Stolen

by Elizabeth Gilpin

  Listen to your mother, kid. Nothing good happens after midnight.

  On the Monday after the accident, I woke up with a headache—but this was nothing new. I’d had migraines my whole life that were usually so severe they’d keep me home from school. Added to that was the fact I’d slammed my head into a pane of glass and had spent the rest of the weekend sobbing, so it was hardly a surprise that I didn’t feel great.

  I was almost glad for the headache, though, because there was no way I could handle going to school. By then, most everyone had likely heard about my dramatic weekend and all the rumors that went along with it.

  “Mom?” I came out of my room crying.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I think I have a migraine.”

  “Did you take your pill?”

  “Yeah,” I lied. “But my head still really hurts.”

  “Maybe we should take you to the hospital.” Her voice was soft. “You could have a concussion.”

  She called my dad and took me to the hospital for an MRI. The scans came back clean, but my headache persisted. Truthfully, I might have played it up a little, but I was enjoying the extra attention. Back at home, my mom stayed by my side all day. She made me tea and sat with me on the couch, watching SVU.

  Growing up, my mother was always there for me in my worst moments. An outsider looking in would probably see no reason why I lashed out at her so much. She was around as an everyday presence, taking me to tournaments and dropping me off at school. She dedicated her whole life to her family. But there were four of us to take care of, and sometimes it felt like I just wasn’t seen or heard.

  It wasn’t surprising that she put her fear and anger aside to take care of me after my accident. I also knew that as soon as my dad was home and I was out of earshot, she’d be on his side, listening to him vent about my behavior and calming him down.

  She was the constant peacemaker in our household. Since my brother and I inherited our temperaments from my dad, there was often a lot of peacemaking to do. When my father was home he was usually so exhausted and on edge that any little provocation would set him off. If he yelled, my mom would take his side, reminding us how hard he worked. If my brother was in a bad mood, she was there to comfort him, even if he was taking anger out on me. Sometimes it felt like a competition; three people with fiery temperaments fighting for one woman’s attention. Add to that the baby sister who could do no wrong, and it’s not hard to see why I started building up resentment.

  I think I was seeking attention any way I could, and usually that meant being the loudest and most volatile person in the room. My anger was outsized and explosive, but it didn’t always work. Usually, I just ended up in complete turmoil, and when my anger lessened I felt depression in its place.

  Which was exactly what happened the week after the accident. When I woke up on Tuesday, I pretended my headache had gotten even worse. The thought of going back to school was still too unbearable. I felt tired and heavy. It was like a fog had crept in, some airborne misery that got in through my lungs and was spreading throughout my body.

  I stayed shut up in my room all day. I stared at the posters on my wall. All my heroes were there: Mia Hamm, Tara Lipinski, Brandi Chastain the moment she famously whipped off her shirt after winning the World Cup.

  Why hasn’t Nick called me? He doesn’t love me. Nobody does.

  I felt isolated and disconnected. From my family, my friends, even myself. And it only got worse as the week went on. Every morning began with tears and claims that my head still hurt. In reality, I had stopped feeling anything at all. I had a test for those times it got really bad, to see if I could even register pain. I don’t remember when I learned about the salt-and-ice-cube trick, the cold burn that comes from mixing salt and ice. I’d tap the salt out onto my arm and hold an ice cube over it until it melted. The pain should have been excruciating, but I hardly felt a thing.

  On Thursday night I overheard my parents fighting. I knew it was about me. They were in the driveway, trying to be quiet, but I could hear every word from my window.

  “Let her rest, Bill,” my mother said. “You’re too hard on her. That’s probably why her headache won’t go away.”

  “She doesn’t have a headache.”

  “She’s been sick all week. Her head’s pounding. She flew through a windshield, for crying out loud. Of course she does.”

  “I saw the scans,” my dad said. “Her head is fine.”

  “Stop it.”

  I ran my finger over my most recent cold burn.

  “She’s lying to us, Evelyn.” I heard the anger in his voice. “How am I the only one seeing that her behavior just keeps getting worse?”

  I pushed down on the wound as hard as I could. I felt nothing. No physical pain, no emotional pain. I was just empty. I wanted to be gone from my body altogether. I didn’t even hesitate as I picked up the bottle of migraine medication. Without counting the number of pills, I tilted it back and swallowed it down with a swig of orange juice. I had no idea what would happen to me, if I’d die or if I wouldn’t feel anything at all.

  Whatever happens is for the best.

  I wrote two letters. One was for my parents and the other was for Nick. To my parents, I confessed how sad I felt all the time. I knew they saw me as a disappointment and I was sorry for letting them down. But it wasn’t like I was trying to be a problem.

  I don’t know why I am the way I am, okay? Maybe I was just born fucked-up.

  To Nick, I simply asked why he didn’t love me. Was it him or was it me? Maybe I had been born unlovable too.

  I folded the letters in half. I wrote “Mom & Dad” on one and “Nick” on the other. Then I shut off the light and got into bed. The darkness made me shudder, yet I was completely calm about the pills in my stomach. For the second time in a week, I was about to go to sleep without knowing if I’d wake up in the morning. I whispered a prayer, more out of habit than any last attempt to save my immortal soul. It was a version of the same thing I said most nights.

  Dear God, please protect my family. Mom, Dad, Philip, and Emily. Grammy and Poppy and Granddaddy Ed. Please don’t let anything bad happen to them. I know I tell my parents I hate them, but I don’t mean it. When I say I wish they were dead it’s just because I’m angry. God, please help me find happiness and love. That is, if I wake up tomorrow. And please help those without food get food, those without homes find a home, and the people at war stay safe.

  I know there are people less fortunate than me. I’m sorry for saying things I know I shouldn’t say. Please forgive me.

  I realized as I prayed that my mother was probably downstairs doing the same thing. Her hands clasped together, eyes closed. While I was apologizing for my flaws and asking God to help the needy, she was praying for her children—especially for me. She was asking God to keep me safe. To keep me alive.

  Maybe it worked, or maybe I had used up another cat life. Either way, when morning came the sunlight woke me up just like it always did. I wasn’t dead or in the hospital, I was still in my perfect pink room, staring at my Mia Hamm poster. The pills didn’t seem to have done much damage at all.

  Ironically, my only problem was that I now had a pounding headache.

  Chapter 3

  THE DAY MY family moved back to South Carolina was the day I started talking about getting the hell out of South Carolina. I was about six years old, a California kid at heart feeling suffocated by the smallness of my new Southern town. I remember wanting to go to boarding school as soon as I learned that such a thing existed. My parents weren’t opposed to the idea. It was casually floated that I might go away for high school, but for whatever reason I remained at home for what turned into a pretty tumultuous freshman year.

  The topic of boarding school was reintroduced after the accident. I think my parents realized that keeping me at home had been a mistake. I was more eager than ever to leave all the fighting and gossip behind.

  Episcopal was a historic prep school i
n Alexandria, Virginia. It catered to the well-heeled, blue-blooded set: kids who played sports and excelled academically and went off to good colleges. It wasn’t New York or Los Angeles, like I wanted. But the DC suburb wasn’t South Carolina either.

  So when my mother picked me up one afternoon and told me I had an appointment with an “educational consultant,” I didn’t think twice. I figured it was the next step in the process of getting me into Episcopal. As the appointment progressed I began to suspect that something else was going on. Like usual, my anger got the best of me that afternoon. And that sealed my fate.

  A woman met us in the waiting room outside her office and introduced herself as Lynn Anne Moore. She wore khaki slacks, brown loafers, and a pale blue sweater set—the uniform of the Southern WASP. With her tight, judgmental smile and a bless your heart attitude, people like Lynn Anne were exactly the reason I was so eager to get out of South Carolina.

  Lynn Anne led me into her office. It was blandly tasteful, with watercolor paintings on the walls and a bouquet of yellow flowers in a blue ceramic vase. She sat behind her desk and gestured for me to take the armchair on the other side.

  “Good afternoon, Elizabeth.”

  “Hi.” I smiled, trying to make a good impression. “Nice to meet you.”

  I was expecting a conversation or an interview. I thought Lynn Anne was screening me for Episcopal or looking to match me with a similar school. She hardly asked more than a few cursory questions before she brought out the tests. One, three, five, a million. I lost count as Lynn Anne administered psychological tests for the rest of the entire afternoon.

  I tried to go with it at first. I knew something wasn’t right when she pulled out a stack of painted cards. Like everyone else in the universe, I knew an inkblot test when I saw one. While I wasn’t exactly an expert on the methods of Dr. Rorschach (or even the spelling), I was pretty sure Episcopal didn’t much care whether I saw a bat, a butterfly, or a pile of shit.

  “How much longer is this gonna take?”

  “Why?” Lynn Anne said. “Does it make you uncomfortable?”

  “Not really. I’m just kind of hungry.”

  And bored. Not to mention pretty sick of looking at your condescending face.

  “Let’s get through it then.”

  The next test was like a less abstract version of the Rorschach. Instead of amorphous blobs, the cards showed drawings of people in ambiguous situations. An anguished man standing next to an impassive priest. A child reading with his eyes closed. The back of a weeping figure, collapsed over a bed frame with her hand pressed to her forehead.

  “Maybe she has a migraine,” I said about that one.

  The next card depicted a half-naked woman and a disheveled man. The woman was lying in bed, lifeless or maybe dead, and the man was standing with his face turned away.

  “It looks like the man just did something to the woman,” I said.

  Lynn Anne nodded, waiting for me to say more.

  “Like he hurt her or…something.”

  She nodded and jotted down a note. I tried not to think about what she might be writing. We still had half the stack to get through, and I started giving increasingly stupid answers.

  “They’re stealing his wallet.”

  “That’s a woman asking her boyfriend if she looks fat.”

  “Whoa. This guy kinda looks like my friend Jason.”

  Lynn Anne didn’t seem amused, and I was getting punchy. She slid a thick questionnaire and a number 2 pencil across her desk.

  “Last part,” she said. “Take all the time you need.”

  For me, what’s right is whatever I can get away with.

  True.

  I think I’m superior to other people.

  False.

  When having a good time with my friends I can get pretty drunk.

  True.

  I’m very good at making up excuses to get myself out of trouble.

  True. What teenager isn’t?

  I enjoy thinking about sex.

  False. Mind your own fucking business.

  I think success is based on survival of the fittest and am not concerned about the losers.

  True. I’m an athlete. That’s the whole point.

  I do what I what, when I want, without worrying about the effect I have on others.

  True? I don’t know. It’s not like I want to hurt anyone.

  I don’t see anything wrong with using others to get what I want.

  False. What the fuck?

  If I hurt someone’s feelings, I feel a sense of remorse or guilt.

  True. Come on. I’m not a monster.

  My answers were a mix of vague honesty and I-don’t-give-a-fuck. I suppose I just didn’t think any of it mattered. It simply did not cross my mind that I was filling out a questionnaire to determine whether I was a psychopath. Or that every dumb or sarcastic answer I gave about an inkblot could—and would—be used against me.

  Fifteen-year-old me had no idea that Lynn Anne Moore had all the power in the world that day. It certainly never occurred to me that she could use her power to ruin my life.

  I was out of there the second I finished bubbling in my last true/false statement. I was hungry and mad that I’d wasted an afternoon. My mother was waiting for me in the lobby. She sat on the couch with her legs crossed politely, reading a magazine as though things were completely normal.

  “Hi,” she said. “How did it go?”

  “Pretty bad. Can we leave now?”

  I pushed through the doors without waiting for my mom. I stood by the car, getting more pissed off by the second. She was still smiling, but I could see a strain starting to form in the creases around her mouth.

  “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

  “Seriously, Mom? What’s wrong?” My fists balled up in anger. “Why do you make me do stupid shit like this? Do you hate me or just think I’m crazy?”

  “You’re my daughter,” she said. “I could never hate you.”

  “So you think I’m crazy, then. Good to know.”

  “You’re not crazy, Elizabeth.”

  “Then why did you make me take all those fucking tests?”

  She sighed. She had failed to calm me down, and I could tell she was bracing herself for an outburst. So I gave her one.

  “Will you just take me to Episcopal already?” My voice rose. “Or are you trying to send me to one of those military schools that Dad always threatens Philip with?”

  “Elizabeth. Calm down.”

  “Why?” I was yelling now. “Why am I even here? Those tests were for crazy people, Mom.”

  “Lower your voice.”

  “No!”

  “You’re making a scene,” she said.

  It was true. Lynn Anne Moore heard the noise and came marching toward us as quickly as her loafers would carry her.

  “Elizabeth Gilpin,” she said, scolding me, “don’t disrespect your mother.”

  “Mind your own business,” I said. “You don’t know anything about me or my family.”

  She gave my mom a pointed look, which only infuriated me further.

  “I fucking hate you both,” I said.

  Dark clouds were gathering inside my head. I didn’t hate my mom and I knew she didn’t hate me either. I just felt so misunderstood. In retrospect, I realize there was no way she could have understood me when I didn’t even know what was wrong myself. All I could feel was raw emotion, that lightning bolt of rage, and once it struck there was no room for any other feeling.

  I shoved past my mother to get inside the car. If I hurt her, I didn’t mean to. But going by the look on Lynn Anne’s face, I might as well have been a serial killer. Her expression, locked in my memory forever, makes me feel like that moment more than any other truly sealed my fate.

  What happened to me next was a perfect storm of bad choices, bad advice, and bad luck. Maybe my fate was sealed the moment I walked out of that meeting. Or maybe there was still a chance I could end up at Episcopal—if I made a
real effort to get along with my family and stayed on my best behavior. But I just couldn’t control my anger when it came to my parents. It was like I was allergic to my mom and dad.

  Had I known what this would cost me, I’m sure I would have found an emotional antihistamine. But how was I to know? I couldn’t avoid a place I didn’t even know existed.

  If my future was still undecided when I left the consultation, two incidents helped push it along. The first happened just a few weekends later. It was the spring formal and I was going with Steve, a friend’s older brother.

  Melanie came over the afternoon of the dance and we got ready together. I had a silk sweetheart-neck gown picked out for the occasion, long and navy blue. Melanie helped me tie my hair back into a sleek ponytail with two strands curled in the front to frame my face. My mom drove us to our friend Jenna’s house, where everyone was posing for photos in the backyard. Steve put his arm around me and I smiled. But I was ready for the photo part of the evening to be over and for the drinking part to begin.

  When the parents left we all piled into our rented limo and headed to a pre-dance dinner. We passed around water bottles filled with pilfered alcohol. The problem with this mode of underage drinking, stealthy as it might have been, was that it was impossible to keep track of how much we’d had to drink. We had pure vodka in the bottles and were mixing it with the glasses of orange juice we kept ordering at the restaurant. Which was a pretty suspicious beverage to pair with Italian food, especially as we were drinking glass after glass and signaling the waiter for more.

  Now, I wasn’t exactly a novice when it came to drinking. It wasn’t uncommon for me to throw up on a Saturday night, and I’d blacked out once or twice. But this time was different. I either drank too fast or much more than I realized because pretty quickly I felt way too drunk. While everyone else ordered dessert, I escaped to the bathroom and became acquainted with the porcelain.