Realizing this, there was a growing sense of heat building up the length of my body from the floor. My skin went feverish with it; my gaze went red. I was all red, inside and outside and everywhere.
My mom was in shock, and so she didn’t stop me when I reached out and did what I needed to do next. I pulled open her nightshirt, bursting the buttons, to expose her chest. I had to see the secret tattoo, the new art she’d had permanently etched onto her body without telling me first. And I didn’t know for sure what I expected to find there: my own Missing poster, done up in crimson Gothic lettering with my measurements and my eye color for the world to see? Or instead, a My Little Pony, a shriek of hot pink like a stove burn? A cartoon heart, the exact size and shape of the true heart my mom carried inside?
It wasn’t any of those things, my mom’s new tattoo. That was what startled me. It wasn’t a tattoo at all.
It was skin. Her bare skin. Blank as a porcelain sink before all my blood messed it up.
She pulled herself away from me, closed her ripped shirt, and then came for me again, arms out, wanting to hug me, I think, or wanting to stop me from doing much worse than I’d already done.
The heat in my head.
How it buzzed, centering in on my brain like I was about to lose my own signal.
An
infestation
of
wasps
expanding up the walls of my mind and burrowing into all my corners where I hadn’t lived enough years to keep any thoughts yet. They dislodged pieces of me. Like how one time I was stung by a wasp in the backyard and my mom cradled me in her arms like she was doing now and pressed a package of frozen peas to the sting, and the peas really did make the pain ease away and now whenever I eat frozen vegetables I feel a sense of deep comfort, of love, because it reminds me of her. But why was I thinking of the frozen peas at that moment? And how come there was so much blood? And why couldn’t I feel my — So dizzy.
Needed to sit down.
When my mom started shaking me, saying, “Stay awake, baby, stay awake,”
the lost girls chose to remain silent and refused to come out.
They kept silent as the room went black.
And I guess they keep silent now, too, because of what came after. Because they’re afraid. Because we all are.
— 48 — WHAT do you do with a girl who’s slit her own wrist with the shards of a mirror? Who’s done it vertical, like she knew what she was doing, and had every intention to die? What do you do with a girl who hears voices whispering secrets in her ears? Who believes she’s chased by shadows? Who has an unnatural, unexplainable connection to a host of missing girls?
Ask my mother. I know what she’ll say because I woke up with the blue lights of the ambulance dancing over me, easing out all the bad red, and I heard her talking to the EMTs. She’d say you send that girl away.
You send her away.
AND THEN
— 49 — IT takes some time before I realize the words they’re saying aloud are meant for me.
“We’re going to take care of you here, Laura, hon. Just rest.”
“I think her name is Lauren.”
“Sorry. Lauren. Your mom brought you in to us. Do you remember? Do you remember what happened? What you did?”
“Have you ever tried to hurt yourself before, Lauren? Lauren?”
“All right then, I see you want to sleep. Just sit up and swallow this.”
“She won’t sit up.”
“Just help her. There. Let her lean on your arm. There, Lauren. Here you go.
This will make you comfortable. Good.
Swallow.”
“Who was that you were talking to just now, Lauren?”
“Did she say something? I didn’t hear.”
“She’s talking to those girls again . . .
What girls, Lauren? I don’t see any girls.”
“Let’s leave her be. Don’t encourage her. Let’s just let her sleep.”
The two nurses shuffle out the door.
They leave it open—it’s a door that doesn’t seem to ever be able to close—
and they wander back, every so often, checking on me as I pretend to sleep.
Soon the pill they had me swallow makes it impossible to keep pretending.