I looked up, still smiling, and I said, “It’s now or never.”
Mariah didn’t seem convinced. I could tell she was uncomfortable because she hardly looked at me, and when she did, her eyes didn't tear away from my arms, even though they were covered by my long sleeves.
When Jonathan began to back out of the parking spot, it hit me. The warm sun that I hadn’t felt against my face since summer had begun now beamed through the window, and it warmed me through. I closed my eyes so that I couldn’t see Bent Creek grow smaller in the distance. I just wanted to feel the sun and not think about leaving. I was happy to be free of what I’d once considered prison, but it had turned out to be a place of salvation through the kindest peers and the most empathetic and compassionate doctors I had ever met in my life.
My eyes remained closed until I felt it was safe enough to open them again. As I opened my eyes, I remembered the sheet of folded paper that I had found in the book I’d returned to Dr. Pelchat. I reached into my pocket that held it and my butterfly pendant. I pulled out the sheet of paper and unfolded it. When my eyes beheld what was on the paper, the tears that were trying to break free from under my eyelids slid down my cheeks.
The illustration of Daniel’s late girlfriend gazed back at me through her dark, pencil-drawn eyes. Daniel’s kind words of encouragement from his experiences and growth ran through my mind. It made me sad to realize that my time at Bent Creek was over, and there were great people that I was leaving behind, and ones that were moving on. It was harder than I thought it was going to be to leave.
Going into Bent Creek, I’d had so much doubt. I’d carried in the fears and had walked around with nothing but thoughts of hopelessness. I’d been trapped in my condemnation and restlessness of the past. Those memories had drowned me, suffocated me, and fed my soul to what was trying to destroy me--Borderline Personality Disorder.
It made me feel good to have new memories. I had to think of more things that were positive. Bent Creek had given me much to ponder. I let myself shed a few tears with a smile on my face as I said, “see you later,” not “goodbye,” to Bent Creek.
Jonathan broke the silence. “Kristen, you must be feeling pretty good right now. Did they help you at all in there?”
“Yes. I do feel like my time was well spent,” I answered.
Jonathan seemed as if he was the only one out of the two of them who was listening. I didn’t blame Mariah for the way she behaved. She’d never had a child like me to worry about. John was an exceptional person who always made good grades and didn’t seem to give them a real reason to worry. Lexus was always beautiful, happy, and her family was wholesome and unbroken. Lexus was the perfect future daughter-in-law for her.
Jonathan tried to lighten the mood in the car as we rode off by turning on the radio. He pulled out a CD and looked in his rear view mirror. I noticed his eyes were on me.
He said, “How about some music, ladies? Let’s listen to the tunes of...” He took his eyes off the road for a second to glance down at the CD. A puzzled look came over his face as he read aloud the name of the pop/R&B singer who was most popular for his romantic and catchy love tunes.
I knew immediately to whom that CD belonged.
Mariah laughed. She said, “It’s one of the kids’ CDs, honey. John and Lexus must have left it in here when they went up to Helen yesterday.”
Jonathan glanced at me through the mirror. He quickly looked away.
“Yes, they did take the car yesterday. I remember. Well,” he said as he stuck the CD into the player. “If it’s what the kids are listening to today, then Kristen will like it. After all, we are happy to have her back with us. Right, dear?”
She nodded her head while looking out of the window.
“Yes, we are,” she sighed.
She didn’t sound too assuring. I knew that she had always thought that I was a troubled kid. She was right. I didn’t blame her for being guarded and unsure about me. I had a lot of mess to clean up, and I had a lot to prove. One of those messes I needed to clean up was with Lexus. There was no doubt in my mind that she had told John, who may have in turn told his parents, about our recent quarrel.
Jonathan said, “I hope you don’t mind us coming to pick you up. Your mother didn’t get out of work early enough to come get you, but she and the twins should be home by the time we get there.”
“It’s great,” I said. “I’m really happy you came to pick me up. I missed you guys.”
Jonathan smiled, and he nudged his wife playfully. She smiled at him. She began to warm up as John Mayer’s soulful voice poured out of the surround-sound speakers of their SUV. The acoustics played the sounds of romance. Mariah turned to Jonathan and smiled at him.
She said, “I actually kind of like this song.”
Jonathan smiled. He seemed proud of himself. It seemed like he felt he had reached his goal of lightening the mood. His charms definitely worked on his wife. He grabbed her hand and kissed it sweetly as he steered onto the highway. The music was definitely getting to them. I could only imagine what it did for John and Lexus while they were in the romantic and cozy city of Helen, Georgia. I cringed at the terrible and annoying song of romance that blasted from the perfect surround-sound stereo system. I couldn’t wait to get home to see my Nick and Alison.
When we arrived, I could hardly wait for the car to stop moving so that I could get out. Mom’s car was in the driveway. I knew that everyone was home. I quickly grabbed both of my bags before Jonathan could help me, and I ran towards the front door. I almost dropped everything, being in such a hurry, but I was able to make it. Before I could get my keys out of my bag, the front door flew open.
Two bodies lunged at me with full force. Alison and Nick were both hugging me. I tried my best to hug them back. Jonathan honked the horn at me. Alison and Nick let me go. I turned to the SUV and waved at them. I yelled thank you and goodbye. I started to turn away, but Mariah called out to me. I turned back to them as Alison and Nick grabbed my bags and yelled goodbye to Jonathan. They ran into the house with my bags, calling out for Mom.
Mariah leaned out of the rolled-down window. She yelled, “Tell your mother we’ll call her when we get home. We are sorry we can’t come in to visit, but we’re still planning the engagement party, and we are overdue for the meeting with the party planner. We’ll see you soon.”
Jonathan added, “It’s wonderful to see you home, sweetheart. See you next week!”
When they were gone, I ran into the house. Nick and Alison had left my bags beside the door. I shut the front door and looked into the living room. Alison and Nick were grinning at each other, and then they looked back at me. “What? What’s going on?” I said. I knew they were up to something.
Mom came out of the kitchen and into the living room. The sight of her made me feel warm. She was smiling, and I could tell that she was glad to have me home.
Alison turned to Mom and said, “Can we show her now?”
“Yeah! I’m sure Kristen would like to see it,” Mom said. “Let’s show her.”
“Show me what?” I asked.
“Come on!” Alison squealed with happiness.
Alison grabbed my hand and led me downstairs to the basement hallway. Mom and Nick followed with my bags. My bedroom was down there. I could only imagine what she couldn’t wait to show me. I opened the door to my bedroom and turned on the light. Nothing in my worst nightmares could have prepared me for what I saw. It wasn’t blue, it wasn’t orange, and it wasn’t even white, like the walls of the hospital. It was pink! My whole room had been painted pink. From the ceiling to the new paint on my old wooden bed frame and dressers. Everything was pink. I held onto Janine’s blanket and hugged it, almost scared.
“She likes it!” Alison inaccurately observed.
Nick shook his head when I looked at him. He knew what I was thinking. I looked at Mom, and she was smiling in a way that I wanted to deny.
I made myself walk deeper into that strange room. I looked around. My books were in p
lace. There were new sheets and a new quilt on the bed. My notebooks were as I had left them. Those looked like the only things that were in the right place. Mom turned to Alison and Nick.
She said, “Go upstairs and set the table for dinner. Kristen and I will be up in a minute.”
Alison gave me another hug and Nick kissed my cheek. They ran upstairs in a race to try to beat each other to the kitchen. When we were alone, Mom walked over to my dresser. She put her hand on a silver-toned jewelry box. That jewelry box had not been there before I had gone into Bent Creek. It was bejeweled and dazzling to the eye. It looked too elegant to be mine.
“Do you like it?” she asked me.
“Who does that belong to?” I asked.
Mom laughed. “It belongs to you, silly girl.”
“Really? But it’s so pretty.”
“That’s why she brought it here for you,” Mom said.
“Who brought it?”
“Lexus brought it for you when she came over to help us paint your room. Alison picked out the color. I couldn’t very well have you come home with your room the way you had it. The walls were covered in black and your sheets were – well, you know. Lexus had the idea to come over and help me get things ready for your return. Since you are better now, we thought you’d start fresh.”
I carried my bags over to the closet. I opened the door. I looked up, shocked, when I saw that the shelves and walls were completely empty.
“Where are my ninja swords and the daggers? Where are my knives?”
“Don’t you like your jewelry box? Look inside,” she said. “You have earrings, necklaces, rings, and other cute stuff. You don’t need to collect those knives anymore. Why don’t you collect jewelry?”
My head began to ache. “You got rid of them?”
“Don’t be angry, Kristen. You’ll get them back when I see that you are ready to have them. Now, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to have those things in here. Look at this!” She pulled out a gold necklace with a little fairy pendant dangling from the center. The fairy’s wings didn’t look as sharp as my butterfly pendant. I was sure that was her and Lexus’ intentions. Mom came towards me with that necklace. She held it over my head and placed it around my neck. Then she stood in front of me to admire the necklace.
“All right,” she assured herself. “I’ll let you unpack and get yourself prepared for dinner. Did you thank Jonathan for bringing you home?”
“Of course,” I said. I wanted her to leave me alone already.
“Good,” she said. “We’re going to Lexus and John’s engagement party next week.” She was smiling her forced and ridiculous smile.
I didn’t smile back. I didn’t want to be fake anymore. I was too tired, and I was too freaked out by that strange and uncomfortable room. It didn’t feel like mine anymore.
As Mom walked out of the room, I began to shut the door. Mom stopped it from closing with her foot. She said, “No. I want this door to stay open from now on.”
“I can’t shut my bedroom door?”
“No,” she said. “I want you to keep it open. Things are going to start changing around here. If I have to make changes in order to keep you from slashing your wrists and being completely depressed, then you are going to work with me and make some changes too.”
It started to feel like home again. I knew it wouldn’t take too long.
As Mom walked towards the stairwell, I started to close my bedroom door. She turned around and looked at me. I hesitated. She saw me hesitate. She turned away, and as soon as I heard the first stair creak underneath her foot, I slammed shut my bedroom door. I made sure to do it hard and loud enough so that she could hear it. I locked the door and waited. I pressed my ear to the door and, for a second, I heard the stair creak again. I smiled. She was coming back toward the door. But then I heard her storm up the stairs.
I looked around my room. I could smell the nauseating fresh paint. It had Lexus’ personality written all over it. I made my way over to the dresser that had no mirror in it. I thought back to the day I’d smashed that stupid mirror with my hands. Mom had never replaced it, convinced I’d only do it again. Maybe I would have destroyed it again if there were a mirror in the frame.
The only thing I saw was that precious jewelry box. The anger inside of me swelled to an unbearable crescendo. Not being able to hold it in any longer, I swiped my hand across the surface the jewelry box sat on. Calmly, I watched it violently crash to the floor. The box disassembled upon landing, and the beautiful jewels that decorated the box smashed and broke apart.
Relief washed over me as the jewelry spilled out of the box. Little pendants and gorgeous crystals and jewels rolled underneath the bed and scattered in other places throughout the room. Pieces of jewels cracked, snapped, popped, and were destroyed. All of the chaos and the new disarrangement defined exactly how I felt inside.
CHAPTER 54
Before going into Bent Creek, I didn’t have to worry about Mom being angry with me for keeping my door shut. It was always closed. No one bothered me. I could just sit for hours inside the dark, black walls of my room. Mr. Sharp and I would talk for hours after doing homework, after work, and after Lexus left to go on her dates with John. I closed my door, but I always opened it back up.
It wasn’t until the day when I’d found that letter from Jack asking for Mom’s forgiveness, that I’d felt I did not ever want to have to open my bedroom door again. Was it hopelessness? Was it fear? Did I fear her forgiving him? Did I think that she really would go to his parole hearing and put Nicholas through that again? Would she really put all of us through that again?
She banged on my door in the morning. The banging was angry and loud. I woke up, startled. Then I realized that this was the moment I had been waiting for since I’d left Bent Creek. The morning of the day that I got my stitches removed.
I could hear Mom yelling from the other side of the door. She couldn’t open it. I'd begun locking my bedroom door ever since coming back from Bent Creek.
“Kristen! Kristen! Open this door! Kristen!” She almost sounded panicked.
I opened the door, fully dressed and ready to go. I just looked at the sore expression on her face, almost wanting to laugh.
“Don’t you ever -” she caught herself. “Kristen. I thought I told you to keep this door open from now on.”
“What do you want me to do, Mom?” I said as I pushed past her. “You want me to get dressed with my bedroom door open from now on?”
She followed me up the stairs. I felt as if she was on my back as she yelled, “Don’t start with me this morning! We are not going to be like this. I’m not going to argue with you. You keep the door open, and that’s it. You hear me?”
“Fine,” I said under my breath.
“I can’t understand you. I asked you a question.”
“I said that is fine, Mom.”
“Good,” she accepted. “Come on, let’s go. I have to drop Nick and Alison off at the Rec Center before I take you to the doctor.” She went to the top of the stairs and headed for their bedrooms. “Nicholas and Alison, let’s get going! You’re going to be late.”
I grabbed my summer jacket off the banister of the stairwell, and as I was slipping it on, I noticed three envelopes on the occasional table that sat by the front door. All three of them had my name on them. I picked them up.
Alison and Nick were coming towards me as Mom yelled for them to go to the car and wait for her. I grabbed the car keys and the three of us went out to the car. When we were in the car, it didn’t take long for Nick and Alison to find something silly to argue about. Which of the X-Men was the most powerful?
I blocked them out. I looked down at the envelopes in my hand, and I opened the one that was postmarked the earliest. Two of them were grades from classes I was taking. B- in Calculus I and a B+ in Life Science. I didn’t expect to do any better than that in those classes. The last one I opened was dated almost two weeks prior to that day. It was a notice from my scho
ol for past due tuition.
There was a late fee plus the tuition that was past due. I hadn’t had a paycheck since Mom had come to the hospital with my last one. I remembered that I had endorsed it to her and asked her to mail off what I owed for the month. What had happened?
Mom came out to the car and got in on the driver’s side. She looked back at Nick and Alison. Their arguing had somehow turned to them hitting each other. They stopped fighting after Mom yelled for them to stop. She threatened that instead of letting them go to summer camp at the Recreation Center she’d make them stay home and do chores.
I stayed silent as Mom pulled out of the driveway and drove off.
“Kristen,” she began, “You hear them back there trying to kill each other. Why didn’t you do anything?”
I didn’t say anything. I looked down at the notice from my school and held back my temptation to ball it up and throw it at her.
When we were at the doctor’s office, I anxiously awaited to be called in. I was eager to see what my arms were going to look like without all of the metalwork and stitching. I was finally inside of the room. The nurse had been kind enough to ask my mother to stay in the waiting room. I didn’t want her there while the doctor was removing the stitching because I didn’t want her to talk about it or pretend to cry so that she could get sympathy from the doctor.
The little, white room felt crowded with all of the equipment around me. Dr. Mitsen finally came into the room with the nurse, who pushed in a metal cart that held the tools to do the job. I was back in Dr. Mitsen's office because it was time to have the metal-sutured stitches removed. The nurse cleaned the area with Isopropyl, and then the doctor held up the scissors.
“Don’t be nervous,” Dr. Mitsen said. “You won’t feel a thing.”
He completely lied to me. I walked out of his office with my arms against my chest. I hadn't had regular, sewn-in stitches. I’d had metal in me that had been supported with the string. The part when he’d cut the string hadn’t hurt at all, but removing the metal had hurt, and looking down while he’d done it had made it even worse. I felt like what I imagined a machine transforming into a human would feel like. All of the pain felt so new, and when I looked down at the results, I realized that my wrists looked better with the stitches than without.
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