Stand Alone

by P. D. Workman

  Em laughed shortly.

  “How can you tell an injury was received from someone you knew?” she questioned.

  “She has no defensive wounds. If she had a fight, or someone attacked her, she would have fought back, grabbed at the knife. Since she didn’t, it would have to be someone that she knew, that she didn’t think would really hurt her.”

  “You think it was me?”

  “A family member is always a possibility. But she’s had several opportunities to accuse you and hasn’t done so. I don’t think it was anyone else. I suspect it was self-inflicted.”

  Em nodded, sighing.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised. She likes attention.”

  Michelin nodded understandingly.

  “Has something happened recently that might gave set her off? An extra stressor or traumatic event?”

  “No, nothing out of the ordinary. Back at school  … I actually thought she’d do better, getting back on a regular schedule.”

  “Any chance she’s being bullied at school?”

  Em opened her mouth to deny it, thought again, and considered it.

  “Dr. Morton has already talked to her about bullying. He doesn’t think there’s an issue. We’re  … watching the situation.”

  “I’ll make sure he knows what’s happened today. He’ll need as much detail as possible.”

  “Can I go see her now?” Em questioned.

  “Sure. Sorry to keep you,” he motioned for her to go ahead.

  Em walked into the hospital room, and glanced in irritation at Dr. Michelin, who followed her in. Justine studied both of them, assessing Em’s mood and what the doctor had decided about her.

  “Hi,” she said shortly.

  “What have you done to yourself, Justine?” Em questioned, with the sigh of a martyr.

  Justine gave her a narrow look. What did Em think she was doing, making this about her? Justine getting hurt wasn’t anything to do with Em. It was about Justine.

  “I tripped and fell, and cut my arm,” Justine said, showing Em the bandaged limb.

  “How about you tell me the truth about how you got hurt?” Em suggested.

  “That is the truth. I fell and cut myself.”

  “The doctors say that’s not what happened. “

  “What do they know? They weren’t there!”

  “They can tell it wasn’t an accident. Why did you do this to yourself? What kind of a sick person intentionally injures themself?”

  “I’m not sick,” Justine disagreed, though a part of her was happy that Em thought it was true. Em had done this to her. Em had made her the sick, broken person that she was. And Em should have to suffer for it, even if it was nothing more than embarrassment over Justine.

  “Anybody who could hurt herself that badly is sick,” Em asserted.

  Justine shrugged.

  “So do I have to stay here?” Justine questioned. She really meant could she stay, but she couldn’t ask that.

  Em looked at Michelin, who offered nothing.

  “I’ll have to find out,” Em said in frustration.

  That night, Justine tossed and turned restlessly. Sleeping at the hospital was difficult. Lots of noise, with pages, nurses talking and laughing at the nursing station outside her door, and too many lights. But she snuggled down in her blankets the best that she could and closed her eyes.

  The freezing had long since come out of her arm now, and it was swollen and ached. She had been given some painkillers, but they didn’t work nearly as well as the Demerol in the emergency room had, and she wasn’t comfortable. They were probably afraid that she was trying to get more narcotic painkillers than she needed, or something. She knew that hospitals tracked that kind of thing, trying to catch the people who were hooked or selling them on the street.

  She dreamed that she was awake, crawling across the floor, determined to reach her goal. But she was tired. So tired. Every movement seemed to require more and more effort. Each time she reached out her arm or leg, she thought that it was the last that she could manage. But then she had to move again. Reach again. Try to get one more inch across the interminable floor. The carpet was tangled and coarse. She heard a dog bark. She heard the TV, droning on and on, a comforting background sound that never went away any more. It filled her dreams like a ticking clock, marking the passage of time, yet infinite time stretched out ahead of her, always to be filled with more TV noise.

  A baby cried in the distance. She didn’t know who that baby was. Someone that she had seen before? Passing in the hallway or sitting in the park. She wanted to cry herself, but she was too weak. It would require too much effort. And she hadn’t used her voice in so long she wasn’t sure it was still there any more.

  Another step. Another reach. Inching along to her goal. Always out of reach. Just beyond her. Her breathing became too labored, and she lay on her side, curled up, panting, eyes closed, waiting to get back enough energy to go just one more step.

  CHAPTER 13

  EM HAD DECIDED THAT Justine needed more structure. More activities to fill her time. So now she was trapped at soccer practice. Justine sat in the grass, boredly watching the soccer team play. She picked individual blades of grass and split them in half lengthwise, and then in half again, and again, until she only had a tiny thread left or it broke. Then she picked up another one. The sun was too warm. She wished that she was on her board somewhere with the breeze in her face to cool her off. Instead of sitting here like she was in detention or something.

  “Bywater!”

  Justine looked around to see who was calling her. The coach was looking at her, his face red.

  “Huh?”

  “What do you think this is, a picnic? I told you to get in there. You’re up.”

  Justine looked over at the team. Play had stopped and they were all looking at her. The girl who had been taken off was standing halfway between the field and the sidelines, looking uncertain, waiting for Justine to go in, or for the coach to tell her to stay in. Justine took her time getting to her feet.

  “Move your butt, Bywater! Come on! Do you want to play soccer, or don’t you?” he shouted.

  Justine looked at him.

  “No.”

  “Then what are you doing on the team?” he demanded, getting redder than Justine thought possible.

  “My mom signed me up. I hate sports.”

  “Well, you can tell her you’ve been cut. Go home.”

  Justine nodded and turned to walk away. There were catcalls from some of the other girls sitting on the sidelines. Girls who really wanted to play, who had really asked to be on the team. Justine shrugged at them.

  “All yours,” she told them.

  Hopefully the coach wouldn’t call to complain to Em about Justine’s attitude, about signing up a girl who didn’t want to play. As long as he kept quiet, Em wouldn’t have any idea that Justine wasn’t going to her practices any more, and she could have control over some of her own time again. Otherwise, Em would put her in some other sport that Justine didn’t want to be in. Trying to force her to be something she wasn’t. Like the foray into dietary intervention, Dr. Morton approved and believed it would help. But like the dietary intervention, Justine had no intention of getting with the program. And like the dietary intervention, she would win. Nobody could force her to participate in team sports. Sooner or later, every team would kick her out.

  At home that night, Justine looked at the clock again. Even though she had already eaten a snack, she was waiting for Em to get home and make supper. Em was pretty reliable, sometimes getting home ahead of Justine after school, and always before six o’clock. But the minute hand kept creeping around the clock, and Justine was getting anxious.

  What would she do if something had happened to Em, and she was never coming home? What if Em had abandoned her, had just decided never to come home again, and Justine was left there, waiting for her, all alone? What if there was no one to take care of her?

  Justine got up from th
e computer and rummaged through the fridge and cupboards. There was lots of food here. It wasn’t like she was going to starve if Em didn’t come home. She wasn’t even hungry yet, but the thought of being abandoned haunted her, winding her up, and she grabbed a box of crackers, and snarfed them down after turning the TV on to a talk show where boyfriends were confronting their girlfriends about their baby’s parentage. She hardly noticed what was going on in the show, though she was sure it was very entertaining, with lots of gasps of horror from the audience and screaming going on between the not-so-happy couples. Cute baby pictures were shown on the screen, or the young children paraded across the stage before the audience.

  Justine hated Em. She couldn’t believe that Em had abandoned her like this. After all of her talk about how she would always take care of Justine and give her everything she needed, one day it was just all gone. One day she had just had enough, and she was gone. Never mind how many times she had professed how much she loved her daughter. What would Dr. Morton say about this? How would he explain this to her? Justine had told him that Em would give up one day. Dr. Morton had denied it. And now this.

  Justine looked at the clock. It was five minutes to six. The talk show was winding up, putting up call-in numbers on the screen and advertising the next day’s circus. Em hadn’t called. The clock ticked on. Justine couldn’t believe it. Had Em forgotten about her, or intentionally abandoned her? Had something happened to her? A car accident? Kidnapping? Murder? Justine changed the channel to the news to see if they had any natural disasters or gory traffic accidents to report. The lead story was a barn burning down outside of the city. Not a big news day. No zombie apocalypse. So where was Em? Justine flipped channels, but barely noticed any of the shows, glancing at the clock and at the door worriedly.

  It was twenty-five minutes past six when she finally heard Em’s key in the door, and turned around to see her come in.

  “You’re late!” Justine shrieked. “Where were you?”

  Em looked startled. She glanced at her watch.

  “I ran late at the office, and there was some traffic on the way home. Nothing to worry about.”

  Justine clutched at her face, trying to control her emotions by mashing down the twisted lines of despair and fury, by smoothing everything out with her hands. Trying desperately to force her body to relax and not advertise her panic to Em.

  “Aargh! Couldn’t you call? Why didn’t you at least tell me you were going to be late?” Justine demanded, her voice so high that it hurt her throat.

  “Justine  … you could have called me, if you were worried,” Em pointed out softly, making calming motions with her hands. “You have a phone. You know my number.”

  “I—I wasn’t worried about you,” Justine insisted in defense. “I just  … don’t like to wait for dinner!”

  Em glanced around the kitchen and living room, and Justine saw the dirty plates and empty packages that she had left strewn about.

  “If you wanted to start in on making us some dinner, you could,” Em said, the corner of her mouth quirking up slightly. “But it looks like you didn’t starve. You could have put on some macaroni or something.”

  “How could I do that if I didn’t know when you were coming home?” Justine snarled. “Or if you were ever coming home?”

  “Of course I was coming home,” Em said. “You know I come home every day. I’ll always come home.”

  “What if you got killed in an accident? Or somebody murdered you? What if—if you just decided not to come home any more?” Justine implored, her whole body shaking. “What if you never came?”

  “Justine,” Em said soothingly, approaching and wrapping her arms around Justine tightly. “It’s okay. I’m fine. And I came home. You’re not alone. It’s okay.”

  Justine clung to her for a few moments, soaking in the comforting words. She wasn’t alone. She wasn’t abandoned. She breathed jaggedly. After a few minutes of only murmured, incomprehensible words between them, Justine braced herself and pushed away.

  “I don’t need you,” she snapped, furious at herself for having shown Em her vulnerability. “It’s too bad you came home, because I thought I was finally free. I don’t need you. And I don’t  … I’m not hungry, so I don’t need your dinner either.”

  Justine stormed off up the stairs and slammed the door to her bedroom as she threw herself down on the bed. But no tears came. Only anger. Speechless, uncontrollable fury. She pounded her pillow and her mattress, but there was no satisfaction in that. She swept things off of her dresser and started grabbing things and throwing them to the floor, smashing them to bits. Em was always buying her pretty, delicate things, trying to bribe her into being good, trying to encourage her to be responsible and take care of them. Em should know after so many years that the reprieves in between Justine destroying everything in her room were short, and that nice things didn’t last long. But she couldn’t seem to help herself. She liked to have nice things around her. She liked to decorate, and couldn’t stand to do what Dr. Morton or others suggested, and just leave Justine’s room as bare as a monk’s cell. Em had learned, however, not to come into Justine’s room and try to physically force her to stop in the middle of a tantrum. If she came up now, she’d just get hurt. Even if Justine didn’t try to hurt her, there was broken glass all over the floor.

  Justine wound down, and sat on the edge of her bed, just staring at the destruction she had caused. That was the way that she felt inside. All broken up, sharp bits stabbing into her. Something that should have been beautiful, just busted all to bits, beyond repair. Beyond recognition.

  The door opened. Em peered in.

  “Do you want some dinner?” she questioned. “I made some of that bean chili that you really like. There are hard or soft tortilla shells  …”

  Justine stared at her dully and nodded her head. She was exhausted. Completely wrung out.

  “Come on out, then.” Em pushed the door open the rest of the way to reveal the broom and dustpan that she was carrying. Justine watched her sweep a narrow path from the door to the bed. “We’ll finish cleaning this up later. Come and eat.”

  Justine walked through the path Em created, and followed her downstairs to dinner.

  At her next session, Dr. Morton offered Justine a drink box, and she accepted and sat down on a chair other than the one that she usually sat in. Dr. Morton adjusted his chair slightly to face her.

  “So, we’ve got a lot to talk about today,” he suggested. “You’ve had another trip to the hospital, and I had a call from the school today too.”

  Justine had been staring at a dark spot on the carpet, wondering whether it was a burn or a piece of dark lint. She looked up at him.

  “Why’d the school call?” she questioned.

  “Something about you pretending to be someone else again today.”

  “Oh,” Justine shrugged, unconcerned. She was more interested in talking about her trip to the hospital.

  “Who were you trying to be at school today? Katie again?”

  Justine shook her head.

  “No.”

  “Who, then?”

  Justine shrugged.

  “No one. Just having some fun,” she brushed it off.

  “I’d like to hear about it anyway.”

  Justine couldn’t see the window from this chair, so no pigeons. Dr. Morton sat there smiling at her and waiting patiently. Justine tipped her chair back and stared at the ceiling. She sucked on the straw of the juice box, making a slurping sound.

  “Tell me who you’re being today,” Morton urged.

  Justine stared at the ceiling.

  “Monica,” she said finally.

  “And what’s special about Monica?”

  “Nothing. It’s just a name I picked.”

  “I see. No special meaning to you?” Morton persisted.

  “No.”

  “What was it like being Monica at school today? What made her different?”

  “She’
s a lot younger than anyone else,” Justine finally offered up.

  Morton nodded, examining his fingernails closely. Justine was irritated by his distraction.

  “She was younger, and she was lost. People were supposed to help her, but no one did. Maybe I should go to a new school.”

  “Where they don’t already know your antics?” Morton said, with a knowing smile.

  Justine scowled at him.

  “Just  … they always just ignore me, or call you, or whatever. They don’t  …”

  “They don’t give you the attention that you want.”

  “But it’s not just  …” Justine trailed off, trying to put it into words. She shook her head. “I don’t just want attention. I want  …”

  Dr. Morton waited, watching her face. He was good at reading her, and Justine wondered if he’d be able to see her thoughts even though she couldn’t put them into words.

  “You want  …” Dr. Morton appeared to be fishing for words himself, “You want to feel like you belong. But you’re not comfortable in your own skin. You want to be free to explore yourself, but they’ve already got you pigeon-holed.”

  Justine quirked her mouth and wrinkled her nose, considering.

  “Yeah, sort of.”

  “You want people to react to you, so you know how it feels to be different. If they won’t react, you don’t know what to do.”

  “I don’t know,” Justine said, frustrated. “That all sounds good, but it doesn’t fit right.”

  “Okay,” Dr. Morton shrugged and nodded. “So my theory doesn’t quite work. Do you have another?”

  Justine struggled to sort out her feelings.

  “No.”

  “How do you wish that people had reacted to Monica? They just ignore you, and call me or your mom. But you wish that they had  … ?”

  “I want them to help Monica,” Justine burst out, angry about how she had been ignored. “Monica needs help!”

  “Because she’s younger?”