Chapter Nine

"It's poetry day, everyone!"

Mr. Ruse is dressed in a theatrical red suit and round glasses. I snicker. Elliott does too, but I pretend not to hear him. He finally returned to school with a halfway healed face, resulting in a flood of confused whispers.

"Our lesson today is a bit different than what we've been doing so far. I want everyone to spend this time writing poetry instead of reading it."

A few students groan, Elliott included.

"You won't have to read it out loud; however, this is a graded assignment, so you'll need to actually try. And yes, if you plagiarize Dr. Seuss, I will know."

It's been a long time since I've put words on a page. Ruse plays orchestral music through his laptop speaker, but that doesn't stop one of Elliott's girlfriends from talking over it. As class comes to an end, I finish with something that I'm at least somewhat proud of.

A fighter

With battered fists, slamming against concrete.

He bleeds, wishing

Could he be

A lover?

"Where were you this morning?" I ask Gemma after school.

She skips up to me with a goofy grin plastered across her face.

"I went to get coffee with Nishi. She's officially my girlfriend!"

I hug her, both of us squealing like mice. She's practically glowing, and for a moment, I forget about everything else.

"I need to spend more time with Nishi," I confess. "I'm sorry I haven't been around. Things got crazy all of a sudden."

Gemma lowers her voice. "Don't worry. I want you to focus on yourself, okay?"

"Why don't you set up something with Nishi soon so I can hang out with her?"

She beams. "I'm on it."

The train ride to the hospital passes by too quickly. I've been dreading this appointment all day. This section of the hospital, where they took my mother in a last attempt to save her life, makes me feel like I've been locked in a cage. One step through the front entrance and the claustrophobia is overwhelming. I half-smile at the receptionist.

"Do you have an appointment?" she asks.

"Yes, Rosalyn Berman. I called last night."

She passes me a pile of paperwork on a clipboard. A girl, about twelve years old, stumbles through the door to the office. She's holding hands with her mother. She reminds me of my younger self with her uncontrollable wavy hair and goofy smile. There's a red stain across the neckline of her tank top. Blood. It drips from a spot in her mouth where an adult tooth should be. I smell the salt from the wound in the air. I clench the clipboard, hand shaking as I fill in the underlined gaps on the page.

"Rosalyn Berman?"

A blonde nurse calls my name. "I'm Cassandra. Follow me back."

She guides me to an electronic scale, and the number that it settles on is lower than it should be.

"Are you okay?" she asks. "You're sweating."

"Sorry. I get nervous in hospitals."

"Nothing to be nervous about."

She guides me to an empty room, and I sit down on the tan bed, the sheet of paper underneath my thighs crinkling as I do. Cassandra asks a few questions about my health history, then gets up to check the state of my hand. The cuts are more green than yellow. A few spots bleed as Cassandra peels the gauze from the sealed wound.

"Well, this is definitely infected." She observes.

No shit.

"We'll prescribe you with some antibiotics that should help."

I let out a breath of relief when she doesn't tell me that my hand needs to be chopped off. She glosses over sections of the skin with her gloved finger. I shudder when she reaches a spot in the bottom right corner of my palm. She presses on it again, and I wince.

"I think there's something lodged in your skin here."

"Glass," I whisper. "I thought I got it all out."

"Let me get a doctor."

Cassandra returns a moment later with a bearded man at her side. He introduces himself as Dr. Kilmer, then opens up a drawer across the room, revealing a collection of sharp medical supplies. He grabs a pair of silver tweezers and inches toward my bed. As Dr. Kilmer presses against the cut, the same salty smell from earlier fills the room.

"Are you okay?" Dr. Kilmer asks.

"Can you smell that?" I sniff the air. "The blood?"

The young girl and her mom looked so much alike. I never took much notice as a child, but now every time that I look in the mirror, the similarities between my mother and I are all that I can see.

I look like her. I talk like her. At what point will I die like her?

If Dr. Kilmer answers my question, I'm not awake to hear it.

*

"Rosalyn?"

My eyes shoot open. The stark white walls of the hospital room remind me of where I am and how I got here. Dr. Kilmer and Cassandra blink with concern as they take in the expression of terror on my face.

My father is between them.

"Dad?" I murmur.

He steps closer. I can smell his cologne from across the room. "Are you okay?" he asks.

"Yes," I lie. My voice is hoarse.

Even though he's probably pissed I didn't tell him I was coming, I'm relieved he's here. Cassandra helps me sit up. There's a machine positioned next to the bed.

"How did you get here?" I ask my father.

"The doctor called. You wrote my phone number down on the paperwork."

"Oh," I huff. "Right."

My bangs fall into my eyes. I wipe the hair away with my right hand, which is now wrapped in a clean set of bandages. The piercing pain has subsided, replaced by a dull ache.

"We removed the rest of the glass while you were out," Dr. Kilmer reports. "We put in some stitches, so you'll need to be careful not to break them."

"How long was I out for?"

"You woke up after about ten minutes, but then we gave you some laughing gas to relax you. You don't remember?"

"I remember."

I don't.

"Your dad told me that you have a history of anxiety," Cassandra adds, pulling up a chair in front of the bed. My dad droops a hand across my shoulder and squeezes gently. This room is feeling more and more like the same one they took my mother into.

"I need to know if this wound was self-inflicted."

"What?" I say. "No. It was an accident. I threw my water bottle, and it shattered my mirror, and when I went to clean up the pieces, I cut myself."

She looks doubtful.

"I'm not saying that I don't believe you. I just want to make sure that you're in a good place, physically and mentally."

My dislike for her grows with every word.

"I am," I state, as calmly as possible. "I've been taking Prozac and meeting with a therapist. I'm fine."

"He's reported her as stable," my dad affirms.

Cassandra scribbles something down on the stack of paperwork. She asks my father for Dr. Taylor's phone number, and I make a mental note to act extra cheerful at my next appointment.

"Rose, would you mind stepping outside for a moment so I can talk to your father alone?"

As if I can say "no." I hate that they're allowed to talk about me as if my opinion isn't relevant. My eighteenth birthday can't come soon enough.

Leaning against the wall in the hallway, I notice the young girl from earlier walking in my direction. She's dressed in a new, clean tank top. The blood around her mouth is gone. When she sees me she smiles, less a front tooth, and I return the gesture.

Cassandra and my father join me outside of the room.

"I recommend you talk with your therapist as soon as possible so he can evaluate you. Your dad and I agree that if an incident like this happens again, more intensive steps will need to be taken," she says.

Screw that. I'm not going to inpatient.

"I understand."

My dad appears more afraid than angry, but I can sense from his rigid posture that he's about to explode. We walk to the parking lot in silence.

My phone vibrates. I check it, half hoping for a text from Elliott, but it's Gemma asking how the checkup went. My father opens the passenger door of the white Honda. In the safety of the car, I feel comfortable enough to speak.

"Didn't you have work tonight?"

"I got the night off."

Code for: he ditched work abruptly. I lean my head into my hand. If my dad loses his job, we'll have no income. Most of his savings went to paying for my mom's care and now my therapy.

"Well, I have no plans if you want to do something," I suggest.

"Like what?"

"Star Wars marathon?"

We have them a lot, complete with Yoda Soda and Blue Milk, but we've never made it through more than two movies before at least one of us falls asleep. My dad nods. Turning the key in the ignition, he pauses.

"Rose. Why did you hide this from me?"

This is it—the moment that will make or break my excuse. If he learns the truth, I may be going back to the hospital.

"I was afraid of the bill," I whisper, tucking my hair behind my ear. "I thought if it healed on its own, you wouldn't have to pay for anything."

He sighs, a loud, sorrowful sound that breaks my heart.

"You can't be afraid to ask for my help with something like this. We can afford it. I need you to believe me."

"I'm trying. I just wish you had some help sometimes."

"I know," he says. "I do, too. But this is how it is, and we have to accept that. We're going to be okay."

"Dad?"

He turns to me with his round face and warm smile, and it takes all of my willpower not to spill all of the gory details from the last two days.

"I love you," I whisper.

"Love you too, kiddo."

We bicker back and forth about which Star Wars movie to watch for the remainder of the drive. We spend the rest of the night sitting together on the couch, joking around and eating more sugar than we should. I feel like a kid again, so much so that I almost forget about everything else that's been going on.

Almost.

The next morning, my dad volunteers to drive me to therapy. Rain sprinkles against the windows as our car snakes through the neighborhood. There are no cars parked in Elliott's driveway, which means he must be out with his family.

"What happened to your hand?" Dr. Taylor asks as I step into his office. Of course, it's the first thing he wants to discuss. My dad must've texted him about my trip to the hospital.

"It was an accident," I lie, "but everyone is convinced that it wasn't."

"What makes you say that?"

"The doctor that I saw gave me the ‘we're monitoring you' speech. And my dad won't stay more than ten feet away from me at all times."

He frowns. "I'm sure they want what's best for you."

There's a new picture hanging in the corner of Dr. Taylor's office, a stick-figure drawing of a family. The man on the right of the page has a pair of glasses and gray speckled hair like Dr. Taylor.

"Do you have children?" I ask, feeling guilty that I never have before.

He peeks at the drawing and smiles. "My wife and I adopted a five-year-old boy last year. He thought my office could use some more color."

"He's right," I affirm, pointing to the array of dark wood that sucks all of the natural light out of the room.

Dr. Taylor chuckles. "I'll be sure to let him know you agree."

Outside, the rain tapping against the window turns from a sprinkle to a pour. The steady sound is soothing. Dr. Taylor relaxes, too, letting his hands hang freely from the chair.

"Have you thought about the incident at school recently?"

"Sometimes," I confess. "I try not to."

Truthfully, I think about it all the time, even when I'd rather not. That day in calculus has been fresh in my mind ever since I told Elliott about it. Fragments of the repressed memory keep showing up in my dreams.

"Why not?"

"It's not really something I want to dwell on."

He doesn't look away from me, even as I seal my lips. Soon enough he's going to start analyzing my breathing patterns for inconsistencies.

"What about boxing? Are you still enjoying it?"

"There's a tournament next weekend in Savannah. I'm not allowed to compete yet, but I think I want to try once I'm good enough."

I pause, fingers rubbing against the scratches in the arm rest.

"This sounds weird, but I wish my mom could have tried it. It grounds me. Makes me remember who I am, where I am."

Dr. Taylor nods, brushing away a loose piece of silver hair. "That may be true, but everyone has a different way of staying grounded. What works for you might not have helped her. The important thing is that you've found your outlet."

Selfishly, a part of me is grateful that I've found my niche, something that belongs only to me and not her. We share so many similarities that sometimes I want to celebrate the differences. The smell of sterilization from the hallway seeps into the office. I crinkle my nose.

"I hate this hospital," I groan. "Every time I come here, all I can think about is her. I see her face in the walls, and I hear her voice. Sometimes she just . . . screams."

"What does that sound like?"

The sound has plagued me ever since the first time I heard it. A constant ringing in my ears, reminding me of my own fate.

"Like she's trapped in a cage. Like her only escape is dying."