by AnonYMous
4. I’m working on Step 2 right now with Amy: “Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.” Amy told me that Albert Einstein once said that “insanity” is “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” I realized that’s exactly what I’d done: continued to drink and do drugs and hang out with the people who did those things with me, even after I started getting into trouble.
I want to do things DIFFERENTLY now.
I finally feel like I have so much to look forward to. One of the guys in our group therapy told me that now I’m on a “pink cloud.” It’s this term in recovery that means I’m really happy and I think everything is going to be just perfect now.
I don’t think everything is going to be perfect now.
But I sure do feel better.
April 27
Mom and Dad and Cam were here for family night tonight. It was hard to face them, but the looks on their faces when I asked their forgiveness for the way I treated them for the past year—for the lies, and the craziness—well, that made everything worth it.
Tomorrow I get to go home with them. I’ll have been here for 28 days. It will be sad not seeing Amy as often, but she’ll be moving to college this fall, and she’s promised that we’ll talk every day on the phone as long as I check in with her the way you’re supposed to when you have a sponsor. We’re getting ready to start on Step 4, which is a big list of all the people and places and ideas that I’ve ever resented in my life. The step says to make “a fearless moral inventory.” It’s actually really scary, but Amy said not to be scared of it, just to do it. There are really specific instructions about how to write it out in the Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book. She sat down with me by the pool the other day and made a little chart in my notebook with 4 columns so that I have a guide of how to do it.
I can’t wait to get back home and share what I’ve learned with Lauren and Ross. I e-mailed both of them this week about going to meetings together when I get back home. I haven’t had a chance to check my e-mails yet, but I’m excited that I can share what I’ve learned in my time here with them.
When I got here, I wasn’t sure that I’d ever feel hopeful again. I felt like all of the good times of my life were over—behind me. I didn’t want to even think about the idea of NEVER being able to party again.
Now I feel like I have everything to look forward to if I just don’t drink or use a drug TODAY. If I can just remember that I only have to worry about TODAY, nothing seems so terrible or overwhelming.
April 28
I’M BACK HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOME!
You know, I never realized how BEAUTIFUL our house is, or how BIG my bedroom is. After living in an old motel in the desert for a month, I walked in and our place looks like a PALACE. I stood on the back balcony for a while and stared out at the ocean. Mom came up and stood behind me and wrapped her arms around me. Then she whispered into my ear how proud of me she was.
She said, You’re a different girl now. I can see it in your eyes.
I got goose bumps when she said it. I felt tears come into my eyes, and I squeezed her fingers in mine, and I said, Yes, Mom. I AM different.
Later …
Dad just gave me back my cell phone! He said he and Mom discussed it and they can’t believe the difference in me. I gave him a big hug and kissed him on the cheek.
I am going to yoga with Cam tonight for the first time in over a MONTH! I am so excited. I have to go grab my mat and get changed. Cam hates to be late.
Later …
Ross was at yoga! It was so good to see him!
When I walked into the room, he came running over and gave me a hug. We talked about what rehab was like for a little bit after class. I asked him how Lauren was, and he said she was okay, that they really missed me at school.
I told him Mom had sent my books to me and I had been doing as much schoolwork as I could at rehab but that I was still way behind, and I’d need his help to get caught up. He smiled his crooked little smile and said, I’m glad you’re okay.
I hugged him tight and said, I’m more than okay. I’m better than ever. See you Monday.
Teen Found Dead of Accidental Overdose, Coroner Rules
May 5th, ____________—The 16-year-old girl whose body was recovered from a _________ beach house by police late Friday evening died of an accidental overdose the _______________ County sheriff-coroner has declared.
The man whose father owned the house, Blake ___________, 20, and his friend Ian ___________, 21, were both retained for questioning in the matter. Two teenage friends of the victim, a boy and girl who were present at the scene but whose names have not been released, were also taken into juvenile custody.
Toxicology reports indicate that the young woman, the daughter of a local college professor and his wife, had taken lethal intravenous doses of crystal meth-amphetamine and heroin. Two journals found in the young woman’s bedroom have been turned over to detectives by her parents.
A spokesman for the district attorney’s office would not speculate on whether or not criminal charges would be filed in the case, but a full investigation is under way.
KELLY
My skin looks disgusting. Seriously, it’s practically green. I have big gray bags under my eyes, my hair is all thin and frizzy, and I’m erupting all over the place with giant greasy zits. I look like a cross between a zombie, a hair ball, and a pepperoni pizza. Have I always looked like this? Was I just too high to notice?
OLIVIA
Did I pack my AP Chemistry book? I can’t remember if I packed it. I am not ready for this. I am so not ready.
EVA
This place is a body. The walls are its bones or its skin, or both—an exoskeleton, like a crab has. A crab’s shell is meant to keep it safe, to protect it from the world; it is made to keep things out. But this shell is meant to keep us in, to protect the world from us. We are cancerous cells. Quarantined. An epidemic. We are rogue mutations that cannot make contact with the outside world. We’re left in here to bump around like science experiments. They watch us pee into cups. They study our movements. One doctor says, “Look, that one’s slowing down. There may be hope.” Another says, “No. They’re all doomed. Let’s just watch them burn themselves out.”
CHRISTOPHER
Everyone’s looking at me weird. They probably just had a secret meeting where they voted on how lame they think I am, and the verdict was “very lame.” Add that to the fact that they can all most likely read my mind, and basically I’m doomed.
JASON
Fuck you fuck you fuck you FUCK YOU.
EVA
And the halls are like tongues, fingers, toes, like so many appendages. Dislocated. And these rooms are the lungs—identical, swollen, polluted. This one is the stomach, churning its contents into something unrecognizable.
CHRISTOPHER
That’s it. They all got together and compared notes and have unanimously decided to look at me weird.
JASON
If I don’t get a cigarette soon, I’m going to fucking kill somebody. We can smoke in here, right? They said we could smoke in here.
KELLY
They took everything, including my astringent. Now how the hell am I supposed to clean my face? Do they really think I’m going to drink astringent?
EVA
All these rooms—body parts with mysterious names and functions.
OLIVIA
When was the last time they cleaned this place?
JASON
Fuck this place.
I don’t see her coming.
I am looking at my piece of pizza. I am watching pepperoni glisten. It is my third day at the new school and I am sitting at a table next to the bathrooms. I am eating lunch with the blond girls with the pink sweaters, the girls who talk incessantly about Harvard even though we’re only in seventh grade. They are the kind of girls who have always ignored me. But these girls are different than the ones on the island. They think I am one o
f them.
She grabs my shoulder from behind and I jump. I turn around. She says, “What’s your name?”
I tell her, “Cassie.”
She says, “Alex.”
She is wearing an army jacket, a short jean skirt, fishnet stockings, and combat boots. Her hair is shoulder length, frizzy and green. She’s tall and skinny, not skinny like a model but skinny like a boy. Her blue eyes are so pale they don’t look human and her eyelashes and eyebrows are so blond they’re almost white. She is not pretty, not even close to pretty. But there’s something about her that’s bigger than pretty, something bigger than smart girls going to Harvard.
It’s only my third day, but I knew the second I got here that this place was different. It is not like the island, not a place ruled by good girls. I saw Alex. I saw the ninth grade boys she hangs out with, their multicolored hair, their postures of indifference, their clothes that tell everybody they’re too cool to care. I heard her loud voice drowning everything out. I saw how other girls let her cut in front of them in line. I saw everyone else looking at her, looking at the boys with their lazy confidence, everyone looking and trying not to be seen.
I saw them at the best table in the cafeteria and I decided to change. It is not hard to change when you were never anything in the first place. It is not hard to put on a T-shirt of a band you overheard the cool kids talking about, to wear tight jeans with holes, to walk by their table and make sure they see you. All it takes is moving off an island to a suburb of Seattle where no one knows who you were before.
“You’re in seventh grade.” She says this as a statement.
“Yes,” I answer.
The pink-sweater girls are looking at me like they made a big mistake.
“Where are you from?” she says.
“Bainbridge Island.”
“I can tell,” she says. “Come with me.” She grabs my wrist and my plastic fork drops. “I have some people who want to meet you.”
I’m supposed to stand up now. I’m supposed to leave the pizza and the smart girls and go with the girl named Alex to the people who want to meet me. I cannot look back, not at the plate of greasy pizza and the girls who were almost my friends. Just follow Alex. Keep walking. One step. Two steps. I must focus on my face not turning red. Focus on breathing. Stand up straight. Remember, this is what you want.
The boys are getting bigger. I must pretend I don’t notice their stares. I cannot turn red. I cannot smile the way I do when I’m nervous, with my cheeks twitching, my lips curled all awkward and lopsided. I must ignore the burn where Alex holds my wrist too tight. I cannot wonder why she’s holding my wrist the way she does, why she doesn’t trust me to walk on my own, why she keeps looking back at me, why she won’t let me out of her sight. I cannot think of maybes. I cannot think of “What if I turned around right now? What if I went the other way?” There is no other way. There is only forward, with Alex, to the boys who want to meet me.
I am slowing down. I have stopped. I am looking at big sneakers on ninth grade boys. Legs attached. Other things. Chests, arms, faces. Eyes looking. Droopy, red, big-boy eyes. Smiles. Hands on my shoulders. Pushing, guiding, driving me.
“James, this is Cassie, the beautiful seventh grader,” Alex says. Hair shaved on the side, mohawk in the middle, face pretty and flawless. This one’s the cutest. This one’s the leader.
“Wes, this is Cassie, the beautiful seventh grader.” Pants baggy, legs spread, lounging with arms open, baby-fat face. Not a baby, dangerous. He smiles. They all smile.
Jackson, Anthony. I remember their names. They say, “Sit down.” I do what they say. Alex nods her approval.
I must not look up from my shoes. I must pretend I don’t feel James’s leg touching mine, his mouth so close to my ear. Don’t see Alex whispering to him. Don’t feel the stares. Don’t hear the laughing. Just remember what Mom says about my “almond eyes,” my “dancer’s body,” my “high cheekbones,” my “long neck,” my hair, my lips, my breasts, all of the things I have now that I didn’t have before.
“Cassie,” James says, and my name sounds like flowers in his mouth.
”Yes.” I look at his chiseled chin. I look at his teeth, perfect and white. I do not look at his eyes.
“Are you straight?” he says, and I compute in my head what this question might mean, and I say, “Yes, well, I think so,” because I think he wants to know if I like boys. I look at his eyes and know I have made a mistake. They are green and smiling and curious, wanting me to answer correctly. He says, “I mean, are you a good girl? Or do you do bad things?”
“What do you mean by bad things?” is what I want to say, but I don’t say anything. I just look at him, hoping he cannot read my mind, cannot smell my terror, will not now realize that I do not deserve this attention, that he’s made a mistake by looking at me in this not-cruel way.
“I mean, I noticed you the last couple of days. You seemed like a good girl. But today you look different.”
It is true. I am different from what I was yesterday and all the days before that.
“So, are you straight?” he says. “I mean, do you do drugs and stuff?”
“Yeah, um, I guess so.” I haven’t. I will. Yes. I will do anything he wants. I will sit here while everyone stares at me. I will sit here until the bell rings and it is time to go back to class and the girl named Alex says, “Give me your number,” and I do.
Even though no one else talks to me for the rest of the day, I hold on to “beautiful.” I hold on to lunch tomorrow at the best table in the cafeteria. Even though I ride the bus home alone and watch the marina and big houses go by, there are ninth grade boys somewhere who may be thinking about me.
Even though Mom’s asleep and Dad’s at work, even though there are still boxes piled everywhere from the move, even though Mom’s too sad to cook and I eat peanut butter for dinner, and Dad doesn’t come home until the house is dark, and the walls are too thin to keep out the yelling, even though I can hear my mom crying, there is a girl somewhere who has my number. There are ninth grade boys who will want it. There are ninth grade boys who may be thinking about me, making me exist somewhere other than here, making me something bigger than the flesh in the corner of this room. There is a picture of me in their heads, a picture of someone I don’t know yet. She is not the chubby girl with the braces and bad perm. She is not the girl hiding in the bathroom at recess. She is someone new, a blank slate they have named beautiful. That is what I am now: beautiful, with this new body and face and hair and clothes. Beautiful, with this erasing of history.
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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Jacket designed
by Jessica Handelman
Jacket photograph copyright © 2012 by Deborah Jaffe/Workbook Stock/Getty Images
The text of this book was set in Adobe Caslon Pro.
Library of Congress Control Number 2012930474
ISBN 978-1-4424-5187-2 (hc)
ISBN 978-1-4424-5185-8 (pbk)
ISBN 978-1-4424-5188-9 (eBook)
