by Tempi Lark
“No one can look at your journal, so write whatever you want. As long as you get something down on paper, we’ll consider that a victory.” Miss Maroon insisted.
I didn’t have any goals ready, so I wrote whatever came to mind and swore I would be better prepared for the next day.
Journal Entry #1
I was heavily medicated and almost drowned in a stack of pancakes.
Hannibal Sketcher rescued me.
I met a girl named Varla, who seems pretty nice. (She needs to gain a few pounds)
Wondering how my mom is doing.
GOALS: Try not to think of new and exciting ways to kill Joe.
Good job. I smiled back at my handiwork and glanced at Laces—who was now on his second freakin’ page. “Brown-noser,” I whispered under my breath.
Laces bared his teeth, but didn’t look up at me. “As flattering as that compliment is, I can’t take credit for someone else’s work.”
“Hmm?”
His eyes flashed to mine. “I’m writing song lyrics.” And when my forehead creased in confusion he gave me a look, “Snuff by Slipknot.”
My mouth popped open. “Ohhh.”
He did a double take of me, his eyes filling with humor as I flushed. “You didn’t actually write down your feelings, did you?”
“No.”
Sort of…
Nine
Gambrielle
The one part of the first day that I had been dreading—aside from being stuck around Laces & Co—was meeting with my therapist, Dr. Young. My mother had been to therapy over the years and spoken about the experience during her drunken spells; they always wanted to get down to the root of the problem by talking about your feelings, and picking off old wounds that were best left as scars.
Dr. Young was no different.
From the moment I walked into his office, closed the door, and took my seat in the vacant chair on the other side of his desk, I knew I was in for an hour of hell. His kind smiles, cool demeanor, and occasional chuckle did very little to cut the tension in the room.
“Where would you like to start, Gambrielle?” Dr. Young asked, rocking back and forth in his black leather seat. There was an open folder on his desk, post-it’s at the ready, and a pen glued to his forefinger. He was prepared to get down to the business of examining my traumatized psyche. “Your file mentioned that you have a sister, Elizabeth…why don’t we talk about her?”
At the sound of her name my shoulders tensed and my heart sped up like a jack-hammer on steroids. I wanted to indulge in her existence, to tell him everything that she was and would never be. How she loved traveling, animals, sad chick flicks, and life. Chewing on my lower lip, I shook my head. “There’s not really much to say.” I finally said. “She’s gone.”
And she was never coming back.
Joe had seen to that.
Dr. Young stopped rocking in his chair. “You had a lot to say about her in court.” He reminded me, and tears filled the corners of my eyes as he glanced back at my case file. “Elizabeth wanted to be a nurse?” He tapped the paper, “You mentioned that she often cleaned you up after Joe had one of his episodes.”
“I was referring to how she used to be, before Joe…” Before, Elizabeth could walk, talk, and do anything her heart desired. Now she was six feet under.
Dr. Young slid his finger down the first page of my file, looking for anything of value to push the conversation forward. He stopped midway to the bottom of the page, his serious gaze flashing to me. “You told Judge Wexler that you had dreams about Joe and his abusive behavior. Would you care to elaborate on that?” His voice was polite, the way a therapist should behave. But I couldn’t let my guard down. Since the trial everything I said had been used against me and I didn’t want to add anything to the outstanding list of things that Joe could benefit from.
Joe was the District Attorney. He had power, money, connections—everything he needed to take me down and make my stay at Hawthorne a permanent situation. As much as I wanted my own peace-of-mind, I craved justice more. “No, I don’t…I don’t remember much about anything.” I stammered, forcing out the lies.
“I’m here for you, Gambrielle. You understand that, right? I already know everything that happened.”
“Then why do you need me to say it, hmm?” My words were clipped, my tone full of annoyance. “I am doing my best to make it out of this in one piece. Not the whole piece, maybe tattered fragments, but still something worth salvaging. Can’t you see that?!” It was the only way I knew how to beg for pity and understanding.
Unfortunately, I didn’t sell myself well enough. Because instead of patting me on the back and telling me we’ll try again some other time, or you’ve had a hard day, Gambrielle, Dr. Young went straight for the jugular. Emotions be damned.
“What about Jaguar?” Dr. Young asked, and my body instantly froze. Oh God. Anyone but him. No! Dr. Young’s finger skimmed down my chart, stopping at what I could only assume was Jag’s E! True Hollywood Story. Curiosity entered his eyes and he raised a light brow. Something had caught his attention.
I bit my lower lip as I waited for him to continue his interrogation. I knew Jag was in the report. How could he not be? I had seen him almost every day for two years straight. He was one of the first people the police went to for a character witness. “What does Jag have to do with anything?” Like me, he had already dealt with enough from Joe and deserved to be left out of this.
Dr. Young nodded. “He was Elizabeth’s boyfriend, right?”
“I-don’t-want-to-talk-about-Jag.” I said in a rush. “We can talk about my mom, if you want, or…I don’t know, my grandmother! She witnessed a lot too!” I was now leaning forward, elbows on his desk, trying desperately to shift the topic elsewhere. I didn’t want to tell him anything, but he had touched upon a super sensitive spot in my soul that I wanted to lay to rest. Jag deserved that much. “Okay, how about this: I’ll tell you about the first time I had to go to the hospital. Every-little-bit-of-it. Nothing left out. That work?” Bargaining wasn’t my best quality, but he seemed like a man who appreciated a little give and take. Plus, my first trip to the hospital because of Joe’s actions wasn’t as traumatic as everyone probably thought. I’d been hit with a belt as punishment for not finishing a can of soda. Joe had called it wasteful, and in the midst of his rage hit my lip with the metal belt buckle. The four stitches across my eyebrow had been painful, but it was nothing compared to the future damage he would inflict.
Yes, I’ll let him have the first visit. Joe could win this one. There was medical documentation to back-up my claim, anyway. I nodded at my thoughts and blew out a deep breath, preparing myself, mentally, to make the treacherous trip back down memory lane. “I wore a yellow parka that day. It had rained the night before…”
A sad smile splayed across Dr. Young’s lips. Before I had a chance to continue, he flipped to the second page of my chart and said, “Do you want to go home? Or do you want to stay in here forever?” He leaned forward to meet me halfway and added, “Forever in a place like this is a long time, Gambrielle. I’ve treated patients that have been housed in facilities just like this one for over twenty years. One or two years?” He made a face. “That’s not so bad. Twenty years? That’s a third of your life.” His sympathetic eyes pierced into mine. “Are you going to stay here and give up? Or are you going to fight with me?”
I opened my mouth to speak but couldn’t find the words to justify my defense. No, I didn’t want to stay at Hawthorne forever. I wanted to get out, go to college, grow old, maybe have a few kids. I’d never been the most attentive to my cousins, Xander and Zavier, whenever they came to visit during the holidays, but I was working toward it. I’d also envisioned a teaching career in literature and spending the majority of my days reciting old works from some of history’s greatest writers. The point was: I had made goals, and I knew how to work toward them to make them a reality. And as soon as justice was served to Joe on a platter, I would pick myself back u
p and forge ahead as best I could. That was all anyone could do in my predicament, right?
“I want to go home.” I softly admitted, leaning back in my seat. “But I don’t have a home to go back to.”
Dr. Young settled his elbows on his desk and propped his palms under his chin. “That’s a scary thought.” he agreed. “Would it make you feel better to know most of the patients here are in the same boat?”
No, it didn’t. All it did was make me feel worse.
“I can get you home. It may not be the home you are used to, and at times it might get lonely but,” Dr. Young paused for effect, “you’ll have your freedom.”
I nodded.
“I’m not here for your family, I’m here for you. “
I was stubborn, and rightfully so after everything I had endured over the last six months, which Dr. Young picked up on right away. When twenty minutes passed and we hadn’t made any progress, he reached into his desk and retrieved an unopened pack of shiny, yellow stars. What’s this? It seemed stupid, the power those stars held over me; instantly, my body sat at attention and my eyes focused on the five points.
“Two stars. That’s what I’m offering, Gambrielle.” he said. “You tell me about Jaguar, not Elizabeth, but Jaguar.”
Two stars?
Two days.
For the price of one?
I bit my lip as Dr. Young waved the pack in front of me as though it were a million dollars. “Two stars. Going once, going twice—”
“—Joe hated him.” I blurted out. Crap, here we go. Clasping my hands together in my lap, I squeezed my eyes shut and blew out a deep breath. “He, um… Jag, was a police officer.”
Dr. Young ceased his movements but continued to hold the stars up like a torch signifying freedom. “What do you mean by Joe hated him? Why?”
I pursed my lips together. “Because Jag wielded more power than he did.”
“More control, you mean?” Dr. Young assumed.
“No.” I wagged my head. “It was more than that.”
“Oh?”
“Joe wanted to be the law. Jag was—well, is—the law.” Two stars. I had to keep reminding myself of that even as Dr. Young pulled out a legal pad and began scribbling things down. Two stars, eight days left, if I could manage to get through the next ten minutes.
“How old is Jaguar?”
It seemed a basic enough question. “Twenty-three, I think.”
Dr. Young nodded but didn’t stop jotting down the information. “And how old was your sister?”
“Eighteen.”
“That’s a pretty big age gap.” Dr. Young noted. He peeked over his legal pad and raised a questioning brow. “Did Joe take issue with that?”
I shook my head. “Age was never the issue. Jag wanted to marry her and show her the world.” A smile tugged at my lips as a memory of Jag in his policeman uniform flipping pancakes entered my frontal lobe. I don’t know what it was about him that warmed my soul; perhaps the way he treated her, as though she were a precious mirage that could vanish at any moment if his brain veered too far away. Anything she wanted, all she had to do was ask—he was that devoted and consumed by her.
“Jag didn’t take any of his crap.” I finally said, looking back at Dr. Young. “He stood up to him. He was her shield.”
Dr. Young tilted his head back and let out a sympathetic, “ahhh.”
“Jag used to pick us up every morning in his police cruiser and take us to school. We always had to stay ducked down in the backseat because he wasn’t allowed to let anyone ride with him…but Jag being Jag, he was determined to give her the whole high school boyfriend experience.”
“And did he?” Dr. Young pressed on.
My brows knitted. “I think so.” My eyes fell to the white knuckles suffocating in my lap. “She always wrote about him in her diary and would sometimes show me a few pages…” My words drifted off as the revelation slammed into me like a ton of bricks.
Diary…
Would there be anything in her diary, besides Jag? I’d never thought to ask, nor had she ever offered up the information. What if she had written something important that the investigators missed?
Things were quiet for the next few minutes as Dr. Young jotted down the remainder of his notes. I didn’t care. I was too preoccupied with thoughts of what could be in between the pages of the small black book. Had Elizabeth written about the abuse she had endured at the hands of Joe? Had Joe tried to kill her before six months ago? He’d wanted to silence her and was eventually successful in his quest. But did she leave a trail for me to pick up on and follow?
Please God…
I needed that diary.
“Our time is up. Same time on Thursday?” Dr. Young said, breaking the silence.
I tore my eyes away from the window I’d been looking at. “My stars?”
“I’ll put them on the hp board before I go home.”
“Thank you.”
I rose from my seat and damn near tripped when I heard, “Where do you think the diary is?”
Holy mother of… “Excuse me?”
“You want the diary.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to. It’s written all over your face.” Dr. Young smirked. “There must be something vital in it.”
I casually shrugged. “Don’t know. Elizabeth was a very private person.”
Dr. Young held up three fingers. “Three stars, Gambrielle.”
I couldn’t hide the shock that registered in my expression. The man knew how to bargain, that was for sure.
“Answer my question and I’ll go stick the stars up right now.” Dr. Young said, leaning back in his seat. He slowly rocked back and forth, smiling back at me, but not in a malicious way. Not like Joe would’ve. His smile was warm, purposeful, like he truly wanted what was best for me.
Assuming I had nothing to lose, I rubbed my forehead and said, “It’s probably hidden somewhere in her room, or maybe the garage out back.” When Dr. Young didn’t move to write the information down, I gestured toward his legal pad. “Aren’t you supposed to be writing this down?”
“What for?” He gave a subtle wink and relief filled my chest. Jerking his chin to the door he said, “Have a good day, Gambrielle.”
“You too, Dr. Young.” I was confused and relieved by his kindness but didn’t question it as I moved for the door. I didn’t want to push my luck.
Laces was staked out directly across from Dr. Young’s door—back leaned against the wall, one leg nonchalantly crossed over the other, looking like a bad boy coming to collect in his black scrubs. He had his sketchpad in one hand, a pencil in the other, and seemed to be going to town with his latest conquest. Without looking up, he asked. “And how was therapy?”
I shoved my hands in my black scrub pockets. “Not that it’s any of your business, but it went fine.”
“How many stars did you make out with?” he asked. Dusting some charcoal residue off of his sketch, he peeked up with a sexy smirk. “Tell me you at least got five.”
“Three.” Before he could give me a lecture on whatever I had done wrong, which seemed to be his style, I started down the hallway back toward my room. Hearing his footsteps following behind I rolled my eyes and picked up a little speed, which he matched effortlessly. “Don’t you have something else to do?”
“I already fucked Nurse Kline, so my schedule is wide open,” he released a deep breath and added, “and so is hers.” I could hear him smiling as the statement fell through his lips. Coming to a dead halt, I swirled around to face him, eyes as wide as the sky, my mouth practically hitting the floor. Why I expected anything different from him, I had no idea. Men like him were hardwired to be assholes, it was engrained in their DNA or something. And shamefully, I found myself feeling the same disappointment as I had felt earlier. Amused by my puzzled expression, he put his pencil in his mouth and turned his latest masterpiece around, wiggling his eyebrows as his muffled voice said, “What do you think?”
The “masterpiece” was Nurse Kline sprawled out on a bed—probably his—naked, with her arms bound, mouth duct taped, and a shiny blade ripping through her chest. Shockingly, I wasn’t as disturbed by this sketch as much as my own. Everything was sketched to perfection—her eyes, mouth, and even the heart studs she wore. In another life he could’ve given Picasso a run for his money.
“Isn’t sleeping with Nurse Kline breaking the rules?” I asked, looking up at him.
Laces grinned back at me. “Some break rules, I break beds. We all have our talents.”
“You’re disgusting!”
Laces let out a dreamy sigh, “And yet you STILL fainted!”
My lips popped open. Oh no he didn’t…
Without thinking, I reached forward and gave him a hard shove, gawking when his toned body didn’t move an inch. He was like a statue, every inch sculpted to resemble that of a God. Cocking his head to the side he looked at me with a delightful sinners gaze, his head to the side and gazed at me with his blue inscrutable eyes.
All I could do was stand there—eyes narrowed; lips pressed—as he reveled in his victory. I had no retort for his allegations, not a single witty comeback. He was grinning ear-to-ear as I turned and made a beeline for my room. The thought of him holding the fainting spell against me for the rest of our days was almost unbearable.
Laces, 3. Me, 0.
Ten
Laces
The way Gambrielle looked at me when I told her about Nurse Kline, the pity and revulsion swimming around in her eyes—fuck. It was like watching an episode of Jerry Springer, and not just any episode, but a real cringe-worthy one; the kind that made you put down the chips and beer and start taking serious notes after the first chair was thrown.
Fuck me.
It took less than ten seconds—a turn from Gambrielle, and a swift exit left—for me to become that bastard who had just told his soul mate that he enjoyed chicken wings and fuckin’ her morbidly obese sister.