We'll Never Be Apart (20 page)

“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.

F
ROM THE
J
OURNAL OF
A
LICE
M
ONROE

 

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 pound 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.

CHAPTER

T
HE
J
APANESE
B
OTANICAL
G
ARDEN IS LIKE A SYMPHONY FOR THE EYES.
Even though it's winter, bright colors are everywhere. They layer and bleed into each other, creating a rich palate of every shade of green, red, yellow, brown, and gray you can imagine. The clouds above us are heavy with rain, but for the moment it's dry. A docent meets us at the gate. She's old and seems happily oblivious to the fact that the kids in front of her are from Savage Isle. She leads us on a tour, pointing out plants and the importance of balance and symmetry in Japanese gardens. The techs, nurses, and Dr. Goodman fan out, corralling our group between them. Chase and I hang to the back, closest to Donny.

The rain has touched everything in the garden. Little droplets rest on the leaves and glisten on the gravel path. The docent stops the group to point out something. I stare into a puddle at my reflection. I push the sweatshirt hood off my head. I think about how Jason had loved my hair, loved running his fingers through it. He said it reminded him of dark wood, of the soil in a dense forest. Who'd ever heard of dirt being beautiful?

Outside the garden, beyond the wall, a truck zooms by, a big one, so big you can feel its two-ton weight in the shaking concrete.

“I might be a killer,” I say.

Chase cocks
a brow at me, but he doesn't look surprised, only mildly interested. He's used to me now, my offhanded comments, the moments when I space out, my dirty mouth.

“Might be?”

We've been given twenty minutes of semi-unsupervised time in the garden. The techs, nurses, and Dr. Goodman carefully walk the walled perimeter.

I secure my hood on my head. “Yeah. I'm not sure.”

Chase veers right, leads us over an arched bridge and into a separate garden with a shoji screened pagoda and koi pond. “Well, it would probably be something you'd remember, don't you think? Like getting a tattoo on your face or riding a bike. You never forget shit like that.”

I chuckle and don't tell him that I never learned how to ride a bike. I walk toward the pagoda, run my fingers over the fragile shoji screen paper. The pagoda was built over the koi pond, and fish the color of orange and red poppies dart in and out of view. As the fish move through the water, their bodies make tinkling noises that are like the softest lullaby. “They pinned Jason's death on me. They offered me a plea bargain—not guilty by reason of insanity.”

Chase screws up his face. “Jesus,” he says, and steps into the pagoda.

“I took it.” I watch his reaction carefully, waiting for the horror, for the judgment to wash over him.

The shoji screen makes a shadow and plays with his face, so that I can't see how he reacts. “Why?”

I step into the enclosure with him. The pagoda smells of freshly cut cedar, of lemon oil and rainwater. It is blissful, heavenly. “We would've had to go to court, to trial, and Cellie would be there. And I could go to jail. With the NGRI plea, I stay in Savage Isle, and I might be able to get out sooner.” Or get to Cellie sooner.

“You think you're crazy?” He takes off his hat and runs his fingers through his hair.

Images flash before my eyes: black-and-white snapshots that bleed color—Earl's still body, purple and mashed. Cellie's wicked smile. Jason smoking a bloody cigarette. “I don't know.” A shudder runs through me. “I don't think I'm crazy. But I think there's something wrong with me. I think there's something dark inside of me that attracts the wrong people and then makes me care about them.” A tear slips down my cheek. God, how many times have I cried in front of Chase?

“So what does that say about me?” Chase stands still in the middle of the pagoda, hands jammed in his pockets, hat back on. His face is shadowed again, this time by the bill of his hat, so that I can't see what he means, what he's really asking.