11

There would be many times in my life that I would wonder how I survived those ten days in the hospital psychiatric wing. How I got from my bed to the toilet. How I got from the toilet to group sessions. How I lived through listening to high squealy voices shouting ridiculous things through the night. How I felt like my life had been taken down to a disgusting level when a tech came into my room one morning and whispered that if I needed “a hit” we could “probably work something out,” tugging at the front of his scrubs while he said it.

I couldn’t even succumb to my silent place again—my comfortable space. Dr. Dentley would surely consider silence a regression and suggest to my parents that I needed to stay longer.

Dr. Dentley made me sick to my stomach. His tartar-caked teeth and his dandruff-flaked glasses and his psychology-textbook way of talking. All the while, his eyes wandering to something more important while I answered his Super-Shrink questions.

I didn’t feel like I belonged there. Most of the time I felt like everyone else was crazy—even Dr. Dentley—and I was the only sane one.

There was Emmitt, a mountain of a boy, who continually trolled the hallways asking everyone for pennies. Morris, who talked to the walls as if there were someone there talking back to him. Adelle, whose mouth was so foul they wouldn’t even let her be in group with us half the time. Francie, the girl who liked to burn herself and constantly bragged about having an affair with her forty-five-year old stepfather.

And there was Brandee, the one who knew what I was there for and who regarded me with her sad, dark eyes and questions at every turn.

“What did it feel like?” she’d ask in the TV room. “You know, to kill people.”

“I didn’t kill people.”

“My mom says you did.”

“What does she know about it? She’s wrong.”

In the hallways, in group, there would be Brandee with her questions. “What did it feel like to get shot? Did he shoot you on purpose? Did he think you’d turn him in? Did any of your friends get shot or was it all people you hated? Do you wish you hadn’t done it? What do your parents think? My parents would totally freak out. Did your parents freak out? Do they hate you now?”

It was enough to make me crazy, but I worked really hard to not let it get to me. Most of the time I would just ignore her. Shrug my shoulders noncommittally or pretend I didn’t hear her. But occasionally I’d answer, thinking it would shut her up. I was wrong. Answering her would just bring on a new wave of questions and I’d regret that I’d ever said anything.

The only good thing that happened during those days in the psych wing was that Detective Panzella stopped coming in to grill me. Whether that meant Dr. Dentley was keeping him away or he’d decided I was telling the truth or he was working up a case against me, I didn’t know. All I knew was it was good that he wasn’t around.

I moved from place to place like I was supposed to. Changed out of my pajamas and hospital-issued robe like a good girl. Sat on the couch in the common room, watching approved TV, looking out the window at the highway below, pretending I didn’t see the dried boogers smeared on the walls next to me. Pretending my heart wasn’t breaking. Pretending I wasn’t angry, confused, scared.

I wanted to sleep my time away there. Wanted to take painkillers, curl up in bed, and not wake up again until I was home. But I knew that would be seen as a sign of depression and would only serve to keep me there longer. I had to pretend. Pretend I was getting better. Pretend my “thoughts of suicide” had changed.

“I totally see that Nick was wrong for me now,” I intoned. “I want to start over now. I think college will be good. Yeah, college.”

I hid the anger that was welling up inside me. Anger at my parents for not being there for me. Anger at Nick for being dead. Anger at the people in the school who tormented Nick. Anger at myself for not seeing this coming. I learned to tamp down the anger, to force it to the back of my mind, hoping that it would just fizzle out, go away. I learned to pretend it was already gone.

I said the things that would get me out. I mouthed the words they needed to hear and somehow got myself to those group sessions and said nothing when one of the other patients would lash out at me with insults. I took my meals and tests and cooperated in every way possible. I just wanted out.

Finally, on a Friday, Dr. Dentley came into my room and sat on the edge of the bed. I didn’t cringe, but curled my toes inside my socks, trying to distance myself from him.

“We’re going to release you,” he said, so matter-of-factly I almost missed it.

“Really?”

“Yes. We’re very pleased with your progress. But you’re a long way from healed, Valerie. We’re releasing you to intensive outpatient care.”

“Here?” I asked, trying not to sound panicky. For some reason, even though it would be outpatient, the thought of coming back to the hospital every day scared me—like if I said or did something wrong, Chester and Jock would pin me down and shove a needle in my butt again.

“No. You’ll be seeing…” he trailed off, flipping through pages on the clipboard he was holding. He nodded in approval. “Yes. You’ll be seeing Rex Hieler.” He looked up at me. “You’ll like Dr. Hieler. He’s perfect for this case.”

I left the hospital, a “case,” but a free one.

A nurse wheeled me down to the front door of the hospital in a wheelchair. I was aware of every eye in the building staring at me as I went past. Probably they weren’t really staring at me, but it felt like it. Like everyone in the world knew who I was and why I was there. Like everyone in the world stared at me, wondering if what they’d heard was true. Wondering if God was a cruel God for letting me live.

Mom had the car pulled up outside and was coming toward me, a pair of crutches in her hand. I took them and hobbled to the car, piling myself inside it, not saying anything to Mom or to the nurse, who was giving Mom instructions just inside the hospital door.

We drove home in silence. Mom turned the radio to an easy listening station. I opened the window a crack, then closed my eyes and smelled the air. It smelled different somehow, like something was missing from it. I wondered what I would do when I got home.

When I opened the front door of the house, the first thing I saw was Frankie sprawled on the floor watching TV.

“Hey, Val,” he said, sitting up. “You’re home.”

“Hey. Like your hair. Maximum height on those spikes today.”

He grinned, ran his hand over his head. “That’s what Tina said,” he said. Like nothing had ever happened. Like I didn’t still smell like the hospital. Like I wasn’t a suicidal freak come home to make his life miserable.

At that moment, Frankie was the best brother anyone could have asked for.