Cracked (10 page)

She tells me I’m so sweet for even offering to move, but that there are no other rooms and we’ll be just fine in here. She’ll be back after dinner to check on me. And would I like help taking a shower after Victor’s done? I’d have to be tricky and keep my bum leg out of the water.

Her
question
about taking a shower makes me go red in the face again. The question!

“Nah, I’m good. I’m good.” I feel my crotch react, and I am so thankful I’m covered in blankets.

I CAN’T STAY IN THE SHOWER ALL NIGHT.

I have to go out there.

I don’t want to go out there.

I can’t do this.

THAT JERK HAS BEEN IN THE SHOWER FOR AGES
. His dinner tray probably has icicles hanging off it by now. I’m going to be so pissed if he uses up all the hot water. I press the button, and Ellie asks what I need.

I talk into the plastic box. “That guy’s been in the bathroom a long time. Can you get him out of there? I wanna take a shower.”

“I’ll be there in a few.”

I polish off my green Jell-O cubes and the water is still going. I hear a knock on the door and Ellie ask if everything is all right. She knocks harder. “Victor? Are you okay in there?”

The water shuts off.

I hear him shout, “I’m good. Sorry.”

She pulls back my curtain. “He’ll be out in a sec. You sure you don’t need any help in there? It’s going to be hard to keep that leg dry.”

Oh my God. The thought of her seeing me naked—full-on naked—makes my palms sweat. I wipe my hands on the sheets.

“And you’re really not supposed to put too much pressure on your one leg yet. Did Rob show you how to use your crutches?”

I didn’t even notice them leaning against the wall. I assume Rob was the sneezy, complaining dude that rolled me in here. “Nope, no info on the crutches. But I’ll figure it out.”

Ellie smiles and grabs the crutches. “I know you could figure it out, William. But you have stitches and we don’t need you falling. Stitches are fragile. Like my heart.” She reaches up dramatically and clutches her chest. And winks. She talks as she gets me up to a sitting position. “The bullet went straight through and didn’t hit any bone, which is really good for you, but it did do some damage to your thigh muscles. And it means you have
two
spots with stitches: the entrance and the exit wounds. You can’t get those wet just yet.”

I am doing everything in my power not to bawl, because
moving my leg hurts like shit. Ellie is maneuvering me slow and all, but every inch I move is painful. Maybe I don’t need a shower.
I stop moving and squeeze my eyes shut.

“You okay?” Ellie asks.

I open my eyes and gaze into hers. Man, she is hot. “I thinkIwanna laybackdown,” I mumble.

Ellie nods and says, “Take a breather. You’re doing great. And your feet are on the floor.”

I grasp the bed with both hands and drop my head. All I want to do is lie back down and fall asleep. For a week. I take a few deep breaths and open my eyes.

“Let’s try again. You ready?” she asks in the nicest voice.

“Yeah.” Even though I said it, I am
not
ready.

Ellie uses her arms to get me up to standing and then whispers, “Woo-hoo, William. I knew you could do it.”

I have an overwhelming urge to hug her. Like squeeze her so tight that she’d lose her breath. Instead I just nod and say, “Yeah.”

She adjusts the crutches to my height and shows me the basics. I laugh out loud as she crutches across the room, making her legs fly up like a little kid. “Sorry,” she says. “Do
not
do that.”

“I won’t.” And then she makes me go back and forth a few times on my own. I turn around to head back, and I get
really light-headed and stumble into the wall. She’s by my side before I have time to panic, and she leads me back to my bed. I swear it takes me, like, ten hours to lie down again.

With her hands on her hips, Ellie says, “Shower in the morning?”

“Yeah.”

I fall asleep with some pretty filthy scenarios running around in my head.

I COME OUT OF THE BATHROOM, AND BULL’S SIDE
of the room is dark. I can hear him snoring. My jaw unclenches as relief runs through my veins. I lift the plastic lid off my dinner plate and touch the meatball. It’s like ice. I chug the chocolate milk and slurp the green cubes of Jell-O. The Jell-O feels soothing on my sore throat as it slides down. I push the rolling cart away and lay back on my bed.

The clock on the wall says it’s eight. I wonder what my parents are doing right now. What fancy French food sits in their stomachs? In my gut, the gelatinous cubes sit with the weight of lead, and I feel nauseous.

I run to the bathroom with my hand over my mouth.

Shamrock-green vomit paints the toilet. I slump back on my butt and knock my head against the wall behind me.

Over and over again.

I STRETCH AND LOOK OUT THE WINDOW. THE SUN
is shining. I can’t believe I slept the whole night. Those pain meds kicked my ass. I go to move my leg and the pain is a fierce stab. “Shit!” I yell. I pant a few times to stop the stars in my eyes and throw my head back on my pillow. The room is quiet, and I strain to listen for a reaction from Victoria.

I hear the shower going. Toolbag’s in the bathroom again.

My curtain is pulled open and a new nurse says, “Good morning.” She points to her name tag and says, “Agnes.” If there is a polar opposite of Ellie, this woman is it. Old, really tall, and chubby.

Agnes the nurse says, all serious, “Ellie said you’d need help in the shower. Let’s get the process going, shall we? You’ve got group in an hour.”

“No, no, I’m good,” I say. My balls just shriveled up at the thought of me and Agnes alone in the bathroom together.

“Suit yourself.”

All of a sudden, behind her, Victor’s curtain whips closed and I hear him mutter, “It’s all yours.”

Agnes turns around and asks Victor through the curtain if he’s dressed yet. He says yes.

She pulls his curtain open, and there we are. All three of us. One suicidal loser, one linebacker nurse, and me.

THERE HE IS.

Neither of us says a word. I am trying to burn holes in his face with my eyes, and he looks like he wants to rip me into tiny pieces.

I break the stare and ask the gigantic nurse, “Where’s Ellie?”

“Home.” She points to her name tag. “Agnes,” she says flatly. Agnes claps once and deadpans, “Okay, boys. Victor, eat your breakfast. And William, you need your shower. Group’s in an hour.”

I sit down on my bed and lift the lid of my breakfast tray. Gray oatmeal. I’m not hungry.

“Where are my shoes?”

“Probably had laces in ’em, so we keep ’em. For your safety. Don’t sweat it, kid; every patient up here’s wearing the slippers.” Agnes gives me a strained smile. It seriously looks like she doesn’t know how to smile.

I don’t smile back.

She must sense my annoyance because she says, “Listen up, kid, everyone wears the same thing. Same sweats, same slippers.”

“I’d like to speak to my grandmother,” I tell Agnes.

“Not possible right now.” She puts her hands on her hips, and I swear all she needs is the helmet and pads and someone to yell, “Hut!” Agnes clears her throat and says, “When you’re in here, you need to focus on you, so you can get your thinking healthy again. We don’t allow contact with family until the fourth day. It’s our policy. So let’s all just relax and get ready for group. Shall we?”

“I’m fine now. I made a mistake. It was an . . . an . . . accident,” I stammer, trying to convince nurse Agnes that my suicide attempt was a silly mix-up.

She pulls my curtain closed and speaks in a very calm voice. “We both know it wasn’t an accident, Victor. No one
accidentally
swallows an entire bottle of his mother’s prescription sleeping pills. Two, three maybe. But twenty-five pills?
You should know something, Victor: You’re here under an involuntary commitment, which means until decided otherwise by the doctor, you’ll be here, in this room, in these sweats, for treatment for a minimum of five days. Are we clear?”

I don’t want to cry in front of her. In fact, I’d rather shove the handle of my plastic spoon into my eye. But I can’t seem to control myself. I’m not blubbering, but there are definitely tears streaming down my face. I know if I open my mouth to talk, I’ll make some kind of crying sound. It’s bad enough Agnes is seeing me cry, but I would let someone chop my arm off and eat it before I let Bull Mastrick see or hear me cry.

I can’t do this. I can’t do this. I can’t do this. I can’t do this. . . .

It keeps rolling through my head. And rolling.

EVEN THOUGH AGNES TALKED LOW, I STILL OVER
heard what he did. Twenty-five sleeping pills? And he thinks they’re letting him outta here? Yeah, right. He
needs
group.

I do my best to maneuver myself into a sitting position, which isn’t easy. My leg is still throbbing and really stiff. I have two really big bandages over where the bullet went in and then out. I hope I can get them wet.

My crutches are leaned up against the closet, which is next to the window. Since Agnes is occupied, I’m going to have to hop once or twice to get my hands on them. It takes me, like, five minutes just to swivel my feet out of bed and onto the
floor. I grit my teeth as jagged slices of pain shoot through my leg with each move.

Both feet are on the floor when I hear Agnes leave.

Using my good leg, I hop once, twice, pull one crutch under each arm, and begin my short trek to the bathroom. I hope there are towels in there, because it would suck not to have a towel. Victor’s curtain is closed, but I wouldn’t ask him about the towel situation anyway.

I’m good on these babies. I make it to the bathroom pretty fast and nod a few times when I see the towel, soap, shampoo, toothpaste . . . the works. It feels so good to take a hot shower. A really hot shower. The hot water in my apartment always ran out, especially if the people below us got up first, which they seemingly always did, probably just to tick us off. I think I’ve taken maybe three really hot showers in my life. And even with one leg hanging out, this hot shower is the best hot shower I’ve ever taken. No Pop pounding on the door. No mold on the walls. Even though the holes in my leg are starting to burn, it is still a perfect shower.

I don’t want the shower to end. I know it has to because group starts soon, and I still have to eat breakfast. I figure I’ve been in here, like, a half hour. I turn off the water and reach for my towel.

I should’ve gotten Agnes’s help. When I go to maneuver myself and bring my bad leg into the shower stall, my good leg gives out and I’m falling, like in cartoon slow motion. I know this landing is going to hurt like shit.

It does.

I HEAR BULL YELL THE F-WORD AND THEN A BUNCH
of other angry words. I’m pretty sure he’s fallen. Good. He deserves it. Let him lie there naked on the floor. I hope he can’t reach the nurse’s emergency pull-string, either.

I rub my face. I still remember how much it hurt when he dug my face into those rocks.

He can rot in there for all I care.

There’s more cursing and then, “Aww man, I’m bleeding.” He yells out to me, “YO! Get the nurse, asshole. I fell.”

I walk right up to the door and say to him, “Get the nurse yourself, asshole. I’m going to group.”

And I walk out. I leave Bull Mastrick bleeding on the bathroom floor. I don’t tell nurse Agnes, either, on purpose.

I’m pretty sure I’ve just guaranteed my own death, which is fine by me, because I don’t want to live anymore anyway. And he’d spend some time in jail for killing me.

That would make me happy.

I SCREAM FOR AGNES, FOR ANYONE, AT THE TOP OF
my lungs, but I don’t scream for long. I guess nurses are trained to listen for idiots falling in the shower. I am facedown and ass-up when the bathroom door opens. I’m sprawled right across the floor. So, yeah, Agnes ends up seeing me naked anyway. I don’t really care because of all the blood; I swear, it looks like Freddy or Jason left me for dead. When Agnes gets me back up to standing, she tells me the stitches popped open on the back of my thigh.

She hands me my crutches, and as I try to steady myself, my left arm buckles. “I think I broke my wrist.” Great, I’ll need someone to wipe my ass, too. Great.

“Sit down on the toilet.” And she gingerly helps me sit down, which is not easy because I have to avoid sitting on my bullet wound. “Let me get some more help in here.”

Double great. More chicks get to see me naked. Fan-freakin’-tastic.

Agnes comes back with some little gray-haired lady who looks like she could barely lift an infant with ease.

“William, this is Nurse Joan. We’re going to get on either side of you and get you back into bed. Any help you can give us would be great.”

“Don’t look,” was all I could say to either of them.

Joan smiles and says, “Relax, son, I’ve seen every part of a man’s body far too many times than I’d like to count. They all look alike, trust me.”

This doesn’t make me feel any better. It makes me want to punch the wall. I am not supposed to be here, naked on a toilet in a psych ward bathroom, with two holes in my body and a busted wrist. I’m supposed to be at the beach finding my dad. This reality makes me hate my pop so completely that I swear my hate could be weighed and measured and shit.

Agnes, the bruiser, gets under one arm and Joan, the tiny old lady, gets under the other arm. I am glad we made an agreement for “not looking” as I’m half carried, half hopping naked across the room.

They get me covered up, and Joan says she’s going to call the doctor because I’m going to need to be restitched and I’ll need an X-ray of my wrist. So it’s just naked me and Agnes.

“See? You should’ve let me help you. Now you’re going to miss group.”

“Bummer.”

GROUP STARTS AND BULL DOESN’T SHOW. FOR SOME
stupid reason I feel guilty. Why, I don’t know, but I do. I am, on the other hand, completely relieved that I don’t have to speak in front of him. I don’t plan on saying one word anyway, but I’m still happy he isn’t in the room.