Stand Alone

by P. D. Workman

  “Enough,” Carter told her. “If you were a runaway, you would have told me at the house. I’ve dealt with plenty of runaways and abused children, and you’re not one of them. If you want to lodge a complaint, call Child Protective Services. You can use the phone over there. I’m not making a report, because it’s patently bull-crap.”

  Tears started to run down Justine’s face, and she clutched at Carter’s arm. She wanted to stay there, not to be sent back home with Em.

  “Please help me,” she pleaded.

  “Help yourself,” he said, motioning again to the black phone on the wall. “The number is right beside the phone.”

  Justine dropped her hands, letting him go.

  “Thank you, officer,” Em said with a sigh. “Maybe you’re right.”

  She gave Justine a little push toward the door. Justine startled at Em’s touch and recoiled, snarling at her.

  “Don’t touch me!”

  “Come on. Home.”

  Justine followed her through the busy room, her stomach feeling tight and hollow. Out to the car. Justine grabbed her board and the bag of her belongings from Em and got into the car.

  “What am I going to do with you?” Em demanded. Justine said nothing, staring out the window. “Maybe he’s right,” Em said. “Maybe I do just need to let you suffer the consequences of your actions. Let them lock you up. Maybe if I did that, then you’d understand the way the world works.”

  Justine watched the night sky whip past outside her window. No stars, the streetlights prevented her from being able to see the night sky. Other than the moon. Once she and Christian had skated out to a hill, in the wildlife park. They laid down on top of the hill, away from all of the lights of the city, and stared up at the stars. Justine had never known there were so many stars.

  “You’re not going to answer me?” Em said. “You don’t have anything to say for yourself?”

  Justine just stared at the blackness beyond the lights.

  The next morning, Dr. Morton gazed at Justine, waiting for her to speak. But Justine had been seeing him for years, and she knew all of his tricks. Adults thought that if they were silent for long enough, you would speak up, to fill the silence. Fill it with anything. But Justine was wise to that trick. Ignoring Dr. Morton, she stared out the window, watching the pigeons lined up on the roof of the building next door. It almost seemed like they were playing a game. One would fly off of the ledge, and would land nearly on top of another. That pigeon would then fly up, and do the same thing, landing not where there was an empty space, but on top of another bird. Then it would fly off and do the same thing. Sometimes there were variations on the theme. Two birds would take off instead of one, or the bird on the end would shuffle over until he was sitting by himself, out of the game. Justine sensed that birds were a lot smarter than most people gave them credit for.

  “So  …” Dr. Morton finally started, giving up on Justine talking on her own. “What do you want to talk to me about?”

  “I’m not here because I want to talk to you,” Justine pointed out. “I’m here because Em brought me. If I had my way, I’d rather be at school.”

  Dr. Morton was a bit taller than average, his long legs sprawled in front of him as he sat at an angle behind his desk. He was older than Em. Maybe even older than the principal at the school. He was graying at the temples, but either had a full head of hair or a great hairpiece. He looked sort of like a Hollywood doctor, all properly brushed and coiffed and pulled together. Casually devastating. But too old for Justine to be interested in him. He would be older than her father, if she had a father somewhere.

  “You’ve been having some problems lately,” Morton suggested.

  “No more than usual,” Justine said with a careless shrug.

  “You got yourself arrested,” he pointed out. “That’s new.”

  “No  … the fact that I couldn’t get myself out of it is new.” Justine shook her head in mock dismay. “Young Officer Carter just wasn’t willing to budge.”

  “Why do you think that is?”

  “Maybe he doesn’t like girls,” Justine suggested with a laugh. She attempted to keep the mood light and avoid discussing the situation seriously. Dr. Morton didn’t crack a smile.

  “Is that what you think?” he questioned, making a mark on the file in front of him.

  “No. I guess he’s just a hard ass. Didn’t look like one. He looked friendly enough. But  …” Justine shook her head again, “I couldn’t sway him. He was convinced that I was some repeat offender who had to be shown the error of her ways.”

  “Isn’t that true?” Dr. Morton queried.

  “Well  … yeah, I guess I’m a repeat offender,” Justine admitted.

  “But you don’t need to be shown the error of your ways?”

  “I’m not hurting anyone.”

  “You’re hurting the owner of that house. You broke a window.”

  “How does that hurt anyone? Em offered to pay for it.”

  “Then it hurts your mother, doesn’t it?”

  “If she makes me work for it, then the only person who is hurt is me. So who cares?”

  “I don’t imagine your mother enjoys having to get you out of jail, take you to court, bring you here, or make you do work to pay for the window. That’s an awful lot to have to do because you decided to break into another house.”

  “Em likes to play the martyr. She’s happy for something to whine about, so people will feel sorry for her.” Justine affected a dramatic voice. “Poor Emily and the hell she has to go through because of that wayward daughter of hers. Isn’t it just shocking. She must be a saint to put up with all of that crap.”

  Justine smiled, proud of her performance. Morton raised an eyebrow.

  “Is that so?”

  “Sure. You know what a big deal she makes of how I behave. Always exaggerating and making stuff up. I’m doing her a favor by giving her something to talk about.”

  “Hmm.” Morton was silent, scribbling down some notes. After a while he looked up again. “How were you feeling before you broke into the house?”

  “I didn’t break in,” Justine said, “the glass was already broken.”

  “We’re not here to quibble over semantics.”

  “It’s not semantics,” Justine disagreed, grinning wryly.

  “Justine,” Morton chided firmly. “Enough. Answer the question.”

  “I don’t know. I was feeling  … mad because Em grounded me.” She looked up at Morton, struggling. Feelings were always confusing to her. Something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. “Is that the right answer?”

  “The truth is the right answer. Is that the truth?” he pursued.

  “I dunno. I was having a good time skating. Got a slice of pizza for supper. All good. I don’t know what I felt.”

  “Pizza?” Morton questioned with a frown. “I thought you were detoxing.”

  “Sure,” Justine agreed. “You think Em would give me a real pizza, all greasy and loaded with gluten and dairy and animal products and all?” Justine paused to lick her lips, thinking about it. “No, this was a thing she picked up at the health food store. Free of all of those toxins and GMO’s and stuff. Not really what I’d call a pizza. It was okay  … but a bit like cardboard.”

  He nodded his approval.

  “Good. You’ll get used to it. Your body will feel so much better and you’ll find yourself better able to function.”

  “Yeah,” Justine shook her head slightly in spite of herself. “I’m already feeling lots more clear-headed.” She grinned.

  He nodded slowly.

  “But this incident is disturbing. I’d like to know why you feel this impulse to break into other people’s houses. What’s going on inside that’s driving you to do this, when you know that it’s wrong and you’re just going to end up in trouble?”

  “If I knew that, you’d be out a job.”

  Morton chuckled appreciatively.

  “I sup
pose I would. Let’s dig deeper and try to see if we can figure this out. The first time or two, I thought it was just some kind of curiosity, or rebellion. But there seems to be more to it than that. You’ve continued this behavior for quite some time now. What do you think is going on?”

  Justine rolled her eyes.

  “Doc  … I guess I just want to live on my own. To be independent and not have to live with Em, you know? That’s all it is.”

  “That’s a smokescreen,” Morton said.

  Justine squirmed in her seat. He had known her for too long, dug inside her brain for too many years. He wasn’t going to accept the easy answer. He wasn’t going to take the first thing she offered. Justine was too flip, too confident of herself for him to believe her. The truth took longer to dig out. It had to take hard work and come with a few tears. He’d never believe it otherwise.

  “Why?” Justine challenged anyway, stalling for time to think of a better answer.

  “Because you know you can’t stay there. You know that you can’t move out from Em’s and live in an abandoned house by yourself. You know that sooner or later the owners or the cops are going to show up and throw you out on your butt. You might like to be free of Em and looking after yourself, sure. You may like to be emancipated or run away. But this is not runaway behavior. This is  … I don’t know,” he mused. “It’s something else. What do you feel like when you go into one of these houses?”

  “I don’t know. I just feel  … safe,” Justine struggled for a word that suited her better, but couldn’t find one. “I dunno.”

  “Safe how?”

  Justine raised her brows high and shrugged.

  “Just safe. At home. Belonging.”

  “Where else do you feel like you belong?” Dr. Morton questioned, tapping his mechanical pencil on his front teeth for a moment, then scribbling something on his pad. “Tell me about that feeling.”

  “I don’t belong anywhere,” Justine said, shaking her head adamantly. “I don’t belong with Em. I don’t belong at school. I don’t have any friends. I don’t have anything. But I like  … I like being in my own house.”

  “Except it isn’t your own house. It isn’t even a house that is comfortable. It’s an empty house.”

  “So? That’s where I feel best,” Justine said. “I can imagine everything else.”

  Morton closed his eyes and tipped back his chair.

  “What do you imagine? Is it always the same? Is it the same room, the same furnishings? Or does it depend on the house?”

  Justine hesitated. After a minute, Morton opened his eyes and looked at her.

  “Come on, Justine. Close your eyes and describe it to me. Help me to see what it looks and feels like to you.”

  Justine stared out the window at the pigeons. Where did they go to sleep? Did they sleep up there on the roof, or did they have nests in a tree or a cathedral somewhere? Did they all flock together or was it just by chance that they were all in the same place? Were they friends and family, or strangers just playing a pick-up game of ‘bump the bird off the ledge?’

  “I dunno,” Justine said finally, not closing her eyes, but visualizing it in the air before her. It was hazy, unformed. Imagining it was never the same as being there, actually being in the room with her vision. “It’s  … dark  … the furniture is big, old. The carpet  … has those big loops in it. Dark brown. Kind of reminds me of a giant dog that lets you lie on it for a pillow. Sometimes there’s noise  … people talking in the distance  … just regular noises of other people going about their lives.”

  “Pictures on the walls?” Morton questioned. “Any other people?”

  Monica was there, Justine thought. Some of the time, but not always. Katie was always there. They kept her company. She was never alone. But there were no adults to harm her or tell her what to do. Just the others. Her sisters. Her real self. The person that she was meant to be. But she hadn’t talked to Dr. Morton about Monica and Katie for a long time. He thought that they were gone.

  “Nobody else,” she lied. “Just me. Pictures  … I don’t know if there are any pictures. They’re too high to see.”

  “Hmm,” Morton nodded slowly. “Interesting. And what would you like to do there? How would you entertain yourself or keep yourself busy? Are there toys, books, television?”

  “There’s a TV,” Justine agreed, “but it’s pretty boring. Usually, I just sleep.”

  Now she closed her eyes, still picturing it. Imagining how peaceful it was, being by herself. Just her, by herself, falling asleep by the droning television, her cheek impressed in the aging brown shag carpet.

  Em looked up as Dr. Morton came out of his inner office, shutting the door quietly behind him.

  “Is everything okay?” she questioned in immediate concern. Usually, he didn’t leave Justine by herself, and didn’t need to talk to Em privately. That usually meant something serious.

  “It’s fine,” Dr. Morton assured her, smiling. “Please don’t get anxious. I think we’ve made some progress today.”

  “Really? That’s great.”

  “She fell asleep,” he said, nodding toward the closed door.

  “Asleep? Why? Well, I guess she was up half the night, what with the police station and everything  …”

  “I think it’s more of a fugue state or self-hypnosis. Sort of a dissociation.”

  “That sounds dangerous.”

  “Not at all. I think we are getting closer to figuring out the basis of her psychological problems.”

  Em pursed her lips, narrowing her eyes at him.

  “I thought that you believed it was probably because of when she was sick when she was a baby. She didn’t bond with me properly because she was in the hospital, and that caused the behavioral problems.”

  “That’s one theory  … but it’s always been a bit of a reach, because attachment disorder is usually based around a traumatic experience, or a lengthy separation from the caregiver or period of neglect. You said that she wasn’t in hospital for that long, and when she was, you were usually there with her. She wasn’t in isolation, and you were able to hold her and maintain a bond.”

  Em shrugged helplessly.

  “But you thought that’s probably what it was.”

  “Was Justine ever away from you for any other period of time?” he prodded.

  Em shook her head.

  “Tell me about where you lived when she was younger.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The house that you lived in. Describe the rooms and decor to me.”

  “We’ve always lived here,” Em said, “in the same house.”

  “She’s never lived in any other house?”

  “No.”

  “Or stayed with someone else, an aunt or sister or someone, while you had to go somewhere else?” he persisted.

  “No,” Em shook her head.

  “Just the hospital.”

  “And that was only for a couple of weeks, and I was there, taking care of her.”

  Dr. Morton sighed.

  “She continues to elude me,” he sighed.

  “Are you going to be much longer?” Em said, looking at her watch.

  “No. I’ll bring her out of this dissociative state and continue on. Shouldn’t be too much longer. It just  … doesn’t make sense. I don’t think she’s lying to me, but what she says just doesn’t match up. It just doesn’t make sense.”

  Em nodded understandingly.

  “I know  … I wish I could help.”

  CHAPTER 3

  JUSTINE HAD MISSED MOST of the school day, but she insisted on getting to her last couple of afternoon classes. Em insisted that she didn’t have to. Em said that Justine had had a long, grueling day, and she didn’t have to go to school until tomorrow. But Justine had staunchly refused to miss her last couple of classes. Em couldn’t help showing her pleasure that Justine was being responsible and not skipping classes when
given the chance. She smiled and gave Justine Dr. Morton’s sick note for the earlier part of the day, and dropped her off in front of the school. Justine walked right in the front doors without turning around to see if Em was watching her in. Of course Em was watching her in. She wanted to be sure that Justine was actually going to go in, and not just skate around the neighborhood for the rest of the day. Justine went directly to the office.

  “Hi Justine,” Clara, the student manning the reception desk in the office greeted. “What’s up?”

  Justine handed over her sick note. Clara picked it up and looked it over.

  “Okay,” she told Justine, “I’ll enter this into the computer. Everything okay?”

  Justine rolled her eyes. Clara wasn’t actually supposed to be paying attention to any of the details on the sick note. She was supposed to act like she didn’t know anything, didn’t know anything about Justine’s personal life. That was all protected, private information.

  “I’m fine,” Justine growled, and shouldered her back pack. “I gotta get to class now.”

  “Next period starts in ten minutes. You might as well take your time.”

  “Thanks,” Justine agreed, and walked out.

  She stowed her board and her backpack and picked up her books for the last two periods. Her next class was math, and for the first few minutes, she was okay. But the lecture was beyond boring, and Justine’s mind began to wander. She glanced around the room, but all of the other students seemed intent on the teacher’s speech and the examples on the board. It was the same crap that they’d been learning already for two weeks, and Justine didn’t see why they needed to have yet another class on the same basic material. Justine was still tired and sort of foggy from her session with Dr. Morton that morning. She felt distant, mentally removed from where she was physically. She folded her arms on the top of the desk and closed her eyes, resting her chin on her arms. She could just listen to the lecture, she didn’t need to take any notes. She already understood what the teacher was going over again  … and again  … and again.