by Callie Hart
She makes a distressed, choking sound that would have made me jump to my feet and hug her once upon a time. “You can tell me to go to hell if you want to, but I was hoping you’d come with me to the hospital after school today. If you’re not busy,” she hastily adds.
I’m intrigued. Against my better judgement, I look up again. “The hospital? Why?”
“Because Zen...” Again, she makes the distressed sound, pulling a face at Leah Prescott, who is studiously pretending not to listen to our conversation. Halliday tucks her long curls behind her ears, stoops down, and cups her hand to shield the words that come tumbling out of her mouth. “Zen tried to kill herself. She’s not right, um, mentally. And I figured…I hoped you might be able to help her.”
“And why would I be able to do that?”
Halliday’s eyes shine like wet glass, like she’s hating the fact that I’m actually making her say this. “Because she went through what you went through. And you were strong enough to endure it.”
16
SILVER
The smell always hits me hardest—the burn of bleach and hand sanitizer, coupled with the sickly-sweet fragrance of flowers that have begun to decay in vases of stale water. I stopper up the back of my nose, careful to breathe through my mouth as I follow behind Halliday, our sneakers squeaking cheerfully against the linoleum. As always, the strip lights overhead are slightly too bright. As always, their inaudible hum buzzes irritatingly against my eardrums, unheard but definitely felt.
Nurses pass us as we make our way through the hospital corridors. I know many of their names. Tracey, fresh out of nursing school, whose fifteen-year-old brother stole her car and drove it to Tacoma, where he sold it to buy heroin. Lindsay, who loves birds and hates winter because all of the Ospreys, Caspian terns, and tufted puffins migrate to weather the cold elsewhere. Mitch, who sounds like Michael Bublé when he sings but can’t dance to save his life. Phillipa, the sternest RN on staff, who strikes fear into the hearts of her subordinates, but who also makes sure to swipe extra pudding cups from the cafeteria for the sick kids on the cancer ward.
My face is healed now, the bruising faded and gone, and the nurses’ eyes skate over me as if they don’t even recognize me, which is a relief. I hated my time here, confined to my uncomfortable hospital bed, unable to go anywhere or do anything. I hated their pity the most, though. I despised being Poor Silver Parisi, the weak, vulnerable girl who nearly died at the hands of a mad, spoiled rich boy.
Halliday slows as she nears a set of double doors at the end of the hallway, wringing her hands anxiously. “The woman on the desk never lets me through,” she says. “Zen’s mom’s put a block on visitors. She told me I couldn’t see Zen until she comes home…but then I heard the doctor saying it was going to be weeks before they’d consider releasing her. And she shouldn’t be alone in there, Silver. She just shouldn’t. This place…it’s too surgical and cold. It's—”
“Hell,” I finish for her. I’m lower on sympathy than I ought to be, but I know all-too-well what it feels like to stare at the tile of a hospital room ceiling and feel like time has ground to a halt. If my parents hadn’t come to see me with Max, I would have lost my ever-loving mind. Setting my jaw, I push my way through the double doors, holding my head high. “Just follow me. Don’t look at the nurse on the desk. Just keep close and loosen up, for fuck’s sake. You look guilty as fuck and we haven’t even broken any rules yet.”
“I’m not good at breaking rules,” Halliday mumbles behind me.
This isn’t true. I doubt her mom signed off on her stripping at the Rock for one thing, but I keep my mouth shut. Now isn’t the time to bring that up. Once we’re through the double doors, I beeline for the secure-access door that leads to the ward where Zen’s room is located.
Holy shit. I hesitate when I read the sign taped to the wall.
PSYCHIATRIC ICU WARD
Sharp Objects Restricted Beyond This Point. Med Carts Must Be Locked And Keys Kept With The Duty Nurse On Call.
I knew Zen tried to kill herself, but she’s being kept on the psych ward? On the same ward as potentially dangerous patients and people who still pose a risk to themselves or others? I think I’ve grossly underestimated just how bad Zen’s situation is.
“The door doesn’t just open,” Halliday whispers. “They have to hit the big green button on the wall by the desk to let you through.”
“Shhh. Come on.” I recover myself, pressing forward toward the door, knowing how this kind of thing works. The nurse at the psych ward desk is harried, drowning in paperwork, and she’s hungry. She won’t have had a chance to stop for lunch, which was five hours ago now. She’s also tired because the department is massively understaffed and she’s doing the job of three people. If we walk right up to her and try to appeal to her humanity, we’re going to be met with short shrift. If we waltz right up to the secured-access door and punch in the code—a code that could very well be wrong for this part of the building or might have changed since I was discharged before Christmas, then she isn’t going to bat an eyelid. During my time here, I learned fast that if you looked like you were supposed to be somewhere, no one really questioned it.
My hand shakes as I punch the five digit code Mitch, the nurse who could sing but couldn’t dance, gave me when he told me to go and fetch my own damn blanket from the supply counter on the third floor; I’d refused to walk for a long time after I was admitted, and his tough love, coupled with the freezing ass temperatures in my room at night, were the only things that got me moving.
Seven…three…eight…zero…zero…
I’m so close to fist pumping in the air when the small green light at the top of the keypad flicks on and a whirring, mechanical sounds buzzes out of the lock. That really shouldn’t have worked. The hospital’s security protocols should be way tighter than this. Access codes should be changed regularly, or at least vary from one section of the building to another. Not complaining, though.
Hurrying Halliday through the door, I follow after her, marshalling my expression into a mask of calm. If anyone was really paying attention, they might have asked why two teenaged girls wearing cheerleading uniforms were letting themselves into a restricted area, but no one makes a goddamn peep.
The psych ward’s different to other wards I’ve been on in the hospital. For starters, there are no bays with curtains around them, drawn closed for privacy. We find ourselves in a long, broad corridor with pale blue walls. Doors line the corridor on either side, with small white boards tacked to the walls, detailing patient information and stats, plus any relevant medication information.
The bleach smell, overpowering everywhere else, is absent here. The plush, thick cream carpet underfoot makes it feel as though we’re walking down the hallway of a five-star hotel, not the mental health ward of a public hospital.
“I have to admit, this is way, way nicer than I imagined when I saw where we were heading,” I mutter under my breath. “God, are they piping in elevator music?”
Halliday squeaks, almost walking into the back of me in her attempt to stay close. “Dad used to say that elevator music was designed to make people crazy,” she says.
I have to agree. The bland tinkling piano notes are little too condescending for my liking. I’d probably torch the place and burn it to the ground if I had to listen to this bullshit all day long.
“Come on. She’s down here,” Halliday says, rushing down the hallway.
“I thought they wouldn’t let you back here?”
“I was allowed to sit with her for half an hour last week. Zen got really agitated when I started talking about school and they kicked me out. That’s when her mom told me not to come back for a while.”
We reach the very end of the hall, and Hal stops in front of the last door on the right. Sure enough, Zen’s name has been drawn onto the whiteboard beside the door, along with a handful of stars and smiley faces that are probably supposed to make this whole experience somehow seem less terrifying.
<
br /> Self-harm risk.
Intermittent hysteria.
Catatonic intervals.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapist: Dr. Ramda-Patel (on-call)
100mg Zoloft every 6 hours.
Nembutal as needed.
Next of kin: Angela MacReady 360 545 1865 (MOTHER)
They tried to put me on antidepressants after my last encounter with Jake. The first few nights in the hospital, I woke up screaming every few hours, gulping like my airways were being closed off all over again, and Dr. Killington recommended Zoloft. I’d agreed without really thinking about it, willing to try anything if it meant that Jake’s face would be banished from my mind. The meds made me sluggish and foggy, though. They made me sweat like crazy. They also gave me insomnia instead of helping me sleep.I refused to take them after only a few days. They’d made Mom explain to me that the meds needed time to settle in my system and that usually those side effects dissipated as time went on, but I’d stood my ground. Feeling that way, so detached from the world, wouldn’t have been worth it, even if the meds had helped me sleep.
“D’you think they locked her in?” Halliday asks, staring down at the door handle like it’s a venomous snake.
“Doubt it. This isn’t prison.” I’m hesitant, though. Maybe they have locked her in. If the doctors consider her a self-harm risk—which she definitely is, if she tried to kill herself—then why wouldn’t they keep her under lock and key? It’d be bad press for the hospital if she managed to find her way up to the roof and throw herself off it. When I try the handle, however, the door opens easily and swings open. There, on the bed beneath the window, Zen, with her hair cropped unbelievably close to her skull, lies fast asleep under a dusky violet comforter, propped up on thick, fluffy pillows that I know from first-hand experience are not hospital issue. Her mom must have brought stuff from home for her. The posters on the walls; the stylized family photos in the silver frames on the windowsill; the cute stuffed elephants on the nightstand; the stack of books on the desk against the wall: all of these little touches make the room feel less sterile, but also make it seem like Zen might have moved in for the foreseeable future.
The television, mounted to the wall, is turned to some soapy teen drama, the volume down low. Halliday stands by Zen’s bedside, her eyes roaming up and down her still, almost lifeless figure, and a stab of jealousy knifes through me.
Hal never visited me in the hospital. She and Zen were friends obviously, but they were never as close and she was with me. The look of pure misery on her face now makes me want to scream at her for being absent when I needed her.
“She looks so tired,” Halliday whispers. “Maybe we shouldn’t wake her.”
It’s true that the delicate purple shadows beneath Zen’s closed eyes make her look exhausted, even in rest. I remember the weeks that followed that night in Mr. Wickman’s bathroom. All I did was sleep. I locked myself away in my room as often as I could, refusing to interact with the world. I sank into the oblivion that unconsciousness offered me, and I did everything in my power to stay that way. Sleeping eighteen hours a day, checking out of reality, was far easier than facing it. Depression affects people differently, though. Zen might struggle to pass out at all; without the drugs to keep her under, she might be plagued by insomnia.
“We’ll sit and wait a while,” I say, moving to stand by the window. I’m on edge. No way I’m going to be able to relax. My own time here aside, I’m dreading the moment when Zen stirs and wakes up. The last time I saw her, she was fighting with Rosa Jimenez, who was sawing hanks of her gorgeous afro off by the handful—settling an account between them that was long overdue. I’d felt sorry for Zen, but I’d also felt vindicated. I’d decided that she deserved the punishment, served up to her in front of the whole school, because of the way she’d treated me at Kacey’s behest. Her dogged pursuit of Alex had made me despise her even more than I already had, and it had seemed about time for karma to leap up and bite Zen in the ass. I hadn’t known then that she’d suffered the same violence at Jake’s hands that I had. When I’d found out what he and his asshole buddies had done to her, my initial response to that information still brings me a deep and harrowing shame. For one awful moment, again, I’d thought…serves her right.
She knew what he’d done to me, and she’d shunned me for it.
She’d mocked and harassed me along with the rest of the school and done nothing about the pain they’d inflicted upon me.
She’d stood by while Jake and his friends got off scott-free for assaulting me, leaving them free to do it again to someone else.
For one awful microsecond, when my anger and my hurt had gotten the better of me, it seemed only fair that they had ended up hurting someone else, and that someone else had been her.
The moment had been so fleeting that it barely even registered as a complete thought, but I knew my mind had gone there. The rank taste of such a vile, unkind thought left a sourness in my mouth that’s never really disappeared, and standing here in Zen’s room this afternoon, understanding exactly what she went through and how badly it must have scarred her, it feels like she’s going to take one look at me and know that I wished this misery upon her in a moment of weakness. No one, not even the lowest, shittiest person in the world, should have to cope with the horrors that haunt her whenever she hears the names Jacob, Cillian, Sam.
I stare out of the window, watching the dim glow of the sun fade over the forest on the other side of the hospital parking lot, trying to unravel the mess I find myself tangled up in. When did we stop supporting each other? When did it become more important to bow and scrape to the likes of Jake Weaving than to have each other’s backs? When did our friendships lose their value so dramatically that we were willing to overlook heinous, brutal crimes simply to maintain our status in the pointless, short-term eco-system that is high school?
Halliday sits on the edge of the chair by the desk, watching me intently. The weight of her gaze on my back burns through the fabric of my cheer uniform. I know she wants to talk to me, but I’m not interested in a catch-up session. Not right now. My mind’s racing, too full, too many thoughts chasing around one another in a maddening dervish; it’s taking all my strength just to stand quietly at the window without screaming at the top of my lungs.
A long time passes. I grow numb as I watch the dusk creep over the horizon. All of a sudden, it’s fully dark outside and there are pinpricks of flickering white light scattered across the clear night sky. “Beautiful, huh?” Halliday murmurs beside me. God knows when she came and stood beside me, but I get the feeling from the way she’s dejectedly resting her forehead against the glass that she’s been there a while. “Remember when we were little? We used to try and count them all. We thought, if we closed one eye and worked our way from left to right, we’d be able to keep track.”
“I remember.” The croaky voice on the other side of the room startles both of us. I must have been really zoned out, because Zen is awake and she’s sitting up in the bed, hugging her knees to her chest.
“Kacey used to laugh at us,” she says quietly. “She said we were stupid for even trying, but we never listened. We used to sit outside in our sleeping bags in middle of winter and stuff our faces with marshmallows.”
Four young girls, still children, huddled together for warmth and laughing up at the sky: those memories seem so distant now that it comes as a shock to even recall them. We were innocent once. We weren’t always this selfish, unkind, lost.
“Othello pooped in your hoody,” I say, smirking a little. Othello, Zen’s old family dog, had come with us on a number of trips up to the cabin. He always looked like he was grinning, tongue lolling out of the side of his head. Usually meant he’d shit somewhere he wasn’t supposed to. The hoody shitting incident had been particularly unforgettable, because Zen hadn’t noticed the present Othello had deposited in her clothes and had put on the hoody in question. It’d taken at least half an hour for the smell to become unbearable, at which point we�
��d discovered the smeared dog shit caked deep into the back of Zen’s tightly curled hair.
She huffs sadly, rubbing her hand over the back of her bare skull, her eyes gazing unfocused out of the window. “Yeah. I guess I don’t need to worry about getting shit in my hair anymore, huh? I’m going for a more minimalist look these days.”
“I think it looks cool,” Halliday offers very seriously, heading over to sit on the edge of Zen’s bed. “Edgy, y’know. Very Demi Moore in G.I. Jane.”
Zen hides her face behind her legs, so only her eyes are peeking out over the tops of her knees. “Come on. We all know it’s more of a Britney, post meltdown look.”
“No. No way.” Hal shakes her head firmly. “Britney was fucking crazy.”
This elicits a hard, derisory bark of laughter from the bald girl in the bed. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m being held captive in a hospital psychiatric ward. That’s usually where they put the crazy people, Hal.”
Halliday growls, shoving at Zen until she grudgingly shifts over in the bed, making room for her. Once she’s settled and she’s made herself comfortable, her back bolstered up against the pillows, Halliday puts an arm around Zen’s shoulder and forces her to snuggle. Zen—always loud, always confident, always brash and larger than life—looks like a broken and frail little girl tucked into Halliday’s side. “There’s a difference between crazy and sad. You haven’t lost your mind,” she whispers.
“Feels like it.” Zen’s eyes close. She folds her arms into her chest, curling up tighter against Halliday, and for the first time I notice the white dressings wrapped around both of her wrists. I assumed Zen had taken a bunch of pills or something. I imagined herself getting comfortable in bed and relaxing, tossing a bunch of Vicodin down her throat and polishing it all off with a bottle of Malbec. Seemed like a very Zen suicide attempt. Slitting your wrists is another level. From the way her dressings are taped, she cut vertically, not horizontally. She meant business. This wasn’t a cry for help. She wanted to purge her blood, like letting it out would release all of her pain and the poison inside of her at the same time. Holy shit…