Read Kiss of Broken Glass Online
Authors: Madeleine Kuderick
Tags: #Juvenile Fiction, #Social Issues, #Self-Mutilation, #Emotions & Feelings, #Friendship
Kiss of Broken Glass
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Advance Reader’s e-proof
courtesy of
HarperCollins Publishers
This is an advance reader’s e-proof made from digital files of the uncorrected proofs. Readers are reminded that changes may be made prior to publication, including to the type, design, layout, or content, that are not reflected in this e-proof, and that this e-pub may not reflect the final edition. Any material to be quoted or excerpted in a review should be checked against the final published edition. Dates, prices, and manufacturing details are subject to change or cancellation without notice.
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A Pruned-up Old Nurse Comes Over
And Here’s the Other Thing You Need to Know about the Baker Act
The Whole Time I’m Getting Ready for Bed
A Girl Peeps Up from across the Room
I Get Thirty Minutes of Free Time
Day Nurse Flaps Her Big Bullhorn Lips
Sometimes I Wish Dad Wasn’t So Clueless
Dad Used To Have A Little Superman In Him
At Least Sean Still Has Dreams
I Guess That’s Why I Picked the Word
Donya Catches Me in the Hallway
And That Makes It a Billion Times Worse
Jag is Sitting on the Windowsill Nearby
Donya’s Staring at the Moon Too
Dreams Are Just a Body’s Way of Sorting Things Out
What I Find in Skylar’s Empty Room
Ten Things Rennie Never Told Me
Bullhorn Brings a Tray to My Room
As If Things Weren’t Bad Enough
Roger Must Have Some Kind of Radar
Things to Do Instead of Cutting
Ding Dong Tells Me—No Visitors Today
There’s a Battle Going On inside My Head
Five Facts that Prove I’m Not Addicted
Five Reasons That’s Total Bullshit
Jag Says He Doesn’t Have Much Choice
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To everybody out there
who is aching for the kiss
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So here’s the thing about being Baker Acted.
You lose everything—
your belt,
your shoelaces,
the perfume bottles in your purse.
They take it all away in the emergency room
and make you sit in the aisle with a box of Kleenex
and a gown that doesn’t close in the back.
There’s nothing to do except watch the clock
on the wall and wonder how pissed your mom’s
gonna be when she gets there.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
A cop guards you the whole time,
picks his teeth with a toothpick,
scratches his dandruff,
stares at you like a real creeper.
He talks about you too,
like you’re not even there.
To the nurses and orderlies.
“They caught her in the school bathroom,” he says,
“using a blade from her pencil sharpener.”
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She looks at your wrists and ankles
and the places high on your hips
where it’s easy to hide the dark cut lines
even when you’re wearing short-shorts.
She’s holding a sheet of paper,
with an outline on it,
like a paper doll with no clothes.
She marks up the paper doll
with her fine-point Sharpie,
across the wrists,
through the ankles,
on each hip.
Slash.
Slash.
Slash.
You watch that nurse,
and while you’re watching
you wish a thousand times
that you’d just waited till you got home
instead of doing it at school where that
Two-Face Tara caught you by the sink—
red drops running down the drain.
You think about the tap of Tara’s heels
as she ran to get Mr. Lane and the whoosh
of the bathroom door as he shoved it open wide,
and the look on faces peeking from the hallway—
smirking,
mouthing,
busted!
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You Need to Know about the Baker Act
Even if
the principal promises
you’ll be home before dinner—
Even if
the guidance counselor says
they’ll release you right after the ER—
Even if
your teary-eyed mother rushes in
and begs the doctor not to admit you—
“She’s only fifteen for heaven’s sake!”
It doesn’t matter.
You’re not going anywhere.
They’re gonna lock you up,
in a psych ward
for 72 hours.
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Creeper clamps his hand on my elbow,
and it feels rough and prickly as steel wool.
He swipes his badge through keyless locks
and steers me down a pale green hall
where everything smells like fake pine,
and the lights that flicker all look gray.
Then we stop.
It takes half a century for the elevator
doors to open and the whole time we’re
waiting I have to lean away so Creeper’s
disgusting chunks of dandruff don’t
flake off on me.
Inside the elevator it’s smaller than a
coffin and even though I’ve never been
claustrophobic before, this torpedo of
panic launches in my chest and I try to
yank my arm away and say,
Get your freaking hands off me!
But instead, this stupid sob spills out
and a tear rolls down my cheek,
and there’s nothing I can do but
stand there in that flimsy gown
with all my feelings hanging out.
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I see a sign overhead:
Adler Boyce Pediatric Stabilization Facility
Someone’s scribbled on the wall:
Attaboys Prehistoric Sycho Farm
Creeper pushes an intercom button.
“New patient,” he grunts. “Kenna Keagan.”
An old woman comes out,
white hair in a bun,
lips tight,
shoulders stiff.
She nods at Creeper
and signs for me on the dotted line
like I’m a package being delivered by UPS.
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I step into the ward.
I thought it was gonna look like jail inside,
with steel bars and silver toilets.
But it doesn’t.
It’s all rainbows and angelfish instead,
painted on the turquoise walls,
glued to the ceiling,
just like kindergarten.
And right away I think,
it’s a good thing Avery can’t see me now.
This is just the kind of thing my older sister
likes to shove in my face to prove that she’s superior.
That—
and the way she looks like
a runway model even in sweatpants.
That—
and the fact she aces every test
with her freakazoid memory.
That—
and the promise that someday
she’ll score 2,400 on her SAT,
go to Harvard,
and win the Miss Universe Pageant,
while I stay home and scoop out
my basic B existence
like the plain vanilla,
no topping,
community-college material
that I am.
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Because Avery’s only my half sister.
Her dad was some kind of med-school prodigy
who graduated from Johns Hopkins
and probably would’ve discovered
the cure for cancer if he hadn’t died.
My dad’s just the backup dad.
The one Mom married afterward
so she wouldn’t lose the house on Long Boat Key.
He’s an accountant for PwC, which means
he makes good money doing boring stuff
and is hardly ever home.
But I remember this one time
when Dad’s client was in Chicago,
he brought me and my little brother, Sean, with him
to the top of the Sears Tower—103 floors up.
We climbed into this solid glass skybox
and Sean giggled and danced on the invisible floor.
“Look at me,” he shouted. “I’m walking on air!”
And for a minute, I felt like I was too.
We gazed out over the city
where the blue sky meets Lake Michigan
and the sun reflects between buildings
like a cat’s cradle of light.
Then my dad knelt down
and pointed toward Lakeshore Drive