Hands shaking, I take out two pieces of paper. One is the note Riley pressed into my hand at the concert. I unfold it slowly.
Charlotte—I do remember, and I did. I do. Take care of yourself.
He has signed his name.
Irwin David Baxter
—
I’m laughing and crying at the same time. The plane is tilted backward, my head forced against the seat. We’re seated far in the back and the sound is deafening; our part of the plane wobbles and bucks. Heads have turned in my direction. I don’t care.
I’m not sorrysorrysorrysorrysorry.
Shelley is looking at the note and back at my face. She folds the paper back up and presses it into one of my hands, takes the other in two of hers. She holds that hand very tight. Briefly, I feel Shelley suck in her breath, and then the light rub of her finger over my bare arm.
“I had a friend in high school who did this stuff,” she whispers. She lowers her head conspiratorially.
“Just breathe,” she whispers. “It’s only scary for a minute. Then we’ll be up in the air and everything will be fine. Once we’re up, we’re up, and there ain’t nothing we can do, you know? You gotta give in. The hardest part is getting there.”
I think of Louisa and her notebooks, her skin, all her stories, my skin, Blue, Ellis, all of us. I am layers upon layers of story and memory. Shelley is still whispering, her words soft in my ear. In my other hand is the other note, the one Mikey gave me at the concert, the one that says:
Eleanor Vanderhaar, 209 Ridge Creek Drive, Amethyst House, Sandpoint, Idaho.
Blue said we have to choose who we want to be, not let the situation choose us.
Momentous, Felix said.
I’m choosing my next momentous.
I close my eyes and begin the letter that I know I will write on my first night not in Paris, or London, or Iceland, but in New York, surrounded by lights and noise and life and the unknown.
Dear Ellis, I have something really fucking angelic to tell you.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
When Charlie Davis watches her roommate Louisa slip off her blouse, she is stunned: I’d just never seen a girl with skin like mine.
Years ago, I did not want to write this story.
Years ago, on the city bus, making notes for another story I was writing, I glanced up when I felt someone slide into the seat next to me. I planned to give her only the most perfunctory of glances and go back to my notes, but then my breath caught in my throat.
She had skin like mine. Feeling my eyes on her, she hastily slid down her sleeve, cloaking her thin, fresh red scars from view.
I can’t tell you how much I wanted to pull up my own sleeves and say, “I’m just like you! Look! You are not alone.”
But I didn’t. Frankly, I was unnerved by her. After years of wearing long shirts, hiding what I had done to myself, in the hopes that I could “have a life,” I found myself reeling back to when I was at the very depths of myself, more alone than I have ever been in my life.
Years ago, I didn’t want to write the story of my scars, or the story of being a girl with scars, because it is hard enough being a girl in the world, but try being a girl with scars on your skin in the world.
I let that girl get off the bus without saying a word. And I shouldn’t have. I should have let her know that even mired in the very depths of herself, she wasn’t alone.
Because she’s not.
It’s estimated that one in every two hundred girls between the ages of thirteen and nineteen self-harms. Over 70 percent of those are cutters. It’s important to remember, though, that these statistics only come from what’s reported, and they don’t account for the increasing percentage of boys who self-harm. It’s my guess that you know someone, right now, who self-harms.
Self-harming is the deliberate act of cutting, burning, poking, or otherwise marring your skin as a way to cope with emotional turmoil. It can be the result of many things, such as sexual, physical, verbal, or emotional abuse. Bullying. Helplessness. Sadness. Addiction.
Self-harm is not a grab for attention. It doesn’t mean you are suicidal. It means you are struggling to get out of a very dangerous mess in your mind and heart and this is your coping mechanism. It means that you occupy a small space in the very real and very large canyon of people who suffer from depression or mental illness.
You are not alone. Charlie Davis’s story is the story of over two million young women in the United States. And those young women will grow up, like I did, bearing the truth of our past on our bodies.
I wrote the story of Charlie Davis for the cutters and the burners and the kids on the street who have nowhere safe to sleep. I wrote the story of Charlie Davis for their mothers and fathers and for their friends.
Charlie Davis finds her voice, and her solace, in drawing. I find mine in writing. What’s your solace? Do you know? Find it and don’t stop doing it, ever. Find your people (because you need to talk), your tribe, your reason to be, and I swear to you, the other side will emerge, slowly but surely. It’s not always sunshine and roses over here, and sometimes the dark can get pretty dark, but it’s filled with people who understand, and just enough laughter to soften the edges and get you through to the next day. So: go.
Go be absolutely, positively, fucking angelic.
GETTING HELP
If you or someone you know self-harms, get help right now.
Crisis Text Line: crisistextline.org; Text 741-741
S.A.F.E. Alternatives: selfinjury.com; 1-800-DONTCUT
To Write Love On Her Arms: twloha.com
Mental Health America (MHA): mentalhealthamerica.net/self-injury
If you or someone you know suffers from depression, get help right now.
Teen Lifeline: teenlifeline.org; 1-800-248-8336 (TEEN)
National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI): nami.org
Teen Mental Health: teenmentalhealth.org
If you or someone you know is suicidal, get help right now.
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: suicidepreventionlifeline.org; 1-800-273-8255
If you or someone you know needs a safe place to sleep, get help right now.
National Child Abuse Hotline: 1-800-4-A-CHILD (1-800-422-4453)
National Runaway Switchboard: 1-800-RUNAWAY
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It took nine years and fourteen drafts for this book to reach you. It may be true that in the beginning, it’s just one writer, a pad of paper, a pencil or a pen (or a computer, or a tablet, or dictation into an iWhatever), but in the end, it took a whole lot of people to shape a story into the story you have just finished reading.
This book wouldn’t exist if Julie Stevenson hadn’t taken a chance on me (and Charlie). Thank you from all the corners of my heart for making my writerly dreams come true. And for understanding when my daughter stole my cell phone and hid it in her baby carriage.
Speaking of writerly dreams: how lucky am I to have the editorial wizardry of Krista Marino? You opened up Girl in Pieces in ways I didn’t think possible. Thank you for believing in Charlie, and for always pushing me that much further.
To the team at Random House Children’s Books—Beverly Horowitz, Monica Jean, Barbara Marcus, Stephanie O’Cain, Kim Lauber, Dominique Cimina, Felicia Frazier, Casey Ward, and Alison Impey (Alison—thank you for finding Jennifer Heuer, who dreamed up the gorgeous, heartbreaking, and kick-ass cover!)—thank you for welcoming me to the fold and for your tireless support and enthusiasm.
Thanks to the Minnesota State Arts Board for helping artists and writers in the state of Minnesota achieve their dreams. Girl in Pieces was written with the help of several MSAB grants, over several years, in several different places: in a small office over the Trend Bar in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and in the libraries at Hamline University and the University of Minnesota.
Thanks also to the Creative Writing Program at the University of Minnesota for nurturing me as a writer during my time in the MFA Program, and as a desk-jockey as
coordinator of the program. I received constant warm encouragement from Julie Schumacher, Charles Baxter, Patricia Hampl, and M. J. Fitzgerald.
Drs. Justin Cetas and Alivia Cetas provided sound medical advice and funny late-night texts as I revised the book. Elizabeth Noll, Tom Haley, and Holly Vanderhaar cheered me on and listened to me ramble and cry. My workshop mates at the Taos Summer Writers’ Conference were kick-ass and funny, offering sage advice and spot-on critiques; thanks especially to workshop mastermind Summer Woods, who continued to encourage me long after our time in the desert was done.
Thanks also to Marshall Yarbrough, Diana Rempe, Caitlin Reid, Nick Seeberger, Diane Natrop, Isabelle Natrop, Kira Natrop, Mikayla Natrop, Swati Avasthi, Amanda Coplin, Lygia Day Penaflor, Laura Tisdel, Joy Biles, John Muñoz, and Chris Wagganer, and to all my fellow writers at the Sweet Sixteens, especially Jeff Giles and Janet McNally for talking me off a ledge.
And finally, thank you to Nikolai and Saskia, for drenching me every day in love; and to Chris, for twenty years of patience, laughter, and undone dishes.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Girl in Pieces is Kathleen Glasgow’s debut novel. She lives and writes in Tucson, Arizona. To learn out more about Kathleen and her writing, go to her website kathleenglasgowbooks.com and follow her on Twitter at @kathglasgow and on Instagram at @Kathglasgow.
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