Her (11 page)

“What happened?” Daniel pulled up a chair to the table. “Janine got put in the BCR?”

“Oh, wow! You are, like,
so
clever!” Tai sarcastically exclaimed.

“What is your problem?” Daniel asked her.

She sighed. “Nothing.  I just need a cigarette.”

“Me too, look.” Daniel stuck out his hands. They were shaking worse than before. “I can’t even do any of my drawings. My doctor won’t let them give me a patch. Nothing.”

“Wow,” Tai said. “You’re itching for a ciggy really bad.”

“She and Janine got into an argument,” Cadence blurted out. We didn’t notice that she had come over to us. Cadence’s creepy little doll was resting on her shoulder.

Tai stood up and smacked Cadence hard across her face. The doll fell to the floor. Cadence grabbed her face, looking shocked, and in pain.

“What? You crazy bitch! You want to talk to me some more? Go ahead, so that I can punch you in your mouth this time,” Tai threatened.

Cadence, still holding onto her face, picked up her doll and ran towards the Girls’ Unit. She ran through the double doors and disappeared.

Ms. Mosley walked back in and yelled for everyone to go to their rooms and wash their hands for lunch. Tai stormed off. I looked at Daniel. He was laughing.

“She’s the crazy one,” he commented.

Chris and the new guy walked off through the double doors that led to the Boys’ Unit.

“Why did she do that?” I asked Daniel.

Daniel kept laughing. “Tai is pretty messed up. I guess that’s what drugs will do to you.”

I looked at him, not laughing.

He stopped laughing. He reached out his hand, but he didn’t touch me.

“It’s okay. It’s just that Tai is tired of being here. Much like the rest of us.” He tried to make me smile with his smile and his sweet dimple.

“It’s okay,” he repeated.

His dimple kept smiling at me, so I smiled back.

“So you can smile,” he said. “I guess I win the bet.” He got up and walked off towards his room.

Bet?

I sat there, letting his smile linger in my mind for a while. Ms. Mosley had to come over and break my pleasant daydreaming. She told me to go to my room and wash my hands. I went to the bedroom. Janine had a big, pink blanket on her bed. It hadn’t been there this morning. I threw myself on my bed and began to wander off. I forgot why I had come in here to begin with.

My mind wandered off to Lexus. I wondered what she was doing. I wondered what she had thought when she had heard that I was in the hospital. I wondered what she had thought when she had heard about what I had done. I knew they had told her. He had probably told her. They both knew.

Nick. What was Nick doing? I wondered if Nick was all right. He had been screaming so badly when he’d found me in my room. I did not want him to see me. I could still hear him screaming in my head. I wanted to tell him that everything was fine. Nick was too old and too smart for that. He knew it wasn’t fine. I knew it wasn’t fine. He’d seen me lying on the stretcher, bleeding and dying.

CHAPTER 10

I remember Lexus having the most beautiful eyes. Her eyes had a sparkle in the colors brown and green, making them almost amber. She had light brown hair, and she always kept her lips painted in cherry lip-gloss.

She turned to me, smiling, and said, “How does this look?”

I looked at her. Of course, she was beautiful. She knew it, and she didn’t need me to tell her. I couldn’t take my eyes off her as she swayed around her bedroom in her olive green tank top and soft, white Capri pants. She had on the perfect open–toe, white, wedge sandals that showed off her painted toes and pinky toe ring. While looking at her, I wondered how she could possibly be my friend.

I tried to smile at her. I tried to feel happy for her. “You look good,” I told her.

Lexus read beyond what she saw on my face. “What’s wrong?” she asked as she sat down next to me.

“It’s nothing. I’m fine.”

“Come on, girl. Don’t be like that. I want to have fun tonight. I cannot go out on this date if you are not going to be cool. That’s why I wanted you to come over. I need you to help me get ready, and I need you to be my best friend right now. Don’t be depressed.”

“I know. I’m not being depressed. I told you, I am fine. I am just tired because I’m having cramps or something. I don’t know. Okay, you look great! You really do.” This time I gave her a wider smile.

She bought it. Her re-applied smile told me so.

“Just make sure you have fun and be safe.”

She laughed. “I will,” she assured me.

She leaned in and hugged me. Her bare arms brushed my face and I could smell her. She smelled like sweet cherries. Her hair swept across my face. She was soft. She was beautiful. She was perfect.

Lexus pulled away from me slowly. My eyes wouldn’t pull away from her. I could tell that my staring at her was making her nervous.

“Quit it, Kristen.” She playfully shoved me.

“What? I’m sorry,” I said to her. I chuckled nervously.

I still didn’t turn away. I moved in closer to her, not sure why.

“You have nothing to worry about. You’re amazing,” I said.

There was a strange feeling growing inside of me.

“Really?” She pretended as if she didn’t know. “That’s so sweet, Kristen. I guess I-”

When she went to get up and out of my reach, I felt I had to stop her. So I kissed her. My lips were actually pressed against her warm and perfect lips. The kiss lasted about half of a second before she pushed me so hard that I had to grab my chest.

“I’m so sorry, Lexus. Lexus, please,” I pleaded with her as she grabbed her sweater and purse. “I don’t know what just happened.  Lexus, please wait!”

Lexus didn’t say a word. She didn’t even look at me. She quickly left me alone in her bedroom without looking back. I ran after her until I saw who was in the living room. I stopped before I could enter the room. I didn’t want them to see me. I stayed around the corner and peeked out into the living room where her mother, father, and her date waited.

I watched as everyone complimented her on how beautiful she looked. I watched her date as he stared at her, up and down. He wrapped his arm around her waist. He looked like someone she would have liked back in high school. Her date had big shoulders, he was tall, and he was dark. He had a clean face, and sticky hands. He was dressed nicely, which was a distraction from his mischievous, boyish grin. He was just her type. He wouldn’t have asked me out, like he had asked Lexus out. She was beautiful and perfect. She was just his type.

When Lexus returned home, I was still there. She seemed shocked to see me. I tried to apologize, but she told me to forget about it. Lexus said that her night was too amazing to be upset by something silly. She wanted us to forget about it, and to pretend that it had never happened. I agreed to it, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to pretend the way she could. I wanted to know what had happened on their date. She said that he had taken her to a nice restaurant downtown and that they were going to go to a movie, but had gotten side-tracked on the way and had parked by a lake. She assumed I knew what had happened at the lake, but I didn’t.

“Oh, come on,” she said.

“What did you do? Did you have sex with him or something?” I asked her.

She looked at me as if I was insane.

“No! However, we did do some heavy making out. He has an amazing tongue.” She had a huge smile on her face that I couldn’t understand.

I smiled and said, “That’s cool. I have to call my Mom and ask her to pick me up. It’s getting late.”

“Okay,” Lexus said. “Call me when you get home, so that I can tell you more about my date.”

“Sure,” I said. 

When I arrived home, I didn’t want to call Lexus and hear about her date with the football player. It made me feel sick. I wouldn’t know how any of what she would have told me felt. I did call her, though. I didn’t know why I called her. I listened to her as she boasted about all the compliments that he had given her. I listened as she talked about his tongue and his hands. I listened, as I knew I wouldn’t ever understand what it felt like to be beautiful and liked.

“Did you miss dinner on purpose?” a voice buzzed into my dream as I was sleeping.

I opened my eyes, and the light from the lamp next to Janine’s bed made me close them again. I heard more talking. I slowly opened my eyes this time, expecting the light from the lamp to be on. I saw Janine crawling onto her bed. Tai was standing in front of Janine's bed, looking down at her.

“I didn’t feel like eating,” Janine said softly.

Janine laid her head down on her pink pillow and snuggled under her pink blanket. She looked comfortable.

Tai asked, “Are you trying to get Ms. Mosley all up on your ass? You missed lunch because you were in the BCR. Now you’ve missed dinner.”

“Leave me alone,” Janine sobbed.

Tai turned away and walked out of our room. I could hear Ms. Mosley in the hallway, yelling at Tai for being in our room. I looked over at a depressed girl. Janine looked awful, drowned in her own tears. Her face was pushed into her pillow. Her make-up had come undone. It was smeared all over her cheeks. Her hair was flying wildly over her pink blanket and pillow. I heard her whimpering.

How long had I been asleep? Was I fully awake yet?

Janine stopped crying. She had rolled onto her side, and was looking directly at me.

“You missed dinner,” she said.

I nodded, wishing she’d stop looking at me.

“Later, there’s going to be group meetings. We usually have a meeting with our group counselor after we take a shower and put our pajamas on.” She sighed as if it took a lot of energy to tell me that.

“Are you all right?” I asked her.

Janine smiled with her wet cheeks. “I’m fine,” she said. “I'm Manic Depressive or Bi-Polar, whatever you want to call it. It's the same. Blah. I laugh, I cry, I get sad, and I get hyperactive. It doesn’t matter what happens. I’m always fine.” She sat up and pointed at me. “What’s that?”

I looked down and saw my silver butterfly wings shining. The pendant must have fallen out of my pocket and onto the bed.  I grabbed it.

“It’s just my butterfly pendant,” I said.

“Let me see?” Janine said as she reached out for it.

I handed the pendant over to her. She took it and studied it. She smiled and then handed it back to me.

“You should put that on a necklace,” she suggested. “It looks special. Did a guy give it to you?”

“No way!” I shouted at her.

Janine shuddered at the tone of my voice.

“Okay,” she accepted.

There was an awkward silence after that.

She started laughing and said, “I know it was a weird first day, but don’t worry. It’s always weird in here.”

I forced a smile.

“In a week, you should be allowed visitors. At least then, you will get to see someone you know. That always helps.” She paused and studied her fingernails. Then she looked back up at me. “They have this stupid rule that you have to be a certain level to be able to talk on the phone and have visitors. Then, they are over it in about a week. If you get up to Level Two like me, or Level Three like Daniel and Tai, you get to have visitors. They can go play sports and stuff with the other kids off the unit in the gym. I can only have visitors, talk on the phone, and do my laundry in the laundry room. It’s stupid, isn’t it?”

I didn’t say anything. I just let her keep talking.

“When you get your visitors, they can bring you stuff. I bet you want a new blanket. They never tell you how cold it gets in here at night during evaluation. I like visiting hours. Is your boyfriend going to come visit you?”

I looked up at her, and felt anger inside of me. It felt like she was trying me. I couldn’t tell if she was serious and she really thought that I had a boyfriend, or if she saw that I was one of those ugly girls who didn’t get boyfriends and she was trying to make me feel some sort of way. So, I asked her if her boyfriend was going to visit. To my shock, she said that she didn’t have a boyfriend.

I didn’t feel like talking to her any more after that.

She kept on, though. “What do you think about Daniel?”

My eyes were fixed on her. “What do you mean?”

“Nothing,” she said. “I just wanted to know what you thought about him. That’s all.”

“He’s nice,” I said.

“Yeah, well, you know that he’s mine,” she said.

I just sat there, staring at her. I didn’t say anything.

“I’m just kidding,” she laughed. “The look on your face! That was too funny.”

I looked away from her, embarrassed. How had I been looking at her? Did I look shocked? Angry? Did I look like I even cared? I tried not to. I didn’t want to care. I didn’t want to care about Janine, just like I didn’t want to care about Lexus.