Cracked (22 page)

“I’ll have to speak to your mother about this. I assume she knows Frank as well?”

Shit. My mother could ruin this whole thing. I have to talk to her before he does.

“Oh, yeah, she knows Frank real well. She’ll say yes; I know she will.”

He’s talking about papers needing to be signed and some other crap. I don’t know. My head is spinning. He walks out, and I am left with my crazy idea. My hand is on the nurse call button faster than the bullet that went through my leg. I ask for help to get up and permission to use the phone. I haven’t called anyone today, I remind her.

I pass Victor in the hall, and I tell him Dr. Eyebrows is looking for him.

When I get to the nurses’ station, Ellie hops up and pushes me into the corner and winks. I dial my home number. “Mom? It’s Bull. No, I don’t know where that money is. I don’t know; I guess you can cash it. Oh, you already did? Listen, I need you to do me a favor. . . .”

DR. EYEBROWS ASKS ME A BUNCH OF STUPID QUESTIONS.

No, I haven’t thought of killing myself today.

No, I don’t want to die.

Yes, I want to go home.

My stomach relaxes with every answer I give. Then he tells me I am allowed to go home in the morning. As he fumbles with papers on his clipboard, I replay the conversations with my nana and Patty.

I can do this.

I can do this.

I think.

MY MOTHER WAS DRUNK, SO IT WOULD’VE BEEN EASY
to talk her into anything. She slurred her permission and then cried about the flowers dying—or maybe it was the towers sighing. Who the hell knows what she said?

After I hang up, Ellie says, “What’s got you so smiley?”

I roll back from the desk and turn my wheelchair around. Ellie has her hands on her hips with her head tilted to the side. I’m going to miss seeing her. This must show on my face, because she says, “Uh-oh, you go from a smile to a frown when you see me? That’s not good. What, do I have broccoli in my teeth or something?”

“No, your smile is perfect,” I whisper.

Ellie leans down and we’re face-to-face. She grins and says, “Then what’s up, William?”

How can I tell her that I will miss her voice? Her beautiful face? The sound of her laugh? She has been incredibly nice to me
and
she’s seen my private parts.

Ellie says, “Welllllll?”

If I’ve learned anything in this place, it’s that you should say how you feel when you have the chance. Wait, did I really just have a deep thought? Me? I believe I did. I drop my eyes, because even though I’m going to say what I want to say, there’s no way in hell I’ll have the balls to look her in the eye when I’m saying it.

Baby steps.

“I’m going to miss you,” I say. I can’t believe I didn’t explode. But I didn’t. I’m still sitting in my wheelchair with hot Nurse Ellie bent down in front of me.

She puts a hand on my shoulder and whispers to me, “I am definitely going to miss you as well, William Mastrick. You are a very special guy.” Ellie stands straight up, and I think she’s going to cry. I definitely cannot keep my shit together if she cries. I nod and she nods back. Then she says in a soft voice, “Where can I take you, sir?”

My first instinct is to say
Back to my room
, but I know
I’ll just cry like a baby, so I say, “The common room would be great.”

Only Grant’s in there when I get dropped off. And believe it or not, even with my zit-face comment, we play, like, five rounds of Crazy Eights. Perfect distraction. He’s actually not a bad guy.

About twenty minutes later Dr. Eyebrows comes in and asks me to join him. He pushes me into his office and tells me he also got a hold of my mother and she said she was going to stop by tomorrow and sign the papers.

“The papers?” I ask.

“Yes, the papers. She’s granting permission for you to be placed in another location. One that’s easier for you to navigate.”

“So I’m going to that rehab place?” I say, all defeated. I guess it’s better than going home to Pop and his fists.

But the doctor is shaking his head. He tells me that he’s also spoken with Frank, who has agreed to let me stay with him until I’m able to walk by myself. And that there is no need for me to be placed into a rehabilitation facility.

I pretend to cough so I can hold back the waterworks. One rebel tear leaks out and I swipe it away while the doctor is busy with his paperwork.

“Mr. Blessing would like to speak to you, Bull. Let me get you back to the phone.” He wheels me back to the nurses’ station.

The doctor looks at his clipboard, dials Frank’s number, and hands me the phone. He smiles and pats me gently on the back. “Good luck, William.”

“Hello?” Frank answers.

“Frank, it’s Bu—I mean,
William
Mastrick.”

“William, so nice to hear your voice. What do you think of staying with me for a while?”

I squeeze my eyes shut and hope my voice doesn’t crack. My back is to the hallway, so I let the tears run down my face. “I . . . I think it’s a great idea.”

He laughs and I picture his twinkling eyes. I laugh along with him. He tells me he’s going to spruce up his son’s old room for me. He says he’s going to stop by my house to pick up some things, and meet my mom and grandfather. I practically jump through the phone and tell him no.

“My mom’s going to bring some stuff tomorrow when she comes to sign the paperwork.”

That’s all I would need: my shitfaced mother answering the door while my grandfather is spread all over the table, drunk. He’d see how I live. No way. Frank would call the whole thing off.

If everything works out, I’ll be out of here tomorrow morning.

I think I can do this. And then I think of Kell.

IT’S MY LAST NIGHT IN THIS ROOM, IN THESE SWEATS,
in this place. I will only miss two things: Nikole and Ellie. Ellie said the nicest thing to me after dinner. She told me that I should keep looking people in the eye when I talk to them because I have kind eyes. She said my eyes are gentle.

“I’m going to miss you, Victor. You’re a good guy. Stay strong when you get out of here. Okay?” Ellie said.

I looked her right in the eye and nodded. I couldn’t talk because I would’ve started crying. At least I looked her in the eye. I know she understood me, because she nodded back and smiled. I’ll never forget her.

As I stare at the ceiling, I think that maybe I’ll miss Lisa; she got us to talk a lot. And it felt good to tell off Bull. Like a good brain scrub or something.

I wonder how it will be with Bull when we get out. I know one thing: I am done letting him wreck me. I haven’t thought about how I’m going to handle him if he starts with me out there. But I know I’m not going to take it, like I used to.

I won’t.

I also wonder how it’ll be to have my nana live with us. I know my parents will probably be mean to her. But after talking to her on the phone, I know she can take them. I am just glad I won’t be alone with them in that house, in my life, anymore. She’ll be there for me. A buffer. An ally. She said so.

Regardless, I won’t let my parents run my life. I am going to stand up to them and their unreasonable expectations. I am going to advocate for myself. That’s what the doctor told me to do. I’m willing to learn, which is a huge change in my thinking.

I see therapy in my future.

I turn over in bed and stare at the curtain. Patty’s smiling face comes to mind for some reason. I replay the end of our conversation. She said she’d meet me in the park my first day back home. She said she had something for me. I can’t wait to
see her, but I’m worried. What if I clam up and have nothing to say? Four days in here did a lot for me, but I’m still
me
. Shy, unsure, confused. I hope once she sees me, she won’t change her mind about me.

Deep down, I don’t think she will.

KELL.

How am I going to leave her? I can’t leave her in here all alone. I don’t even know where she lives. What kind of boyfriend am I?

After I hang up with Frank, I ask Agnes to wheel me back to the common room. She checks her watch and says, “It’s almost time to go back to your rooms for the night.”

“How long do I have?” I ask.

“Fifteen minutes or so.”

“I just want to see if someone’s in there.” She makes her lips tight and then nods. In the short ride from the nurses’
station I wonder how I’m going deliver this bomb of awful news to Kell. What am I going to say?

Agnes pushes me in and announces, “Fifteen minutes, you two.”

Grant’s gone and it’s just Kell in there, alone in the corner, facing the window. Like always. She startles at Agnes’s voice.

“Hey,” I say.

She sees me and hops up. She takes my face in her hands, bends down, and kisses both cheeks. I wish I could pull her onto my lap and just make out with her.

“Hey,” she says, “I missed you.”

“I missed you, too.”

How am I going to tell her that I’m leaving tomorrow? What if she freaks out and tries to hurt herself ? I don’t think I could handle that, knowing that she killed herself over me. Whoa. Wait a second. That’s a pretty big thing to do, right? Kill yourself over some dude you just met? Who do I think I am? Like she would hurt herself over me.

“So, how did it go with Psycho-Brow?” she asks. “Grant told me he saw him wheeling you around earlier.”

“I’m leaving tomorrow.”

Wow, that was as smooth as sand. What a moron.

She gives me the straight-armed double finger. Again.

“WAIT! Don’t walk away from me!” I yell at her.

She turns around, crosses her arms, and glares at me.

“Listen, when you get out of here, we’ll meet up. And there’s the Internet; we can Skype, and . . . well . . . I’ve heard it’s like you’re in the same room with the person. I’m not going to lose you, Kell.”

This isn’t working. She hasn’t blinked once.

“You are a cool girl. And you are the smartest person I’ve ever met; your book is going to be something. You make me feel important. And this is really hard stuff for me to say out loud to you,” I admit.

A few blinks. Good, maybe she’s melting a bit.

“And you have the most amazing breath. Do you know it smells like vanilla? And when you kissed me . . .” I don’t think I can say what I want to say.

“I use vanilla-flavored toothpaste. And when I kissed you . . . what?” she says.

“I think I fell in love with you.”

IT’S BEEN FOUR MONTHS SINCE I TOOK MY MOTHER’S
pills. My parents came home from Europe the week after I got out of the ward. They unpacked obnoxious amounts of new things from their trip. I got a Leaning Tower of Pisa magnet. Some things never change.

Except, actually, a few things
have
changed. My nana is like the voice I never had. She barks at my parents every time they say something to me that she doesn’t like. She told them they should be thrilled with how I did on my SAT and got them to stop the tutor.

And last month during dinner, my grandmother took her
fork and gently tapped on the side of her water goblet. “I have an announcement to make.” She firmly explained that she had set up counseling for me and my parents. Together.

Oh, my parents vehemently opposed the idea at first. But my grandmother is one stubborn old woman. And now we go, all three of us, once a week.

Our counselor is this young hippie named Autumn, who smells like the incense from church and has extremely loving views and opinions on parenting. In other words, she’s the polar opposite of my parents. During today’s session, Autumn looked wide-eyed at my mother and said, “Wait a second, you mean to tell me you do not hug this incredible son of yours every single day?” And then she created this whole playacting thing where she made both of my parents hug me and not let go for an entire minute.

I swear I felt warmth coming from my mother for the first time.

Autumn is pretty much a genius, and she knows exactly how to chip away at my parents’ plastic exteriors. We all have to keep journals and write to each other every week on the question or topic she gives us, and then we exchange the night before the session.

My dad has sort of opened up to me on those pages.

We got a new dog after I wrote about how much I
missed Jazzer. My father took me to pick him out. And since my mother made so much progress in the not-being-such a-complete-bitch department, I chose another small dog—not a teacup, I couldn’t do it—a little Bichon Frise puppy, whom I named Harry. You should see how white and fluffy Harry is. My mother even loves him.

Patty Cullen did meet me in the park my first day back. We sat under a tree and talked for hours. She never looked more beautiful to me than she did that day. On the walk home she pressed a CD case into my hand and told me to listen to it before I went to bed. I remember asking her which song, and she told me there was only one.

I didn’t wait until bed. After kissing and hugging my nana hello, I walked directly upstairs to my room and popped the case open. A folded paper lay on top. One side had the lyrics and the other had a handwritten note.

Dear Victor,

I am glad that you’re still alive. I thought about you a lot. I even went to church to pray for you. I know you don’t know me really well yet, but that was big for me, the
going-to-church thing. When I listen to Coldplay’s “Everything’s Not Lost,” I think of you. It could—it should—be your theme song.

Love,

Patty

She was right; it
could
be my theme song. I guess it actually is, because I listen to it every morning before I leave the house. My favorite line is “If you think that all is lost, I’ll be counting up my demons, hoping everything’s not lost.” At random times that line’ll pop into my head and I’ll smile, because I thought everything
was
lost. I believed it. But it turns out it wasn’t. Patty found me.

Patty’s note, Patty’s kindness, Patty’s acceptance, Patty’s eyes, Patty’s lips, Patty’s hands, Patty . . . I appreciate and love each of these things. Patty Cullen is my miracle.