“Isn’t it obvious? Can’t you see?” I felt that same anger creeping back inside of me that I'd had when I had first met Dr. Cuvo.
“I don’t believe everything I first see,” he replied.
I had nothing more to say because I was shocked by his reply.
“Good,” Dr. Pelchat responded to my silence. “I will take you back to the unit.”
Walking back to the unit was awkward. Dr. Pelchat stayed close and made me walk ahead of him. I felt his eyes burning holes in me. It was the beginning all over again. I didn’t like it, and it only made me angry. I felt like I couldn’t really trust anyone.
When we were back on the unit, Dr. Pelchat said that he’d see me later. He didn’t stick his hand out for a handshake as Dr. Cuvo had done.
What had happened to Dr. Cuvo? Why had he left us?
CHAPTER 28
Dr. Cuvo never came back. I couldn’t think straight right after the sudden change. The rest of the day seemed empty. I tried not to think about Dr. Cuvo, and I tried not to wonder what it was that had caused him to go away. Dr. Pelchat was definitely not like Dr. Cuvo. He was stern and seemed all about business and getting things done. Dr. Cuvo at least had seemed like he cared. He'd hugged me. He'd been gentle and patient.
I grew scared as I continued to dwell on the days to come. Why did I have to take a test? What was this test going to tell Dr. Pelchat about me? What were my nights going to be like without the Risperdol? Would I go back to not being able to rest again? What was it going to be like to have Dr. Pelchat as my doctor? When would I get out of Bent Creek? All kinds of disturbing thoughts and questions filled my mind.
When the head nurse called everyone to take their medications, I stayed seated. Janine didn’t seem like herself. She didn’t get up to take her medication, either. Staring off into a daze, she held on tight to her pink blanket.
We were sitting on the sofa, out on the main unit, in front of the television. Geoffrey was giving out granola bars and graham crackers with apple juice. The counselors called it “snack time.” Snack time reminded me of when I was a little kid in Kindergarten.
Janine’s eyes were slightly puffy because she hadn’t been sleeping well. I could tell that Dr. Cuvo’s absence was having a huge effect on her. She had so many thoughts going on in her head, but she just wouldn’t talk to me when we were alone. I knew she was hiding something. It was eating her up because she looked terrible. She didn’t brush her hair, her lips were chapped, she wasn’t wearing her make-up as often as she used to, and she was running to the bathroom a lot more than before.
Janine took a sip of her apple juice. She sat her cup on the table beside the sofa and picked up the granola bar that Geoffrey had given her. She stared at it like it was a foreign object. Tai came back from taking her medicine and looked at Janine.
Janine said out of nowhere, “They said that they’d let us see a doctor, even if Dr. Cuvo isn’t here.”
Tai rolled her eyes coldly.
“Janine. What is your deal with Dr. Cuvo, anyway? Why can’t you just let it go?”
Janine threw the granola bar onto the floor, causing it to break into crumbs and make a mess on the carpet. At that moment Daniel, Chris, and a few others from our group walked over to sit in front of the television with their snacks.
“I would have eaten that if you didn’t want it,” Daniel said to Janine as he approached. He didn’t notice that she was angry.
Rocky leaned towards me and asked, “What’s wrong with her?”
“She’s gotten too attached to her doctor,” Tai said in a mean voice.
“Leave her alone, Tai,” Daniel stood up for Janine.
“Maybe he’s sick,” Chris said, trying to comfort Janine.
Janine leaned forward and forced a smile towards Chris. “Maybe you’re right, Chris.”
Daniel’s facial expression showed worry.
“Did you get to see another doctor?”
“I talked to Dr. Pelchat. He won’t tell me where Dr. Cuvo is. He keeps asking me all these questions like I did something to...” Her voice trailed off.
Everyone stayed silent. Even Tai didn’t have anything to say after that. Chris started tapping his fingers on the side table. This tapping turned into an offbeat drumming, and it became very annoying. Daniel looked at Chris, who stopped drumming his fingers and turned away, embarrassed. He looked around at all of us, except Daniel. Then, out of nowhere, a big smile appeared on his face.
He said, “I have some good news.”
We looked at him attentively, eager to hear the good news. We all needed some uplifting.
“I’m going home tomorrow,” Chris announced proudly.
His smile was bright and handsome, but at that moment, no one cared about his smile. Chris had only meant to replace the melancholy silence with cheer, but he had only made everyone sadder. Even I felt a hint of envy, and I wasn’t even close to Chris. It was just the fact that he was getting out of Bent Creek and we were staying in. We forced our smiles and congratulated him. We told him we’d miss him and that we hoped he would do better. Deep down inside, we hated him.
“Are you afraid to use the word hate?” Dr. Bent asked a short while later, in our Anger Management session.
She was sitting in the middle of a circle that our group had made. We’d all joined our chairs together, trapping Dr. Bent and Daniel in the middle, where they both sat in two separate chairs facing each other. We watched as Dr. Bent worked her Anger Management Therapy skills on Daniel. As he usually seemed to do when he was in his own world, Daniel fiddled with his shoelaces.
“No,” Daniel admitted. “I’ll use the word hate. Like I hate that I am still here.”
“No,” Dr. Bent corrected him. “I meant hate towards another person. Would you say that you hate your mother?”
Daniel looked as if he had to think about that question before he answered. He could have been sure to answer in the negative. Of course, he didn’t hate his mother. No one can hate their mother. No matter what has happened. Right?
“No,” he finally said. “I just don’t get how she could take my step-dad back after all that mess he put us through. Here I am, stuck in this stupid hospital, and she goes to him.”
Dr. Bent nodded her head and stayed focused on Daniel. She waved her hand to make him keep talking.
“Go on, Daniel,” she encouraged.
“When she’s with him, she’s always so sad. She thinks that he’s just going to make everything better, and he only makes her miserable. When he left, she started to work and buy food and take care of everything. She took care of herself. She took care of... me...” His voice faded off.
Dr. Bent said, “You have to find a better way to cope, Daniel. Your mother is a grown woman, and no matter how irresponsible or wrong her choices may be, you are still her child. You have to open up to her and be honest.”
“What if she doesn’t listen to me?” Daniel let out his fear.
“Then, are you prepared to find a new way to cope that's better than what you did before?” Dr. Bent said.
“No. And that’s why I’m still here. I’m afraid that she won’t listen to me. I’ll get angry again and...” Daniel said.
Daniel did not seem to find any comfort in this. He shook his head with glassy eyes. He gasped and let out a deep and depressed-sounding sigh.
Janine was staring off somewhere else, looking dazed and distant. She sat, slumped down in her chair, and she was still. I worried about her. I didn’t know what to say to her to make her feel better. I didn’t know any more about Dr. Cuvo than she did. I’d thought that maybe she’d feel better after she had a visit from her father, but I guessed I was wrong.
I didn’t volunteer to get in the middle of the circle after Daniel. Dr. Bent liked it when we volunteered to participate in her exercises. I could tell that she didn’t like calling on people and making them feel awkward. After Group ended, we were allowed to go back to the main unit. Dr. Pelchat and Dr. Finch were on the unit
, calling patients into their offices for their one-on-one.
Today there was a new girl. She looked different with her light brown eyes and a seemingly cold stare. She had dyed, black hair with a red streak down her bangs. Her lip was pierced. She had a lot of dark make-up on, and her eyes were puffy and red. She was somewhat heavy, and she wore a torn, brown jacket, blue jeans, and a t-shirt that had a cartoon drawing on it. The cartoon was of an innocent-looking, white bunny rabbit that had a thought bubble above its head. Inside the bubble, it read: YOU SMELL LIKE BUTT.
When I saw her, I had a feeling that she was Dr. Pelchat’s patient. He seemed to get the hard cases. And she had a mean look to her. Rocky, who'd been talking to the new girl, was being pulled into the office with Dr. Pelchat for his one-on-one session. I watched as Rocky dragged himself behind Dr. Pelchat, his expression stubborn and miserable. I could tell by his body language that he was dreading it.
I dreaded Dr. Cuvo not coming back. I remembered how angry I had been when I had first met him. I had been so mean to him. Now I wanted him to know that he wasn’t the one I was mad at.
I just didn’t know how to talk to Dr. Cuvo when I’d had a chance. I didn’t know how to respond to someone who looked at me with so much tenderness and care. I didn’t know how to get out what I really needed to say to someone who I didn’t know really wanted to listen to me. It wasn’t pride. It was shame for the life that I lived and for who I was. I felt, at that moment, that if Dr. Cuvo had been there, I would have let out everything. I could have just poured my heart out to him about everything. I would have told him about that night I'd taken all of those pills, and he would have known why I'd finally picked up that knife and had tried to cut as deep as I could to make the pain go away and to finally get to sleep. I wanted to sleep. I wished he were here.
“Excuse you!” screamed a harsh voice into my ear while delivering me a rough shove to get me out of her way.
I looked up, and the hazel-eyed, new girl was giving me a cold stare as she walked off with Geoffrey. Wondering what her problem was, I walked over to one of the tables and sat down. The room seemed empty without Janine and the rest of my group. Most of the other kids who were here were ones I didn’t really know. I folded my arms on top of the table and lay my head down.
When I looked up, Daniel was suddenly hovering over me, staring down. This made me bury my head quickly in my arms. Maybe he was just daydreaming, I thought to myself. But when I peeked from under my arms, his eyes were aware and they were gazing at me.
“What?” I shot at him.
He shuddered in shock from the harsh tone of my voice.
“You’re moody,” he noticed.
I told him, “I just don’t like when people stare at me.”
He looked down at my bandaged wrists. “Are those coming off anytime soon?” he asked.
“I don’t know, probably,” I answered.
“Have you seen what your wrists look like yet?”
This question shocked me because I didn’t expect Daniel to ask me something like that.
“Yes! Of course,” I lied to him.
He was staring at me again. He probably didn’t believe me.
“How long has it been since you decided to try to hack yourself to death?” Daniel asked.
I wanted to kick him hard from underneath the table where we were sitting. I lifted my head from my arms and held up three fingers. “It’s been three weeks. Three weeks since I tried to hack myself to death,” I told him as calmly as possible. I didn’t want him to see that he had gotten to me.
“Three weeks? That’s it?” he asked.
He pushed his arms out to me and turned them over to show me his wrists. He had big, bulging scars from where he had once self-injured. The scars were pure white. There were faded lines through some of the scars where he had had stitches.
“When I had cut my wrists, I was in the regular hospital for a long time before they put me into a place like Bent Creek. See, I had cut so deep that I had almost hit the artery. That was my goal. Instead, I nicked my vein. And, well, all that did was make a big mess. But it was deep enough, I guess, for the time.” He left his wrists out and stared down at them as if he were reminiscing. “Man,” he said. “If I had hit that artery, there would have been no turning back. They would not have been able to save me. Would they?”
My eyes softened to his. I don’t know what came over me. Somehow, I was affected by everything he had said. I slowly reached out and let the tips of my fingers touch the scars. I ran my fingers over his painful-looking scars. He jumped as if I had shocked him, but he didn’t snatch his arms away. I traced his scars with my fingers, and I almost felt like crying. He sighed deeply. I had hoped he had realized that I wasn’t going to hurt him.
“Were you serious?” I asked him as I stared down at his wrists and gently caressed them.
“I guess,” he said. “I don’t know.” His voice sounded different, like it had gotten deeper.
I looked up at him. Our eyes locked. He quickly snatched his arms away and put his hands in his lap. I wanted to hug him.
“How old were you?” I asked, even though he wasn’t even looking at me anymore.
“I was thirteen. My dad had just been locked up, and my mom had gone into this deep depression. She wouldn’t go to work. She wouldn’t even get up to go to the store to get food. I didn’t know what to do to make her happy again. So I just...”
Daniel seemed choked up. He took a deep breath and held it like he was holding back his tears. I held back my own tears for him.
“You were so young,” I said.
“How old were you when you started cutting?” he asked me suddenly.
“I don’t really remember,” I admitted to him. “I may have been about thirteen or fourteen. It’s like there’s a big gap in my memory around that time.”
“Why?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I remember bits and pieces from that time. I can recall scenes like a movie, but some things I just can’t see too clearly. It’s like it was just taken away from me. I don’t know.”
Daniel leaned and put his cheek into the palm of his hand while his elbow rested on top of the table.
“I remember everything,” he said.
“When I do cut,” I heard myself say, “It’s almost like it’s not even me doing it.”
“Who is it?” he asked, as if we were just having a normal conversation.
I wanted to tell him about Mr. Sharp, but that didn’t seem right. It might have scared him. Therefore, I just shrugged my shoulders and looked away from his deep eyes.
“Kristen?” He called out when I looked away from him.
The sound of my name coming from his lips made me feel strange. It was something about his voice. He made it sound so delicate. It made me feel like something I had missed a long time ago.
Daniel continued, “What do you first notice about a person when you meet them?”
I smiled, almost wanting to laugh. It seemed like something random at the time. “Their smile,” I answered honestly.
He smiled and said, “You like smiles.”
I nodded. “What about you, Daniel?” I asked him.
“I notice,” he said, thinking about his answer, “the eyes.” I noticed he was staring into mine as he said this.
What was he doing? I wondered.
I asked, “Who was that girl in that picture you drew?”
“Who?”
“Remember, you were drawing the other day and you didn’t want me to see it.” I smiled, remembering how he’d been behaving.
He was not smiling now. “Do you have my drawing?”
I didn’t want to answer, seeing how he seemed a little irritated.
“No,” I lied. “I just saw it on the floor, and I glanced at it. It’s probably in the trash now.”
“Oh,” he sighed. He looked down and started playing with his shoelaces.
I didn’t know how to take that. Was he disappointed or reliev
ed?
“So,” I pressed on, “who was that?”
“It was my girlfriend,” he said in a low voice.
“I thought you didn’t have a girlfriend,” I told him.
He looked up, shocked. “Where did you hear that?”
I thought about Janine and her big mouth.
“No one. I guess I just...” I didn’t know what to say.
He shrugged it off.
“She’s at home. She’s probably writing me another letter,” he laughed. “She was always bad at reading and writing. She hated talking on the phone. She was so complicated.” He was blushing for some reason. “She definitely doesn’t smile. But under her runny mascara, which she never could put on right, she did. Only, she did it with her eyes. Smiles and eyes. That’s all she was.” He took a deep breath. “Is,” he corrected himself.
I felt my heart melt. Then envy crept inside, and I shook it off quickly.
“Will she come visit you?” I forced myself to say.
He chuckled. “Probably not,” he admitted. “She hates hospitals. I mean she really hates them. Once we were walking back to my house when we were coming home from the movies, and it just started raining outside. It was thundering and lightning. The only place that we could go to try to wait the storm out was a hospital that we were passing by. She was more scared of the hospital than the storm. She said that she would rather be struck by lightning than wait inside of a hospital. We ran all the way to my place in the storm.”
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