Kiss of Broken Glass
Page 7
HarperCollins Publishers
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Bullhorn Brings a Tray to My Room
She tells me I need to eat.
Then she stands there waiting,
like applesauce will solve everything.
I stare at the ham sandwich cut diagonally.
The sticks of marbled string cheese.
The bunch of green grapes.
For a split second I flashback
to when I was four years old,
watching Mom peel grapes
one by one
so I won’t choke on the skin.
Mom laughs as they slip through her fingers
and says she doesn’t know why she’s
still peeling them. I’m not a baby anymore.
But she keeps doing it anyway,
grape after grape,
because that’s the way I like them.
Then for the first time in forever,
I get that cookie-dough feeling.
The warm, out-of-the-oven emotion
that a little girl can only feel for her mother.
And I wonder what snuffed that feeling out.
If it was Avery with her
I’m-the-favorite-daughter routine.
Or if it was Rennie with her relentless
mother bashing—like:
Don’t-expect-a-thank-you-just-
for-pushing-me-out-of-your-vagina.
Or if maybe
somehow
it was me.
Because I believed them both.
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As If Things Weren’t Bad Enough
The Pomeranian shows up with her clipboard.
I don’t know if I have the strength
to fake my way through her questions today.
Plus, I’d really rather see why there’s such
a commotion in the lobby behind her,
but I can’t make it out because she’s filling
the whole doorframe with her polyester suit.
While I’m craning my neck, she reads
from the same stupid script as yesterday:
1. Do you know why you’re here?
Apparently, so Rennie can dump me for the Two Face.
2. Do you think you need to be here?
It doesn’t matter where I am. The whole world sucks.
3. What would you do if we let you out?
I’ll give you one guess.
Of course, I don’t say what I’m thinking.
That’s the thing about lies.
Once you get good at them,
they feel more natural than the truth,
almost as automatic as breathing,
and sometimes when I’m feeling
low and lost like now,
I can’t even tell the difference.
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Some Friend I Am
It was Skylar in the lobby
making all that commotion,
because she came back
with fresh gauze on her arm
and two curvy, red lines
bleeding through the cloth like smiles.
Here’s the problem with that.
It’s not that I think any less of her
even though my heart cringes a little
because I know she wanted to stay clean.
It’s not that the butterfly’s dead
even though she named it for me
and thinking of myself as a dead insect
sort of sucks.
It’s not even that I’m worried
about what’ll happen to Skylar next
even though the Pomeranian
is talking to her waaaay too long.
The problem is this:
I can’t be there for her
even though I want to,
because those two tiny lines
are a huge freaking trigger
and they’re making me
double over and sweat
until all I can think about
is ripping apart my own cuts
with my shaky bare hands.
How screwed up is that?
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I Hate It When People Say
If cutting’s so bad, you should just quit.
Yeah, right.
Like I can snap my fingers
and make my blades disappear.
They have absolutely no idea
how freaking hard it is to stop.
Why don’t you just quit breathing?
That’s what I want to say.
Let’s see how that works out for you.
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Roger Must Have Some Kind of Radar
Because he taps me on the shoulder and leads
me to his office, which is barely big enough
for a goldfish, by the way.
I’m still feeling triggered and edgy
and I expect him to say a bunch of
touchy-feely crap like:
Tell me what you’re feeling now.
Or
Does Skylar’s arm make you upset?
Or
What kind of memories does this bring up for you?
The last thing I expect is for him to lean over,
open his desk drawer and pull out a jelly jar.
But that’s exactly what he does.
Only there isn’t jelly in it anymore.
It’s filled with water and glitter,
kind of like a snow globe
but way more beautiful,
because the flecks are thick and gold
and mesmerizing in the weirdest way.
Roger calls it a calming jar.
He gives it a little shake and hands it to me,
and while I’m watching the liquid swirl
and the glitter blink like a billion stars,
the strangest thing starts to happen.
I feel my breathing steady and my pulse slow down,
and a trail of goose bumps tiptoe up my arms,
just like when I was little, and Mom traced letters
on my back with her finger.
I wish I could take the jar to my room and shake it
for like the next 26 hours until I get out of here.
But there’s no chance of that, on account of the glass.
So I watch it for as long as I can in Roger’s office,
until the blanket of gold folds on itself one last time,
and the glitter settles to the bottom like star dust.
Roger tells me he’ll give me the recipe,
to make a calming jar of my own at home,
because sometimes, he says, all you need is a distraction.
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Things to Do Instead of Cutting
Roger wants to use afternoon group
for a mega-brainstorming session.
We’re gonna go through everyone’s problems.
Starting with cutting.
He comes up with a few ideas himself
and writes them on the whiteboard
with a squeaky purple pen.
Go for a walk.
Take a bubble bath.
Talk to someone who cares.
I don’t know what makes me do it.
Maybe I feel sort of bad fo
r Roger
standing up there all alone
with those big, expectant eyes
that nobody will look at.
Or maybe I feel like I owe him
for showing me that glitter jar.
Either way, I decide to give in.
“Draw something,” I say.
Roger’s face lights up and he pens
my answer in swoopy grape letters.
And then it’s sort of contagious
because everyone stops
sitting on their hands,
and counting ceiling tiles,
and pretending to be asleep,
and they start giving up ideas faster
than Roger can write them down,
starting with Jag:
“Punch a pillow.
Jump on your bed.
Scream at the sky.”
And, yeah, I know that sounds like
Jag has anger-management issues,
but just like Roger says,
there’s no wrong answers here,
so don’t get any bad ideas about Jag.
And besides, I could think about that
sexy skater boy jumping on his bed
in baggy white boxers all day long!
Of course Donya has to try to outdo him:
“Throw fruit off your roof.
Stand on your head.
Dye your hair.”
And I have to bite my tongue
to stop myself from saying
that she doesn’t have enough hair
on that weed-wacked Mohawk of hers
to bother with any more dye.
But that’s just because I’m jealous
her ideas were better than mine.
But the one who blows us all away is Skylar.
And not just with her rubber-band fix
or the butterfly project. She’s got a whole
truckload of suggestions that she rattles off
effortlessly, like she’s tried every one:
“Eat chocolate.
Hug a puppy.
Read John Green.
“Make jewelry.
Join a fandom.
Write a poem.
“Blow bubbles.
Play piano.
Sing ‘Who Says’.
“Watch Juno.
Order pizza.
Clean your room.
“Surf Tumblr.
Do your homework.
Say a prayer.”
Roger has to stop writing there because
he runs out of room on the whiteboard,
which kind of stinks because he doesn’t
get down some of Skylar’s funniest ideas, like:
Watch English Youtubers
then talk with a British accent all day,
or
Rub peppermint oil all over your body,
or
Put glue on your hands and then peel it off later.
By the time the afternoon session is over,
we’re all joking and laughing
and it feels so good for a change
that nobody even mentions
how Skylar came up with like
937 Things to Do Instead of Cutting,
but she’s the one who’s sitting here
with a brand-new bandage on her arm.
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How Did You Do It?
I know I shouldn’t ask.
But not asking feels like being
on a diet and having a big bowl
of chocolate ice cream shoved in front of me.
Like what am I supposed to do?
Just sit here and watch it melt?
Besides, Skylar doesn’t mind.
I think she wants to tell me.
After all, it was my butterfly she killed.
“I took the Scotch tape off the nurse’s desk
when that little boy came in. Remember?
Nobody was paying any attention.”
I think about that sweet serrated edge
and that hot, hard tape dispenser
and I have to shake the image
from my mind because picturing
those plastic teeth biting into my skin
is making pins and needles dance on
all my favorite places.
“It’s an addiction, you know,” Skylar says.
“Just like drugs or alcohol.”
I try to shake her off, but she keeps going.
“Endorphins are like narcotics.
That’s why we crave them so bad.
I’m not saying that’s the only reason we cut.
There’s like a million scars out there
and each one has its own story.
“But every cutter would agree with me on this—
Once you start, it’s really hard to quit.”
Skylar tells me she had a long talk about it
with Dr. McKay and it takes me a minute
to realize she means the Pomeranian.
“I’m really sorry about the butterfly,” she adds.
“But Dr. McKay says I’ve taken a HUGE first step.
Just by admitting I have a problem. So maybe,
in a way, your butterfly saved me.”
She bites her lower lip and fidgets in her seat
like she’s trying hard to believe her own words.
But somehow she’s not sure. Then she pulls my
arm into her lap and before I can yank it away,
she swirls her black Sharpie across my wrist.
“Your first butterfly!”
She smiles and says how it’s stronger because she
drew it for me, instead of me drawing it for myself.
Then, she adds a dot to each antenna and tells me
I need to name it. And it’s just like when someone
sets out a birthday cake and says,
“Blow out the candles and make a wish.”
You can’t really help yourself.
The wish just pops into your head,
and before you know it, people are clapping,
and wax is dripping all over the frosting.
That’s how it is with Sean’s name.
It just pops into my head.
Like a wish.
A wish to be a better big sister.
A wish to be a halfway decent role model.
And most of all, a wish not to be
a pathological liar who someday cuts herself
with her little brother’s Cub Scout knife
and traumatizes him so bad that
he ends up locked in a rubber room
just like that poor pencil stabber.
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Thing to Do #826
I don’t know why but even after
Skylar draws the butterfly on me,
I’m still thinking about that plastic
tape dispenser and I decide to start
talking with an English accent.
Just like Dan and Phil.
From YouTube.
“Hello, Love,” I say.
“Have you seen Dan and Phil?
Well, they’re bloody brilliant!
I just saw their shoot on Pancake Day,
and Dan wore his trousers ‘round his arse.”
Skylar joins in with her pinky in the air
like she’s sipping Earl Grey and she says
how she’d fancy another cup.
And Donya says, “Get off your bum,
you lazy wanker, and get the tea yourself.”
Then Jag tells Donya to piss off.
But not in a mean way.
More as a joke.
And we talk about how
Attaboys smells like a loo
> and therapy sessions are rubbish
and we can’t wait to get our own flats
so we can faff around all day
and do nothing but watch BBC on the telly.
It’s fun talking like this.
Oh bloody hell.
It’s aces.
And it makes me forget
about the tape dispenser.
Completely.
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Ding Dong Tells Me—No Visitors Today
But that’s okay.
Because Mom’s picking Dad up at the airport,
so he’ll be here for tomorrow’s family meeting.
And I suppose there was only one flight available
from O’Hare to TIA and that was the 6 p.m.
The exact same time as visiting hour.
And I guess there must’ve been no taxicabs,
or airport shuttles, or rental cars, or buses
in the entire state of Florida, so the only option
was for Mom to circle around the terminal
in her Lexus until Dad’s plane touched down.
That’s the reason they’re not here.
It’s not because Mom thinks her car’s gonna
get jacked in this lovely part of town,
or because Avery needs a ride to gymnastics,
or because Dad can’t look at me yet,
It’s just a transportation problem.
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Small Talk
Since we don’t have any visitors,
Ding Dong lets me and Jag watch TV
but I have to sit on the end of the couch
and Jag has to straddle the beanbag chair
and she makes us promise to keep an invisible
hula hoop of space between us at all times.
“I’m watchin’ you, my little bandulus,”
Ding Dong says as she walks out.
But she has nothing to worry about,
because as soon as I’m alone with Jag,
I feel like I’m in one of those space-saving
storage bags with every ounce of air sucked
out and my thoughts are winter sweaters,
stuck together, flat as pancakes.
It’s a good thing Jag likes to talk.