We'll Never Be Apart (9 page)

His eyes dart to Dr. Goodman, who has now pulled up a chair with Monica's group. “Jesus, keep your voice down.”

I frown at him. “Sorry.” I lower my voice.

He keeps his eyes on Dr. Goodman. “Would I be here if they did?”

His question doesn't merit a response, but I roll my eyes just the same. Opening the origami paper, I fold it again, so that it's divided into four quarters. Perfect. “When are we going back to the D ward? I was thinking—”

Chase relaxes and slumps back in his chair. “A dangerous pastime for sure.”

I ignore him. “I was
thinking . . .
” I flatten the piece of paper and contemplate what animal I should make. I'll try a rabbit. “That I could do something, you know, to get me sent to the D ward.”

His smirk fades as he leans forward. “Do something? Like what?”

I shrug, keeping my focus on the rabbit I'm constructing. “I dunno.” It occurs to me that I can ask what he did to get himself sent there. But I already have an inclination. “It'd have to be something big, something that would make me unsafe to be around other patients.” His hand lands over mine, crushing the paper under the weight. “Shit,” I say. “Now I'm going to have to start all over.” I try to pry the rabbit from his hand, but he holds tight.

“Alice, promise me you won't do anything stupid.”

Goose bumps prickle my arms at the word
stupid.
But then Chase's thumb moves ever so gently over mine, and all of a sudden the air in the room no longer exists. There's only Chase and me, our breaths one symbiotic loop. Chase seems to feel it too. He licks his lips and shakes his head. “Promise me,” he says a little more forcefully, “that you'll wait. I'm going to get a different keycard. Soon.”

I turn my head and bite my cheek. Chase releases my hand. Frustrated tears burn the backs of my eyes. Weak. I am so weak. I'm failing Jason. I smooth out the crumpled paper but it's ruined. “Fine,” I say. Still, I can't look at him. I don't want him to see me cry.

In my peripheral vision Chase seems appeased. “Good.” Then he sniffles and coughs a little. “It's dusty as shit in here, isn't it?”

I swipe at my eyes. The sniffle and cough were poor imitations, but I can tell what he's doing and I am quietly thankful for it. Gently, ever so gently, he takes the piece of paper out of my hands. “Teach me how to make something, Just Alice.” The way he says it,
Just Alice,
makes me feel like warm soup on a cold day. Then all at once I think of Jason, and the warmth is squeezed out of me.

Shaking it off, I show Chase how to make a butterfly. While we're folding, I tell him about the short lives of butterflies, about how, despite their relatively low status on the food chain, they survive by clever camouflage and subterfuge, about how their paper wings drive some people to zealous heights of over-collection. And he listens.

“Are you
really
enjoying this?” I ask after a while.

He shrugs. “I like listening to you talk.”

My tongue feels thick in my throat. I don't think I can speak. Dr. Goodman calls the group back together and asks if anyone would like to share. I don't volunteer, and neither does Chase. But Monica does. While Monica shares her acceptance story, Chase's words roll around in my head.
I like listening to you talk.
A tiny fissure opens in my closed-off heart. I draw in a breath and release it slowly. I'm taken aback. Not because he said he liked listening to me talk, but because I realize I like listening to him, too.

I come awake slowly, my shallow breaths dissolving in the eerie silence of the hospital room. It's night. Something scratches the wall, the
inside
of the wall. The scratching is faint, right above my head, a seesawing noise that sounds like someone's fingernails clawing the inside of a coffin. My heartbeat speeds up. I turn my head a fraction of an inch and look over at Amelia. She rests safe and sound in her bed. Slowly, I flip over onto my stomach and rise up so I'm on all fours, and I crawl toward the scratching noise. I smooth a lock of sweat-soaked hair from my forehead and press my palm to the wall. The scratching stops abruptly. Pipes. It's probably just the heat kicking on in the old building. Yawning, I move to settle back into bed. I glance at the nightstand where my scrubs are folded, where a little white pill rests in the pocket. I can't stop thinking about the vision of Jason all lit up and electric in the dark. His words from the fire linger.
Shit, baby. I'm burning up.
Why would he say that? And why with such happiness? I wish I could remember more about that night. The memory of escaping with Jason, running through the yard, and yanking open the heavy door of the barn is as clear as glass. But everything that came after is a blur, lost in the terrible heat of the fire. When I close my eyes, I can see only Cellie's twisted face. If I take the pill, it will make my mind fuzzy and keep the frantic thoughts caged. I crack my knuckles, hesitating.

There's a dull thump, like a body being dropped in a trunk, and then the scratching starts again, this time in the wall by the window. It's louder, more hurried, frantic, like someone is trying to tear his or her way out. I turn my head to look at the wall, and just as my eyes pin the spot where the noise is coming from, the sound zooms around the room, one long scrape that circles, once, twice then stops. My mouth feels as if it's filled with cotton.

The scratching starts again, quieter, right behind Amelia's dresser. I slip out of bed and edge toward the dresser, careful to be as quiet as possible. The scratching speeds up the closer I get. In a few uneasy breaths I'm there. My hand touches the handle of the bottom drawer. I waiver, suddenly convinced that I'm going to see Jason in there, folded up like some mummy petrified in the Pompeii caves, mouth open in a perpetual scream. There's another long scrape, this time right inside the drawer, and then soft laughter right over my shoulder. A boy's laugh. Jason's laugh. I look behind me but it's nothing, no one, only Amelia still sleeping.

With a shaky hand I take hold of the handle and pull the drawer open.

A hand comes from nowhere and slams the drawer shut.

“What the fuck, Alice?” Amelia stands in front of me, her body shoved between the drawer and me. “That's my private stuff. What are you, some kind of klepto?”

Frozen, I stare at her freckled legs, pale in the moonlight. “I'm sorry. I thought I heard something in the drawer.”

She glances down at the drawer suspiciously. “Well, there's nothing in there except for clothes. Do you think they've suddenly come to life?”

I feel embarrassed. “No, no. Look, I'm sorry. Like I said, I thought there was something in—”

Another sound from the drawer cuts me off—scraping, followed by a scuttling that makes the drawer jiggle in its tracks. “Don't tell me you didn't hear that?”

She sniffs and crosses her arms. “I didn't hear anything.”

It's my turn to swear. “Bullshit.” Before she can stop me, I rip open the drawer. “Oh my god!” It's a rat. A huge, red-eyed, dirty white rat. I drop the drawer and it bangs as it hits the linoleum floor. The rat rises up and stands on two legs, sniffing the air. I jump back. “Holy shit, there's a rat in your dresser.”

Amelia sighs. “Don't call him that.” She leans down, picks him up, and cradles him against her chest. “His name is Elvis.”

My mouth gapes. “You've named him?” Nothing is registering fast enough. “He's your
pet?
”

She brings the rat up to her cheek. “I found him a couple of hours ago during free time.”

I mentally gag. “You can't keep him, Amelia. That's crazy.”

She levels me with a look. “That's kind of the proverbial pot calling the kettle black, isn't it?”

Touché. Still, I know she shouldn't keep him. What if Elvis has a disease? He could make her sick. I try to reason with her. “You'll get in so much trouble if they find out.” Suddenly a picture of an all-white room with padded walls assaults my vision. The Quiet Room.

“No, I won't. Not if you don't tell anybody. You said you could keep a secret.”

“I can . . .” I trail off. Defeat settles on my shoulders. “How do you plan to feed him?”

Amelia smiles, her face lighting up like a child who's just gotten a puppy on Christmas morning. A very, very sick Christmas morning. “I can sneak table scraps in from the cafeteria. He's kind of cute, right?” She dangles the rat in front of me, its eyes shining like silver coins.

“Ugh.” I stand up and step back. “He's dirty and disgusting and probably has the black plague. Make sure you wash your hands after you hold him.”

“I will. I will.” She practically hops up and down as she puts the rat away. Right before I'm about to crawl back into bed, her arms snake around me in a backwards hug. “Thank you.” She presses her cheek between my shoulder blades, her pink hair tickling my neck. “Thank you so much.”

“Did you wash your hands?” I ask.

She laughs and squeezes me tighter.

Safely tucked under my covers, I try to fall asleep, but memories of Jason hang heavy in the cobwebs of my mind.

F
ROM THE
J
OURNAL OF
A
LICE
M
ONROE

 

In the summer, Roman and his wife took us camping. All ten foster kids piled into a dilapidated RV he had rented from a guy down the street. And despite our constant fear of Roman and the hand he called God's Will, we loved riding in that RV, all ten of us gypsy kids bouncing around like balls in a pinball machine. Even Susan, his wife, seemed to enjoy herself. A wispy smile played on her lips as we left the city behind and approached the wilderness.

We set up camp and Roman dove right into drinking, which was fine. The public setting kept him from playing his games and allowed us to run free. While the other kids played tag, Jason, Cellie, and I pretended to be explorers, mapping foreign lands like constellations. We drifted away and found a dusty hill to climb. The whole time Cellie kept her hand in her pocket, her fist closed around something. She insisted on leading. I didn't mind. I was more comfortable following, anyway. Jason was also content to walk behind. He stopped every few feet to pick flowers, handing them to me so I could weave them through my hair.

When we were far enough away from our campsite that the voices of the other kids were muted and the sound of the wind in the trees was loud, Cellie stopped. She took her hand out of her pocket and opened her fist to reveal a lighter with a unicorn on it. “I stole it from the campground,” she said.

I'll admit, I was curious. Cellie moved her thumb over the wheel, and the flint sparked and the lighter ignited. The flame danced, flickered, and then was extinguished by the wind. She told Jason to get some kindling. She wanted to watch something burn. He did, because he was a boy and he thought it was awesome to light things on fire or blow them up. None of us knew how wrong it would go.

We gathered the kindling, and Cellie wondered out loud what color the flame would be when we lit it. I hoped it would be blue like the sky and Jason thought it would be red. A little trickle of fear danced down my spine. Cellie seemed too excited. Too enthralled.

Cellie pressed the lighter into the pile of dry leaves and twigs and sparked it. The kindling ignited, slower than the doll, but it burned faster, much faster. A brown maple leaf got caught in a gust of wind and drifted a few feet away. A yellowing leaf shot into the air and landed in my hair, where it burst into flame. Cellie giggled and clapped her hands together.

Jason swore and helped me. “It's not funny,” he said as he patted my hair out.

There were little fires everywhere, burning the dry brush and eating the trunks of the trees. The smell was a perfumed combination of burning hair, pinecones, and dead leaves. Twigs crackled and popped, sending sparks into the air like fireflies taking flight. When we realized that the fire was spreading too much and beyond our control, we raced down the hill and back to the campground. And nobody knew what we had done. A park ranger came and told us to evacuate. When we got home, Cellie turned on the news. It was the biggest fire Clatsop County had ever seen. Two hikers had disappeared, and one firefighter had already lost his life.

Years later, on his seventeenth birthday, Jason got a tattoo of the exact same unicorn on his left wrist, the ink resting right over an artery. Funny thing was, he'd kept that lighter all those years.

CHAPTER

T
HE NEXT MORNING THE ALARM IN THE GIRL'S UNIT JOLTS US AWAKE THIRTY MINUTES EARLY.
Every other day, we're allowed to shower. We shuffle into a large locker room, and we're each given a towel, some soap, and shampoo. You can ask for a razor to shave your legs, but that means extra-special one-on-one attention, so I opt out. We strip under the watchful eye of five female nurses and line up under the showerheads as they turn on the water. We're not allowed to touch anything. Not the tile on the wall. Not the faucet to control the temperature. Not anything. The girls' pale, shivering bodies dance on the other side of healthy and remind me of a black-and-white photo I once saw—of people crammed into a gas chamber during the Holocaust.

My shower is lukewarm and over too fast. But I get all the important parts. I find a spot in front of a mirror and start to comb the tangles out of my hair. Jason had a thing for my hair. He'd run his fingers through it and say,
I love your hair wild like this
. Then he'd kiss me.
Stay wild for me, baby.
He'd made me promise. A spinning grief overtakes me and hurtles me forward. The comb falls from my hands, plastic clinking in the porcelain sink. I put my head down and avoid looking in the mirror.