There’s this look people give you when they think you’re insane. On the ferry to the Horizons Residential Treatment Center on No Name Island the following morning, I got it.
The wind snapped at my skin and tumbled my hair in front of my face. I smoothed it back with both hands, exposing the twin bandages on my wrists. That’s when the captain, who had been chatting with my father about the ecology of the Keys, realized he was taking us to the glorified mental hospital, not the resort that shared the island. A slow wariness crept into his expression, mingling with fear and pity. It was a look I was going to have to get used to; the doctors told me that my wrists would scar.
“We don’t have too far to go,” the captain said. He pointed at some indistinguishable clump of land in the open ocean, and I felt obscenely small. “No Name Island right there, to the east. See it?”
I did. It looked . . . desolate. I recalled Stella’s words.
Lakewood is . . . intense. It’s in the middle of nowhere, like Horizons—practically all RTCs are.
“Do you like astronomy?” the captain asked me.
I hadn’t really thought about it.
“Look up at night, at the stars. The island is off the power grid, though the electric company is lobbying hard to change that. Most of the No Name residents don’t want it, though.”
I couldn’t imagine not wanting electricity. I couldn’t imagine not having it. I said as much. He just shrugged.
I must have looked panicked, because my mother reached over and smoothed her hand over my back. “Horizons is powered by solar energy and generators. There’s plenty of electricity, don’t worry.”
As we approached the island, a small dock appeared before us, with just a few boat slips and a sign:
LAST FERRY DEPARTS SIX PM, NO DEPARTURES IN INCLEMENT WEATHER
The captain looked up at the iron sky and squinted. “Might be changing things up today,” he said. “Those clouds aren’t friendly.”
“That’s what the cabin’s for,” my mother said to him, nodding in the direction of the covered part of the boat. She didn’t like being told she’d have to leave me before she was ready. She looked at me, and I could tell how much it hurt her to leave me at all.
The captain shook his head. “It’s not the rain, it’s the waves. They get choppy in the storms. Best be getting on, otherwise you’ll be spending the night.”
“Thank you,” my father said to the captain. “We’ll be back soon.” We disembarked, my parents quietly toting the luggage I didn’t even get to pack myself as we left the ferry.
I didn’t get to see Noah before we left, either. It would be twelve weeks before I saw him again.
The thought turned my stomach. I pushed it away.
It was then that I noticed a golf cart idling near the dock. The Horizons admissions counselor, Sam Robins, nodded condescendingly at me. “Well, Mara, I wish I were seeing you again under different circumstances.”
Under no circumstances.
“Come on,” he said to my parents. “Hop in.”
We did. The golf cart whizzed around a paved path surrounded by tall reeds and grass. We stopped in front of a cluster of whitewashed buildings with bright orange Spanish roof tiles. There was lovely, wild landscaping in the courtyard, evoking my mom’s issues of Cottage Living. Purple hibiscus and white lilies edged a small pond filled with goldfish that drifted lazily near the surface. There were neat hedgerows lined with some kind of pink wildflowers and yellow daisies everywhere. It felt inappropriately cheerful and I hated it.
The four of us walked into the pristine building—the main one, I guessed, since it was in the front. The walls were white stucco and the floor was white tile. Pedestals with a statue or figurine on top dotted the occasional corner, and terra cotta pots filled with manicured topiaries flanked the doorways. But other than that, the space and decor echoed Horizon’s outpatient counterpart almost exactly.
“Hermencia will check your suitcases and your clothes, Mara. And lucky you, it’s the retreat weekend, so all of your friends are here.”
The retreat. I ended up on it after all.
At least Jamie would be here to launch me into my mandatory sentence before he got to go home. That was something.
My parents went off to sign paperwork and I was ushered into a room by a woman who wore a neutral expression beneath a thick, short mop of dark hair.
The woman nodded curtly. “I need to check for anything dangerous.”
“Okay.”
“Are you wearing any jewelry?”
I shook my head.
“I need you to take off your clothes.”
I blinked stupidly.
“Okay?” she asked me.
I just stood there.
“I need you to take off your clothes,” she repeated.
My chin trembled. “Okay.”
She stared at me, waiting. I unzipped my hoodie and shrugged it off of my shoulders. I handed it to her. She put her arms through it and placed it on a table. I looked down at the floor and lifted my tank over my head. It landed softly on the tile.
I stood there, breathing hard in just my bra and my jeans. My spine was bent and my arms had unconsciously wandered over my chest.