Kiss of Broken Glass
Page 9
so she shakes her head and fills in the blanks.
“I told those idiots it was a fresh piercing.
That I had to keep it in for medical reasons.
But really, I just needed it in case of emergency.”
She unscrews the bottom of the barbell
and shows me the sharp point at the end.
“Anyway, it’s yours now.”
She drops the stud in my hand and
I curl my fingers around it fast.
When I hear footsteps in the hall
I slip it into my pocket, like instinct.
Bullhorn tells her it’s time to go,
and since Donya’s not the hugging kind
she gives me a quick wink and one last hooyah.
Then she’s gone.
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Jag Says He Doesn’t Have Much Choice
Military school.
The Florida Sheriff Youth Ranch.
A group home for troubled teens.
Or suck it up and do the family meeting.
We’re sitting in the TV room and I say how
it sucks to be fifteen because all our so-called
choices are like the consolation prizes on a
really lame game show.
Sorry you didn’t win the BRAND-NEW CAR!
But here’s a bag of corn chips
and a cheesy bumper sticker.
Jag’s lips curl into that sexy half smile
and I feel this global warming rise up
in my body all the way from that tickly
spot in my stomach to top of my head.
I get so nervous that I fumble my
notebook, and little wisps of paper
flutter to the ground.
Jag drops to one knee and I swear when
he picks them up it look like he’s holding
the five pointed petals of white fairy orchid.
And that’s when the universe
starts moving in slow motion.
Jag reaches across the invisible hula hoop
of space and he touches my arm. The one
that’s still laced with screaming red lines.
And suddenly I’m aware how ugly it is.
But before I can pull my arm back,
Jag leans down and plants his lips,
soft and tender,
right on my scars.
“You’re beautiful,” he says. “All of you.”
And then this planetary blackout happens.
Or maybe I just close my eyes.
All I know is that when I open them
Jag’s already back in the beanbag chair
and Roger is walking in the door and
it almost seems like nothing happened.
Except for the blush on Jag’s cheeks
and this feeling inside me
that something is different.
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It’s So Empty
With Skylar and Donya gone,
and Jag in Roger’s office
“exploring his alternatives.”
I’m all alone
with my daydreams,
and my unfinished drawing,
and Donya’s good-bye present in my pocket.
I try to concentrate on pencil shading.
But the problem with drawing hands is that
they have just as much expression as a face.
They’re emotional.
Personal.
Revealing.
You could paint the freaking Mona Lisa,
but if you gave her Skylar’s happy hands
or Donya’s fighting fists, the whole picture
would go to crap, because that’s not who
Mona Lisa is.
I think about Skylar’s question.
Is that you?
Two days ago I told her no.
But today, I think—
yeah, maybe it is.
And then I feel myself being pulled into the zone
where I’m not really thinking about what I’m drawing
but stuff is streaming out stroke after stroke and I’m so
wrapped up in the art there could be a jackhammer
blaring right next to me and I wouldn’t even hear it.
I’m surprised when I put the pencil down.
They’re the best hands I’ve ever drawn.
And they’re not hiding inside sleeves, either,
with just the fingertips poking out,
holding the fabric tight so the cotton won’t roll up.
They’re out in the light. Palms open.
With soft, slender fingers and just enough
lines and creases to make them look real.
They’re the kind of hands an art teacher might
hold up in front of the class and while the other kids
roll their eyes or crumple up their own papers,
the teacher keeps gushing away.
I mean look at these hands, she might say.
So full of hope.
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One Hour Before
Roger likes my drawing.
It’s much better than the crayon crap
hanging in his office where we meet
an hour before the family meeting.
He explains how he has to make sure
he’s releasing me to a stable situation
and that I’ll have a strong support network
on the outside.
I think he’s gonna lecture me about not cutting
or how to use the 937 Things to Do Instead.
But he doesn’t.
He talks about relapse.
How it’s just a part of recovery.
That I shouldn’t beat myself up if it happens to me.
I know he thinks he’s helping
with his fancy Walmart diploma and all.
But I almost wish he would just shut up
because it feels like he’s giving me permission.
Like he knows it’s inevitable.
I’m bound to screw up.
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Five Minutes Before
Mom—
Shifting in her seat.
Checking the clock.
Clutching that ugly Vera Bradley
that cost her $118 but looks like
it’s made out of pot holders.
Avery—
Texting away.
Twirling her hair.
Pretending she’s not even here.
Dad—
Counting the floor tiles.
Raising his head.
Forcing a smile that looks like it hurts.
Me—
Closing my eyes.
Forgetting to breathe.
Thinking of what’s in my pocket.
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The Family Meeting
So don’t be disappointed,
but there isn’t a big blow-out
with screaming and finger pointing
and a gallon of guilty tears.
And there isn’t some kind
of miraculous healing either.
Mom doesn’t admit how she favors
Avery because Avery has the same
ghost-blue eyes as her dead first husband.
Avery doesn’t come clean about all
the nasty things she says to me
behind closed doors.
Dad doesn’t jump into a phone booth
and change from Piglet to Superman.
They just act the same way they always do,
and before long Roger is smiling and shaking hands
and giving them a bunch of papers to sign.
And that’s when I start thinking about the ride home,
squished next to Avery, with her elbow in my ribs.
And I imagine Sean, craning in his seat, asking where
I’ve been until I bury him in an avalanche of white lies.
I wish I had the calming jar,
or a watermelon to throw off the roof,
or a baby beagle to hug.
But I don’t.
The only things I have
are in my pocket.
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It All Comes down to This
I wonder how long it takes to sterilize
a silver stud with hot tap water.
I don’t want to be gross or anything
but I don’t have much time before
Bullhorn checks on me in the bathroom.
Two minutes, I guess.
That’s probably clean enough.
I close the unlockable door
and listen for the magnet to click
before I unzip my pants.
The hip would be easiest to hide.
Unless they make me undress.
Roger never told me what happens
after the family meeting.
What if they make me strip
and mark up another one of those
naked paper dolls and compare it
to the first one?
Like a Before and After.
Then I’d be screwed.
I should probably do it below the bikini
line since they didn’t make me take off
my underwear in the ER.
That would be the perfect spot.
And it can be small, too.
I don’t have to cut that much.
The family meeting was only halfway sucky
and I just need a little calm to last the ride home.
I’m kind of worried about the stud though,
because it’s not very sharp and I hate the
ripping feeling, which is why I quit using
glass and switched to Feather stainless,
but that blade’s still in my cell phone,
so this will have to do.
I pinch the stud between my fingers
and draw a light test line three times,
which is part of my ritual,
don’t ask me why,
and by the time I get to line three,
I feel static electricity racing through my chest
and every beat of my heart growing bigger
and more expectant, like it knows something
amazing is about to happen, and then there’s this
swirl in the air like my body is separating from reality
and just as I’m about to plunge the point in—
BAM!
I hear the freaking Disney Channel playing
in Spanish on the other side of the wall.
And a little boy.
Laughing.
And it’s not like some miracle connect-the-dots
where I think about the pencil stabber, and then
my brother Sean, and then the butterfly on my arm,
and I’m so swept up by the Right-Thing-to-Do
that the silver stud floats out of my fingers,
and all my desire disappears like magic.
That’s not how it works.
It takes every heaving breath in my body
to pull that point away from my skin.
And when I do, it doesn’t feel
like I crushed a monster.
Or dodged a bullet.
Or did something to be proud of.
It feels like a freaking train wreck.
And I have to flush the stud down the toilet
just to make sure I don’t pick it back up again.
But then I hear that laughing,
and I look at my arm
where I wrote
Sean
by the butterfly wing,
in caring big-sister cursive
and suddenly I’m overcome
with a gladness that the butterfly
is still alive on my arm
and not in butterfly heaven,
or wherever it is that dead
permanent marker goes.
And that’s when I admit it.
Just in my head.
To myself.
One inaudible breath.
I need help.
And I wouldn’t say it feels
like a huge first step.
Not in the Mount Everest way
that Skylar said it would.
But it definitely feels
like something.
And just for a second,
a swirl of promise
tickles up inside me.
And I feel calm.
Without the guilt.
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Friday 3:22 p.m.
So here’s the thing about being Released.
You get back everything—
your belt,
your shoelaces,
the perfume bottles from your purse.
your wallet,
your cell phone,
the blade behind the battery.
And they give you
brochures,
and pamphlets,
and these useless psych referrals.
And then that’s it.
You open up the door and walk out.
And the world’s still the same sharp
trigger as when you left it.
So that makes you wonder
what’s gonna happen next.
Like was getting Baker Acted
enough of a wake-up call?
Or can a kiss really change you?
Or a butterfly make you strong?
I wonder that myself.
But like I said before, my life’s
not some riveting novel that’s
gonna tie up all neat at the end.
Not in 72 freaking hours.
The only thing I can say is that
when I walk out those doors,
I see Sean’s face shining
like that blue jellyfish,
bright enough to light the dark,
and that butterfly
still alive on my arm,
eager for another day,
and I feel my troubles
unzipped just a little,
and that seed of hope
budding in my pocket.
And it’s not like I get
all happy ending-ish
and ride off into the sunset
or some crap like that.
But I do feel like I have a choice.
Like a fork in the road or whatever.
I just hope 937 Things to Do Instead are enough.
Because to tell you the truth,
I could go either way.
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AUTHOR’S NOTE
I knew from the very beginning that the question would come up eventually.
So where did you get the idea for your book?
And I knew when the time came, I’d have two choices. To give some vague, veiled answer. Or to tell the truth. But the truth doesn’t belong to me. It belongs to my daughter. And it is only with her blessing that I share
it.
Like Kenna, my daughter found herself surrounded by cutting as early as the sixth grade. She tried it, experimentally at first, but was soon drawn into the strangely addictive allure of the blade. Eventually, she was caught cutting at school and involuntarily committed under Florida’s Baker Act.
I wrote this book in the year that followed.
I think it’s important to note that while this story has roots in a real-life event, it is ultimately a work of fiction. But it’s the kind of fiction that has a responsibility to tell the truth. So I spent hundreds of hours researching the blogs and Tumblr pages of countless teens struggling with self-harm. I sank into their stories, looked at their agonizing photos, and tried to understand. In the end, my characters and the events they experience in Kiss of Broken Glass are a fictionalized composite of all these brave and aching voices.
Waiting to be heard.
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RESOURCES
If you or someone you care about is struggling with self-harm, you are not alone. There are resources and people who can help, and many different roads to recovery. These are just a few examples. Since I am not a clinical professional, I cannot endorse these specific resources or accept responsibility for any of the services they provide. But it is my hope that this information will help you begin exploring the power of support and treatment and that you will find your own path to healing.
www.selfinjury.com—S.A.F.E. Alternatives is a nationally recognized treatment approach, professional network, and educational resource base, which is committed to helping you and others achieve an end to self-injurious behavior.
1-800-DON’T-CUT—S.A.F.E Alternatives referral line.
www.twloha.com—To Write Love On Her Arms is a nonprofit movement dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury, and suicide.
www.recoveryourlife.com—Recover Your Life is one of the largest self-harm support communities on the internet, welcoming and supporting people who struggle with self-harm and other issues such as eating disorders, mental health issues, abuse, and more.
www.selfharm.net—One of the most comprehensive sources of self-injury information on the web, including definitions, explanations of why, etiology and demographics, and an in-depth self-help section.
1-800-SUICIDE—National hotline for people contemplating suicide.