Girl in Pieces (7 page)

Louisa doesn't come to Group. Louisa meets with Casper in the evenings. Louisa has phone calls at night; she presses herself against the wall in Rec, twirls the cord between her fingers, the toe of her glittery ballet flat petting the carpet delicately. Louisa can come and go as she pleases, she doesn't need a Day Pass. Louisa whispers in the dark, “I need to tell you, you aren't the same as us, you know? Look around. These sheets, this bed, our meds, the doctors. Everything here speaks money. Are you listening?”

Her bed creaks as she shifts, leans on her elbow to face me. In the half-light, her eyes are egg-shaped, shadowed underneath.

“You need to prepare yourself, is all I'm saying.”

But I let her words glide over me, smooth and warm. She turns away. Money, money. I don't want to think about where it's coming from or where it isn't.

I just want her to go back to sleep, so I can eat the turkey sandwich I've hidden beneath my bed.

The door to Group
whooshes
open. Casper sidles in, takes the seat next to Sasha, who wriggles and smiles at her like a puppy. Casper's wearing brown pants and her elf clogs. There's a red bandanna like a headband in her yellowy hair. Moon earrings, pink cheeks, she's a goddamn rainbow.

I wonder what she was like in high school. She must have been a good girl, the kind that holds her books over her tits, always has nice combed hair, bites her lips when she takes a test. Probably on yearbook, or math team, maybe debate.

But there must be something else, something under Casper's scrubbed surface that we can't see, like a hidden hurt, a tender secret or something, because why the fuck would she make being with
us
her goddamn life?

She passes out paper and markers and we tense up. When we have to write, we know Group will be rough. She makes us put the pens and paper on the floor, do our accordion breathing. I can't concentrate. I'm watching the clock on the wall; I get to leave early. Today I get my bandages off. The thought of it makes my stomach flutter.

Casper says, “I'd like you to write down what you say to yourself before you harm.”

Blue groans out loud, runs her tongue across her mouth, flexes her naked feet. She never wears shoes. Silver rings glisten on three of her toes. From across the circle, she looks as young as any of us, but up close, in dining hall, or Rec, you can see the hard grooves at the corners of her eyes. I haven't drawn in such a long time, I hardly ever go to Crafts, and looking at Blue is hard because she makes me ache for my pencils and charcoals. There's a
something
in her that I want to put on paper.

I don't write anything at first, I just make little lines with my red marker and then I sneak looks at Blue, to sketch her, lightly, faintly. It feels good, my fingers holding the marker, feeling my way around her cattish eyes, the fullness of her mouth. It's a little awkward, pressing the paper against my thighs, but it's like my fingers never forgot what to do. Like they've been waiting for me to come back.

Blue's mouth is so full. My own lips are kind of thin. Ellis would say,
You have to accentuate.
Take my chin in her fingers, press the cool lipstick to my mouth. But it never worked. It never looked right on me. I didn't see someone with a beautiful mouth. I saw someone who had lipstick on the skin of her face.

My brain starts to circle, circle, even as I keep drawing Blue. There are things happening that I don't want to think about, not right now. Words happening, like
sorry
and
attic
and
underpass
and
hurting me.

Sasha sniffles. Francie clears her throat.

My pen writes
OUT. GET IT OUT. CUT IT ALL OUT.
I put a big red X over the drawing of Blue's face, crumple up the paper, shove it under my thigh.

“Isis.” Casper folds her hands, waits for Isis to read from her paper.

Isis picks at her nostrils, her face reddening. “Okay,” she says finally. She says, so softly it's almost a whisper, “Why can't you ever just fucking learn? This will teach you.” She squeezes her eyes shut.

Francie says, “Nobody. Blank. Who cares.” Rips her paper in half.

Sasha's body is so warm from crying a weird heat shimmers off her and I shift my chair a little away. I can feel Blue's eyes on me.

Sasha looks down at her paper and chokes out, “You. Fat. Ass. Fuck.”

Bird-quick, Blue is up and across the circle, yanking the paper from beneath my thigh. She glares at me from the middle of the circle.

Casper looks at her evenly. “Blue.” A warning.

Blue uncrumples the paper, smooths it flat. As she scrutinizes it, a smile spreads across her face, slowly. “Is this me? This is pretty good, Silent Sue. I like that you Xed me out.”

She shows the paper to the group. “She erased me.” She crumples the paper back up and tosses it in my lap. I let it fall to the floor. On her way back to her seat, she tells Casper, “She said it better than I could. That's pretty much what goes through my head when I
self-harm.
Erase me.”

Casper turns to Sasha, but before she can start, Blue interrupts her. “You know, Doctor, it's very unfair.”

“What's unfair?” Casper regards Blue. My face starts to heat up. I look at the clock. Just a few minutes to go before I can get up and leave, get these clubs off.

“She never has to say anything. We all have to talk, spill our fucking guts out, and she doesn't have to say shit. Maybe we're like a little comedy show for her.”

“Group is voluntary, Blue. If a member doesn't want to speak, she doesn't have to. In Char—”

“Tell everybody what you wrote on your paper, there, Silent Sue,” Blue says. “No? Okay, I will. She wrote,
Out. Out, cut it all out.
Cut what out, Sue? Pony up. It's time to pay the piper.”

Fucking Frank wore heavy silver rings, malevolent-looking skulls he was forever buffing across his shirt until they gleamed with perfection. His fingers were stained and singed from lighters and they dug into my neck, lifting me off the attic floor. Evan and Dump made kitten sounds behind him, but they were just boys who needed drugs. It was freezing outside. April had dropped a surprise snow that turned into freezing sleet. That was the worst kind of weather to be outside in: icy water that froze your bare face and turned your fingers to stiff husks of bone.

I should've known when Fucking Frank greeted us at the door that he wouldn't let me stay for free. I should've looked closer at the faces of the girls on the ripped couch as Evan and Dump carried me in. In my stupor, my lungs like cement, my eyes blurry, I thought they were just stoned, their eyes gone hazy. I know, now, that their eyes were dead.

Just do it,
Fucking Frank said that night, my breath disappearing in the tightness of his fingers.
Do it, like the other girls. Or I'll do you myself.

If you were a girl, and you were at Seed House, and you wanted to stay at Seed House, there was a room downstairs with only mattresses. Frank put girls in the room. Men came to the house and paid Frank, and then went into the room.

OUT. CUT IT ALL OUT.
Cut out my father. Cut out my mother. Cut out missing Ellis. Cut out the man in the underpass, cut out Fucking Frank, the men downstairs, the people on the street with too many people inside them, cut out hungry, and sad and tired, and being nobody and unpretty and unloved, just cut it all out, get smaller and smaller until I was nothing.

That's what was in my head in the attic when I took broken glass from my tender kit and began to cut myself into tiny pieces. I'd done it forever, for years, but now would be the last time. I'd go farther than Ellis had. Wouldn't fuck it up like Ellis had: I would die, not end up in some half-life.

That
time, I tried so hard to fucking die.

But here I am.

The music in my head makes my eyes cloud over. I can barely see Blue with her smarmy face and her fucked-up teeth but as I walk toward her, I can practically taste what it will feel like to grind that face into Group floor. My body is weirdly heavy and light at the same time and a little bit of me is leaving, floating away—Casper calls this
dissociation
—but I keep lurching in Blue's direction, even as she kind of nervously laughs and says, “Fuck
me,
” and gets up, alert.

Jen S. stands up. She says, “Please, don't.”

On the street, where I used to live, I called it my street feeling. It's like electrical wire is strung tight through my whole body. It meant I could ball my fists and fight for the forgotten sleeping bag by the river against two older women. It meant I could do a lot of things just to make it through the night to another endless day of walking, walking, walking.

Casper's voice is even and clear. “Charlie. Another altercation and I cannot help you.”

I stop short. Charlie. Charlie Davis.
Charlotte,
Evan said, his eyes shiny, drunk, smears of my blood on his cheek, that night in the attic.
What a beautiful name.
He kissed my head, over and over.
Please don't leave us, Charlotte.

My father taught me to tell time by telling me how much time was left. “The long hand is here, and the short hand is here. When the short hand is
here,
and the long hand
here,
then it is time for Mama to come home.” He lit a cigarette, pleased with himself, and rocked in his chair.

The hands on the wall clock in Group tell me it's time to get my bandages off.

I lurch, the stupid bootie catching on the rug, until I reach the door. I let it slam shut behind me.

It's one of the day nurses, Vinnie, who does it, his big hands chapped and methodical. It's chilly in the Care room and very neat. Paper crinkles beneath me as I settle on the table. I look at the glass jars filled with tall Q-tips, the bottles of alcohol, the neatly labeled drawers. Vinnie has a silver tray all ready with scissors, tweezers, clips, and creams.

He pauses before he begins unpeeling the pads on my arms. “You want someone here? Doc Stinson's done with Group in fifteen minutes.” He means Casper.

He gives me his special smile, the one where he opens his mouth and bares all his teeth. Each tooth is framed, like a painting or a photograph, in gold. I have a sudden urge to touch one of those shining teeth.

Vinnie laughs. “You like my sweet teeth? It cost a lot to get this smile, but it cost a lot to
get
this smile, if you know what I mean. You want the doctor or not?”

I shake my head,
No
.

“Yeah, that's right. You a tough girl, Davis.”

Carefully, he unwinds the gauze from each arm. He strips the long pads from my left arm. He strips the long pads from my right arm. They make a wet, soft
thwack
as he tosses them in the metal trash bin. My heart beats a little faster. I don't look down yet.

Vinnie leans close as he tweezes and clips the stitches. He smells silky and brittle all at once, like hair oil and coffee. I stare at the ceiling lights so hard dark clouds form over my eyes. There is a kidney-shaped stain on one of the panels, the color of butter heated too long in a pan.

“Am I hurting you?” he asks. “I'm doing the best I can, girlfriend.”

There's the sound of trickling water. Vinnie is washing his hands. I lift my arms up.

They're pale and puckered from being wrapped up for so long. Turning them over, I look at the red, ropy scars rivering from my wrists to my elbows. I touch them gingerly. Vinnie hums. It's an upbeat tune, with a lilt.

I'm only another day to him, another hideous girl.

“Okay?” He rubs cream between his palms and holds them up.

Underneath these new scars, I can see the old ones. My scars are like a dam or something. The beaver just keeps pushing new branches and sticks over the old ones.

I nod at Vinnie. The cream has warmed in his hands and feels good against my skin.

The first time I ever cut myself, the best part was after: swabbing the wound with a cotton ball, carefully drying it, inspecting it, this way and that, cradling my arm protectively against my stomach.
There, there.

I cut because I can't deal. It's as simple as that. The world becomes an ocean, the ocean washes over me, the sound of water is deafening, the water drowns my heart, my panic becomes as large as planets. I need release, I need to hurt myself more than the world can hurt me, and then I can comfort myself.

There, there.

Casper told us, “It's counterintuitive, yes? That hurting yourself makes you feel better. That somehow you can rid yourself of pain by causing yourself pain.”

The problem is:
after.

Like now, what is happening now. More scars, more damage. A vicious circle: more scars = more shame = more pain.

The sound of Vinnie washing his hands in the sink brings me back.

Looking at my skin makes my stomach flip.

He turns. “Round two. You sure you don't want someone else here?”

I shake my head and he throws me a sheet, tells me to scoot back on the examining table, motions for me to pull down my shorts. I do it quick under the sheet, without breathing, keeping the sheet tight over my plain underwear. My thighs prickle up, goose-pimply from the chilly room.

I don't think I'm afraid of Vinnie, but I track the movements of his hands carefully, bring my street feeling to the surface, just in case. When I was little and couldn't sleep, I used to rub the bedsheet between my forefinger and thumb. I do this now with the underwear, the soft pink underwear, brand-new, left on my narrow bed with a little card. There were seven pairs, one for each day of the week. They had no holes, no stains, and they smelled like the plastic wrap they came in, not like funk and piss or period blood. Thinking of the underwear, feeling the clean cotton in my fingers, makes something shift inside me, like the loosening of stones after one is plucked from the pile, a groan, a settling, an exhalation of air—

“Nurse. Ava. Bought. Me. This. Underwear.”

I don't know why I whisper it. I don't know where it came from. I don't know why words have formed now, I don't know why
these
words. My voice is scratchy from not being used. I sound like a croaky frog. It's a long sentence, my first in I don't know how many days, and I know that he will dutifully log this:
C. Davis spoke in a complete sentence while bandages being removed. C. Davis spoke about not having underwear. Patient does not usually volunteer to speak; Selective Mutism.

“That was mighty nice of her. Did you say thank you?”

I shake my head.

When I cut myself in the attic, I was wearing a T-shirt, underwear, and socks and boots. There was so much blood, Evan and Dump didn't know what to do. They wrapped me in a bedsheet.

“You should thank her.”

I came to Creeley in hospital scrubs and slippers. Nurse Ava found clothes for me. Nurse Ava bought me brand-new underwear.

I should thank her.

The gauze and pads from my thighs look like stained streamers as Vinnie holds them up and lobs them into the bin. He pulls and clips with the tweezers.

It's the same as my arms: it doesn't hurt as he removes the stitches, but my skin twinges, prickles, as he pulls the tweezers up and out.

In a rush, it happens again, only this time it's remembering what it's like to cut, and cut
hard.
The way you have to dig the glass in, deeply, right away, to break the skin and then drag, and drag fiercely, to make a river worth drowning in.

Oh, it hurts to make that river. The pain is sharp and bleary all at once; curtains part and shut over your eyes; bull breath from your nostrils.

It fucking hurts, hurts, hurts. But when the blood comes, everything is warmer, and calmer.

Vinnie catches my eye. I'm breathing too fast. He knows what's happening.

“Done.” He watches me carefully as I sit up. The delicate paper beneath me tears.

Ladders. The scars on my thighs look like the rungs of ladders. Bump, bump, bump as I run my fingers from my knees to the top of my thighs. Vinnie's creamy hands are very dark against my paleness. It feels nice. When he's done with my thighs, he motions for me to pull up my shorts and hands me the blue-and-white tub of cream. “You apply this twice a day. That shit's gonna itch real bad now that it's out in the air. Gonna feel tight and kinda prickly.”

I hug the tub to my chest. I can still feel his hands on my legs, the gentleness of his fingers on the ugliness of me. I kind of want his hands back, maybe curving around me this time. Maybe just being so light on me that my head could kind of fall against him, and I could stay there awhile, breathing him in, no big deal, heartbeat heartbeat heartbeat, like with my dad. Pressure builds behind my eyes.

I wipe my face, ignoring my trembling hands. Hot. My body is starting to heat up. I feel afraid. Vinnie clears his throat.

“Everybody's in Crafts, girl. You want me to walk you there?”

“Room.” I hug the warm tub to my chest. “Room.”

Vinnie looks sad. “Okay, baby. Okay.”

Louisa is not in our room. They're all at Crafts, bent over gluey Popsicle sticks, bags of buttons and yarn, reams of glittery star stickers.

My eyes are fierce with water and I bury my head in my pillow so no one hears me. My body is so, so sore from my wounds. I want Ellis, the Ellis who would dab my cuts and steal wine from her dad so we could cry together in her room, sipping from the bottle and listening to our music, watching the solar system night-light rotate and glow on her ceiling. Because when you're hurt, and someone loves you, they're supposed to help you, right? When you're hurt, and someone loves you, they kiss you tenderly, they hold the bottle to your mouth, they stroke your hair with their fingers, right? Casper would be proud of me for my rational thinking.

I'm in a place filled with girls who are filled with longing and I want none of them. I want the one I can't have, the one who is never coming back.

Where do I put them, these dead ones, these live ones, these people who hover about me like ghosts? Ellis once said, “You were too young to lose a dad.”

A little over a year ago, Mikey cried on the phone to me, “She never cut, that wasn't her thing. Why did she cut? You were
right there.
” But he was miles and states away at college and didn't know what had happened between Ellis and me. It was the last time we talked; after that, I was on the street, becoming a ghost myself.

My mother is alive, but she's a ghost, too, her sunken eyes watching me from a distance, her body very still.

There are so many people who are never coming back.