clicking a pineapple sucker between her teeth.
She takes the soap bar when I’m done,
squeezes a lump of Colgate on my fingertip,
and watches so I don’t strangle myself with dental floss.
When she’s gone, I open my nightstand
looking for something to read,
but all I find are notes
scribbled inside the drawer.
I want to get out of here
F U Attaboys
Help
Then I lie down on my cold, stiff sheets,
and I kick myself for the millionth time.
You freaking idiot!
Why didn’t you just wait till you got home?
And I listen to Donya
grinding her teeth
and the sound of traffic
gunning across the bridge,
and I think about all the people
outside our shatterproof window,
coming and going,
laughing and living,
hoping and dreaming,
sharpening their
perfect little pencils
and never once thinking
about breaking the plastic
to take out the blade.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
I’m Having a Nightmare
A terrible dream where I’m running
down a dark country road
and lightning is slashing
across the purple sky.
Then I see this horse.
A gruesome, white, wild-eyed horse.
Rearing in a barren field.
Tearing its flesh on the barbed wire fence.
I bolt awake.
My heart pounding.
Fingers cold.
I look around for my alarm clock,
and the anime poster on my wall,
and the lava lamp I got for Christmas.
But they’re not there.
Then, slowly, the room comes into focus,
and I see Donya’s spiky hair,
and the rubber-soled socks on my feet,
and the wristband on my arm that says:
Patient #349817
And it feels like my heart stops
as I remember where I am.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
Wednesday 8:00 a.m.
It’s time for group therapy.
I don’t have to talk.
But Roger says it’s better if I do.
He asks me to go first
and I decide to get it over with
because pretty much everyone
is squirming in their seats
dying to know what juicy business
brought me to Attaboys.
So I tell them my whole story,
about the bathroom,
and the pencil sharpener,
and Tara-the-Two-Face.
I’m not embarrassed to talk about it,
because everybody’s cutting at my school.
Even Tara.
I say how the girls like to compare
their scars
and their slits
and their checkerboard ankles.
We teach each other things, too,
like how to hide pins in our mattress seams,
and steal blades from a dad’s double-edged razor,
and how to break bottles in terry cloth
so they won’t make a sound.
And we share our best lies,
the ones that will fool any mother—
cat scratches,
bike wipeouts,
shaving nicks.
It’s kind of like a club, I say.
Sisters of the Broken Glass.
Roger raises up his hand, stop-sign straight.
He talks about making positive choices
and all that other kumbaya crap,
but nobody’s listening.
Donya sticks out her tongue
and I see a silver stud pierced through the tip.
It makes me think about the time
I jammed a sewing needle
straight through my earlobe
without even numbing it.
Pop!
I remember the tickly, fizzy way that made me feel
like drinking root beer on a roller coaster.
And the memory makes something go
click,
click,
click
inside my head like a trigger.
I start to fixate on the paper clip stuck to Roger’s folder.
The one with all those shiny, sharp possibilities.
I imagine the clip uncurling, transforming,
becoming straight and strong and stiff,
just like an arrow.
A few beads of sweat form on my neck
near the vein that beats faster every time
something really good or really scary is about to happen.
I bet I can swipe that clip when Roger isn’t looking,
and I have to bite the inside of my cheek
so nobody sees how excited that idea makes me.
Then I remember what Donya said.
How they can keep me here
even longer than 72 hours
for something as lame as a paper cut.
So I sit on my hands
and try to get a song stuck in my head instead,
and send screaming telepathic messages to Roger
to put that freaking paper clip away
before the click, click, click
shoots a bullet in my brain.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
Have You Ever Tried to Quit?
Roger really wants to know.
He waits for me to answer,
then leans in and looks at me
with eyes so dark and doelike
they make me get all Bambi-ish inside
and for a split second I think about telling him.
But then something coils around me
like a boa constrictor
squeezing,
tightening,
crushing,
until I choke out the words to make it stop.
“I can quit anytime,” I say.
Then I slump back in my seat
and stare at my laceless shoes
and wait for the snake to slither
back into my head.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
A Girl Peeps Up from across the Room
“I’ve tried to quit,” she says.
I notice her scarred, bony arms,
her black, bulging eyes,
and the hollow sag of her cheeks.
She reminds me of the baby robin
that fell from its nest two springs ago.
The one I cupped in my hands and fed
with an eyedropper every time it cried:
Mashed potatoes. Egg yolk. Cod-liver oil.
I remember how the fluff disappeared
from the baby bird’s head and how
pinfeathers sprouted from its wings.
I’m surprised when Roger says the girl’s name.
Skylar.
Like the bright blue sky
on the day I released the robin.
I remember feeling all tangled up inside that day.
Happy to set the bird free. Sad to watch it go.
I think about how enormous that feeling was,
like a balloon blowing up inside my heart,
bigger and bigger, until all I wanted to
do was find
a way to let the feeling out before my heart popped.
I think about how I tried to follow the bird with my eyes.
To see where it landed in the tall cypress trees.
But then Avery sprayed me with the hose
and made me jump two feet, and she laughed
when I couldn’t find the bird anymore.
“Thank God that little crapper’s out of here,” she said.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
Skylar Flits Out of Her Seat
It’s all her mother’s fault. For heaping
so many unnecessary calories on her plate.
She jabs a finger at her SkinnyJeans.
“I’m huge,” she says.
“I had to stop eating.
What else could I do?”
Nobody answers.
I look at Roger, with his cheap, coupon haircut
and his brown Walmart shoes and I wonder
how someone like that could ever help any of us.
But then he does something unexpected.
Something almost promising.
He get one of those aha looks in his eye
and he hops out of his chair,
and for a split second, I feel a flutter of hope.
But then he stops behind Skylar’s seat.
Waiting.
Expectant.
Motioning with his hands
like we’re supposed to do something.
“Well come on, Group,” he says at last.
“What do you think Skylar should do?”
And that’s when I realize
I was right all along.
Roger doesn’t have the answers either.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
I Get Thirty Minutes of Free Time
But there’s no point in free time because
there’s nothing to do. I think of all the text
messages piling up on my cell phone.
Holy crap!
WTF?
R U there?
I wish I could answer them.
But, my phone is locked
in the secured room,
along with the blade I hide
in the battery compartment.
My stomach starts to knot.
What if Rennie called?
I know she’s my best friend and all.
But she gets pissed when I don’t answer.
I mean, really pissed.
Or what if there’s a text about Tara
spreading lies?
Or what if there’s a message from
Chase Grayson, the Soccer God,
and he says something
sweet and adorable like
uok?
and I’m stuck in this oatmeal pit,
cut off from civilization,
missing my one and only chance
to talk to the boy I’ve had a crush on
since the second grade?
If they had to take away my cell phone,
they might as well have amputated my head.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
Day Nurse Flaps Her Big Bullhorn Lips
“Exercise time.”
I follow her to the rec room.
But there’s not much there.
Just some crumbly old floor mats,
a stationary bike, and a treadmill.
It’s not like the fitness center back home
with rows of stair climbers
and elliptical machines
and a rack of blue balance balls
just waiting to be squeezed.
I get on the treadmill and dig in my heels.
The conveyer grinds an inch. Maybe two.
Like there’s sandpaper on the bottom of the belt.
When I look up, a boy is standing inches away,
staring at me with his army-green eyes.
I notice his tangled hair, his crooked nose,
and the little scar above his lip that
makes it look like he’s about to snarl.
“I can fix that,” he says.
I step down and let him yank on the belt
just so I can watch his biceps curl
and study the small of his back
as his white shirt rises up and down.
“There,” he says, wiping his hands on his jeans.
I feel a little tickle bubble inside. Then I think—
That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me.
And if I wasn’t already in love with Chase,
I might just give this boy my number,
or maybe I’d ask him to meet me at the grocery store,
in the organic aisle, because nobody shops organic
and it would be sort of private there
and maybe standing in that secret space
right beside the flaxseeds and granola
he’d lean over and kiss me
with those sexy scar lips.
But I don’t say any of that.
I just ask his name.
“Jag,” he answers.
And I figure that means his real name
is something embarrassing.
So I tease him about it.
“No way,” I say.
“I bet it’s Stanley.
Or Leonard.
Or Marion.”
And I love how he steps closer to answer me.
“It’s Jag,” he insists. “For real.”
He looks over his shoulder,
makes sure Bullhorn isn’t watching,
then bumps the inside of my palm with his knuckles,
soft and playful, until a warm blush crosses my cheeks.
Then he says his name again.
His whole name.
And this time it thunders off his tongue
fast and hard like a bullet train.
Jaggernaut Mancuzzi.
And for ten star-spangled seconds,
Chase Grayson ceases to exist.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
Room Check
I’m sitting in my room.
Wanting to be alone.
Daydreaming about
Jaggernaut Mancuzzi.
Bullhorn pops her head in the door.
“Are you okay?”
Five minutes later.
“Are you okay?”
Five minutes later.
“Are you okay?”
Five minutes later.
Are you freaking kidding me?
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
Drawing for Distraction
We’re allowed to draw at Attaboys,
which just goes to show how stupid they are
because a pencil is way more dangerous than a toothbrush.
My yellow #2 is whispering to me.
About that pretty pink eraser tip.
I can almost smell it.
The scent of rubber on raw skin.
I imagine slipping my arm under the table,
and rubbing the eraser
faster
faster
faster
until my arm catches fire
and the skin splits open
and blistery liquid
drips down
to my elbow.
Like mercy.
But I don’t do it.
Even though I want to.
Because Rennie says eraser b
urns are for losers.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
I Decide to Draw Instead
At first my lines are soft and gentle.
A wispy willow branch weeping
at the corner of the page.
But then my strokes grow heavy.
I draw a girl with eyes closed, chin down,
and lips sealed in the smallest of pouts.
Her arms end abruptly at the wrists
and her legs trail off just below the knees.
A body unfinished.
“Is that you?” Skylar asks.
I shake my head no.
“I wish I could draw like that,” she adds.
“I just write. Poetry mostly.”
I tell her I’m no good but she doesn’t let up.
“You could be the next Salvador Dalí,” she insists.
“You know? The guy with those melting clocks.”
I do know.
I know a lot of crazy things about Salvador Dalí.
Like how he was afraid of grasshoppers
and how he kept mustaches in a cigarette case
and how he slept with a spoon in his hand
so he’d wake up to the clatter of tin
and remember all his dreams.
I know he had freaky dreams too,
with tiger-eating fish,
and giant eyeballs,
and full-grown men
hatching from elastic eggs.
And I know about The Temptation of Saint Anthony.
That’s the painting with the gruesome, white,
wild-eyed horse rearing on stilted legs.
I feel the hairs rise on the back of my neck
as my own dream begins to resurface.
I try to push it down, but it’s like holding
a basketball underwater—
slippery, buoyant, strong.
It won’t go away.
I curl my fingers around the edge of the paper
crushing the corner as I clench my pencil tight.
Then instead of sketching hands and legs and feet
in all the places where the girl’s body is interrupted,
I make dark, dripping lines that
bleed
off
the
page.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
Kiss of Broken Glass Page 2