by Juno Dawson
‘This is a cool thing, man,’ Brady says, putting an arm around Guy. ‘When’s sunrise?’
‘I don’t know. Usually about six.’
‘Cool. We got a little time.’
I sit next to Brady and Guy. Ruby and Kendall take the other bench, Kendall resting her head on Ruby’s shoulder. Aside from Guy, who seems wide awake, we all look bleary.
‘Sasha told me something earlier,’ I say when the silence is too much.
‘What?’ Kendall asks.
‘I don’t know if I should say.’
‘Girl, you can’t say “I got a secret” and then not tell us the goddamn secret!’ Ruby says.
I sigh. ‘She told me that Marcus felt her up while she was sedated.’
‘Shit,’ Brady breathes.
‘No way!’ Ruby snorts. ‘As if!’
‘When did she say that?’ asks Kendall.
‘Tonight, before they put her in Isolation. Do you think I should tell someone?’
‘No! Because she’s a crapsack. A sack, full of crap,’ Ruby says, needlessly defining that term.
‘Brady? What do you think?’
He shrugs and considers his answer for a while. ‘Do what you think is right, but here’s the thing with Sasha – she contradicts herself all the time. I’ve known her the longest and she tells outright lies.’
‘Like, she told me she was the illegitimate daughter of a Tory politician and that’s how she got into Clarity,’ Guy says.
‘But then she told me she never knew her dad and that her mum was a prostitute,’ adds Kendall.
‘Sometimes she says she grew up in foster homes, other times she talks about her mum and brothers and sisters. She once said she was an orphan,’ Brady continues. ‘I think she does it on purpose. I think she doesn’t want us to know what’s real and what’s fake.’
‘If that’s true, I dread to think what’s real,’ I say.
‘You know what I think?’ Ruby says. ‘I think she probably lives in a totally normal house with totally normal parents and she’s making shit up to explain why she’s so screwed up. Like, if she comes from a crack whore it all makes more sense.’
Sasha makes no sense. Which makes me want to make sense of her.
Brady leans in to me. ‘If it’s worrying you, tell Goldstein. He knows Sasha better than any of us.’
I nod. If she’s making it up, she’s part of the reason why Genie wouldn’t go to the police that time Giles Gilhooley forced himself on her at that rugby fundraiser, and I’m angry. If she’s making it up, I might get a perfectly good nurse sacked for no reason.
If she’s not making it up . . .
It might be my imagination but I think the sky is turning indigo.
‘Should we say something about Saif?’ Kendall says.
‘We hardly knew him,’ Ruby says, and I’m getting a little tired of her sourness.
‘Kendall knew him pretty well,’ I say with a smirk.
‘Too soon!’ Kendall says with a tiny side-smile. ‘He was good in bed. There. That’s my contribution.’
‘He was mixed up,’ Brady says. ‘He had an ego, he was a little arrogant, but I think he was a good guy underneath. Just immature. Even more so than the rest of us.’
That’s fair. ‘I wish I knew him better,’ I add. It feels like a dumb thing to say and I wish I hadn’t said it. It just keeps occurring to me that I knew nothing about him. I don’t know what food he liked; what his favourite movie was; who his friends were. And I never will. Y’know, because he’s dead.
‘I thought the dude was a bit of a douche, actually,’ Guy says.
‘Guy! Way harsh!’ Ruby chides.
‘Let me finish. I should have known better. He had a problem and I didn’t want to help him because it felt like he was stealing my friend, which is nuts. I’m sorry I didn’t try.’
I reach over Brady and give Guy’s knee a squeeze. ‘It wasn’t your job to save him.’
Guy shrugs. ‘I don’t know. I think you guys are helping to save me.’
Again, cheesy, but he’s probably right. Between us we have more issues than Glamour, but we’re like a circle of mirrors facing inwards; we can’t hide from each other or ourselves.
We fall silent.
‘It’s time,’ Kendall says.
It happens more quickly than I thought it would. The sky turns electric blue and the clouds are black for a second, but as the sky becomes lavender, the clouds are baby blue. It reminds me of the MAC eyeshadow counter for a second, before everything becomes the softest, palest pastels.
And then the sky is on fire. Amber gold leaks from the horizon like a fried egg yolk stabbed with a fork. We’re dazzled for a second and then the sun hatches from the ocean, dribbling over the waves.
I’m crying and I don’t know why.
All my bullshit and bitterness and cynicism is burned off for a second and I just roll with the emotion. It very much feels like a rush, like I’m coming up, and I can’t control it. I’m too weak to resist, too weak to pretend this isn’t majestic and powerful and beautiful. Everything I’ve ever said or done feels stupid and irrelevant. I am stupid and irrelevant.
I’ll be myself again once the sun is up, but right now I have no more fight left in me.
Ski trip. Val d’Isère. ‘Lexi . . . Lexi . . . wake up! We’re going to watch the sunrise.’
‘Fuck off, Antonella . . .’
‘It’s beautiful, come on.’
‘Go away . . . I mean it.’
I cry.
I feel Brady take my hand and I let my heavy head rest on his shoulder.
STEP 7: I WILL EMBRACE CHANGE – IN MYSELF, OTHERS AND MY ENVIRONMENT
The next few days are subdued. It’s clear Goldstein and Ahmed are going through the motions with slightly deflated tyres. In One-To-One, I tell Goldstein that Saif’s death wasn’t his fault: ‘Wasn’t that like Step 2? We can only get better if we want to. Saif was pretty happy. It . . . it was just an accident.’
Goldstein smiles a half-hearted smile. He looks tired, bed-creased. ‘Lexi, it’s kind of you to think of me, it really is, but addiction and me . . . we go way back. It’s personal.’
I don’t push him. ‘Don’t beat yourself up.’
‘I wonder, Lexi, whether this is your addiction talking. If Saif doesn’t deserve my sympathy because he was an addict, that means you don’t deserve my sympathy either. What do you think?’
I actually laugh. A genuine laugh, from a place of fun. ‘Oh, you wily old bastard, you get me every time.’
And now he laughs. ‘That’s what they pay me for.’
I see that it’s coming to the end of the session and I haven’t said anything about Sasha and Marcus. I have to decide. Oh, sod it, I’m going to wash my hands of the issue.
‘Dr Goldstein?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can I talk to you about Sasha?’
‘Yes. She’ll be coming out of Isolation later today . . .’
‘It’s not that.’ I sit forward. ‘The night she cut her hair off, she told me something. She’s probably making it up, or testing me, or I don’t know what, but she told me Marcus had . . . molested her when she was sedated. I didn’t know if I should say something or not.’
Goldstein doesn’t blow up as I’m expecting, but his eyes darken. He processes for a second or two. ‘Lexi, you did the right thing. It’s not your responsibility to carry that information; it’s ours.’
‘What happens next?’
He exhales through his nostrils. ‘It’s a very serious allegation. And one that you can let me handle.’ He gestures me towards the door.
‘But wait,’ I say. ‘What if she’s making it all up?’
He nods slowly. ‘But what if she isn’t?’
Ahmed takes us for Group. Since the morning of the sunrise, I’ve steered clear of Brady. My hands are like little magnets, I just want to touch him, and that’s not good for either of us. Kurt feels a million miles away. Brady feels like a holiday romance, but
a holiday in a fictional world where nothing I do counts. This isn’t the real world – it’s an ornamental snow globe. I’m somewhere between missing London and never wanting to return.
I feel safe here.
With Brady.
Sasha joins us for Group. She skulks in, looking thinner than ever. Her head has been properly cropped. Her skin is waxy, her cheekbones gaunt. She looks like she hasn’t slept in about a decade. She slumps into the armchair. ‘How’s Gossip Girl, Interrupted going?’ she asks.
I snigger. That about sums us up. Man, I miss Gossip Girl.
‘Welcome back, Sasha,’ Dr Ahmed says. ‘Today we’re talking about maintaining healthy behavioural habits, especially around food, exercise and sex.’
‘I fuck and eat like a normal person, so can I go?’
‘Sasha . . .’
‘Sorry,’ she mimes locking her mouth and tossing the key over her shoulder.
‘Food and sex are difficult,’ Dr Ahmed explains. ‘They are just as addictive as drugs, but we need them to live. Yes . . . even sex. Some people abstain from sex for all sorts of reasons, but adult relationships, to thrive, need mutual intimacy and affection, if not intercourse.’
Now I suddenly find my fingernails fascinating as I do anything I can to not look at Brady. I can’t stop thinking about what happened in the weird bunker in the forest . . . how hot we were together. When I touch myself in the shower, although I try to think about Kurt, my imagination idly drifts back to Brady.
‘We have said time and time again in Group that it’s not the trigger that’s faulty, it’s our individual relationship with it . . .’
It’s Kendall’s turn: ‘For me, right now, I’ve just about accepted that I have to eat to keep my body alive. I one hundred per cent see food as fuel. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to enjoy food. I think it’s disgusting we rely on shovelling lard into our faces like hogs . . .’
After she finishes, Ruby speaks: ‘I feel like here I don’t have any control, so everything’s real easy. I’m losing weight, I feel better, I like the food . . .’ I examine Ruby, and she’s definitely looking healthier. I guess the diet regime is working. ‘But, Doc, you ain’t gonna be sat in my refrigerator in Manhattan at two a.m. the next time I go on a binge. Who’s gonna pull that goddamn chicken wing outta my hand?’
Then Guy: ‘Maybe I have to simply accept that I can’t get to grips with the most basic thought processes that everyone else takes for granted. I know terrible things won’t happen if I don’t perform my rituals, but thinking they might doesn’t go away. The sooner I accept it, the sooner I can cobble together some semblance of a life. I used to think the goal was to get off medication, but now I think the goal is to live with it . . .’
And, finally, Brady: ‘I hope I know the difference,’ he says. ‘I hope that when I finally fall in love for real, I don’t mistake it for compulsion and let it go. But I don’t know if I can do it. I was so far gone. Girls . . . guys . . . groups, it didn’t matter. If I was high, I’d go there. It was dark. I put myself – and other people – at risk. For me, sex isn’t about “intimacy and affection” any more. It was just another razor blade.’
Jesus, I’ve never wanted him more. What is wrong with me?
‘It’s the same as anything else, Brady,’ Ahmed says. ‘It’s about establishing parameters in which you can function safely. Maybe that means sober sex, maybe it means sex only in a relationship, maybe it means no sex. There are other things to a relationship. I’ve been married for six years, I can’t remember the last time I had sex and it has nothing to do with abstinence!’
Dr Ahmed! Who knew? My mouth flops open.
Brady cracks a smile first and soon we’re all giggling. Even Sasha.
I spend the afternoon taking Storm for a run on the beach. He needs it. I need it. The wind in my face blows all the fog off my brain. My hair feels salty and wild and mermaidy, and I like it.
Elaine – am I meant to call her Lady Denhulme now? – is amazed at the progress I’m making with Storm, but I’m saddle sore to say the least. With sweat gleaming on his flanks, I walk him back towards the stables.
Coming up the bridleway, I see the little red door to the stable cottage open, and instead of Elaine, the broad bulk of Goldstein pops out. I tug on Storm’s reins and he reluctantly stops. ‘Shhh,’ I tell him.
Lady Denhulme emerges right behind him and my mind, never far out of the gutter, wonders what they’ve been up to.
Maybe it’s nothing. Is Goldstein telling her what I told him about Sasha? Would she need to know? Only then he checks the coast is clear before kissing her lightly on the lips. She has to reach up on tiptoes to meet his mouth.
‘Oh wow,’ I mutter to Storm.
Well, this explains why both of them choose to spend so much time on this godforsaken – and there’s a word I don’t use often enough – island. And where’s Lord Denhulme in all this, eh?
Mum and Dad; Goldstein and Lady Denhulme. I have to chuckle. ‘Grown-ups are just as fucked as we are,’ I tell Storm. ‘And they’re meant to know better.’
Back at the centre, I run a hot bath. After galloping around on Storm all afternoon, I needed a soak before I could function.
When I’m a wrinkly prune, I reluctantly climb out of the bath, dry off and change into a grey shift dress from All Saints and some stompy boots, and head down the corridor for dinner.
As I pass through reception I see Marcus, the boynurse, stride out of the front door, carrying a holdall. The door slams behind him. I hear his angry footsteps crunch over the gravel.
Uh-oh.
My stomach churns and suddenly my appetite for filet mignon is all gone. I find the others in the dining room watching through the window.
‘Where’s Marcus going?’ Kendall asks.
‘How should I know?’ It comes out more defensive than I intend.
‘Dude looks pissed,’ Ruby comments before returning to her place. ‘Did you tell Goldstein about . . .?’
I say nothing, confirming it. Sasha isn’t here. I feel dizzy. This is because of what I did. I just hope I made the right call.
After dinner, we sit around the table talking about what we wanna do with the evening. I would gladly sell my soul for a cocktail at this stage. Brady suggests a swim. ‘Come on,’ he says. ‘It’ll be fun, like a pool party.’
‘Oh yeah,’ Kendall says. ‘Trans people just love swimwear.’
‘Aw, that stuff doesn’t matter; it’s just us.’
‘It matters to me,’ she adds quietly.
‘I’ll join in if you do,’ I say. ‘And I’ll even wear gym shorts.’
Kendall seems to consider this. ‘I’m not exactly in love with swimsuits either,’ Ruby points out. ‘But I’ll sit my ass in that jacuzzi.’
‘Awesome!’ Brady grins. ‘I’ve missed my pool back home.’
We agree to get ready and meet at the pool in twenty. It’s never good to swim right after a meal anyway.
I step out of the dining room.
I don’t see the shadow until it’s too late.
It all happens so fast. I feel her on my back and my legs crumple. My knees and hands smash onto the cold, hard tiles and I cry out in pain. She grasps my ponytail and rams my face into the floor. I manage to twist to avoid smashing my nose, but my cheekbone makes painful contact. ‘You fucking canary!’ Sasha spits. ‘You couldn’t keep your mouth shut, could you?’
I hear someone scream and suddenly, from my weird position, I see feet come running down the hallway towards us. As I feel her weight being pulled off me, I see it’s Kendall who’s dragged her off and then Brady who holds her back. ‘Get the fuck off me!’ she screams through gritted teeth. Her eyes are wild, wide and white. She kicks her legs like she’s treading water.
I pick myself up, but I’m dizzy, I cup my cheek with my hand. I’ve bitten my lip and can taste blood. ‘Jesus. I was trying to help.’
‘I don’t need your help! I don’t need anyone’s help! Put me down!’<
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‘You need to chill out, Sasha.’ That’s Brady.
She sinks her teeth into his arm. He swears and drops her. I brace myself, sure she’ll launch herself at me again. She looks like a cornered animal. ‘You know what? I’m done. I’m so fucking done. I . . . can’t . . . breathe! I’m suffocating. You are suffocating me! I have got to get off this bastard island.’ She pushes past Guy and flees towards the back doors.
A little shell-shocked, we look at each other. ‘What the hell was that about?’ Ruby asks.
‘You OK?’ Brady says.
‘That,’ I say, ‘is gonna leave a mark.’ He hands me a tissue and I press it to my lip.
‘I’ll get you some ice.’ Ruby heads towards the kitchen.
‘Where are the nurses when you actually need one?’ Kendall says, fuming.
‘I imagine they were looking for her,’ offers Guy.
‘Wait,’ I say. ‘What do you think she meant? That she’s done. You don’t think she’ll do something stupid, do you?’
We process. I see it in their faces. She can and will do something stupid.
‘Fuck,’ Brady says, summing it up.
‘We have to go after her,’ I say. I don’t want to bring Saif into it, but I don’t want to lose someone else. None of us do.
‘Seriously!’ Kendall now screams at the top of her lungs. ‘Where are the nurses?’ It echoes down the corridors.
‘I’ll go and see where they are.’ Guy hurries upstairs.
‘We can’t wait,’ I say. ‘We better find her, come on.’
Kendall, Brady and I leave through the back doors. The lights only illuminate the lawn and she’s nowhere to be seen. ‘She must have gone into the woods,’ Brady says.
‘Which way do you think she went?’ Kendall asks.
‘Not a clue. We better split up. You go that way, I’ll head down the drive.’
Kendall sets off down the path and I follow her, wrapping my arms around my body. It’s bitter, but I don’t want to waste time looking for a jacket. ‘This is such bullshit,’ Kendall says as we push through the gate on to the woodland path.