No shit. “What are you doing with my file?”
He shakes his head. “I can’t tell you.”
“Can’t tell me!” I repeat stupidly. “I think I have a right to know. Did you steal it?” The whole time he’s been lying to me. He’s been reading my file and laughing behind my back.
“I don’t—” He stumbles over the words. At least he has the decency to look ashamed. “It was to help you.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” I spit out. “Why?” I press the file to my chest, where my heart is breaking, where it’s disintegrating in Chase’s hands.
He shrugs and stuffs his hands in his pockets. “I can’t tell you. You’re not ready.”
I snort. “You are such a coward.” I throw the file across the room and sheets of paper slip out and fan the ground. My glossy mug shot, from when I was arrested as an accomplice in Earl’s beating, lands face-up. In the picture I’m crying and, I remember, my hands were shaking so bad, I could barely hold the placard with my name on it.
Chase’s gaze locks onto mine, lightning fast. “What?” he says.
I trample the papers, leaving a footprint on the ugly photo, until I’m standing inches from Chase’s face. “I said you are a coward, Chase Ward, a dirty, fucking coward. You hide behind your bullshit sense of humor.” I shake my head. “I should’ve known. You can’t be honest with yourself, so why the hell would you be honest with me?” I turn to leave.
I don’t hear him coming toward me until it’s too late. “Wait.” He grabs my arm.
I whirl around and try to yank my arm away, but he’s got me in a tight hold. “Don’t touch me,” I say under my breath. “You make me sick.” I thought he was so different from Jason. But he’s the same. A peddler of lies. A betrayer.
He releases me right away, his hand coming off my body like I’ve scalded him, like I’ve hurt him in some deep place, and I can see by his eyes that I have. “You don’t mean that,” he says in a heartbreaking whisper.
“Of course I do. You’re no different than the rest of them.” I turn from him and rest my hand on the door. I don’t even care if a tech is out there. I just want out, out of Chase’s room and his web of lies.
“I may be a coward, but you are, too.” Chase’s voice stops me cold, reignites the fury inside me. My shoulders stiffen. “You want honesty, Alice? Why don’t we start with you, then? Why don’t you tell me what you’re doing here? Why are you dead set on breaking into the D ward?”
I don’t bother to turn around. I lean my forehead on the door, against the cool metal. “I told you, my sister’s there.”
He snorts in disbelief. “Yeah, I’m sure. You want to get into the D ward to see Cellie? So you can do what?” He waits a moment, and I’m sure he can hear my heart beating in the room. Boom. Boom. Boom. He knows. He must know. He must have guessed my intent from the beginning.
I swallow my anger and resentment and fear. “Fine,” I say. “I’ll be honest. I want Cellie dead. I want to go to the D ward. And I want to find her and cut her out like the cancer she is.” The truth has festered so long inside me that it’s a relief to finally say it out loud.
He makes a little noise, like he’s being strangled. “What do you think that’s going to accomplish? It’s not going to bring Jason back.”
Finally I turn, hands balled into fists. “Don’t say his name.”
He takes a step back, and then he erupts. “Oh my God, that’s what you think, isn’t it? You think somehow if you kill Cellie, it’s going to resurrect Jason.”
“Don’t say his name. Don’t say his name.” I shake my head back and forth. My heart pounds and blood rushes into my ears. I can barely form breaths.
But Chase is relentless, a dog with a bone. “Jason. Jason. Jason. Jason’s dead, Allie. Jason’s dead, but I’m here.” He takes one of my hands, and though I try to swat it away, he holds on. He forces my fingers open and lays them against his chest. “I’m here. I’m real.” He wants me to let go, run to him, and leave Jason behind. I shake off his soft plea and narrow my eyes at him.
I press my hand into his chest and push him. He stumbles back a little. “Now you be honest too. Why were you sent to Savage Isle?”
He lets go of my hand and I allow it drop to my side. “My sister.” His eyes drill into mine like he’s daring me to call his bluff.
“Your sister. That’s why you’re here?”
“Yeah.” He jerks his chin at me.
“Bullshit.”
“What?” He’s surprised.
“I said bullshit. What are you really doing here, Chase? What’s with the files, the sneaking around?”
“I’m helping you,” he tries.
“Why?”
“Because I said I would.”
“You’re helping me because I remind you of your sister.” His words from days ago haunt me. You remind me of her, you know. My little bird with a broken wing. “You want to fix me because you couldn’t fix your sister. You want to fix me, and maybe I don’t want to be fixed.”
“You’re so wrong,” he says. But when he sees my expression, he backpedals. “Maybe that was it at first. But not now. Now it’s different.”
“Then tell me what you’re really doing here, with me.” Why all the help for nothing?
He dodges eye contact. “I can’t, not yet. I promise I’ll tell you everything—it’s just not the right time.” He hangs his head and backs up some more so he’s pressed against the wall.
“This is a waste of time,” I say. “We’re done.”
“Please,” he says. “There are some things I can’t tell you, but I can . . .” He swallows. “I can tell you that I killed someone.”
Everything in my body goes cold and my heart slows, stutters, and then stalls. Amelia was right. Chase killed someone.
“Who?”
He looks away.
“Who?” I persist.
“I killed my sister.” His voice is small, weak, and wilted.
He’s hinted at it before, that he killed someone he loved, but this is the first time I’ve ever actually heard him say it. “You killed your sister?” I say when he looks as if he’s not going to say any more. “How?” I want to know every detail. What dark path brought Chase to the same point as me?
A shudder runs through him. “I can’t.” He pauses. “I can’t say.”
I shake my head, not in anger but in hopelessness. He won’t share, and I can’t give any more. We’re at an impasse. Another stalemate. “I think we need to stay away from each other for a while.”
His eyes flash to mine. “What? Why?”
I dodge his gaze, the heartbreak and fear in his eyes. “Because we’re broken, Chase. We’re broken, and we’re not going to fix each other.”
“That’s not what I want.”
I chew the inside of my cheek, and resolve settles like concrete in my gut. He’s too damaged. I’m too damaged. “It’s for the best.” I stick out my hand. “Key?” I say. Chase makes a noise of protest. Still, he rummages through his pocket and finds the tech keycard. He gently places it in my palm. I go to the door and open it. When I look back at him, he flinches like I’m poison, like I’m a jellyfish, and that hurts even more than finding my file under his mattress.
As I walk away, I think I finally got what I wanted. I think about when Chase and I sat together in the rec room watching that God-awful movie. How I told him I don’t need you, you know. I pushed him away. Another mission finally accomplished.
When I get back into my room I sit on the edge of my bed. My breathing is heavy and labored, like I’ve just run a marathon. Something hiccups in my chest—sorrow and bitter disappointment. I try to convince myself that it really is better this way, to have cut ties before our relationship got out of hand, before someone really got hurt. But the lie won’t stick, and I can’t stop fresh tears from forming in my eyes. As I curl up into a ball, something digs into my skin from my back pocket. I fish out the rock Chase gave me. With the pad of my thu
mb I trace the rough edges of the heart. I close my fist around it, and with all my might I throw it at the picture caulked to the wall. I want to hear something shatter. But all that happens is a soft thud followed by the rock dropping to the floor behind the dresser. I don’t bother trying to find it. It’s lost to me. Just like everything else.
…
FROM THE JOURNAL OF ALICE MONROE
Jason visited the next week, and he said everything was almost ready. “My piece-of-shit car broke down, and it’s going to cost too much to fix. We’re going to have to go on foot.” I nodded my head and told him that I could run fast. “They moved my court date up to two weeks from now,” he said. “I could go to jail. We have to go soon. But I need another week to get everything together.”
I nodded again and hugged him tighter. He linked his fingers with mine. Sometime during our week apart, he’d gotten a new tattoo—my name on his knuckles.
“How’s Cellie?” he asked. He worried that she was going to attack again. After her stay in the Quiet Room, she’d been admitted back into the general population. We weren’t speaking. She watched me from the shadows. We were circling each other like two dogs about to fight. And with every passing week the tension grew between us.
I shook my head and pressed my lips together. “Not good.”
His thumb touched my lower lip. “You’ll be free of her soon, I promise. That’s the best thing about where we’re going. She won’t be able to find you. You’ll be ready to go next week?” I was ready to go then, but I merely nodded and pressed my nose into his neck, trying to gain strength for the next few days.
That night, there was a crescent moon, and I felt as if I was swinging from it. Once, I had told Jason about Southern California, how the average temperature is seventy degrees and the sun stays out until the late evening. I hoped that was where he was taking us. I imagined us hitching rides along the highway, the sand between our toes and the surf in our ears. I could almost taste the salt in the air.
The next week Jason came and said everything was ready.
“Where are we going?” I asked, unable to contain my excitement.
He touched my cheek. “I found the perfect place.”
“Is it somewhere we’ve talked about before?”
“No, it’s somewhere new. We’ve never talked about it. But I think you’ll like it. It’s better than anything you could imagine.”
I could only think of sun-kissed cheeks, coconut oil, and surfboards. All the bright colors of my future. But I trusted Jason. He wanted what was best for me. “Is it far?”
“No. That’s the best part. It’s not far at all.”
“How long will it take for us to get there?”
“Not very long, you’ll see.”
He kissed my fingertips hard and asked again if I was ready. I took a look at the door that led back to Cellie and her madness. I nodded without hesitation. Yes. Yes, I was ready.
Jason said go. So I went.
CHAPTER
21
Purple
TODAY I FEEL PURPLE. I think back to when Cellie and I stayed in that group home, the one where we pretended to be prisoners of war and slept in metal bunk beds with thin mattresses. They had this chart in there, and every morning we had to go up to it and spin a color wheel. At the top of the chart it said TODAY I FEEL . . . and then we’d use the spinner and guide it to the color that best reflected our current emotional state. Cellie always felt red (a color I associated with anger and the fires she loved so much), and usually I felt yellow. The yellow on the color wheel was bright and happy. Often I wished it was more of a pale yellow, the color of sickness, of decay. But today, if I had that chart in front of me, I would push the spinner to purple and leave it there.
Chase and I are not talking, the kind of not talking that people notice and wonder about, the kind of not talking that makes everyone else feel a little on edge. And in a mental hospital, that’s the most dangerous kind. During breakfast we ignore each other, and I choke down a few bites of egg even though I’m too upset to taste anything. In group therapy we sit as far away from each other as possible, which in a circle means almost directly across from each other. It’s as if we are the opposite ends of a magnet. We’re facing each other, but we repel. Dr. Goodman continues his discussion on relationships. He asks Chase to share, presses him, and won’t let anyone else talk until he does. But instead of some smart-ass comment or some clever quip, Chase mutters, “This is bullshit,” and storms out of the room, overturning an empty chair as he does.
As the day goes on, my purple deepens until it’s heavy and covers my shoulders like a shroud. I miss Amelia and wish she were here. It seems like everything has gone to shit since she left. I wonder what she’s doing. If she’s happy at Green Lake. If she’s calling other patients muff eaters or accusing them of wearing dirty underwear.
During dinner the rain is so loud that it’s almost disturbing. Clouds the color of bruised and battered eyes fill the sky. The weather puts the patients on edge. It’s a trigger for some, makes their anxiety worse. They’re still like jellyfish, but now it’s as if God’s own hand has come down and is stirring the ocean, making a whirlpool. I don’t mind the weather because it matches my mood. It’s dark, and I’m feeling dark.
When I go to my evening one-on-one with Dr. Goodman, he notices that something is off with me and says he’s concerned. He doesn’t have to tell me why. It’s all over his pity-filled face. Relapse. Better hide the razors. I curl my lip in a snarl. I fold three origami animals: an ape, a hippo, and a bird.
When I get back to my empty room and I’m locked in for the night, I set the paper animals out on the dresser. The zoo is coming along. I touch the lion’s mane. The bird I made teeters and tips over. My little bird with a broken wing. Anger, like a tidal wave, takes me, and suddenly I’m ripping up the little bird, shredding it to pieces.
As I lay down to sleep, staring at my little zoo, I realize that I’ve gone the entire day without speaking to anyone. This is what purple feels like.
I wake to a crack of thunder and sparks falling outside my window. Then all at once a boom echoes through the building, followed by a whoosh of doors unlocking. I get up, feeling my way along the wall. At night the light from under the door usually guides me. But tonight it’s gone. Another flash of lightning fills the room with a neon glow. I can hear patients filtering out of their rooms and into the hallway.
I make it to my door and hesitate. I’m not sure what’s out there, on the other side. The power is out. And it seems that the locks on the patients’ doors have failed. But then it occurs to me. This is my chance. No locks. No alarms. The C and D wards are totally open. Vulnerable. This is what I should have been focusing on all along. Cellie. And my revenge. Instead I let myself get blindsided by Chase and all his empty promises.
I turn the door handle all the way down and open it just a fraction. I peer out. The hallway is still and empty; even the sign above the emergency exit is out. It’s like staring into a never-ending black tunnel. And though it’s scarier than hell to think about navigating the darkness, I don’t have a choice. An opportunity like this won’t come again. Just as I am about to slip from my room another flash of lightning strikes, followed by a quick roll of thunder. I jump and it lands me outside my room. My steps are hesitant at first, but when the hallway stays quiet, I begin to walk faster and then I break into a semi-run. Keeping my hands in front of me, I use them like a blind person’s stick, tapping along until my fingers meet the metal bar of the emergency exit. My body twitches with adrenaline as I begin to push the door open. Already I’m thinking ahead. Cellie is stronger than me. I may need a weapon. I’ll have to find something along the way.
The flashlight that crosses my feet and the voice that accompanies it might as well be gunfire. “Whoa! Monroe, where do you think you’re going?” Donny says.
All that adrenaline I was feeling quickly transforms into fear. I turn slowly. The flashlight shines in my face and I sq
uint and move an arm to block it.
“Shoot, sorry.” The flashlight lowers so it rests across my feet again. “Power’s out in the building and the emergency generator hasn’t come on yet. Doc wants all patients to go to the cafeteria . . .” Donny trails off.
We watch each other across the flashlight’s beam. Donny holds a radio, and chatter bursts over it with updates: “A and B wards secure, C and D wards, patient updates? . . .” I’m waiting to see what he’ll do. If he’ll call a code red again, send me back to the Quiet Room. Donny keeps studying me like I’m one of those drawings where if you let your vision blur just enough, another picture appears. I’m just about to melt to my knees and beg him to not send me to the Quiet Room when he speaks. “Sooo . . . I suppose that’s where you were heading just now, right?”
“What?” I ask him, confused. Is he playing some game, messing with my head? He’s never been so unkind before.
He gazes at me wide-eyed, like he’s talking to a four-year-old. “The cafeteria. That’s where you were going, right? I assume that because the hallway was so dark you just didn’t realize what direction you were headed in.”
Unless I’ve forgotten the difference between left and right, it’s impossible for me to make that mistake. But he’s giving me an out. I nod my head slowly and lick my lips. “Yeah.”
“Yeah,” he says, mirroring my slow nod. “That’s what I thought.” He puts the walkie-talkie to his lips and says something like “Monroe secure.” Then he motions for me to follow him.
Patients are corralled in the center of the cafeteria while techs and nurses with flashlights walk the perimeter. The patients seem antsy as the storm continues to rage, and the hospital staff looks so rigid it’s as if their spines are going to break in two. I search the crowd for Chase, despite the unpleasant developments in our relationship. I find him almost instantly. He’s on the outermost fringe of the crowd, almost leaning against the wall. His hat is pulled down low and his hands are jammed in his pockets. He looks defeated and sad. I want to go to him, but I’m still too mad.