Eyes in the Mirror

by Julia Mayer

  I reread the letter and remembered why I had stopped writing the letters. While I was sitting in the park, I had thought it was because I’d stopped believing she would receive them. But in my room, rereading the letter a third time, I realized it was because I was embarrassed. I was ashamed of what I was doing, so ashamed that I couldn’t even tell my mother about it in a letter she would never receive.

  I looked at my arms and felt the cuts burn as my tears fell on them. I would have been thirteen when I wrote that last letter. And already, I had been acting older than I should have.

  I sneaked back down the stairs into the front of the house and slammed the front door. My father came out when he heard the noise.

  “I know that this is hard for you,” he said as he walked in, “but I’m your father and I know what’s best for you.”

  “No, Dad,” I said, shaking my head. “I don’t care what I said last week.” What had Dee said last week? “I’m not going to rehab. I don’t need it. And I’m not going.”

  But three days later, I found myself on a plane to Florida.

  ***

  I spent most of the trip wondering how Dee’s conversation with Jamie had gone and if he had known it was me the whole time. If it brought the two of them closer or pushed them farther apart. I wondered for a moment if Dee had sent me to this place, had agreed to this, just to get me away. But angry as I was at her, I didn’t think that was Dee. And she hadn’t known about Jamie when she had told my dad.

  As the cab drove up to the…institution, I guess…I couldn’t help but think it seemed dank and gross. It was brighter inside, but the trees outside did very little to cheer up the concrete exterior. There were windows, but they were barred like a prison. There was a courtyard in the center of the building that was filled with flowers. But I couldn’t see that from the outside. I shuddered.

  A nurse met me outside and smiled. “Welcome.”

  She walked me in and down a long hallway. It was brightly lit, but something about the whole place still felt depressing. Which was strange because this place was supposed to be able to cure me of sadness. Or anger. Or something.

  “This is your room. Your roommate hasn’t arrived yet, but she’s on her way. Her name is Sasha. I’m sure the two of you will get along fine.” I looked in. The room had flowered wallpaper and two made beds. I watched the nurse out of the corner of my eye. She was still smiling in a weird, fake way. I turned around and looked at her straight on.

  “Something else?”

  She continued smiling, unfazed. “I’ll let you get settled for a few minutes. Come on out when you’re done.” I moved in after her and began to close the door.

  “Open, please,” she said, smiling. I nodded, already feeling defeated, and dropped my backpack on the bed. I walked around the room, looked out the window and tapped on it. Plexiglas. I went into the bathroom. No mirror. No way out. I walked around and found a nurse to ask about it.

  “Mirrors encourage focusing on our outer image. We want to see what’s inside,” one of the always smiling nurses told me when I asked. They took girls with all sorts of problems, and I think the lack of mirrors was mostly for the girls with serious eating disorders. But I guess the reason was supposed to be overarching.

  When I got back, Sasha was there unpacking. At first, she refused to tell me why she was there, but later in the week she admitted to me that she had tried to kill herself a number of times. That didn’t seem to be the most immediate reason. But she wouldn’t say what the trigger was that had brought her here this time.

  Once she finished unpacking, she just sat on her bed curled up, watching me unpack. She didn’t have much with her. I guess I brought more than I needed, but how do you pack for rehab? About half of what I had stayed in my suitcase the whole week, but while I unpacked the first night, I could feel Sasha’s eyes on my back.

  “First time?”

  “What?” I asked her.

  “Is it your first time in a…in a place like this? In a hospital?”

  “Yeah. My dad sent me. What about you?”

  She smiled ironically. “Before I came, I sat down to figure out exactly how much time I’ve spent inpatient this year. I’ve spent more time in a hospital this year than I have at home.”

  I stopped unpacking and sat down on my bed to really look at her. She was pretty, but she was so thin that she looked gaunt. She had this look…this sad look, like the one my mom used to have when she thought no one was watching. Sasha had dark brown eyes that seemed like they sunk into her head further than other people’s. Her hair was wispy and thin. She seemed to melt as I looked at her. She stared back at me, hardly blinking.

  “Does it help?” I asked finally.

  “I think it would help if I could be in a hospital all the time. But otherwise, I mean, for a little while. I guess. I don’t know…I get home and it feels like everything just comes back.” I nodded. She pursed her lips for a moment. “It won’t help you if you don’t want it to,” she said.

  I wondered if I did want it to. I wanted to stop cutting. I wanted to stop feeling this way all the time. In a way, I knew it was good that the hospital had taken everything away from me. I wasn’t sure that deciding I wasn’t going to do it was going to be enough. Maybe I did need the help. Or at least the friendship. But on the other hand…well, I already knew I wasn’t going to cut myself anymore. If I could get through the hellish week ahead of me, maybe I could try for change. Try to make things be different when I got home.

  We were given the first day to get to know each other. My roommate recognized about a quarter of the girls there, and they immediately formed a group of “frequent visitors.” Sasha invited me to join them and I tried sitting with them for a little while, but they were swapping stories about what had happened since they were last institutionalized…I guess they had found their community. Most of them were part of an online support group where they were able to stay in touch and try to keep each other out, keep each other clean. Or whatever the equivalent is when you’re depressed.

  “I thought I was doing really well,” said one girl. “I decided to go off my meds because I was tired of that…that flat feeling.” There was general nodding. “I did okay for a couple of weeks, but…” She trailed off and gestured to where we were. In the over-flowered garden of a cement hospital.

  I didn’t quite fit. Apparently, I was old for my first visit, at least according to these girls, and I wasn’t really ready to talk to them about what I had gone through.

  On the second day, I spoke to one of the psychiatrists for a short while and then to a nurse for most of the afternoon. She asked if I had made friends with the other girls, and I told her I hadn’t. Sasha was nice, but she wasn’t a friend. I mean, we probably wouldn’t have even talked if we hadn’t coincidentally been in the same room.

  “Sometimes, it can help to talk to other people who are going through the same thing,” the nurse said, inclining her head slightly to the side. “You shouldn’t count on someone else for your recovery, of course, but it can help. That’s why we have this secluded location. Build a support group for yourself. You can stay in touch if you choose to afterward. And if not, there are groups you can join when you get home.”

  “I’m not really ready to tell a bunch of girls who are trying to kill themselves that my mom succeeded.” Plus, I thought to myself, I don’t think telling them I slept with my reflection’s boyfriend would go over too well. Ever since I’d arrived, I had been worrying about someone finding out why I was really there, finding out about Dee, and claiming I was schizo or something.

  I looked at the nurse and almost felt bad for her. She was forced to keep a smile plastered on her face all day, and I tried to focus on what she was saying, instead of on the abnormally chipper way she was saying it. I wondered if she was a rehab graduate. If I felt like I was stuck here forever, what must she feel like? I mean, I would
only be there for a week.

  On the fourth day, my psychiatrist asked why I think I cut myself. I was getting frustrated with this question and answered the same way I had for the first three days. “I stopped cutting myself.” I hadn’t cut myself since I was Dee.

  “I know this is hard, but I also know that’s not true. Those are some pretty new scars,” she said, pointing at my arms. “It might help if you picked up another hobby, something else you can do with your hands maybe.”

  “What sort of hobby? So far, I haven’t found a hobby I actually enjoy that’s legal.”

  “What do you like to do? What do you do for fun?”

  It was a good question. What did I do for fun? What had I done before Dee and I started spending all our spare time together? “I…design doll clothes?”

  “Do you?” she asked, smiling in a way that looked slightly more genuine for a moment.

  “Well, I used to. I haven’t in a long time. Not since my mom died really. But I think I was okay at it when I was little. My mom and I used to make clothes for my dolls and stuff.”

  She smiled. “Have you considered picking it up again?”

  I could try. I hadn’t even thought of designing in years. But I used to do it all the time when I was little. “I’ll try.” True answers were the easiest answers to give.

  By the last day, I had found a couple of girls I could talk to. They were other first-timers and each had her own problems. But it did kind of help to hear that other people were going through something similar. That I didn’t have to be alone in this. I did more listening than talking, but I guess hearing the other girls talk was a reminder that I wasn’t the only one with problems.

  Everybody was dealing with something—pain, divorce, eating disorders…I wasn’t the only one here for a reason. Or no reason. Sometimes people just hurt. I didn’t feel like I needed this help. I was already taking care of myself, so I didn’t need all of these doctors and nurses. I told Sasha that my dad was making me go to a support group when I got home.

  “That’s good,” she said. “You should go. It helps.”

  “But I don’t need it,” I argued with her. “I’m cured. I’m done. It’s just going to be a reminder that I was sick.”

  “You don’t just get ‘cured.’ It’s more complicated than that. Just deciding that everything will be fine doesn’t necessarily make everything fine.” The doctor had said the same thing, but I hadn’t really believed her. Hearing Sasha say it helped convince me.

  “I think I can handle it. I have some support. I have the support of—” but I stopped myself short. All this time, somewhere in the back of my mind I had thought I would have Jamie and Dee when I got home. Jamie wasn’t in my world. I didn’t have his support. He didn’t even know me. And I didn’t think that Dee and I would be speaking when I got back. I wasn’t over her sending me here. And as much as my dad would try, he always had trouble supporting me when I needed it most. Despite the fact that I stopped mid-sentence, Sasha knew where I was going.

  “I’ve been through this, and I’m never going to get out of it. I’ve been here for too long.” She moved to my bed and put her hand on my knee. “But you have a good chance. Don’t leave your recovery to one other person, especially a boyfriend. It’s as unfair to him as it is to you. You don’t want to trap him.”

  “I don’t have a boyfriend,” I snapped. More honest words, but I immediately felt bad. She had been more helpful than anyone else while I was here. I couldn’t tell her what was really going on, obviously, but I didn’t mean to go so hot and cold on her all week the way I had. She moved back to her bed, and I was so unsure what to say that I couldn’t even look at her. I turned around and went back to packing. I heard the door close and knew she had already left the room.

  ***

  When they drove us to the airport to leave, the nurses all hugged us good-bye, as though their smiles were anything more than plaster, and offered to talk to us if we ever needed them. Sasha hugged me right before I got on a plane to go home. She whispered, “Seriously, you don’t have to do this alone. Get the help. You need it more than you think.”

  I nodded. She knew. She knew much better than I did.

  A part of me knew that being there had helped. That I had gotten better. But another—bigger—part of me felt that rehab was something I would never be able to overcome. I would always know I’d been institutionalized. I was haunted by the experiences of the people around me, by the papered walls and the feeling that those helping me already saw me as less than them. They already saw me as crazy, as a forever patient who would be in and out my whole life, the way Sasha was. I didn’t want that to happen to me.

  When I saw my father, the anger and the frustration rekindled. And all the good the trip had done me floated away into the night. All I could think was that he was picking up his daughter from her trip to an institution.

  “Welcome home,” he said, moving to hug me. I stepped back.

  “If you ever make me do something like that again, I will never come back. I’m not just your crazy daughter that you can ship off when I get too complicated. You deal with me, or I don’t deal with you. You’re my dad. You don’t just get to pick and choose what in my life to be a part of.”

  We didn’t talk on the ride home.

  chapter 10

  Smack in the Face

  Dee

  We were more than halfway down the block, and still Jamie hadn’t said anything. I desperately needed to know what happened with Samara, and eventually I got tired of waiting.

  “Look, Jamie, about what happened—”

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Are you…” He paused, taking my hand as we continued walking. “Are you okay?” He stopped and took my other hand, curling our fingers together, turning me toward him. “I know I wanted this. You did too, right?” I smiled at the way he looked at me, and he leaned in and kissed me softly, and I felt my knees shake and my mind go blank for a moment.

  What had happened with Samara? And why did I get the feeling he thought it was me we were talking about? Samara must have told him that I liked him, but what else had happened? This felt natural, which was amazing. It was even more than I expected. But something about it was too easy, too simple.

  “I’m happy too.” I let go of his hand and we kept walking. “But I’m a little bit…confused,” I said.

  “After we…you know. I thought it was pretty clear what was happening. I didn’t think you would’ve if we weren’t together. I thought it was amazing. We’re working, aren’t we? I mean, doesn’t it feel right?”

  He put his arm around me as we walked, and it was true. It did feel right. It felt…perfect. But this perfection wasn’t achieved with me. It was achieved with Samara. This whole thing had gone so wrong. But at that moment, it did feel so right. Then a terrifying thought occurred to me. Maybe Jamie thought I was Samara. Had he said my name? I tried to replay our conversation in my head. I was pretty sure he had said my name. He had; I was sure he had. So he had to know it was me.

  “Jamie, what—” But he cut me off.

  “I feel like I got cheated out of holding you after. I didn’t want to just leave you that way. I didn’t mean to just run out. When your mom came home, I got scared. But I didn’t want you to think…I didn’t want you to think I don’t want to be with you.”

  “Holding me, holding me after…”

  “After, you know…” He seemed embarrassed for a moment. I was trying desperately to fit the pieces together, to figure out what he was trying to tell me. He didn’t seem to know that Samara and I had switched back. I wondered if he knew we had switched places at all. After what? My head was in such a fog that I was so confused about what he was talking about. “I feel like you’re not here with me,” he said.

  “Sorry, I’m just…like I said. I’m just confused.”

  “You’re not…reth
inking this, are you? You don’t regret it?”

  “I don’t regret…” It hit me smack in the face. My mom said he had slipped out the window when she came home. Samara had a look in her eye I had never seen before. He kept avoiding saying what “it” was. Jamie was apologizing for not holding me “after.” We had had sex. Or Jamie thought we had. He and Samara had. What the hell had Samara done? Why, why had she done this?

  “Oh, my God, did we…? I have to…I have to go. I’m sorry. I—” I searched for an excuse. “I promised my mom I’d come home as quickly as possible.” I turned to walk home.

  “Wait, but Dee—”

  “Sorry,” I said, pulling my arm away from him.

  “What’s the matter? Are we okay?”

  “Yeah, we’re…we’re fine, Jamie.” He pulled me toward him and kissed me again. It didn’t feel right anymore. I wanted to get him off me. This was making my stomach churn. When he let me go, I turned and walked home as quickly as I could. That kiss wasn’t mine. It was Samara’s.

  When I walked in, my mom was sitting at the table, quickly flipping the pages of a magazine. She looked up at me when I walked in. “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah, I…I think so. Thanks. I just needed to talk to him.”

  “Well,” she said, “now that that’s sorted out. My turn. What’s going on? What happened to that girl who told me everything? The one who didn’t keep secrets from her mom?”

  “She…she went on a little vacation. I’m so sorry, Mom. It’s me now, though. I’m back. I’m so sorry about everything. I won’t lie to you.”

  My mom never got mad at me. I couldn’t believe that Samara had been able to alienate her. I didn’t think my expectations of Samara had been that high: just don’t actively destroy my relationships with the people who care about me. She had to have done this all on purpose. I would never have believed she could do it if the evidence wasn’t sitting right in front of me.

  “When I came home, it was Jamie slipping out your window, wasn’t it? That was the noise I heard? The shuffling around in your room?”