Until the Ribbon Breaks, page 15
I lift my head just in time to see Shanice walking by with her arm wrapped around Harlow, who’s also crying. She glances my way, her teary eyes meeting mine for a split second before she steps into the room across the hall from me.
“Could you get us an icepack?” Marcus asks Greg, but I can’t tear my attention away from Harlow, who begins sobbing into her hands right before Shanice closes the door.
“You need anything? Some water maybe?”
“No.” I kick my legs out from under me before scooting over and leaning against the couch. Wiping my face with the sleeve of my shirt, I ask, “Did she even call?”
“Who? Your mother?”
“Forget it. I don’t want to know.”
The door opens again, and Greg tosses Marcus the icepack. “Do you need anything else?”
“No.”
He steps out of the room, and Marcus passes me the icepack for my knuckles.
“We’ll get the doctor to come look at your hand, okay?”
I try moving my fingers and end up wincing in pain. They are probably fractured again.
“How do you feel?”
“Pissed,” I respond.
“What do you normally do when you feel this way?”
Keeping my eyes on my hand, I tell him the truth because I’m too drained to put up a front. “I drink.”
“Do you want to drink now?”
I nod, too scared to talk because I don’t want to cry again. This place has me unarmed and defenseless, and I hate it.
“How do you feel about that?”
From under my brows, I glower at him and scoff, “How do you think I feel?”
“Probably the exact same way I used to feel after I got sober.”
I lift my head and look at him.
“You seem surprised.”
He’s right. I am. I guess I figured everyone who worked here would have a squeaky-clean past.
“I have five years of sobriety,” he reveals. “I can still remember what it felt like to be where you are right now. You’re in the thick of it, and I know how much it sucks, but I also know that you can pull through this and get yourself to the other side.” I don’t realize I’m shaking my head until he calls me out. “You think I’m talking out of my ass?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“That’s what our addiction does. It manipulates us into believing it holds more power than we do.”
He speaks as if it’s the enemy, but he’s wrong. Alcohol consoles in a way nothing or no one else can. It isn’t my enemy; it’s my savior. So, if I have to spend the rest of my life on my knees in front of it, I will, because it’s the only thing that makes this life tolerable.
There’s a knock on the door, and when Marcus opens it, Shanice asks, “Hey, Unit C needs me really quick. Can you keep an eye on Harlow? She’s calmed down, so . . .”
“Yeah, no problem. I got it.”
“Thanks.”
After she disappears down the hall, Marcus moves to stand in the doorway and asks across the way, “Do you need anything?”
“No,” Harlow responds, so I know her door is open even if I can’t see it from where I’m sitting.
Pulling my knees up, I rest my forehead on them as embarrassment over her seeing me cry swells. If only there were a place for me to run and hide, but there isn’t. I’m stuck, but so is she. This must be how she felt when I saw her restrained to a bed, how mortified she must’ve been to be seen at her weakest. I try to use that to help curb my own mortification, but it doesn’t do a whole lot. Not being alone at rock bottom doesn’t make being at rock bottom any easier.
“Is it cool?” Marcus asks, pulling me out of my thoughts, and when I look up, Harlow is standing next to him.
“What?”
“Is it cool if she comes in and talks to you?”
I nod, and when she walks in, Marcus steps out and stands next to the door because, heaven forbid they leave us unattended. My eyes track her as she makes her way over and sits on the floor next to me.
“What happened to your hand?”
“I hit the doorjamb,” I tell her before stretching my legs out in front of me. Lifting the ice pack, I show her my knuckles, which are already bruising.
“You just got your cast off.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Her attention is making me uncomfortable. For the first time, someone knows my truth.
She and I used to be friends when we were younger, but somewhere along the line, everything changed. During these past two weeks, I’ve come to realize that I have no reason to dislike her. I only picked on her because everyone else was and it seemed like the cool thing to do.
It was all bullshit.
“What happened?” she asks after a span of silence.
The urge to lie is instinctual at this point, but she already knows so much, so why bother? “My mother didn’t even bother showing up today.” There’s a pain in her eyes when I tell her this, but I go on and reveal, “She doesn’t even call me or show up to therapy sessions.”
“Have you tried calling her?”
I chuckle beneath my breath, but there’s nothing funny about it. “What’s the point?” She goes quiet, and in a strange way, telling her this stuff makes breathing easier. “I hate her,” I admit, feeling safe enough to unload that.
“Why?”
“Because I needed her after my dad died, and when I turned to her, she had already turned to alcohol.” Memories of how she used to be when my father was alive hit heavily, forcing me to fight back the rising sadness. “It’s horrible that I feel like that. I mean . . . she’s my mom.” A tear slips out, and I quickly wipe it as if I can hide it from her.
“I hate my mom too.”
“Why?”
And this time, it’s her eyes that flood. “She doesn’t know how to love someone like me.”
“What do you mean someone like you?”
“I’m not normal.” Her voice cracks, and when she blinks, tears spill down her cheeks.
My chest pulls toward her like a magnetic force, and when I drop the icepack and slip my arm around her shoulders, she leans into me. Even with her crying, there’s something soothing about holding her in my arms. Maybe it’s the fact that I can relate to her in a way I haven’t found with anyone else, that we get each other on a level no one else can understand.
Our pieces are broken in different ways, but to know that I don’t have to pretend to be perfect around her alleviates so much of the pressure I’m constantly under.
Marcus peeks in, and I tense because it’s against the rules for us to be touching like this, but he doesn’t say a word. He simply turns away, and when he does, I wrap my other arm around her and hug her. It feels selfish on my part, but if she wasn’t getting any comfort out of it, she’d push me away, but she isn’t.
“Do you ever get tired of faking it all the time?” she whimpers.
Resting my cheek on top of her head, I nod. “Yeah.”
“I don’t want to do it anymore. I don’t want to be this way.”
“Can I ask you something?”
She lifts her head, and I let my arms fall away from her.
“What?”
“The first day I was in group, when Dr. Benson mentioned you being a fighter before . . . what did he mean by that?”
She lets go of a deep sigh and hangs her head.
“This isn’t your first time here, is it?”
“No.” Her voice is soft and another tear falls. She runs the cuff of her sweatshirt across her cheeks to dry her face as she sniffs and struggles to compose herself. It takes a moment before she finally looks at me. “When you said that we had each other’s biggest secret, you were wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“What happened last week wasn’t the worst.”
I’m scared to ask because her digging a screw into her arm is pretty damn disturbing. I can’t imagine what it is that she hasn’t told me.
She turns and pulls the sleeve of her shirt up to just above the bandage. My eyes lock on her wrist, and when she peels back the gauze, my heart screeches to a halt as shock loops around it. Beneath the superficial cut of the screw is a brutal scar that runs double the length.
I stare at it in horror, and when my eyes reach hers, I ask, “You’ve done that before?”
She covers her wrist back up and nods. “I was never pregnant,” she whispers. “I was here.”
With a deep sigh, I tuck my knees to my chest and drop my head into my hands. The gravity of what this girl is dealing with is beyond anything I can wholly comprehend. Whatever it was she drove into her skin, she did it with only one intention because that scar is the marker of a merciless attempt at death, and that shit scares me.
“I’m sorry,” she says thickly. “I shouldn’t have—”
“No, don’t do that.” I turn to face her straight on, taking her hand in mine and wrapping my other hand around the bandage hidden under her sleeve.
“I’ve never shown anyone.”
“I’m glad you showed me.” I blink slowly, hating myself for helping spread that stupid rumor about her. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
“For what?”
“I knew you weren’t pregnant. I should’ve never said that dumb shit.”
“It’s better than the truth.”
Shaking my head, I tell her, “I don’t want this for you. I want to help.”
Her shoulders sag. “You can’t. I’m unfixable.”
“That’s bullshit.” The thought of her trying a third time and succeeding terrifies me. Just knowing that I’ll never understand the depth of her misery twists my gut into painful knots. “I need you to try.”
“Why?”
“Because . . .” I let my words fall when they catch me by surprise. It makes me uneasy to say them, especially to her. I’ve said them to Kassi, but they were a lie. I gave them to her in vain because I’m weak. But Harlow deserves the truth, so I swallow my hesitation and tell her, “Because I don’t want to lose you.” Her fingers wrap around my hand that’s still holding hers. “And because I don’t want you to lose you.”
“It doesn’t feel good to be me.”
“I want to show you that it can.” I take my hand off her wrist and slip it behind her neck, pulling her back to me. “You said it yourself; you don’t want to be this way anymore. So, if you’re so tired of it all, then try to do something about it.”
Her hand grips mine tighter, and I strengthen my hold as well.
“Promise me, Harlow. Promise me you’ll try.”
HARLOW
“You memorized my number, right?” Wes asks Max because we aren’t allowed to share that stuff with each other. She gives him a tearful nod, and he tells her, “Call me when you get out of here.”
“I will.”
He gives her a hug as she continues to cry, and when she steps aside, Wes turns to me, and I smile. He’s going home, and I’m happy for him, but I’m jealous as well.
His eyes are coated in pity as he tilts his head and holds out his arms for me to step into.
Sadness is a very real thing, and it expands painfully in my chest as I hug my friend. His leaving only reminds me how far away I am from where I need to be to get out of here.
“I’m going to miss you,” I tell him as I pull back. “But I’m not going to miss your ugly blue hair.”
“Hey now!” He laughs. “It isn’t that bad.”
“It’s pretty damn bad, man,” Sebastian says before the two of them clap hands and go in for a quick hug. “You take care.”
“Yeah, you too,” he responds, eyeing Sebastian’s new cast. “Be good to that damn hand.”
“Wes, you ready?” Greg calls from the doorway of the rec room.
“Yeah.” He turns back to the three of us and smiles. “Hurry and get out of here so we can hang out in the real world.”
We all nod and say one last goodbye, but truth is, we won’t see him again. That isn’t how this works. We become tight while locked away, but once free, we’re nothing more than a memory for each other.
“Good luck,” Max calls out before Greg takes Wes through the secured doors that lead to freedom.
When Max looks at me, her face is covered in tears, and I slip my arm around her. Wes was her best friend in here, but no matter how happy you are to see someone get better, when you see them leave, it causes an upheaval of emotions. In a way, it makes the ones being left behind feel more trapped.
“Let’s go watch,” she blubbers before drawing back and rushing to the windows that look over the front parking lot. She motions me to join. “Come on.”
I shake my head, and she turns to wait for Wes to leave the grounds as I drag myself over to the wall and lean against it.
Sebastian follows me. “You okay?”
“I bet you’ll be next,” I murmur.
When he first got here, I couldn’t wait for him to be gone, but now, the thought of him leaving makes me sad.
“You anxious to get rid of me?”
I slide down the wall until I’m sitting on the floor.
He sits next to me. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t want to be all alone in here.”
The corners of his lips lift into a sly grin.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I don’t think you despise me anymore, Cricket,” he teases.
My eyes narrow. “Don’t be so sure about that, and stop calling me Cricket. It’s annoying.”
He chuckles under his breath. “I still remember that day in science class.”
“Please, for the love of all that is holy, don’t.”
“All those damn crickets in your hair.” He laughs.
“I was traumatized! Like, seriously traumatized.” The memory causes my whole body to shudder, which makes him laugh harder. “I’m glad you find this so amusing.”
“I’m sorry; I’ll stop,” he says, wrestling to get rid of his smile. It takes a few seconds, but he finally manages it. “There, all better.”
“You sure about that?”
He’s forced to bite his lip when another grin threatens to break free.
Max knocking on the window draws our attention. I watch as she waves and hollers, “Take care,” loud enough for Wes to hear down below. It sends another wretched pang through my stomach, and all the levity Sebastian just gave vanishes.
He must feel the shift because his face drops and he whispers, “You’re going to be okay.”
“Am I?”
“Group!” Shanice announces, and when Sebastian stands he holds his hand out for me and helps me up.
As we all file out of the room, his hand is still holding mine, but no one notices aside from Max, who’s right next to me. She looks down at our entwined fingers, and I let go of him. When her eyes catch mine, she ducks her head and drops back in the crowd as we make our way down the hall.
Dr. Benson is already sitting in his chair when we walk in and find our usual seats, but one remains empty—Wes’s.
To my left, Sebastian leans in, murmuring, “Try,” right before Dr. Benson calls our attention, but mine remains on Sebastian. He wanted me to promise I would try harder. I couldn’t give him my word because it would’ve been a lie.
Noticing Wes’s empty chair, I think about what I would be doing if I were out of here.
I’d be at the beach, smelling the salt and feeling the mist on my face as the wind kicks through my hair. Closing my eyes, I imagine myself sitting on the driftwood. I can almost hear the waves as they break along the shore, but I’m thrust back into my reality when I hear Sebastian’s voice.
“My dad died two years ago.”
Turning my head, I look at him in shock, surprised to hear him talking when he’s normally so quiet in group.
“He was coming off a long shift at the hospital and crashed into a tree. His car caught on fire; he had to be identified by his dental records.”
My heart stammers at how horrifying that would be, and I don’t realize I’m holding my breath until he looks at me and gives the slightest hint of an encouraging nod before turning back to Dr. Benson.
“Life was never the same after that.”
He doesn’t stop talking, and I can’t believe how honest he’s being in front of everyone, but I know why—it’s for me. He’s proving a point, that if he can try, so can I. The thing is, if he continues to participate, and I don’t follow suit, I’ll be here by myself because he’ll be released and I’ll be left behind.
Shifting my attention to Max, I wonder how much longer she has. Her feeding tube is gone and she’s been eating more, so it’s only a matter of time before she’s goes home as well.
“How did you cope?” Dr. Benson asks him.
“I was numb for a while. It didn’t seem real,” he says. “The phone would ring, and I would honestly think it was my dad calling. That somehow it was all a huge mistake because there was no way he could be dead.” He clears his throat, and it flexes as he swallows hard. “After a few weeks, the numbness faded. I’d been so disconnected that I hadn’t realized that my mother had started drinking pretty heavily. I figured if it dulled her pain, it would dull mine too.” Turning his head, he looks into my eyes when he admits, “I use alcohol to cope.”
“This is a good first step, Sebastian.”
He shifts back to Dr. Benson, who’s giving him a proud nod.
“Acknowledging truths isn’t easy. Life can turn on us in an instant, and it’s a shock to our systems. If we’re unprepared and ill-equipped to deal with the aftermath, we can find ourselves turning to unhealthy behaviors as a way to cope and self-medicate.”
Sebastian’s voice is full of pain as he talks about losing his dad, and it makes me think about my own dad and how it would feel to lose him. As angry as I am with my parents, the lost girl inside me begs to cling to them still.
My heart tremors in muddled agony that comes from so many different angles. It overwhelms, sending a tear down my cheek. I’m scared to bring attention to myself by brushing it away, so it lingers until it dries on my skin.
“Harlow?”
My eyes fall shut, and I sigh in dread. They’re all looking at me now; I know it.
