With her hands on her hips, Ellie says, “Shower in the morning?”
“Yeah.”
I fall asleep with some pretty filthy scenarios running around in my head.
Victor
I COME OUT OF THE BATHROOM, AND BULL’S SIDE of the room is dark. I can hear him snoring. My jaw unclenches as relief runs through my veins. I lift the plastic lid off my dinner plate and touch the meatball. It’s like ice. I chug the chocolate milk and slurp the green cubes of Jell-O. The Jell-O feels soothing on my sore throat as it slides down. I push the rolling cart away and lay back on my bed.
The clock on the wall says it’s eight. I wonder what my parents are doing right now. What fancy French food sits in their stomachs? In my gut, the gelatinous cubes sit with the weight of lead, and I feel nauseous.
I run to the bathroom with my hand over my mouth.
Shamrock-green vomit paints the toilet. I slump back on my butt and knock my head against the wall behind me.
Over and over again.
Bull
I STRETCH AND LOOK OUT THE WINDOW. THE SUN is shining. I can’t believe I slept the whole night. Those pain meds kicked my ass. I go to move my leg and the pain is a fierce stab. “Shit!” I yell. I pant a few times to stop the stars in my eyes and throw my head back on my pillow. The room is quiet, and I strain to listen for a reaction from Victoria.
I hear the shower going. Toolbag’s in the bathroom again.
My curtain is pulled open and a new nurse says, “Good morning.” She points to her name tag and says, “Agnes.” If there is a polar opposite of Ellie, this woman is it. Old, really tall, and chubby.
Agnes the nurse says, all serious, “Ellie said you’d need help in the shower. Let’s get the process going, shall we? You’ve got group in an hour.”
“No, no, I’m good,” I say. My balls just shriveled up at the thought of me and Agnes alone in the bathroom together.
“Suit yourself.”
All of a sudden, behind her, Victor’s curtain whips closed and I hear him mutter, “It’s all yours.”
Agnes turns around and asks Victor through the curtain if he’s dressed yet. He says yes.
She pulls his curtain open, and there we are. All three of us. One suicidal loser, one linebacker nurse, and me.
Victor
THERE HE IS.
Neither of us says a word. I am trying to burn holes in his face with my eyes, and he looks like he wants to rip me into tiny pieces.
I break the stare and ask the gigantic nurse, “Where’s Ellie?”
“Home.” She points to her name tag. “Agnes,” she says flatly. Agnes claps once and deadpans, “Okay, boys. Victor, eat your breakfast. And William, you need your shower. Group’s in an hour.”
I sit down on my bed and lift the lid of my breakfast tray. Gray oatmeal. I’m not hungry.
“Where are my shoes?”
“Probably had laces in ’em, so we keep ’em. For your safety. Don’t sweat it, kid; every patient up here’s wearing the slippers.” Agnes gives me a strained smile. It seriously looks like she doesn’t know how to smile.
I don’t smile back.
She must sense my annoyance because she says, “Listen up, kid, everyone wears the same thing. Same sweats, same slippers.”
“I’d like to speak to my grandmother,” I tell Agnes.
“Not possible right now.” She puts her hands on her hips, and I swear all she needs is the helmet and pads and someone to yell, “Hut!” Agnes clears her throat and says, “When you’re in here, you need to focus on you, so you can get your thinking healthy again. We don’t allow contact with family until the fourth day. It’s our policy. So let’s all just relax and get ready for group. Shall we?”
“I’m fine now. I made a mistake. It was an . . . an . . . accident,” I stammer, trying to convince nurse Agnes that my suicide attempt was a silly mix-up.
She pulls my curtain closed and speaks in a very calm voice. “We both know it wasn’t an accident, Victor. No one accidentally swallows an entire bottle of his mother’s prescription sleeping pills. Two, three maybe. But twenty-five pills? You should know something, Victor: You’re here under an involuntary commitment, which means until decided otherwise by the doctor, you’ll be here, in this room, in these sweats, for treatment for a minimum of five days. Are we clear?”
I don’t want to cry in front of her. In fact, I’d rather shove the handle of my plastic spoon into my eye. But I can’t seem to control myself. I’m not blubbering, but there are definitely tears streaming down my face. I know if I open my mouth to talk, I’ll make some kind of crying sound. It’s bad enough Agnes is seeing me cry, but I would let someone chop my arm off and eat it before I let Bull Mastrick see or hear me cry.
I can’t do this. I can’t do this. I can’t do this. I can’t do this. . . .
It keeps rolling through my head. And rolling.
Bull
EVEN THOUGH AGNES TALKED LOW, I STILL OVERheard what he did. Twenty-five sleeping pills? And he thinks they’re letting him outta here? Yeah, right. He needs group.
I do my best to maneuver myself into a sitting position, which isn’t easy. My leg is still throbbing and really stiff. I have two really big bandages over where the bullet went in and then out. I hope I can get them wet.
My crutches are leaned up against the closet, which is next to the window. Since Agnes is occupied, I’m going to have to hop once or twice to get my hands on them. It takes me, like, five minutes just to swivel my feet out of bed and onto the floor. I grit my teeth as jagged slices of pain shoot through my leg with each move.
Both feet are on the floor when I hear Agnes leave.
Using my good leg, I hop once, twice, pull one crutch under each arm, and begin my short trek to the bathroom. I hope there are towels in there, because it would suck not to have a towel. Victor’s curtain is closed, but I wouldn’t ask him about the towel situation anyway.
I’m good on these babies. I make it to the bathroom pretty fast and nod a few times when I see the towel, soap, shampoo, toothpaste . . . the works. It feels so good to take a hot shower. A really hot shower. The hot water in my apartment always ran out, especially if the people below us got up first, which they seemingly always did, probably just to tick us off. I think I’ve taken maybe three really hot showers in my life. And even with one leg hanging out, this hot shower is the best hot shower I’ve ever taken. No Pop pounding on the door. No mold on the walls. Even though the holes in my leg are starting to burn, it is still a perfect shower.
I don’t want the shower to end. I know it has to because group starts soon, and I still have to eat breakfast. I figure I’ve been in here, like, a half hour. I turn off the water and reach for my towel.
I should’ve gotten Agnes’s help. When I go to maneuver myself and bring my bad leg into the shower stall, my good leg gives out and I’m falling, like in cartoon slow motion. I know this landing is going to hurt like shit.
It does.
Victor
I HEAR BULL YELL THE F-WORD AND THEN A BUNCH of other angry words. I’m pretty sure he’s fallen. Good. He deserves it. Let him lie there naked on the floor. I hope he can’t reach the nurse’s emergency pull-string, either.
I rub my face. I still remember how much it hurt when he dug my face into those rocks.
He can rot in there for all I care.
There’s more cursing and then, “Aww man, I’m bleeding.” He yells out to me, “YO! Get the nurse, asshole. I fell.”
I walk right up to the door and say to him, “Get the nurse yourself, asshole. I’m going to group.”
And I walk out. I leave Bull Mastrick bleeding on the bathroom floor. I don’t tell nurse Agnes, either, on purpose.
I’m pretty sure I’ve just guaranteed my own death, which is fine by me, because I don’t want to live anymore anyway. And he’d spend some time in jail for killing me.
That would make me happy.
Bull
I SCREAM FOR AGNES, FOR ANY
ONE, AT THE TOP OF my lungs, but I don’t scream for long. I guess nurses are trained to listen for idiots falling in the shower. I am facedown and ass-up when the bathroom door opens. I’m sprawled right across the floor. So, yeah, Agnes ends up seeing me naked anyway. I don’t really care because of all the blood; I swear, it looks like Freddy or Jason left me for dead. When Agnes gets me back up to standing, she tells me the stitches popped open on the back of my thigh.
She hands me my crutches, and as I try to steady myself, my left arm buckles. “I think I broke my wrist.” Great, I’ll need someone to wipe my ass, too. Great.
“Sit down on the toilet.” And she gingerly helps me sit down, which is not easy because I have to avoid sitting on my bullet wound. “Let me get some more help in here.”
Double great. More chicks get to see me naked. Fan-freakin’-tastic.
Agnes comes back with some little gray-haired lady who looks like she could barely lift an infant with ease.
“William, this is Nurse Joan. We’re going to get on either side of you and get you back into bed. Any help you can give us would be great.”
“Don’t look,” was all I could say to either of them.
Joan smiles and says, “Relax, son, I’ve seen every part of a man’s body far too many times than I’d like to count. They all look alike, trust me.”
This doesn’t make me feel any better. It makes me want to punch the wall. I am not supposed to be here, naked on a toilet in a psych ward bathroom, with two holes in my body and a busted wrist. I’m supposed to be at the beach finding my dad. This reality makes me hate my pop so completely that I swear my hate could be weighed and measured and shit.
Agnes, the bruiser, gets under one arm and Joan, the tiny old lady, gets under the other arm. I am glad we made an agreement for “not looking” as I’m half carried, half hopping naked across the room.
They get me covered up, and Joan says she’s going to call the doctor because I’m going to need to be restitched and I’ll need an X-ray of my wrist. So it’s just naked me and Agnes.
“See? You should’ve let me help you. Now you’re going to miss group.”
“Bummer.”
Victor
GROUP STARTS AND BULL DOESN’T SHOW. FOR SOME stupid reason I feel guilty. Why, I don’t know, but I do. I am, on the other hand, completely relieved that I don’t have to speak in front of him. I don’t plan on saying one word anyway, but I’m still happy he isn’t in the room.
It’s a pretty plain room, as rooms go. Baby blue carpeting, cream walls with nothing on them, and two windows with the blinds down. There are no lamps or sofas. Just one round coffee table in the center with plastic orange chairs surrounding it. My mother would call the room cold. She knows all about cold.
However, there are six other kids in the room, four girls and two guys. After I sit down there are two empty seats, one right next to me. As nonchalantly as I can, I check everyone out. We really are all dressed in the same sweatsuit and slippers.
Directly across from me is this beautiful girl with blond curly hair and humongous, captivating brown eyes. Before I can look away, she mouths, “Hi,” to me. And like in the movies, I look to my right and left to see if someone else is saying hi back to her. I look at her, and she’s smirking with her eyebrows raised. She mouths, “Hi,” again.
Just then the doctor or psychiatrist, or whatever she is, sits down next to me. I stare at her, you know, to see if she looks like she’ll be nice. She seems pretty standard. A little on the dorky side, even. Brown curly hair, glasses, no makeup, button-up sweater, long brown skirt, and sneakers. I’m guessing she’s in her forties.
“Okay, loverlies, let’s get this party started,” she says with enthusiasm.
No one else seems to find her use of “loverlies” or the fact that she called this circle of suicidal teenagers a party, odd.
“Victor’s joining us today. Welcome, Victor. I’m Lisa, and I’m the therapist running this group.”
I nod my head as my hello. I’m not saying anything. That seems to be fine with her and with the rest of the group.
Lisa starts right in. “Okay, Lacey, yesterday you were sharing about your mom, and how you feel invisible when she’s with her new boyfriend. How about you start us off this morning?”
The girl to my left pulls a rubber band off of her wrist and shakes back her long blond hair; she twists it into one of those sloppy ponytails all the popular girls at my school wear. Then she kicks her slippers off and pulls her bare feet up onto the chair, wrapping her arms around her legs, and takes a few really dramatic breaths. It’s like she’s warming up for a big performance or something.
“Yeah, it pretty much makes me sick, I swear. She acts like I don’t exist when he’s around. I could be shot between the eyes, and she wouldn’t notice. I mean, my mother doesn’t even really know this guy, and besides, he’s a fat slob. Sorry, Brian,” Lacey says.
She’s obviously apologizing to the fat guy across from me. He’s huge.
“S’okay.” Brian shrugs.
Therapist Lisa says, “Now, Brian, why do you think it’s okay for Lacey to use the words ‘fat slob’?”
He shifts in his chair. “Well, I really don’t care. She wasn’t calling me that, even though I’m sure every person in this circle thinks I am a fat slob. But she wasn’t talking about me. It wouldn’t matter anyway . . . been called it a freakin’ million times. Don’t care,” he says. And he shrugs again.
“I’m sorry, Brian. That was ice cold, ice cold . . . like iceberg cold. I make myself sick sometimes, I swear,” Lacey says. She scrunches her face in obvious embarrassment before she puts her head down onto her knees.
The circle is quiet for almost twenty seconds. Therapist Lisa lets the silence in. For not wanting to say a word, I’m finding this silence rather uncomfortable. I shift in my chair and the curly-haired girl catches my eye again. She yawns dramatically, and I give her a tiny smile. I don’t want any of these kids thinking I’m making light of their situations. That’s the last thing I need. Then Brian talks again.
“You all think I like weighing four hundred and seven pounds? ’Cause I don’t. You think I like my face? ’Cause I don’t. And I really don’t like that both of my parents are whales. So’s my sister. You should see us all get out of our van. People stare. Little kids point. I make myself sick too, Lacey.”
I study Brian and feel pretty sorry for him. He’s a heavy guy. As in, I’m kind of shocked they even had his size sweatsuit here. And even if he dropped two hundred pounds, he’d still have tiny eyes that are set way too close together, a big nose, and messed up teeth. I’m observing, not judging. I’d never want to make him feel bad about himself; I just don’t have it in me. Another observation? He’s clearly in a lot of pain right now.
Therapist Lisa weighs in. “Is that why you tried to end your life, Brian?”
“I wanted to die because I was sick of being stared at, and laughed at, called horrible names. Sick of no one in school ever seeing me. Me, not the weight—me. I was sick of my parents filling every cabinet, fridge shelf, and freezer—we have two freezers—with food. Tons and tons and tons of food. I couldn’t get away from it. I was sick of me and how I look. That’s why I wanted to end my life.”
“How do you feel now? Right now?” Lisa asks him.
“Hungry,” he says with a smile.
That gets a laugh from the circle. Even I smile. Brian’s whole face changes when he smiles. He looks genuinely happy when he smiles, and not so broken.
Lacey waves her hand; she has something to say. “I see you, Brian. Not the weight. I see you, I swear. Wanna know what I see?”
He nods.
She puts her feet back on the floor and leans forward a bit. “Well, I’ve only been in here with you for three days, but this place is sort of intense, so we probably get to know more about one another in one day than kids at school would get to know about us in, like, a hundred years, right?” She pulls up her sleeves and smiles. “The Brian
I see is funny. And I don’t mean funny-looking, I swear. I mean, you are seriously funny. You make us laugh every day. I see the Brian who really loves his mom and dad, but wants them to stop making it so hard for him to lose weight. I see the Brian who has really pretty green eyes that twinkle when he smiles. I see the Brian who is going to get out of here and tell his parents where to shove their bad food, and the Brian who’s going to live for, like, forever. I swear.”
Lisa tells Lacey that what she did was very brave, and thanks her for being so honest with Brian. Brian is openly crying and the kid on the other side of him hands him a box of tissues. That’s when I notice that there are boxes of tissues on the table in the middle of the circle. Like, five boxes. I swear.
Bull
THEY HAVE TO RESTITCH MY EXIT WOUND. THAT’S real fun. After my X-ray and the news that my stupid wrist is broken in two places, they try to put me back in the ER to wait for my cast. But I kinda throw a fit, like a two-year-old with a dirty diaper. I don’t want to go back there. It’s too loud. Too crazy.
The doctor throws her hands up and shakes her head. As she jogs away, she yells over her shoulder to the new dude wheeling my bed around, “Just take him back up. I’ll send Carl up there when I can.”
The new dude says to me, “I don’t blame you. This place is wild. There was a bad car accident, that’s why Dr. Pearse just gave in like that. She’s usually a lot feistier. You lucked out.”
On the elevator ride back up, I laugh out loud to myself. I actually want to go back to the psych ward, with the psychos. Funny.
Ellie’s there when the doors slide open, with her arms crossed. “Causing trouble, William?” She smiles.
Cracked Page 8
