“Thank you, Alice,” Rahim said. “We are here to share this journey with you. Thank you for trusting us.”
Did I say I trusted them? I was pretty sure I hadn’t said anything of the sort. “I’m here because I drank too much at a party. Too much, in this case, meaning four beers.”
“Four beers?” Chad laughed. “Dude, you were just getting started!”
I made a face. “We were playing this drinking game, Bullshit. Get caught bullshitting, you drink.”
“I take it you’re a bad liar?” Imogen said.
I nodded. “Yeah. Four beers in less than an hour. Then I threw up and passed out and someone called my mom. And I ended up in the emergency room with alcohol poisoning.”
“After four beers?” Chad was, apparently, stuck on this.
Caleb gave him a shove. “She’s, like, eighty pounds, dipshit.”
I scowled at him, remembering his crack about me being anorexic. I ate plenty. It wasn’t my fault I was small.
“No commenting, please,” Claire reminded us. “Alice, was it a single incident? Or was there a pattern of behavior that led your mother to feel concerned?”
Obviously she had read my intake forms. So obviously she knew the answer to this. “You mean, have I got drunk at parties more than once? Of course I have.” I looked around the circle. “Hands up if you’ve never gotten drunk at a party.”
Tara’s hand went up slowly, halfway.
“See?” I said. “Practically everyone does. It doesn’t mean it’s an issue. My mom, she’s a cop. She sees all the worst-case scenarios. And it’s always been just the two of us, you know? She’s overprotective.”
“Well, Alice, it sounds like you don’t see your drinking as a problem,” Rahim said. “And yet you ended up in a situation that could easily have been fatal.”
Yikes. He’d nailed it. Rahim, one; Alice, zero. I swallowed hard. “Yeah. Yeah, I know.”
“How does that make you feel?” he asked.
Stupid. Mortified. Humiliated. Ashamed. “Like I should probably avoid drinking games,” I said lightly. It wasn’t a lie. Drinking games are a bad idea when you have a serious competitive streak and most of your friends are guys twice your size. I hated letting guys beat me at anything. But I’d heard the stories of teens dying after games of Beer Pong or whatever, and I knew I’d dodged a bullet. I wasn’t an idiot—I didn’t need INTRO to remind me not to do it again.
Rahim sighed. He was probably disappointed with my utter shallowness. “Tara,” he said. “You’re the last to share. Would you like to tell the group why you are here?”
EIGHT
Alice
I looked at Tara, feeling bad for her before she even opened her mouth. Everything about her—the way her shoulders were hunched forward, the blotchy flush on her cheeks, the twisting fingers in her lap—screamed discomfort.
“Um. Yeah.” She didn’t say anything for a long moment, and the silence in the room grew heavy. I found myself thinking about Caleb, how he’d asked me to talk to her, and I glanced across at him. He was watching Tara, and there was something odd about his expression. Sort of analytical, like he was memorizing her features or something. Then, as if he sensed me looking at him, he turned toward me and our eyes met, and the thoughtful look was gone. Maybe I’d imagined it.
“I guess because I’ve been depressed,” Tara said. “For a while. For a long time, really. But then…then last year someone really close to me died. And I guess I kind of fell apart.”
My heart gave a funny little thud. Please don’t let it be her mother who died. That was my worst nightmare. As furious as I was with her right now, I couldn’t stand the thought of anything happening to my mother. Whenever there was a news story about a police officer getting killed, everything inside me went completely haywire with fear. If Tara’s mom had died, I didn’t want to hear about it.
Tara raked her fingers through her long dark hair. She had this habit of pulling it forward across her cheek, and I wondered if it was because she was self-conscious about her birthmark. It didn’t look bad or anything, but she’d probably been teased about it when she was younger. Kids are such jerks.
“I was already depressed,” she said. “As long as I can remember, really. But when I was in eighth grade I met someone. Right after my grandfather died and Gran and I had moved to Vancouver.” Tara had been pretty quiet since we got to the island, but now it was like a switch had been hit, or a door opened. The words started pouring out like she couldn’t say it all fast enough. “I know this sounds crazy, because we were so young, but he was my soul mate. We understood each other. We were best friends for a couple of years, but I always knew we’d end up together. And we did. We basically grew from best friends to being a couple, and I figured eventually we’d get married. We’d be together forever.”
She looked up, looked around the circle, and there was something defiant in her gaze. “I don’t care if some of you don’t believe me. It’s the truth. We were like…like two halves of an equation. We just went together.”
“I believe you,” Imogen said. Her voice was soft, the usual sharp edge totally absent.
Tara gave her a sad smile, looking grateful for the support. “He’d been depressed too,” she said. “His family had some problems. Nothing huge—I mean, it was huge for him, but it was ordinary stuff. His parents had split up. He was getting counseling, and he seemed okay. He seemed like he was getting better. And then…something changed.”
“Let it out,” Rahim said, his voice a little hoarse. “Let it out.”
I looked at Rahim and was startled to see that he actually had tears in his eyes.
“I didn’t know what was wrong,” Tara said. “But he started acting strange. Lying to me. About stupid things. Where he was. Who he was talking to. And I”—her voice caught, and she gulped loudly before going on—“I accused him of cheating on me.” She looked around the circle, and I thought her gaze landed longest on Caleb. “I wish I hadn’t. I thought…I thought he’d deny it. I wanted him to deny it—”
“But he didn’t,” Mandy said. “Shocker.”
“No commenting,” Claire put in.
“Tara, you confronted him?” Imogen asked. “And he admitted that he’d been cheating?”
She nodded. “He admitted it.” A tear streaked down her cheek, and she wiped it away quickly. “But he wouldn’t tell me who with. And it didn’t even make any sense. I mean, we had a small group of friends, but we were together all the time, and no one acted weird or anything.” She shrugged. “He said it was no one I knew. But I knew everyone he knew. I mean, we’d been like this”—she held up crossed fingers—“since we were thirteen.”
“So hurtful,” Rahim said. “It sounds as though you felt a profound sense of loss and betrayal. It takes time to heal from such deep wounds.”
Tara stared at him. “No. No, that’s not it at all. I FREAKED OUT. I lost it. I screamed at him and blamed him for the fact that I was such a mess.” She pushed up the long sleeve of her hoodie. Her forearm was tiger-striped with horizontal scars—thin silver lines and recent ones that were red and angry-looking. “I told him it was his fault I’d started cutting again. I said he was as bad as his dad—throwing away something good for a stupid fling.”
“Well, Tara, you had a right to be angry,” Claire said. “You had a right to express your feelings.”
Tara glared back at her. “Noah killed himself,” she said. “He threw himself in front of a train, okay? He killed himself because of what I said. Did I have a right to do that to him?”
Claire looked stunned. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. I guessed that little tidbit must’ve got left off Tara’s registration form.
Rahim leaned forward. “Tara, losing someone to suicide is always devastating, but it is never the fault of the survivor. Your boyfriend—Noah—he made a choice. And you can’t hold yourself responsible for that choice.”
“That’s what everyone tells me,” Tara said. “It doesn’t
help. I’m always going to blame myself.”
There was a really long silence. Then Mandy broke it. “Maybe it was her fault.”
Jason, who was sitting beside her, gave her a shove. “Bloody hell, Mandy!”
Mandy shoved him back, only her shove looked more like an excuse to check out Jason’s biceps. “Not her Tara. Her. The chick he was having the fling with. Maybe she did something.”
“I don’t think speculation is really going to be helpful,” Claire said briskly. “Let’s focus on how Tara is feeling and what we can do to support her.”
Chad ignored Claire and focused on Mandy. “Like what? She dumped him, so he offed himself?”
Mandy threw up her hands impatiently. “Dumped him, gave him an STD, threatened to tell Tara. Whatever. I’m just saying, you don’t know, right? There was this big secret thing in his life that you know shit-all about, so how can you be so sure about why he died?”
“That’s enough,” Claire said.
Tara ignored her. Her mouth was hanging slightly open, her eyes fixed on Mandy. “You’re right. I mean, you’re right that I don’t know the whole story. Noah wouldn’t tell me anything about her…” She pressed two fingers against her lower lip. “He kept a journal, you know? Hardly any guys do that, but he’d kept one since eighth grade. After he died, his mom and I looked, but we couldn’t find it.”
“Moving on,” Claire said firmly. “Tara, thanks for sharing your story. How can we support you?”
Tara lifted her chin. “I think Mandy’s right. I need to know the whole story. Who Noah was messing around with, what she did to him.”
Claire shook her head. “Let’s focus on your feelings, your—”
“They would’ve emailed each other,” Nick said suddenly. “Or texted. Snapchat, Messenger, whatever. Have you checked his email?”
Tara shook her head slowly. “No. I didn’t. I can’t believe I didn’t even think of that. I think I even know most of his passwords, unless he changed them—”
“Well, I’m afraid that will have to wait,” Claire broke in. “You’re a long way from home right now. No Wi-Fi, no cell reception. So perhaps, in the meantime, we could stop playing detective and focus on healing.”
Playing detective? Seriously? People were trying to help Tara, and Claire’s response was to mock them. Nice.
“Which brings me to our next activity,” Claire said. “We’re going to do a simple ritual together. A ceremony of sorts.” She smiled, but it looked forced. I wondered if other people being helpful actually bugged her. Was she such a control freak that she wanted to be the only one who could help? And if so, why run groups? I mean, wasn’t helping each other the point of a group?
She looked at Rahim, who jumped up and began to walk around the circle, handing each person a sheet of paper.
Claire crossed her legs and leaned back in her chair. “The key to letting go of the past is to embrace and accept it,” she said.
“Hey, dude. This one’s blank,” Chad said, trying to hand his paper back.
“They all are, Chad. I want you each to write down one thing—one thought, one feeling—that keeps you stuck in the past.” Claire paused. “Pens, Rahim?”
Rahim passed a jar of pens around the circle. I took one and wrote GROUP THERAPY SUCKS on my paper.
“And now I’ll walk you through the steps to fold these pages into paper boats,” Claire said. “First, like this…”
And a few minutes later we all had little paper boats and were trooping down to the beach to release them to the sea.
* * *
The ritual was totally corny. Still, I was happy to be outdoors and moving my body instead of trapped in circle time. The sky was gray and overcast and the air felt heavy, like it might rain any second. I shivered, chilled. My thin hoodie was basically useless.
We were supposed to be walking single file, in contemplative silence, but I ran a few steps and caught up to Nick.
“Hey.” He nodded at me.
“Hey. I just…Claire’s going to tell me to shut up any sec, but I wanted to say that it totally sucks, why you’re here. I mean, that your parents are asshats about you being gay.”
“Yeah. To be honest, I spend most of my time at my aunt’s place.”
“And she’s cool?”
“Very. And she has a very cool little kid, Kelsey, who thinks I’m the greatest.” He gave me a lopsided grin. “At least the guys didn’t all flip out about sharing a cabin with me, right?”
“Jesus, yeah, no kidding.” I hadn’t even thought of that. “Though…you think if I told the other girls I was bi, they’d freak out? Like, enough that INTRO would send me home?”
His eyes widened in surprise. “You could try it.” Then he turned and looked at me, head tilted, a half smile on his face. “Are you actually bi?”
“Actually bi. Or, you know, pan.” I held up a fist, and he bumped it with his. “Queer solidarity, etcetera, etcetera. But my mom’s cool with it, so it’s no big thing.”
Rahim tapped me on the shoulder and held his finger to his lips. “Shhhh.”
I nodded and shut up. We were at the beach anyway.
Boat-launch time.
NINE
Caleb
The boat-launching thing was lame. My boat said I enjoyed beating Barry up. It wasn’t something I was proud of, but it was true. When my fist smashed into his nose and blood gushed down his idiotic Def Leppard T-shirt, I felt like I could hit him forever. Maybe I would have if my mom hadn’t started screaming and pulling me off him. Maybe I would have killed him. I was angry enough. So that was my dirty little secret—I am capable of extreme violence. I can’t avoid that now, although I’d never hit anybody before except on the football field.
But what good does it do to send a paper boat out to sea? Especially when your boat only makes it about two feet before it sinks, taking your nasty secret with it. I know, I know. So symbolic.
After my boat sank, I watched Alice and Nick launch theirs. They were all fist-bumpy and buddy-buddy, putting their boats on the water at the same time, watching as a breeze propelled them past my poor sunken blob. Alice’s probably said I love getting wasted. Nick’s? That was tough. Maybe There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m here because people are morons. Mandy was dancing around at the water’s edge, shrieking when the water touched her toes. Her sandals were ridiculous: high-heeled and sparkly. I couldn’t wait to see what she would wear when we started clearing brush with Warren. I’d put money on Daisy Dukes, a crop top and platform sneakers. I bet her boat said something like I should have screwed that hot guy at Lucky Bar last week. Chad’s boat would be blank. Jason’s might say The rich deserve everything they get, and Imogen would scribble This place sucks and leave it at that.
I couldn’t think of anything for Tara though. Her story was so sad. I couldn’t even imagine how it felt to lose someone that way, to blame yourself. It was weird that Claire and Rahim had let people discuss what had happened to Tara. It was almost like they had changed the rules for her. I watched her take off her shoes, roll up her jeans and wade into the water. I could see her lips move as she gently lowered her boat onto the water. She stood with her back to everyone for quite a while. When she finally turned around, it was clear she’d been crying. Her feet were almost blue when she got back to the beach and sat down on a log to put on her shoes.
“Pretty cold,” I said. It was starting to rain too—fat, heavy drops splatting on the stony beach and dimpling the surface of the water.
She nodded. “I’m used to it.”
She didn’t volunteer anything else, so I asked, “Did you grow up on the water?”
She nodded again. “Salt Spring Island. With my grandparents. My grandpa swam in the ocean every single day. He taught me how to swim when I was really little. As soon as I could keep up, I went with him. Every day, no matter what. He said it would make me tough. He died a few years ago when we were out swimming. He had a stroke. I almost drowned trying to get him to shore.” Tara too
k a deep, shaky breath before she continued. “After the funeral my grandma sold the house on Salt Spring, and we moved into a condo in Vancouver.” She bent over and fiddled with the laces on her runners. I think she was trying to hide her tears. “I hate the water now. I won’t go in past my knees.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “He sounds like a cool guy.”
“Yeah, he was.” She unrolled her jeans and stood up. “I miss him. But he was wrong. All that swimming didn’t make me tough. I think I’m the opposite of tough, really. I’m always afraid.”
There was something so bleak about her expression that I felt a little scared myself. “Afraid?” I said.
She wrapped her arms around herself. “Oh, you know. Just life.” She gave me a half smile before heading off. I followed her, not talking but feeling unsettled.
Claire and Rahim were stirring up all this stuff, and I didn’t trust that they really knew what to do with it. I hoped INTRO wasn’t going to make things worse for Tara.
* * *
After a dinner of vegetarian chili (heavy on the beans), you can imagine how awesome it was to be in a small cabin with three other guys. Not that I wasn’t contributing, but when Chad started talking about the girls—how he’d like to bang Mandy, and how Imogen was probably a dyke—I said, “You guys play poker?” and he shut up. Turned out Nick and Jason were into it, but Chad had never played. Probably wouldn’t be able to keep the suits straight anyway.
I got my cards and chips out of my bag. I’d figured I’d probably find someone to play with at INTRO, since all our devices had to be left at home. What else were we going to do? Play Pin the Tail on the Psycho? I wouldn’t put it past Rahim to come up with some sort of therapeutic twist on Charades though. I shuddered as I shuffled the cards.
“Texas Hold’em?” I asked. “What are you guys in for?”
“A buck,” Nick said.
“Hardly worth playing,” I said. “How about five? Make it more interesting.” I got out my wallet and plunked a five on the table.
Blood on the Beach Page 5