“No, sorry. She had a job interview she couldn’t miss. She asked me to tell you.”
“A job, huh? Good for her.” He scribbled down the excuse, but she could see he didn’t believe it. “Last time you were here we increased your Zoloft to 200 milligrams daily. Is that what you’re currently taking?”
“Yes,” she said. The second in under a minute.
“And how do you feel? Do you have thoughts of hurting yourself or others?”
She bit a piece of skin off of her chapped bottom lip. This wasn’t as black and white a question as he surely thought it was and she had to feel him out. “Can I ask you something?” She needed to know she wasn’t crazy.
“Okay, sure.”
She hesitated, unsure how to phrase it. If she should phrase it. “Do you believe in ghosts?”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean, do you believe the spirit of something dead can affect the living?”
“What do you believe?” His quick reply made it look like he answered without thinking.
It was now or never. Either she told him, or continued to wonder if she was completely batshit crazy. “I think so. I mean, I know it can. I used a Ouija board,” she admitted after a ponderous silence. “And something came through. A man. Tom. He…” The look on Reed’s face wasn’t disbelief or comedy, it was concern.
He wrote something down in her chart and pulled out one of those shitty diagnostic tests—a multiple choice with answers like “agree”, “somewhat agree”, “strongly agree”. It was a screening test for schizophrenia. One she remembered her mother taking.
“Are you seeing or hearing things, Harmony?” Reed put the test on a clipboard and handed it to her.
“I’m not schizo.” She put the clipboard back on his desk, refusing to fill it out.
“No one said anything about schizophrenia. That’s a generalized test and I would like you to fill it out, but it’s your choice. I’m more wondering about this Tom. Does he talk to you? Do you see him?”
She shrugged. “Sometimes. I mean, never mind.”
“Our conversations are confidential. What you tell me won’t be repeated.”
Harmony’s mother believed Dr. Reed could read minds, but she’s a certified paranoid schizophrenic. Harmony tried not to listen to her, especially when she was off her meds.
Dr. Reed shifted in his chair. “Do you know the term ideomotor response?”
“Yeah, it means you move the planchette, the indicator, yourself. That your subconscious answers the questions and not a spirit.”
“Very good.” Reed nodded.
“That doesn’t mean I believe it. The board told me things I couldn’t know.”
“We know things on many levels, sometimes without realizing it. Our subconscious stores memories and when we’re in certain situations like, for example, when you used the Ouija board, those memories can be recalled.”
“It’s not a memory, okay? And it’s not paranoia either. God, I knew I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“I’m glad you did. I need you to trust me, Harmony if we’re going to work together to keep you home and get you and your mom the help you both need. Can I ask you something?”
Harmony shrugged. “I guess.”
“Why is it you asked me about this when I asked about hurting yourself or others? Do you believe the board makes you want to hurt yourself?”
“Honestly?” She pulled up her sleeves, showing him the ladders of cuts scoring the inside of both arms. “It makes me more than just think about it.”
5.
Brea waited on the stairs outside of the lunchroom for Harmony to show up, terrified that when she did it was going to be with bad news. She was too tired and worried to field the inevitable questions about what was bothering her and so, rather than sit with the others in the cafeteria, she kept to herself. She opened her black leather journal to finish the poem she started on the bus and rolled up the sleeves of her red plaid flannel shirt.
Rachael Warren stopped in front of her and laughed. “What’s up, lumberjack?” Amanda and Becky, the two other heads of the hydra, laughed along with her.
Brea ignored them, but couldn’t concentrate. She was fed up and wanted to take Rachael by her highlighted ponytail and smash her face into the cement block wall. It was Harmony’s violent influence talking, of course.
Rachael persisted. “Didn’t you hear me, Paul Bunyun? Where’s your blue ox?”
Brea huffed and set her pen in the center crease of her open journal. “How long until you drop this? You’re an ex. Get it? And there’s nothing going on between Jaxon and me, anyway.”
Nothing they’d publically admitted.
Jaxon Winslow was popular, athletic, and good-looking and his family had money. Jaxon’s father, Mitchell Winslow, owned the largest commercial construction company in upstate New York. He was a friend of Brea’s mother’s who worked as the Head of Town Planning. Their parents pushed Brea and Jaxon together at the St. Michael’s end of summer picnic after Jaxon and Rachael’s most recent break-up. Brea hadn’t said a word to anyone about them dating. Not even to Harmony, who would, no-doubt, think the whole thing was a joke.
Rachael knocked the journal out of Brea’s lap and kicked it across the floor. “Stay away from him, freak.”
Brea dragged the book back with her fingertips. The cover was rough with floor grit and she wiped it off on her shirt. “Or what?” Her cell phone vibrated. It was Harmony. Knowing she was in the bathroom down the hall if Brea needed back-up made her that much tougher. “Or what, Rachael?” She put her journal away and stood close enough to Rachael to smell her cherry lip gloss.
Becky pulled Rachael by the sleeve of her snug-fitting hoodie. “Come on, it’s going to take forever to get through the pizza line.”
They walked away and Brea sighed, proud that she finally stood up for herself. She couldn’t wait to tell Harmony.
* * * * *
Harmony leaned over the bathroom sink and put a cold water-soaked paper towel on the back of her neck. She took a deep breath and threw the near-full sample pack of antidepressants—a full week’s worth, less the two pills Dr. Reed all but pea-shot down her throat—in the garbage.
She felt detached, numb, and everything tangible was, to her, fluid and wobbly. She wanted to curl up somewhere and sleep off the side-effects, but she didn’t have a free week to do it.
“Come on, Brea. Where are you?”
Harmony washed her hands and the soap burned the newer cuts on her arms reminding her of Tom.
“You’re not as tough as you think you are,” she said as if he could hear her.
Staring deep into the mirror, a sense of dread overcame her.
The bathroom was an interior room so there were no windows. The lights went out and she couldn’t see to move. She gripped the porcelain sink’s wet edge and blinked, her eyes unable to adjust.
A single light clicked on behind the mirrored glass and there, like a window to another world, was a dimly lit basement room. The concrete walls were blood-spattered and in the middle of the floor, a man sat in a chair with his back to her.
“No, no, no.” Harmony pounded the heels of her hands against her head, her feet frozen in position.
The man stood and moved toward her, his hands behind his back and his head down. The right side of his tee shirt was stiff, crimson and brown from the shoulder to the waist and a smell, like week old chicken rotting in a garbage can, wafted off of him.
It was Tom, it had to be.
Harmony pinched her eyes shut, not wanting to see more, sensing that something terrible was about to happen. As hard as she squeezed them, an unexplainable counter-pressure pulled them apart. Tears spilled from their corners and when they opened, he was there. A foot in front of her. Inside the mirror. His hands came from around his back and the single bulb light reflected off the metal barrel of the gun. He held it two handed and aimed it dead center between her eyes, his head still bent downward and a steady stri
ng of bloody spit draining from his chin to the floor.
“Please, please stop this.”
“Harmony. Harmony, answer me.” Brea’s voice broke through the vision.
Harmony felt a hand on her shoulder, the light came on, and a sharp slap stung her left cheek drawing her back from Tom’s grip.
Brea stepped back, apologetic and on the defensive. “I’m so sorry, Harmony. You were shaking and hurting yourself. You were blank. I didn’t know what to do.”
Harmony crumbled into Brea’s arms, rocking against her until she felt safe. Her palms burned. She had clenched her fists so hard that her nails dug into them to the point of bleeding.
Brea stroked her hair and patted her back. “Hey, come on. It’s fine. Do you need the nurse?”
A knock came at the door and Harmony scrambled to compose herself. She rinsed her bloody palms under the cool water and patted her eyes with a wad of toilet paper. She didn’t want people seeing her like this. They talked too much already.
“It’s fine,” Brea said. “I locked it. Take your time. What happened?”
“It’s Tom. It’s getting worse. He was here. He’s following me.”
Brea picked up the sample pack of pills from the top of the garbage. “Are these yours?”
“Reed made me take them.”
“Maybe you should take them. Try it, just for a little while.”
The knock came again.
“Occupied,” Brea shouted and held out Harmony’s hands palm-up. The injuries extended from her palms to her elbows. “You have to do something. If you don’t you’re only hurting yourself.”
“You’re right.” Harmony took her hands back. “And I don’t think I can stop.”
6.
Brea erased ten lines of work for an algebra equation she couldn’t solve and threw her pencil across the room. She was still shaken from what happened with Harmony who had been in some kind of decline for several months. Harmony’s paranoia was worse, her theories more illogical, and her cutting more frequent. She shot down any theory for what was happening to her except for that it was Tom. Him, Harmony believed in.
Brea pushed her lap desk down to the foot of her bed and rolled on her side, watching a fresh chunk of red goo float to the top of her lava lamp.
Jaxon came from around her partly closed door. “Something I can help you with?” He was wearing a snug, v-neck tee and a pair of well-fitting jeans: tight in the butt, looser in the leg. “Your mom let me up.”
“I figured.”
He picked the pencil up off the floor and sat down next to her. She breathed deeply the smell of his Armani cologne and for a minute, almost closed her eyes. “Here.” He put her notebook in his lap and marked up the problem. “You have to move your variables all to one side.” He added and subtracted and wrote a clean second line.
“I can’t believe I didn’t see that.” She solved the rest in no time. “I was making it harder than it needed to be.”
“Isn’t that just like you?”
“Yeah, I guess it is. What’re you doing here?”
“I thought you might want to go up to Jupiter’s for a cone or something. They’re getting ready to close for the season.”
Jupiter’s was Reston’s one and only hangout.
“I’m still pretty full from dinner.” Brea grimaced for effect.
“It’s not because half of the senior class will be there though, right?”
“No.” She avoided eye contact and swept a long piece of bang behind her ear.
He bent over so that he was looking straight into her eyes. “Are we going to talk about why we’re in hiding?”
She shrugged and picked at the side of her thumb nail, not wanting to say their relationship felt too good to be true. That she didn’t believe he could stay interested in her and that she was afraid if word got out, his friends might influence him to stay away from her. It was easier to blame something else and she said, “I haven’t told Harmony about you, yet.”
“Why?”
She couldn’t tell him it was because she didn’t trust it would last and made up a believable excuse. “If she knew I was seeing you, she’d think I was some kind of social climber or sell-out. She’d take it personally, like I wanted to be with your group of friends instead of her. Since you’re not her type, me dating you just opens the door to a lot of unnecessary aggravation. It’s easier to not say anything. It’d be like you telling Rachael Warren or Pete Mackey about me.”
Jaxon scrunched up his face. “You don’t think Rachael knows?”
“Ok, I’ll give you that one. Rachael was a bad example.”
“You want me to say something?” He raised his eyebrows. “I will. Tomorrow, meet me at your locker. Harmony’s is only a few down. It’ll kill two birds with one stone. You game?”
“I, uh…”
“I’ll take that as a ‘yes’”. He put the homework-covered tray on the floor and pulled her so that her head rested on his chest. “See how easy that was? Now if I could only get an answer about prom.”
Prom. She still didn’t know how to tell him she was using it as a cover for her and Harmony to hit the Bloody Mayhem show in Mason.
Her mother forbade her to see Harmony and prom was one of the only easy end-arounds.
“So, prom?” he asked. “Leaning one way or the other?
She shrugged. “I’m still thinking about it.”
7.
The morning air was cold enough for Harmony to see her breath. She suppressed her claustrophobia to join the crowd of walkers huddled in the Reston High vestibule. She was elbow to elbow with far too many people, borderline hyperventilating, and sick of getting knocked around by unknowing persons’ backpacks.
She took a few deep breaths and looked at the clock. The bell should have already rung.
Something was wrong.
A police cruiser parked out front and an officer pushed his way inside. She tried to make sense of the growing student buzz, but her ears were ringing like at the onset of a panic attack.
“Excuse me.” She struggled to gain ground on the others. “Come on, move it! I’m going to be sick.”
As she got to the front of the pack, the bell rang and she booked it.
All eyes were on her, or at least it felt that way. She opened her cell and dialed.
“Come on, Brea, answer”
The phone just kept ringing.
She turned into the senior hall and hit a student wall.
Two disciplinarians, the principal, the assistant principal, three cops and a narcotics dog were waiting for the Head Janitor to open her locker.
She slipped inside the unlocked cleaning supply cabinet and watched through a small crack as the bustle heightened.
Brea walked past with “Abercrombie” and that bitch Rachael Warren at their heels. She was yelling something Harmony couldn’t hear and Jaxon seemed to be holding her off.
Harmony dialed again. “Come on, Brea, answer.”
Pete Mackey grabbed Rachael by the arm and pulled her away from Jaxon. Their conversation slowly became clear.
Brea was a bit ahead of them and turned her back to the crowd. Harmony saw the top of her ponytail.
“What did you do now?” Brea said.
“Oh, thank god. What do you see?”
“See? I can barely see anything. Why are you whispering? Where are you?”
It was hard to concentrate with Pete and Jaxon arguing right outside the door and Rachael wailing, “How could you?” over and over.
“I’m around. Look, there’s nothing in there. I swear it.”
Jaxon was in her sightline, blocking her view of Brea. “Listen,” he said to Pete. Rachael had already walked away. “It’s for my old man. Brea’s mother wants her away from that freak show Harmony and I told my dad I’d handle it. In return, he gets the all clear on his rezoning. Her mother’s the head of the town planning committee. He gets a project green lit, I get a new Audi. Everybody wins. Just stay off my back about it and be
nice. Can you manage that?”
Harmony did all she could to keep from gouging his eyes out with her nails. She stifled a growl.
“Harmony, are you there?”
“Yeah, I’m here. I have to get lost for a while. I’ll see you tonight.”
The first period bell rang and the few that moved cleared a path enough for Harmony to see the sizeable Principal Reilly holding up his infamous pink slips.
“Everyone, get to class. Now.”
There were grumblings and a few anonymous profanities, but the crowd broke up. Through the thinning herd came the pop of the combination lock finally pulling loose.
The cop went straight for her backpack and the dog’s reaction was unmistakable.
Whatever they were looking for, they’d found it.
8.
It was 2:00 a.m. and the Pinewood Estates trailer park was quiet except for the low hum of The Cure still playing in the living room where Harmony and Lance’s escapade started. She lay next to him on the floor-bound mattress trying not to feel like a cheater.
She shook her cutting-scarred leg loose from the tangle of sheets and twirled her dyed hair between her fingers.
You’re supposed to be different. Better than this place, she thought and yet here she was, 17 years-old, seducing a drug-dealing tattooist into free art and about to steal his car. Just like her mother.
It was a truth that was hard to swallow.
She covered her breasts and reached across Lance’s naked tattooed chest for the half-smoked joint in the ash tray next to him. His long, brown hair spilled out on the pillow behind him and his mouth hung open. He was knocked out cold, drugged on the sleeping pills she crushed in his drink.
She pinched the joint between her lips and inhaled, tracing her black lacquered fingernail over the ladder of wounds from her elbow to the new tattoo he inked on her wrist: “Summerland”—the Wiccan equivalent of heaven.
It took him almost two hours to get the lettering perfect and more than twice that long to convince him to do it. Her skin was swollen and red beneath the clear plastic covering and it burned, but pain she was used to.
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