She just shook her head.
“You’re a very smart woman, Ava,” she said to me. “You know that. Quit fishing for compliments.”
“I’m not fishing for compliments!” I defended myself.
“Then what are you doing?” Julianne pushed.
“I’m fucking bored!” I screeched at her, standing up. “And all these people are coming up to me, trying to be nice, but that doesn’t change the fact that they’re all still craaaaaaaaazy!! I don’t want to know them! I don’t want to talk to them or ‘hang out’ with them! I don’t want to be here-”
“Well, you should’ve thought about all that before you pulled such a selfish stunt,” Julianne cut me off, her tone firm but still calm. “If you thought this therapy session was for you to gripe and whine about how you don’t deserve to be here, then you’re in for a rude awakening. I’m here to help you get better, Ava. You’re in Craneville so that you can get better. Acting like a child is not getting you any closer to being released from this institution.”
I fell quiet then. She was right, of course. I was being an ass. But really, how was I supposed to react to all of this? Suddenly, unexpected tears formed in my eyes and I began to cry silently.
“What is it, Ava?” Julianne asked, in a gentle tone very much like my own mother’s. I sniffled.
“I know you’re sick of hearing this,” I said through my tears. I looked up at her. “But I really, really loved Tyson. A-and it’s really, really hard for me being without him.”
She nodded.
“I know it is,” she replied. “And I’m not sick of hearing it. This is what your therapy is all about. The source of your sickness is his death. I never want you to feel like you can’t talk about him, okay?”
I nodded and wiped my eyes with the back of my hand.
“Thanks, Julianne,” I sniffed.
For the next two hours, I talked about Tyson, mainly. But Julianne put a twist on the conversation when she asked me a series of questions regarding what Tyson would have thought about Craneville and the people I’d met so far. By the time six-thirty rolled around, I felt ten times better having been able to get my one-on-one time with Julianne-and, of course, some delicious chocolate milk.
I left Julianne’s office, feeling slightly more confident about being there, and bumped into Shakespeare on my way to the activities room for dinner.
“Hey, Ava,” he said, brightly. “Going in for dinner?”
“Yeah,” I replied and he opened the door for me. “Thanks.”
As we walked into the activities room and towards the food table together, I happened to catch a glimpse of Aurelia sitting at a table. She was staring at me with a sneer on her face, which surprised me. Sure, Aurelia was a pill to deal with, but had I made her angry? Maybe it was just the way the group therapy session had gone…
“How was your therapy with Julianne?” Shakespeare asked me then.
“Oh, it was fine,” I answered, my thoughts on Aurelia fading. Shakespeare laughed.
“I’m actually never supposed to ask you that,” he said. “But I figured you wouldn’t go crazy on me, so I took a chance on a conversation starter.” I smiled. We got our food - a slice of vegetarian pizza and an apple for me-and then went to find a table. We spotted Henry and went to sit down with him. I didn’t look over at Aurelia as I passed her.
“So what’d you think of your first group therapy session?” Henry asked me, with a grin. I shrugged, taking a bite of my pizza.
“It was a little more dramatic than I expected,” I replied. “But I guess the theme of the conversation was good.”
“Julianne is a great therapist,” Henry said. “The group therapy sessions are usually always interesting. She comes up with some pretty stellar topics.”
“So what do we do for the rest of the night?” I asked them. “After dinner, I mean.”
“Just whatever,” Shakespeare said. “Until lights out at eleven.” I sighed.
“Don’t you guys ever get bored in this place?” I asked. Henry and Shakespeare exchanged glances, followed by chuckles.
“Are you kidding me!” Henry exclaimed. “Of course! Who wouldn’t? In the movies, these places are made
out to be full of major drama and discourse, but most of the time, it’s like you said. Boring as all hell.”
“God!” I groaned. “So what do you do to make the time go by?”
“There’s not a whole lot to do, Ava,” Henry replied. “Games, hanging out with other patients, walks outside, or watching TV, if you can ever get the remote control away from Princess.”
“Don’t you have a journal or anything to write in to occupy a little bit of time?” Shakespeare asked me. I shook my head.
“My mom’s bringing me some of that kind of stuff on Wednesday,” I said. “Until then, I guess I’ll just go to bed early.”
“Ava, you can always come chill with us, you know,” Henry offered.
“Yeah, and that’s a big invitation, considering we’re the coolest kids here and all,” Shakespeare added, with a laugh. I smiled slightly.
“Thanks, guys.”
After dinner, Henry and Shakespeare asked me to come join them for some card games, but I told them I was just going to take some alone time in my room.
No sooner had I been in my room for ten minutes, there was a loud knock on my door. I was lying on my bed with my eyes closed.
“Come in,” I called out. I heard the door open and I opened one eye.
Aurelia.
I closed my eye again.
“You really are depressed, aren’t you,” she commented, and I heard her close the door.
“I’m just bored,” I informed her, not opening my eyes.
“Oh, is that all?” she scoffed. “Welcome to Craneville, my dear.” I opened my eyes then and sat up on my bed. She was sitting on the floor, across the room, with her back up against the wall.
Broken Glass Page 10
