I bow my head and a few tears slip down my cheeks. I wipe them away before anyone can see. Suck it up, Alice. “All I have to do is sign?”
“It’s your choice, like everything else. You have control,” Sara says. “If you really focus, really open yourself up, you could be out of here soon. You could start a whole new life.”
What she says is tempting. It’s like the apple in the Garden of Eden. Except we all know how that turned out. She’s promising me the same things Jason promised right before our Great Escape—a future full of paths that lead away from Cellie. All I have to do is sign my name. Confess to a crime I didn’t commit. Acknowledge that I played a small but unwilling part in my best friend’s death. Admit that I’m unstable and maybe, just maybe, a little bit dangerous.
But Jason was wrong, and so is Sara. There will be no refuge from Cellie. I picture her pacing in her little D ward cell, mumbling incoherently, smashing the flies on the wall and waiting, waiting for her opening, when the door is left unattended or a guard takes his eyes off her. That’s when she’ll come for me.
My hand picks up the pen that has appeared next to me as if by magic. Signing this document is merely a means to an end, I realize. But not the end Sara, Dr. Goodman, and Mr. Cohen have in mind. I won’t get to Cellie while I’m wearing a red wristband or while I’m locked up behind bars. And I have to get to her before she gets to me. My hand hovers over the paper. I bite my lip. Part of me feels like I deserve this. This is the price I pay. I loved her. And in loving her I was complicit. What was it Chase said? I fear never being able to forgive myself. Me too.
I scribble my name on the designated line. And just like that, I’m one step closer to Cellie and absolution.
All the air seems to rush back into the room. Cohen snatches the contract up like he thinks I’m going to change my mind, black out my name. He stuffs it into his briefcase, and I can tell he’s eager to go home and wash the smell of the hospital from his body. I wonder if he has a family, a couple of kids and a wife. Maybe he’ll hug them a little tighter tonight and tell them about the lost girl with the pyromaniac twin who lives in a mental hospital.
Sara hugs me, once again ignoring Dr. Goodman’s “no touching” rule. Cohen and Sara leave together, and I resist the sudden urge to wrap myself around Sara and beg her to take me with her.
“You’ve made excellent progress today, Alice.” Dr. Goodman motions Nurse Dummel forward. “I think you’re ready to be off restricted status.” Nurse Dummel pulls a pair of shiny silver scissors from her lab-coat pocket. She grabs my wrist and the cold metal sinks into my skin.
In one swift motion my red wristband is cut and a yellow one replaces it. Involuntarily I rub where the scissors pressed into me. Doc dismisses me and Donny takes me back to my room.
Amelia lies on her bed. A magazine obstructs her face, and she doesn’t lower it to acknowledge my entrance. I crawl into my bed, pulling the sheets up over my head, and let the silence between us grow heavy, full of unsaid things.
Later on, Nurse Dummel knocks. She’s brought me a neat, laundered pile of my clothes. On top of the pile is a plastic bag with my little paper zoo and a stack of brightly colored origami paper. She hands them to me and I place them on the dresser. Electing to stay in the ratty scrubs a little while longer, I sit down on the edge of my bed and stare at the stack until the colors run together. For some reason, some reason I can’t even begin to describe, the thought of changing back into my clothes, despite their clean, fresh scent, makes me feel dirty.
I’m surprised when the mattress begins to sink under Amelia’s weight. She’s sitting beside me now. A red band encircles her wrist. I crack my knuckles. “I told them about the razors,” I confess. “I’m sorry if it got you in more trouble.”
“It’s okay.” She nudges my shoulder. “Thanks for the mouse.” I hadn’t been sure if she’d found the gray origami mouse I’d made for her, but I guess she did. She gets up and goes to the dresser, riffles through it, and comes back with the paper mouse in hand.
I take it from her and touch one of the triangle ears. “What should we call him?”
“How about Clovis?”
I laugh. “Clovis is a terrible name.”
She scoffs and touches her chest in mock indignation. “Clovis is my grandfather’s name. It means fighter.” She grins, plucks the mouse from my hand, and turns to the dresser.
“I really am sorry, you know,” I say softly.
Her shoulders stiffen and then relax. “It’s okay, Alice. Seriously. I don’t know what I was thinking stealing those razors.” She pauses and sets the mouse down. “I have a bad history with sharp things.”
…
FROM THE JOURNAL OF ALICE MONROE
At exactly 12:01 a.m., the day after our sixteenth birthday, Cellie and I celebrated our “un-birthday” with Jason. He bought us each a pie with a lattice crust and lit a single candle in the middle. As the weather got colder and Mother Nature pulled the curtain from summer to fall, we fixed up the shed in the backyard of Candy’s house. We made it into our hangout, putting a little piece of ourselves into it. Jason spray-painted the walls with silhouettes of children holding guns. Cellie collected dolls and stuffed animals from around the neighborhood and strung them up from the ceiling. And I made white paper doves and hung them between the doll heads and muddy Care Bears.
We blew out our candles while Jason lit up a joint. He took a long drag, and the air became supercharged with the smell of marijuana and gasoline. The shed was also where Jason liked to keep his accelerants.
I looked down at my pie. “Shit, we don’t have any forks.”
Cellie jumped up. “I’ll go get some.” Ever since she had drowned my cat, she’d been nicer to me, trying to build a bridge across her treachery. I knew her madness well enough by then to know it came in waves. Right then, it was low tide.
As soon as the door shut behind her, Jason offered me the joint. Normally I would have rejected his offer, scrunched up my nose, and turned my head away, but that night I wanted to try it. Wanted to know what it felt like. We exchanged it over the pie, and a little ash fell right into the middle. I held it like a cigarette and took a long inhale, making little ohs as I exhaled, as if I’d been smoking for years. I grinned at him. The smoke traveled through my body like a curling vine.
“Classy, baby,” he said.
I smiled in a different way and with my free hand dug into the pie. I brought a gooey scoop of blackberry filling and doughy crust to my lips and sucked it off my fingers.
Jason’s gaze became heated. He groaned and flopped backwards onto a beanbag chair. I stamped the joint out and threw my head back and laughed. Everything seemed so funny and I felt so light. I crawled toward him, up over his body, until my legs were on either side of his hips.
His eyes were half lidded and his arm snaked around to hold me. “You’re an animal,” he said.
I laughed again, this time lower, huskier. Then I smeared some of the pie onto his lips.
“You wanna play?” he asked. His mouth curved into a wicked smile. Then, quicker than a flash of lightning, he flipped me over onto my back so that he straddled me. His hands wrapped around my wrists. “Jesus Christ.” He leaned down. His voice became almost reverent. “I love you in the fucking worst way.” He licked the pie from my lips and then moved in for a much deeper kiss.
The door to the shed creaked open. Something dropped, a soft clatter of metal hitting concrete. The door banged closed, and then there was the sound of footsteps fleeing into silence.
For a moment, worry made my body go limp. I thought I should go after Cellie. Make her understand that I needed them both. Tell her that I remembered the last bite of cake and I would never forget. But then Jason’s lips were on my throat. His hands were in my hair and his body was moving over mine. And the worry melted away under all of his heat. And I didn’t care. I didn’t care. All I could think was, I am his. From the east to the west, I am his. I am his.
CHAPTER
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16
Hip-hop and Happiness
TUESDAY IS FIELD TRIP DAY, and since I’ve been upgraded to yellow-wristband status, I’m allowed to go. Amelia is still red-banded and she pouts.
“I’ll bring you back something,” I say. We’re in our room, and I’ve just finished changing out of the ratty scrubs and into my regular clothes.
“This is such bullshit. You cut your hair after I freaked. I should’ve gotten a yellow wristband by now.” My guess is that she’s serving double time, one sentence for the stunt with Elvis and another for stealing the razors. Even though we talked it through and I apologized, she still seems fragile and not entirely herself. The Quiet Room does that to you.
The red band on her wrist slides down. Her scars look whiter today. She’s lost some weight, and the scars stand out against her parched skin, puckered and angry. I can count at least five of them crisscrossing over one another underneath the cigarette burns. Funny, I hadn’t noticed them before.
I fiddle with the edge of my hoodie and think about the deal I made with the DA and the relief in Sara’s and Dr. Goodman’s eyes when I signed the plea bargain. How I traded my name for some sheets of origami paper and a yellow wristband. I tell myself it’s for the greater good. I need to keep one step ahead of Cellie, and I can’t do that if I’m on total lockdown. Grandpa used to say that sometimes you have to wave a white flag in order to win the war. The plea bargain is collateral damage.
Amelia makes a sound that is part growl, part whimper. She crosses her arms, sniffles, and flops back onto her bed. “It’s not fair. I wish my parents would come get me already. They’re supposed to be coming, you know.”
It’s all she talks about now, how her parents are coming. She clings to it. I don’t point out to Amelia that even if her parents did come, they wouldn’t be able to see her. She wouldn’t even know they were here. They would be turned away at the door. Part of me wonders if she has parents at all. They’ve never visited. And I’ve seen kids like her before in foster homes. Always talking about how their parents would come soon. They’d watch through the windows for familiar cars to turn down the street and then feel disappointed when nobody came. Jason used to be like that. And yet—I still can’t reconcile that hopeful young boy with the twisted man he became.
I sit next to her. “It’s not fair,” I agree. “If I could, I would give you my wristband.”
She smiles, wan and distant. I wish I had the old Amelia back. The one who called Monica a muff eater and said she wore dirty underwear. “Who knows,” she says. “Maybe by the time you get back, I’ll be gone.”
Her words settle into the pit of my stomach. I say goodbye to her, promising one more time to bring back something from the outside. I’m not sure what it will be, since I don’t have any money. Maybe a leaf, a speck of dirt, a breath of fresh air?
I meet up with the other patients who are going. We congregate in the rec room. All of us are outfitted with ankle monitors and given very specific instructions about appropriate behavior in public. A guy with dreads makes a lewd jester with his hands. Chase stands a few feet away from me, his big headphones looped around his neck. Dr. Goodman and the social worker intern are going, along with a handful of techs and nurses, Nurse Dummel included. All the staff are dressed in plain clothes.
We get checked out and board a yellow school bus. I shuffle down the narrow aisle, turn into a middle seat, and plop down. Someone has taken a Sharpie and written on the worn green vinyl back of the seat facing me: I PEED WHERE YOU’RE SITTING. My mouth curves into a smile. I put my legs up so my feet cover the majority of the letters. Chase falls into the seat beside me. Monica passes and turns her nose up at us.
“What do you think she’s in for?” Chase whispers.
I chew my lip. “I don’t know. She probably couldn’t stop drawing dicks on everything.”
Chase laughs. “You wanna listen to some music?”
“Depends.”
“On what?”
“What you got?”
“I’m feeling some gangsta rap today, what do you say?”
“I say the filthier the better.”
“I thought you might say something like that.”
Chase puts on the headphones but turns one out so it faces me. I lean over and press my ear against the cushioned head. He turns the volume up. A beat starts, and out come the most appalling lyrics I’ve ever heard. I’ve never heard the words mother, balls, and toilet seat strung together in such a creative way. We listen all the way to the botanical gardens. Chase taps his fingers against his leg in rhythm and I lean against him, wishing that this day would last forever. That I could feel the wind through the open window, smell the vinyl seats and pouring rain for all of time. That this calm happiness would never go away, that I could capture this moment for life.
…
FROM THE JOURNAL OF ALICE MONROE
Cellie, Jason, and I had stopped at a convenience store, some no-name truck stop on Highway 101, on our way to the beach. Cellie loved truck stops. We were skipping school. Or rather, Cellie and Jason were skipping school. I was just tagging along, unable to resist Jason’s sweet smile and the dimple that appeared in his cheek. Plus, I wouldn’t be missing that much in class. Jason had called in a bomb threat (Cellie’s idea), so classes would be out for a while.
Jason’s arm was around me, anchoring me to his side. In front of us, Cellie twirled, laughing. “Whoops,” she said as she accidentally knocked a bottle of liquor off the shelf.
Jason chuckled. The guy at the register, who looked like he had spent too many years inhaling gas fumes, frowned. He went to the back, grabbed a broom, and started to clean it up. Cellie stood close to the guy. A little too close. She flirted with him, giggled, and touched his chest. While he was distracted, Jason went behind the counter and stuffed cigarettes, money, and lottery tickets into his pockets. I hung back, closer to Cellie. Even though I felt safer by Jason, I thought the guy was safer with me closer to Cellie. That way I could interfere if she went too far. The guy took off his hat, rubbed the back of his neck. His gas-stained work shirt had the name Earl embroidered on it. “You sure you’re eighteen?” Earl asked Cellie.
“Almost eighteen.” She looked at him with big, wide eyes and twirled a lock of hair around her finger. We had just turned seventeen and were nowhere close to eighteen.
“Well, then . . .” He shuffled his feet. When his head came back up there was something wrong. Tension filled his face and his body went stiff. Cellie noticed. Her gaze followed his. He was staring into the circular mirror that was hung up in the corner of the shop, right above the beer case. The convex mirror gave a three-quarter view of the store, and right in the middle of the image was Jason, hands in the cash drawer, an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth. Cellie’s mouth formed a little oh.
“Time to go, Allie.” She yanked my arm, pulled me along with her, inadvertently or maybe purposefully putting me between her and Earl.
Even though Earl was a little slow on the uptake, he was fast to react. He grabbed my arm, hard. “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked, his breath stale and sour. He reminded me of Roman. I winced.
Jason was on him in an instant. He leaped over the counter, overturning the cash drawer and spilling candy in his wake. “Keep your fucking hands off her.”
Earl’s hand bit into my skin, and the flesh turned a muddy purple around where his fingers pressed. “Jason.” I was scared. Big tears formed in my eyes. I wasn’t tough like Cellie. If Earl were holding her, she would have spat in his face and kneed him in the balls.
Before I knew it, before I even had time to blink, Jason was on Earl. Cellie, too. She scratched his face and kicked his shins. Earl’s hold on me was tight and when he started to waver, to tumble like a tower in an earthquake, I fell with him. All the way down we went. Cellie helped me roll away, and together we scrambled up until we were sitting, backs pressed against the glass refrigerators.
Stunned, we watched Jason p
ound on Earl. Until Earl’s face turned a muddy purple that matched the bruises on my skin. Until Earl’s arms dropped, no longer able to block his face. Until Earl was completely still and Jason’s rage was exhausted. The sound of violence echoed. Fist hitting a cheek, breaking bone, crunching like rocks thrown through glass. And then all of a sudden it was quieter than freshly fallen snow.
Jason touched my face and it was wet, from my tears and the blood on his hands. “Are you all right?” he asked.
I flinched and turned away. For some reason all I could see was Roman’s face layered on top of Jason’s. It was the first time I remember being afraid of him. Afraid and disgusted.
“I think you killed him,” Cellie said right beside me. She stared at Earl with hungry curiosity.
Jason glanced over his shoulder at Earl, who lay in an awkward position. “He’s still breathing.” Jason helped Cellie to her feet. “We should get out of here.” He held out a hand to me. “Cops might come.” But I didn’t take his hand. I stood up on my own, eyes trained on Earl’s body.
“He asked for it, Allie,” Cellie said.
Does someone ever ask to get beaten within an inch of his life? Jason lit up a cigarette. The blood from his hands smeared on the paper. He smoked it, the red drying—burning up and becoming ash. “We got to go, baby. He’ll be all right.”
I still didn’t move. My feet had grown roots through the tiled floor.
He sighed. “Look, if it’ll make you feel better, we’ll call 911 as soon as we’re down the road, give them the address.”
I was frozen. A block of ice settled on my chest, and my blood ran cold. Earl was so still. His breathing was so shallow.
Someway, somehow, I made it back to the car, slow and stumbling and disbelieving. We drove off. Jason didn’t do as he had promised. He didn’t stop to call 911. He kept going and I watched the trees blur together, seeing them through a red, watery haze.