Day One

Day One

"Buckle up."

That's what Tracy says to me in the van in the hospital parking lot.

Phil, one of the guys from the hospital lobby, turns around and hands me a Pedialyte. I don't know what happened to the crew cut guy.

"Stay hydrated," he says. "And if you're thinking of running, my advice is…don't."

Phil is bearded and ponytailed and rumpled and weathered in that way that so many older men are in Tucson. Tie-dyed shirt. Cutoff chinos. Birkenstocks with socks.

He goes back to scrolling on his phone.

My stomach feels tight and hot. I feel trapped.

I can't crack the plastic seal on the Pedialyte bottle. I gnaw it off with my teeth.

—

Familiar places drift by my window: the abandoned movie theater on Campbell and Grant with the whale mural on the side; Raging Sage Coffee; India Oven, with its creamy tikka masala and garlic naan. Laurel liked to go there on her birthday.

Tracy turns down a residential street. A neighborhood of adobe houses and ocotillo fences. She stops at a pink adobe and honks the horn.

"Billy Lewis," Tracy says to Phil. He jots something down on a clipboard.

The front door opens. A lanky kid steps out, yells something back into the house. Slams the door so hard the chile pepper ristra that hung there shatters on the ground, spraying red bits everywhere.

The boy hurls himself over my lap and jams himself against the window.

"Buckle up," Tracy murmurs.

"This is some bullshit, right here," the kid says angrily. "Major child abandonment, possible kidnapping. I should sue."

"Feel free to hop out and go back," Phil says, not looking up from his phone. "Find a lawyer. Make a lengthy TikTok with a sprightly background sound. Be my guest."

The kid doesn't answer, just clenches his jaw and stares out his window.

Then I can feel him looking at me intently. Heat spreads across my face.

"The hell happened to you ?" There's a sneer in his voice, mixed with curiosity.

"Shut up," I say. I turn away to my own window.

"No, like, seriously, because you had to do something extremely bad to make someone do that to you. I don't know whether to be impressed by you or scared of you," he says.

"Billy." A warning from Tracy.

From the corner of my eye, I see the boy named Billy tuck his longish brown hair behind his ears and roll his head.

"How long are we going to be in this car?" he asks. "And why does she get something to drink and I don't?"

Without missing a beat, Phil backhands a water bottle to Billy, who misses the catch. It bangs off his knee and onto the floor of the van.

"The abuse begins already," Billy murmurs.

—

There are dogs in the front yard of the next house, straining at their chains.

"Holly Shields," Tracy says to Phil. She doesn't honk the horn this time. They both stare at the dogs.

Phil sighs. He and Tracy do rock paper scissors. Tracy loses, and groans as she gets out of the van. She makes a wide path around the dogs. They don't bark, just hurl themselves in her direction. A thin girl dressed all in black emerges from the house, clutching a black backpack tightly to her chest. Her face is pale as she walks behind Tracy to the van.

I have to scoot closer to Billy so she can climb in.

"Wow, you look like crap," she says to me. Her voice shakes.

"Yeah?" I retort. "Well, it's crap you treat your dogs that way. How about that?"

"Why do you even have dogs if you're going to do that to them?" Billy chimes in.

Her face crumples.

"They aren't mine," she whispers. "It's not my fault."

As we drive away, the dogs whimper and whine.

—

We are in the foothills now, not far from where Amber and I dropped off Kristen and Cherie for the party. I wonder what they're doing. Are they wondering what I'm doing? Do they even care? I take another slug of the orange Pedialyte.

This house is enormous. Huge windows, two floors, expertly landscaped front yard, tucked up a hill at the end of a long dirt drive. Teal-colored iron sculptures of saguaros bracketing the immense front doors.

"Brandy Sheff," Phil says, looking at his clipboard.

Tracy honks the horn.

A girl so contoured and perfect she could be a Kardashian steps out, phone in her hand, awkwardly pulling a giant suitcase. A woman appears behind her. She sets down three other bags and then goes back into the house and closes the door.

"Princess," Billy snickers.

Tracy gets out of the van and grabs two of the girl's bags, throwing them in the back. She and the girl struggle with the giant suitcase. The van shakes as it plops in the back.

The girl, Brandy, climbs in and wedges herself into the seat behind us. A cloud of vanilla body spray fills the van. Next to me, Holly coughs quietly.

"Do you think this is going to be a vacation, sis?" Billy says. "Did you remember your bikini?"

Smoothly, as she snaps her seat belt, Brandy says, "You can fuck right off."

In the front seat, Phil chuckles. "Ah, the dulcet sounds of discontent. My favorite part of the journey," he says.

Tracy laughs. "About an hour to go, my friends. Try not to kill each other before we officially begin the rest of your lives."

She turns on the radio. Classic rock, wailing and mournful.

On cue, the three other kids in the van shove in their earbuds and listen to their phones. I don't have a phone, so I can't block anything out.

Ihatethis-Ihatethis-Ihatethis-Ihatethis-Ihatethis.

—

The drive down Gate's Pass through the Tucson Mountains is slow, slow, slow, curves that make me feel sick as we descend into the valley and everything is disappearing, all the buildings and people going, going, gone.

The van is very quiet, until Brandy, the very beautiful one, says, "I'm Brandy, if anyone cares."

And then, "Billy."

"Holly," whispers the girl in black next to me.

It's like we're on a plane that's going down, we're going to die, and suddenly we have to make sure at least one person knows us before we, and everything we ever were, disappear forever.

"Bella."

—

Tracy drives down a long dirt road to a sprawling, ranchlike compound of brick and adobe buildings. It feels like the middle of nowhere, just desert with cacti spreading out in a repeating pattern of brown and green, brown and green.

She stops at a wide iron gate with Sonoran written in curly letters on one side and Sunrise in the same lettering on the other side. She enters a code on a keypad and the gates open, severing Sonoran Sunrise in half. She drives the white van inside and the gates whine shut behind us.

—

Welcome to the Beginning of Your Life , says the mat outside the adobe building. Tracy leads us inside. I hang back, behind Holly.

A woman with spiky gray hair and faded jeans stands up from a fraying couch in the lobby.

"Hey, everyone," she says. "I'm Fran. I'll be taking the four of you to Detox, where you'll stay for three days while we figure out what shit you put into yourselves and try to get it out."

She smiles, like this is funny. No one laughs.

"You'll need to leave your bags here," Fran says. "Just set them anywhere and say bye to your stuff."

"Excuse me," says Holly. "Why?"

Holly is so thin her black clothes hang from her shoulders. There's dog hair on the back of her hoodie.

"Bag search," Phil says amiably, taking a seat on the worn couch. "Have to make sure you aren't bringing in drugs, alcohol, weapons, stuff like that."

Holly hesitates, her dyed-black hair falling over her eyes. She steps back. I step out of the way so she doesn't bump intome.

"No," she says, holding her backpack tight in her arms. "No. Uh-uh. This is my personal stuff. I don't want your hands on it."

Tracy and Fran look at each other. Phil sighs, like he's used to this, and I guess he is.

"Okey-dokey," Fran says, shrugging. She checks her clipboard. "You're Holly, right? If you don't consent to search, you can't come in. You'll have to call your people to come get you."

"No." Holly's voice wavers. "They'll kill me."

All three of the adults are looking at her, faces impassive, waiting.

"Just give it up already," says the Kardashian girl, Brandy. "I have to pee. "

"Shit," Holly says, looking at her feet like she'll find an answer there. Or a way out. I feel kind of sorry for her. She's obviously got something she doesn't want anyone to see or have.

Slowly, as though it's very painful, Holly lowers her backpack to the floor.

All of us line up our suitcases and bags in a row. I'm not afraid of what might be in mine. My mother packed it; I know there's nothing in there.

I wish there was.

Then Phil holds out a plastic tub. "Phones, too."

Brandy yells no so loudly my ears ring. Billy clutches his phone with both hands, and Holly trembles as she holds hers. I have no phone, so I have no dog in this fight, but I have to listen anyway as Tracy says "Phones are a distraction and not conducive to your recovery if you are in contact with people who may hinder that process" and "You may use the house phone after ten days, but we need to approve your call list" and "In time you'll earn the right to use your own phone for an hour a day, but not until you earn it ."

Honestly, I do not care. I don't have my phone, and I don't want to talk to my parents anyway. And I don't have any friends left, apparently, so there's that. As Billy and Brandy complain, I look around at the room.

Not fancy, kind of dumpy. A desk. Two old couches and some chairs, one of which has a duct-taped leg. Potted plant in the corner that looks rather thirsty. Posters taped to the walls chirping You matter and The only way out is to lift yourself up.

I shove my hands into the pockets of my sweatshirt. My face is starting to throb. If I was back in the hospital, it would be medication time. Are they even going to give me anything?

I look at the posters again.

I do not matter. I'm as insignificant as this flattened piece of gum on the floor that obviously needs mopping.

Phones thwack into the bottom of the tub.

"You've taken my whole existence now," Brandy says bitterly. "Happy?"

All the kids look at me. Brandy gestures to the bin. I shrug.

"No phone," I say.

Tracy motions for us to follow Fran. Brandy slinks up next to me as we walk.

"How," she says breathily, "are you even alive without a phone?"

I ignore her, because I'm too busy looking back at Tracy and Phil on their knees, unzipping and unlatching backpacks and suitcases, dumping out our clothes, toiletries, books, magazines, makeup. Everything is being piled on the dirty floor like our belongings don't matter. On my other side, Holly whimpers, tears silently running down her face.

—

Fran is a walker-talker.

She's hustling us down corridors and pointing things out, barely giving us time to ask questions or get our bearings. "Meal room," she says, pointing to a small room with round tables and plastic chairs. "Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack. Detox kids eat here until you go to General Population. Detox is three days of rest, physical tests, and mental health evals." She points to a door to the left. "Activity room. Board games, cards, art supplies, movies, a sad selection of paperbacks donated from our finest local used-book stores." She grins. "In Gen, we've got a rock-climbing wall, pool, trails, a gym. Lots of good stuff."

This is sounding more like some sort of Olympics training camp than rehab. But what do I know? I've only ever seen this stuff in the movies, and there, people mostly sit in chairs and cry and stare at koi ponds, and then they have an emotional breakthrough with the therapist of their dreams and end up perfect. Or at least slightly less damaged.

All this walking is exhausting. I don't think I'm ready for…rock-climbing. At. All.

Back down the corridor and then outside, to a smaller building, this one brick, painted teal. The sun is slipping down the sky. It's getting chilly. I look up and around. The drive was maybe an hour and a half, but we had to pick up those other kids, so I don't think we're that far out of Tucson. There are mountains in the distance, but which ones? The Rincons? The Catalinas? The Tucsons? Where are we?

Fran sidesteps into the teal building. Like me, Holly is lagging behind. Billy is next to me, studying his nails, which are colored black with marker. The tips are jagged from being chewed. Fran snaps her fingers at him.

"You're the only boy in Detox dorm right now, lucky you, which means you're bunking alone for right now." She opens a door to a room filled with two sets of bunk beds.

"Sweet," Billy says. "Like summer camp. Except without the kid who cries for his parents every night. Perfect."

Fran beckons to me, Holly, and Brandy.

"Bella, Holly, Brandy, this is your room. Pick a bunk, don't fight, respect each other's privacy."

She looks at all four of us.

"You can go in your rooms and rest before Search, and after that, we'll do dinner."

"Search?" Billy says, and for the first time, he sounds a little nervous.

"This is a drug and alcohol behavioral rehabilitation program, Billy. We have to do a body search before we can admit you. There will be two people in the room with you: a counselor, and a nurse who will do the search. If anyone has specific trauma issues that need to be addressed, please tell us and we'll do our best to make you comfortable. But we can't let you go any farther until we make sure you're not holding anything at this very moment."

"This is like a prison. And where would I even hide anything anyway?" Holly laughs nervously.

"No," Fran says. "Not a prison. And you'd be surprised what and where people hide things. But if you're here to get healthy, hiding something in your patootie isn't the way to start, wouldn't you agree?"

Brandy shrugs. "I don't have anything to hide."

Billy says, "I don't have a patootie."

"You have another hiding area," Brandy points out, and Billy frowns.

"Ouch," he says. "Yuck."

Brandy walks into our room and stretches out on a bottom bunk, arranges her voluminous hair behind her on the pillow, and begins to inspect her long pink nails. Billy goes to his room.

Holly looks at her sneakered feet and then at me, her sunken eyes like dark pools.

I stare into our room from the hallway. None of this seems like a good thing. Like Holly said, it seems prisonlike and kind of…dumpy? I thought rehabs were more hospital-y and clinical-looking. So far, everything seems kind of like a very low-rent apartment complex. Ratty furniture, spare walls.

I'm beginning to regret agreeing to come here, even though I don't think I had much of a choice. Anger and fear flare inside me. They're going to search me? I've never even been to a gynecologist. I shudder. This can't be legal.

Amber and Kristen and Lemon. Amber snitching on me in the intervention room and Kristen and Lemon abandoning me.

If it wasn't for all of them, I wouldn't be here. I hope they go to hell. And when I get out of this place, if I ever get out, I'm never speaking to any of them again.

I look up and down the hallway for exits. Maybe I could sneak out. Run. Make it…somewhere? But where would I go? I'm not even sure exactly where this place is.

I can't even call my mother and beg, because I don't have a phone. And my body really hurts—

I give up and walk into the room. Holly is already on the bunk over Brandy, so I sit on the bottom of the second bunk bed set.

"I can tell what you're thinking," Holly says to me. "Because I thought about it, too. But it would be hard to leave. There's nothing around out here for miles. It's all desert. We're all alone."

"This is really the worst," I say. "I don't deserve to be here. I didn't do anything wrong. I just messed up."

Holly nods slowly. "Yeah. Right. Me too, I guess."

I could sleep for a thousand days, I think. That might be the only decent thing to come of this whole shitshow—not having to deal with my life for a little while.

"Girl," Brandy says, leaning out of her bunk and angling her face up to Holly, "whatever you got up your vajayjay, get it out now."

Holly rolls over toward the wall, her shoulders starting toshake.

Brandy turns her eyes to me. "You stashing?"

"Stashing?" I say. "What even is that?"

"You're a boozer, then," she says. "Stashing is hiding shit in your holes. Like Fran said. Little baggies of whatever. Or swallowing a baggie beforehand and shitting it out while you're here. Not that I've done it. I just know about it. That's a little too gross for my taste."

"That's absolutely disgusting," I say. "That's completely desperate."

"You do what you have to do, I guess," Brandy answers. She reaches up and pokes the underside of the bunk, where Holly is curled and silent.

"Isn't that right?" Brandy calls to her. Holly doesn't answer.

Brandy shrugs, lying back down and looking over at me. "But I can't wait to find out what happened to your damn face."

"It's not really that interesting of a story," I say.

From her top bunk, Holly whispers, "So if I did have, like, something…what am I supposed to do with it?"

"Well," Brandy sighs. "You have a couple of options. Not that I know personally. I've just heard things. One, you can go in that bathroom over there and take it out and flush it down the toilet. Two, you can take it out and swallow whatever you have and, like, OD, or whatever, since I don't know how much you're packing. But they're gonna take a blood test and make you pee, so they'll find it in your system and you'll spend longer in Detox. Three, you can take it out and hand it over when they come get you for Search. Option three shows you're being honest, which may score you some points."

"And you know all this how?" I ask Brandy.

"I did this once before, but at a different place," she says. "Which, by the way, was a lot nicer than this one. I'm guessing Detox rules are the same at most places." She kicks off her pristine white sneakers and lets them fall to the tiled floor.

Holly shifts in my direction and blinks, like she's thinking very hard about something, then climbs down the ladder, walks into the bathroom, and shuts the door.

In a few minutes, we hear the toilet flush.

When Holly comes out, she looks triumphant. "I flushed some," she says. "But I took most of them. I needed them."

Brandy nods. "I get it."

" What did you take?" I ask Holly.

"Many, many good things," she says.

Her face seems bright with anticipation now, when just a minute ago she looked like a ghost.

Holly climbs back on her bunk. She closes her eyes.

I look around the small room. I'm going to be stuck with them, and then other kids, who knows how many other kids, for, what? Twenty-nine days? My stomach sinks. I'll never get to be alone. I'm losing my alone space. I won't have anywhere to go. I won't have anywhere to—

Drink.

I squeeze my hands together hard.

I suck in my breath.

There's no way out of this. And I won't have the one thing that gets me through.

There's a knock at the door; then Fran comes in again. She's carrying several bottles of lemonade.

"I heard the toilet flush," she says. "Who peed?"

Brandy points to the top bunk, and Holly sits up and looks down at Fran, her face panicked.

"I…really had to go," she says softly.

Fran looks up at her carefully. "Uh-huh," she says, and hands her one of the lemonade bottles. "Finish this by the time I get back. We'll need a urine sample."

Holly's hands tremble as she takes the bottle.

"Can I have an extra?" Brandy asks. "I don't need to flush anything. I'm just thirsty."

Fran gives it to her, then points to me. "You're up first. Drink fast as we walk."

She leads me down the hallway to a room that looks like a doctor's office: examining table, scale, sink, tray table full of stuff. I gulp the lemonade but gag a little. It's too sweet.

"I'm going to pat you down," she tells me, taking the empty bottle from me and placing it on the counter.

"Why?"

"Some kids trade pee before the urine test. Stuff ziplock bags in their pockets, pee in the bag, give it to a friend."

"That's disgusting. How can you pee in a bag?"

"When you have an addiction, you do a lot of things you never thought you'd do. But you know that already, right?"

I frown. "I'm not an addict."

"Then you should leave now, I guess."

We stare at each other for a moment. I'm the one to break eye contact.

I'm not an addict. I'm not an alcoholic. Are they even the same thing? I take a deep breath to calm myself.

Fran has me lift my arms and spread my legs. She pats me gently all over, slides her fingers in the pockets of my sweatpants and sweatshirt, and then grabs a plastic cup from the tray table. "Bathroom's in there. There's a gown hanging on the door, so put that on for Search. No bra, no underwear, nosocks."

I go into the bathroom and do everything she says, avoiding my face in the mirror above the sink. I pee in the cup and screw the cap back on. The cup has my name and birthdate, Leahey, Isabella, 5/30/2008, and today's date. I do some quick math in my head.

December 1. If I have to be in here for thirty days, that means I'm here for Christmas (oh my god, Christmas in here ? What can that possibly entail?) and then home through school break and then one week until back to school and all those kids and—

Don't think about that, my brain tells me. They're probably all talking about you anyway, so really, be glad you aren't there. They've all seen that video by now. Heard about you.

I don't know what to do with my clothes, so I just fold them very neatly and leave them on the sink. Then I open the door.

Fran and a woman in nurse's scrubs are standing there. The nurse has latex gloves on.

"Bella," Fran says, "if this is going to make you anxious or upset in any way, or if you have physical or emotional barriers to a physical search, like sexual trauma, please let me know now."

"I don't have anything to hide," I say. "I don't know why you have to do this. You're basically feeling up kids, you know."

"Honey," the nurse says, but not in a mean way. "I've had kids shove baggies of Oxy up their butt."

"Remember the kid who duct-taped a pint of schnapps to his stomach and thought he'd get away with it?" Fran says.

"Mm-hmm," the nurse says. "And the one who hid the pills in her dreads?"

They chuckle. I can't believe they find this funny.

"We've seen it all," Fran tells me.

"It'll be over in just a second," the nurse says. "And I have very gentle hands."

No one has ever touched me like she is about to touch me, not even Dylan.

I start to tremble.

Did my parents know this would be part of it, me getting my very private parts felt up? Did they sign off on this?

I think…I think I hate them both at this very moment for the humiliation I'm about to undergo.

"What if I refuse?" I say suddenly.

Fran shrugs. "Then you stay in Detox longer and you stay at Sonoran Sunrise longer, Your parents signed for you at the hospital. You initialed the form, too. This is what you signed up for. Or you can leave right now, remember? We won't stop you. But it's dark out and getting colder. If you have nothing to hide, this will go very quickly."

They're both watching me carefully.

I wish I was brave like that. To run. To push both of them against the wall and take off into the desert in my flapping gown.

But I'm not.

My face aches and my bones are tired and I just want to go to sleep.

I'm just a stupid and scared girl with nowhere to go.

"Can I close my eyes?" I ask finally.

"Yes," Fran says.

—

When the nurse is done, she takes off her gloves and drops them in the trash. "Clean," she tells Fran, who writes something in a folder. Then she starts asking me a bunch of questions.

Are you sexually active?

I tell her no. That I had a boyfriend, but we didn't do that.

Are you on birth control?

No.

Have you had any alcohol or drugs in the past forty-eight hours?

No. Well, the painkillers.

Are you suffering from depression, anxiety, or self-harm?

"I'm fifteen," I say. "I'm sad and anxious all the time, but I don't cut myself, no."

They keep asking questions and I'm getting more tired. My brain feels like mud.

They take a blood test.

The nurse examines my face. She gives me two ibuprofen and tells me to ask for more if I need it.

"I can't have what they gave me in the hospital?" I ask, looking at the ibuprofen in the palm of my hand. That stuff in the hospital was really good. If that's what people are stuffing up their butts, I can kind of see why.

She barks out a laugh. "Oh god, no, honey, this is rehab. We're trying to get you off stuff like that. What, you want a cocktail with dinner, too?"

Fran tells me I can get dressed.

—

Instead of taking me back to the room, she takes me to the vending machine. It's chained to the wall.

"Chips, chocolate, what would you like? It's going to be a bit before dinner. We need to finish the others."

"I'm not really hungry," I say.

"Something to drink?"

"I left my Pedialyte in the van."

"I can get you more of that." She makes a note on her phone. "Have this for now."

She presses some buttons on the machine and out pops a Gatorade. She hands it to me.

Back in the room, Fran points to Holly. "You're up."

I can tell by the way Fran looks at Holly that she absolutely knows she took something. I peer at Holly closely. Her eyes are glassy and she's not trembling anymore. Whatever it was must be kicking in.

Brandy is asleep, her hair a glossy fan on the mattress, so I lie down on my bunk. I open the Gatorade and sip it slowly, staring at the bottom of the empty top bunk.

The one thing I notice is how quiet it is here. Just faint traces of noise: maybe the nurse and Fran in the room with Holly, talking, but nothing else.

It's peaceful.

But not the kind of peace I like.

I'm so tired. It feels like my body has been beaten with rocks, turned inside out and back again.

Now there's a distinct sound of laughter far down the hallway. Thin, desperate.

Holly.

I cap my Gatorade and set it on the floor. I lie back, rest my head on the pillow.

I fall asleep.

—

I'm rolling on the surface of the sea on my back, the waves pushing me up and down, water filling my mouth, and I try to reach up, grab the stars, pull myself out of the water, but I can't get a grip on them. They're slippery.

"Isabella."

Where is that voice in the ocean? Help me.

"Isabella, wake up."

I blink.

Fran is standing above me.

"It's dinner. It's time for dinner, Isabella."

My mouth feels thick with sludge. My head is heavy.

"It's Bella. Not hungry," I mumble. "Just want to sleep."

"Okay," she says softly.

I pull the blanket up to my chin. The ibuprofen did nothing for my face. It throbs now, worse even than this morning. I hear the door close behind Fran.

I fall back into the ocean.

—

The nurse comes in later and nudges us until we wake up and takes our blood pressure and then we go back to sleep.

—

When I wake up again, the room is still dark. Slowly, I make out a lump on the bottom bunk across the room. It's Brandy, snoring gently, the blue wool blanket pulled all the way up to her nose. The top bunk is empty. Our bags and suitcases are here now, lined up against the wall.

Where is Holly?

I go to the bathroom. Don't look at my face in the mirror. There's a lever on the wall by the toilet. Pull for Help says the square sign above it.

I stand by the window in our room. The sky is a shimmery purple-blue, studded with stars. You can see the stars in Tucson, too, but they always look better on the outskirts of the city, away from the streetlights and buildings. I remember that from Tubac, from Agnes's farm, sitting outside with Laurel by a crackling fire, a glass of something she called a Vesper in her hand.

I try it, just to see, but the window doesn't open. I guess so nobody tries to escape from the room.

I get up and go out into the hallway. It's quiet. There's a light at the end, so I walk toward that.

A woman is behind the desk, watching a show on a laptop. I hear the strains of the Golden Girls theme song before she notices me and pauses her show.

"Hello," she says. "Can't sleep? Are you Isabella or Brandy?"

"Bella. No one calls me Isabella."

She nods. "Cool. Tell me what you need, Bella."

"Where's…where's Holly? The other girl who was with us?"

"Holly's been segregated. We have to wait until whatever she took is out of her system."

"Oh."

The woman looks at some papers on the desk. "You were sleeping and missed dinner. Do you want something to eat?"

I hesitate. I can't tell if I'm hungry or not. My body just feels really…exhausted.

I tell her that.

"Alcohol poisoning really does a number on your nervous system," she says. "The effects can last for quite some time. Things inside you are trying to adjust. It's complicated."

I can't help it; I start crying. "My face really hurts and they won't give me anything but ibuprofen. I just miss my mom. Can I call my mom, please?"

I expect the woman to say oh, don't cry, but she doesn't. She just says, "No calls with parents right now, Bella, unless you want to leave. I know everything is hard at the moment, but we have rules, and they're meant to protect you." She hands me a tissue and I wipe my face. "Parents get to visit on the fifteenth day for two hours, if that makes you feel better."

I don't think it does. That seems really far away at the moment. Eons away.

"I'm Janet," she says. "I'm the night shift. I can play a board game with you, or you can watch a movie until you're ready to go back to sleep. Or we can just talk. It's up to you."

She waits for me to answer.

I want to be home. I don't even care which one. I just don't want to be here, in this dumpy place in the middle of the desert, in a too-bright hallway talking to a woman named Janet, The Golden Girls paused on her laptop.

I look down the hall desperately. I wonder if the doors have alarms. If I run, will they try to catch me? And if I run, where will I go?

My shoulders sag. I'm too tired and achy to run.

"Bella?" Janet asks.

I don't answer. I just walk back down the hall and into the bedroom, climb under my own blue wool blanket, and wait for the waves to come to me again.