“But if I don’t want to kill myself, why are you keeping me here?” You think you’ve got her now and she’ll have to let you go home.
She flips through your file. “You told Ms. Reynolds that you don’t want to kill yourself ‘yet.’ That’s a red flag, a very big warning sign. Also, a direct quote from your conversation with her: ‘If you ask me if I want to live with this monster for the rest of my life, the answer is no … If that’s the choice I have, to have this monster in me for the rest of my life, then I don’t want to live any longer.’”
You don’t say anything and she takes out another piece of paper. You recognize your handwriting. It’s from your English class. It’s your six-word memoir. Dr. Winthrop reads it aloud: “The monster inside wants me dead.”
She shuts the file folder and looks for your reaction. You feel emotions but try so hard not to react. You look at your scratched fingernails, and at the cuts and scrapes along your wrists, fingers, and palms.
“Do you see that we only have the best intentions here? And that we are only trying to help, to keep you safe? We’re trying to help. We really are. Whether or not you believe it, you need to be here, for your mental stability. That episode out there further proves it.”
You shake your head back and forth, still looking down at your hands, and the tears fall. You don’t make any noise at all. You feel defeated, like you have no chance of getting out, like you’ve just gotten a life sentence. You don’t see how they can possibly help you, how they can get rid of the monster, how they can keep you safe when a kid just took his own life practically right in front of you.
“So we’re good? You’re ready to cooperate and make this work for you?”
You’re not ready, and you’re not good, but you don’t know what else to do. You feel trapped, confused, stuck. You hope you can convince your mom and dad to get you out of this place tonight. Maybe you’ll promise them you’ll eat anything and everything they put in front of you, if only they’ll take you out of this place. Because nothing in your entire life has felt as horrible as what you’ve experienced since you’ve been in the Crazy House.
And you don’t think you can take any more of it.
You nod, but before Dr. Winthrop excuses you from her office, she has one more thing to say to you.
“And to be clear, one more episode like what you pulled out there, and there will be consequences.”
48
Since you had your breakdown during morning therapy, you meet up with the others at lunch. You’re shaken up and upset but you have to play by the rules if you want to get out of here. Savara pats the seat next to hers in the dining area after you’ve gotten your designated meal of a turkey sandwich, some sort of pasta salad, a Jell-O, and milk. The turkey sandwich makes you think of Ben and the picnic that you shared only a few days ago.
You miss him so much you sigh out loud.
The others mistake it for a reaction to what happened with Malik, which isn’t altogether incorrect.
Starling can barely look at her food. “They made me come to lunch. I wanted to stay in my room, but they said I had to come eat,” she says.
A kid you haven’t met yet is sitting at the table. He’s a bit overweight with black-rimmed glasses and an unfortunate complexion. He pushes his glasses up on the bridge of his nose and says, “I’m the one who found him. Malik was my roommate.”
“Ken. Don’t.” Chad looks up from his plate, shaking his head. “Just don’t.”
Ken wipes the back of his hand across his nose and smirks at Chad.
“I woke up and he was in bed and I thought he was asleep. So I go, ‘Hey, Malik, get up,’ and when he didn’t answer I went over there and his face was gray. I think he took a bunch of pills.”
“Shut up!” Chad slams his fists on the table and stands up quickly and one of the kitchen staff comes over.
“Is everything okay here?”
Starling begins to cry and you start shaking. Savara whispers to Starling to try to get her to calm down.
“No,” Chad says. “Ken’s talking shit about Malik. And he’s upsetting the girls.”
“Ken.” The staffer nods for him to get up. He moves Ken to an isolated table and watches over him while he finishes his lunch.
“Thank you,” you say to Chad.
“That’s just wrong,” he says. Starling stops crying, takes a sip of her milk. “Malik was such a nice kid.”
Chad nods.
You wish a place like this didn’t exist.
You wonder if Malik is happy being dead.
*
After lunch it’s recreation time but the mood is extremely solemn. Of course, since it’s your second day at the Crazy House, you have no idea if recreation time is otherwise exciting, but you follow the others outside for fresh air and activity.
You’re supposed to play badminton. Instead of a real game, you bat the little birdie thingy back and forth to one another while staff watch from the outskirts of the building. Sometimes someone gets angry and smashes the birdie at another kid, but for the most part, everyone is pretty melancholy.
“Why do you think he did it?” some boy you don’t know asks. It’s on everybody’s mind.
Starling speaks first, after she sends the birdie across the net to you. “His mother sent him and his little sister to live with his grandmother—he said his mom couldn’t afford to take care of them. And his grandmother was struggling. He felt like no one wanted him.”
You think about this. Everyone in your life wants you in his or her life. Your mom, your dad, even your stupid-ass brother. As much as he is a stupid ass, you think he’d be devastated if you weren’t around. Jae would die if you weren’t here. And Ben, and the little bit you know about his family. They all want you around. You’ve got so much to be happy about.
Why aren’t you happy? Why can’t you be happy? Because of food? Because of the monster? Because of what happened with Alex last year? Because of rumors that aren’t going to matter when you’re done with high school?
How can you turn all of this around? How can you make the changes you need to make in your life and start being happy with yourself? With the gifts you’ve been given? With the things you have in your life?
These are some of the questions you’re going to need to answer. If you want to get rid of the monster, and if you want to get out of the Crazy House and start living the life you deserve to live.
You’ve got to start digging deep. You know you don’t belong in the psych ward. Starling, Savara, and Chad seem like good people, but you’re pretty sure they’ve been damaged by circumstances beyond their control, and they need more help than you do. You want to get home to the people who are waiting for you, waiting to help you.
There’s Ben too. And you need him.
49
Sleep comes easily that afternoon during break, and then there’s a group session where a new therapist talks to you and the others about feelings and overcoming obstacles. She also talks about being mindful and in the moment and what it means to be present.