Cracked (19 page)

Ellie leaves me alone to rest, but I pace the length of my room a hundred times. Today is Nikole’s last day. And I’m hiding out in my room. I gag a few times. The ginger-ale-mixed-with-vomit taste lingers in my mouth, each swallow a bitter reminder of what a weak, selfish jerk I am.

I actually tried my best to get out of group. That’s how terrified I am of Bull’s revenge. Ellie said missing group wasn’t an option, unless I was unconscious. I seriously tried to think of ways to knock myself out, but I couldn’t come up with anything.

So here I am, in group. I’m the first one here, except Lisa, of course. And some new guy with really bad acne. He looks pretty miserable. Lisa introduces him as Grant. He only nods, no smile. Believe me, I understand the discomfort he feels right now. She asks me who I’ll be calling, since it’s my fourth day and all. I tell her I’m calling my grandma, my nana.

“Not your parents?” she asks.

“They’re in Europe right now. I don’t even know where they are, actually.” This makes my stomach lurch, and if I were near a toilet, I’d probably vomit.

“I see. How do you feel about this? About them not coming home?” she asks.

Even though Lisa’s face is gentle and kind, I want to say, “How do you think I feel? It makes me feel like crap. It makes me feel unloved, unwanted, un-everything.” But I’d never talk that way to an adult. So instead I say, “I don’t know.”

She says in a calm voice, “You don’t know. Who do you think would know, then? You know, how
you
feel?”

Why do some people have to be so annoying?

“I don’t know,” is all I say. She probably thinks I’m as dumb as the chair I’m sitting on. Probably dumber. I look over at Grant to see if he has any reaction to our conversation.

“Well, Victor, you think about my question. Okay? It’s okay to feel things, even if you’re a guy. When a guy knows how he feels and why he feels that way, well, then he owns his feelings, which is healthy thinking. And healthy-thinking guys make great boyfriends, and friends, and sons, and even husbands.”

The word boyfriend makes me think of Nikole again and how selfish I am. I should’ve been at breakfast with her. It was her last meal here, and I was hiding out in my room like a scared puppy. Lisa is right: I have really unhealthy thinking. My thinking is diseased and coughing and oozing green snot.

My mother hates the words “snot” and “boogie” and “booger.” She basically hates anything inside the nose, no matter the color or consistency. If it’s from the nose, she hates it. When I was little and sick, she made my father wipe my nose. When I was almost five, she said I had to be responsible for wiping my own nose from then on.

Why am I thinking about my mother?

Lisa is tapping my knee. She must think I’m really out of it—I’m having a full-blown conversation in my head, completely ignoring her. Talk about unhealthy thinking.

“Nikole’s calling you,” she says, and points to the doorway.

I look up and there she is. The first thing I notice is that she doesn’t have her sweats on. She dressed in jeans and a really tight T-shirt with a cool, swirly design on the front. She looks pretty. She is waving me over, so I jump up.

“Hey,” I say.

“Hey,” she says. She grabs my hand and pulls me out into the hall.

“So, I’m leaving. I wanted to say good-bye to you.”

I don’t know what to say. You know how in books people always say the room started spinning at the dramatic part? Well, it’s true: the hallway started spinning.

“You all right? You look really pale,” she says.

I start breathing like a dog in the sun. If I don’t sit down, I’m going to fall down. I plop into a cross-legged heap on the floor and rest my chin on my chest. I breathe in . . . she’s leaving. I breathe out . . . right now. I breathe in . . . she’s leaving. I breathe out . . . right now.

“Victor? Are you okay?” she repeats.

I lift my head. “I’m sick. I almost didn’t come to group. I threw up this morning.” All lies.

She rubs my back and asks if she should go get a nurse. I tell her no, I’ll be fine. Another lie.

“Well, I wanted to see you before I left. I’m . . . I’m . . . wow, this is harder than I thought it was going to be.”

I say, “Tell me about it.”

“I wrote down my cell number and my e-mail, and I’ll friend you on Facebook, okay?”

“I’m not on Facebook. My parents are insane about the computer,” I tell her.

I drop my head again. It feels heavy on my neck. Reality is heavy. She has friends that call her Queenie, had a boyfriend, is a cheerleader—she has a life, a life that is far, far away from mine. She’s beautiful and funny and laughs with gusto. Me, I’m a nobody with no one and nothing. A total dork.

She puts a piece of paper in my hand and closes my fingers around it. Her hand stays on top of mine, and it feels beyond perfect.

“Look, you got me through this place, Victor. You are a good person, and I want you to be happy. I will miss you every single day for the rest of my life, I swear.” Her Lacey imitation makes me smile, and I raise my head to look at her.

“
You
got me through this place too.
You
are a better person than I’ll ever be. And I will miss you even after I’m dead, I swear,” I say.

Her beautiful eyes are filled with tears, and she lifts my hand up and kisses my palm. Then she puts my open hand on her face and holds it there against her soft, warm cheek. I want to kiss her so bad it hurts.

She leans in and does it for me. It’s a soft kiss, right on the mouth. I imagine this is what doing drugs feels like. I’m cloudy with it, all fogged up with goodness, and happy. She whispers in my ear, “Just be happy. Stay alive, Victor. You’re worth it.”

It must be the pure happiness from my first kiss that makes me do this, but I grab both of her cheeks and pull her in for another kiss. This time,
I
kiss
her
. She had been squatting down, so my kiss makes her fall forward onto her knees, and she is totally kissing me back.

The rest of the kids come out of the cafeteria right in the middle of our kiss and start making smooching noises and somebody whistles. Nikole pulls away and whispers in my ear again, “Stay alive. You’re worth it.” Then she hops up and starts her good-byes with everyone else. Lacey joins in, and there’s a lot of hugging and high-fiving. Nikole and Lacey link arms and declare that they’re outta here.

I watch her curls bounce as she talks. Her kiss lingers on my mouth and I lick my lips. I had my first kiss in the hallway of a psych ward with a girl who tried to kill herself a few days ago.

And I can’t stop smiling about it.

WOULD YOU LOOK AT DORK OF THE UNIVERSE?
Making out in the hallway with the hot blonde. They’re putting on quite a show for Jimmy the guard. I would’ve bet my bike that would never happen in my lifetime. This place is nuts, completely nuts. Today is the fourth day, and I think I’m crazier than when I got here. Everybody really is crazy here.

Especially Kell.

What the hell is with her giving me the fingers again? What is that all about? One minute she’s all over me and the next I’m ignored and dissed. Andrew was right: she is the Queen of Crazy. Now I feel even more guilty for
making him go berserk again. I’m staying away from her. She’ll probably kill me in my sleep. Leave it to me to fall in love with a maniac.

Lisa eventually gets us all in our seats, which is pretty hard to do after Nikole and Lacey’s good-byes. Victor seems pretty bummed. He’s delusional if he thinks a girl like that would go for him out in the real world. He wears a golf shirt and tan pants to school every day. She’s totally hot with a great laugh. Get real.

And there’s some zit-faced new guy in the circle. Ha. He looks about as happy as I was my first day.

Lisa starts group with, “Everyone, this is Grant. Grant, this is everyone.”

Grant doesn’t even look up.

Andrew’s out of solitary, and he looks high. He must be on some good meds, because he actually grins at me.

Lisa smiles. “Now I’d like to discuss how you feel about Brian, Nikole, and Lacey leaving.”

Not me. Don’t care.

No one says a word.

Then she turns to Victor. “Victor, you got pretty close with Nikole, and you haven’t shared in group yet. How about you tell us why Nikole is nice?”

Victor looks like he just farted out a watermelon.

“She just is, that’s all,” he says. I can’t believe he said anything. He’s such a wuss. Lisa isn’t done with him, though.

“And why is that?” she asks gently. Man, am I glad she isn’t interrogating me in front of the group, gentle voice or not. It could get ugly. I’m not sharing shit with these nutjobs.

He shrugs his shoulders as his answer. From where I’m sitting it looks like his hands are having a seizure. Maybe he’s having a nervous breakdown or something. He has had a pretty crappy morning so far.

Lisa just stares at him and waits. Wow. Harsh.

He puts his hands underneath his legs and looks like he’s in pain, like someone is trying to rip his head off or something. Lisa leans forward a bit in her chair. Apparently she cares what’s going to come out of Victor’s mouth. Me? Don’t care at all.

“You can do this, Victor. It’s okay to let it out, that’s what we’re all here for. That’s what group is for,” Lisa says.

Andrew chimes in with a groggy, “He doesn’t want to, Lisa. Leave him alone.”

Lisa purses her lips and then says gently, “Andrew, I acknowledge the fact that you’re looking out for Victor. I appreciate it. But getting it out is the first step to healing. You know this.” Lisa folds her hands on her lap. “Let me do my job, Andrew.”

Andrew rolls his eyes. “Yeah. Sure. Whatever.”

I had no idea Victor was this stubborn. I thought
I
was stubborn. He looks like if someone poked him with a pin, he’d explode all over the room. “Uncomfortable”—that’s the perfect word to describe him. I don’t blame him. Like I said, I’m not saying anything either. For once, I realize we have something in common. I’ll say it again: This place does weird things to people.

Then he blows my “we have something in common” thought by saying, “She made me feel alive.”

Okay, not bad. Short and to the point—not bad.

“What do you mean by ‘alive’?” Lisa asks.

He scrunches up his face, and I can hear him breathing all the way across the room.

“Victor?” Lisa is one determined lady.

He keeps his head down and tells his story to the floor. “My parents never wanted me to be born. I was an accident; they tell me that every year on my birthday. They didn’t take me on our trip to Europe because I didn’t get perfect SAT scores. My perfect math score wasn’t good enough. They didn’t even wake me up and say good-bye. They left me a note on the counter, like I was the gardener. My dog died that day too. And she was the only thing that ever loved me. So I took my mom’s sleeping pills. But my
nana found me, and that’s how I ended up here. Where I met Nikole. Nikole was the first human being to notice me. And she cared about what I thought. She looked me in the eye and laughed at things I said. She was the first girl I ever kissed. That’s what I mean by alive.”

Whoa.

He’s not done. He raises his head and looks directly at me.

His voice is thick with volume and anger. “And you. You sit over there like you’re the king of the jungle! Well, guess what, hard-ass? You’re as fucked up as I am!”

I have nothing to say back to him. But it doesn’t matter; he’s yelling to the whole group now. About me.

“This asshole has bullied me since we were kids. Tortured me. Embarrassed me. Humiliated me. Beat the crap out of me. So many times, I can’t count them all!” he yells, then he looks right back at me again. “You made me feel worthless.” He’s choking now, coughing out his words. “Worthless and stupid. Do you have any idea how much I hate you? How many times I wished you would just DIE?!”

Yeah, got nothing to say to that. Nothing at all.

“Remember when you punched me in the back? Punched the chocolate milk right out of me? You let me choke on it, and I almost died. Remember that? That was the day before I took the pills. You sealed the deal, Bull.”

Is he blaming me? Yep, I think he’s blaming me.

“Don’t make me responsible for your crap life. You’ve got shitty parents,” is the first thing out of my mouth. I really am an asshole. He’s crying like a baby, spilling his guts to the whole room, and I don’t have one nice thing to say? Not one?

He says, “Don’t talk to me about shitty parents. Get beat up at home much? I’ve seen your bruises. I’m not stupid. I’m really good at listening; it’s pretty easy when no one speaks to you for days on end. I heard kids talking about you and your grandfather all the way back when we were in seventh grade. Do you miss his fists? Did my punch this morning make you feel all nostalgic for home? You can go to hell, Bull.”

Grant suddenly comes alive and is on his feet. He stops my pathetic one-armed attempt to wheel across the circle and pummel Victor. He pushes me right back into my spot in the circle and tells me to relax.

“Get off me, zit boy.” Why do I always do that? Why do I always go for someone’s weakness? I see Kell watching this whole scene, and I am embarrassed as hell. I’ve got to get away from these people, this place.

“I assume Bull is your nickname, William. Would you like to respond to Victor?” Lisa asks.

Hell yeah.

NIKOLE’S KISS MUST’VE RELEASED SOME SORT OF
courage or bravery juice that’d been locked in my brain, because it’s flowing through my veins like crazy. I cannot believe I just said all that in front of these people, and Nikole wasn’t even next to me, cheering me on. I did it on my own. I feel lighter. I’m serious, I really do. I actually feel lighter, and my hands have stopped shaking. I just wish Lisa didn’t give him a chance to respond, because I don’t want to hear anything he has to say. I just want group to be over so I can call my grandmother.

Here he goes. “Yeah, Bull’s my nickname. And this dick
doesn’t know anything about my life or my pop.” Then he screams at me, “You don’t know anything about me!”