Subtle sounds intrude. Feet shuffling, a high-pitched beep, regular and rhythmic. I’m under water, drawing up toward a surface. My body won’t move, and slowly I become aware that my arms are strapped to a bed. I force my eyes open, enough to see the dimly lit room around me. I know immediately where I am—it is so familiar—but then I don’t understand how I ended up here.
I reach through my memories but can’t remember. I remember being in the limousine with Trey, Cici and David. We were drinking champagne. Did we have an accident? I try to pull my hands free, but they are held fast. “Help!” I call out. My voice croaks, a cry in my throat. I call again, and my voice comes clearer, though still broken. I hear feet coming toward my door, a woman stops, just a shadow, a silhouette lit by the hallway lights.
“Shh,” she says, coming full into the room. For a second I think she is Margie, from Palomar Hospital, but then she comes closer and I see her features. She is much older than Margie. “It’s okay. I’m here.”
“What happened? Did we have a wreck?” She looks at me with sympathy, and I know she is going to tell me Trey is dead. My heart thumps in my chest.
“You don’t remember?”
I shake my head.
“You weren’t in an accident.”
“Thirsty,” I croak, and she reaches for a pitcher on the rolling table and pours me some water, adding a straw to the cup.
“Let’s sit you up.” She pushes a button and the head of the bed raises. When I am sitting upright, I pull water through the straw to coat my parched tongue. I ask why my hands are strapped down. “Just protocol.”
“Why?” My mind is cloudy, and my thoughts jumble together.
Her eyes dart quickly to my left hand, and I look down, realizing for the first time that there are not just the straps around my wrists; there are bandages, too. Thick white gauze. I remember then, the blood pumping with my heart out onto the tile floor of the bathroom. From there the night goes in reverse, and I see again Warren on stage and the horrified look on Trey’s face as I pushed past him.
A groan rumbles past my lips, and I push my head back against the pillow, squeezing my eyes shut.
It is required that anybody caught attempting self-harm be hospitalized in a psych ward for a minimum of three days. Two days after the MTV party, when the stitches in my wrists first begin to itch, I am sent to another corridor, where there are no sharp objects.
I eat the food they bring, I talk when they ask me questions. “I don’t remember anything,” I insist. “I was so drunk.” I look embarrassed. “No, I would never hurt myself.” I pretend. “There is no reason I would ever hurt myself.”
The second day in the psych ward brings a visitor. I am in the common room, putting pieces of a jigsaw in place, when a well-manicured hand reaches into the frame of my vision. I glance up and then quickly look away, drawing my bottom lip into my mouth. The absolute last person I expected to see is standing at the edge of the table, concern written in the lines of her face.
“Hi, Alison.” Petra reaches for a chair. “May I?”
I nod.
“How are you?” she asks.
“How did you know I was here?”
“Trey told me what happened.” She leans forward, keeping her voice low. “He is very worried about you.”
“Why isn’t he here, then?”
“He’s gone back to school.” She shrugs. “I promised him I would check on you.”
“Is he okay?”
“He’s pretty upset,” she acknowledges, and I feel the flush rising up my cheeks.
“Tell him I’m sorry.”
“Do you want to tell me what happened?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know what happened. I don’t remember anything.” It’s not the truth, but it’s what I’ve said to everybody.
“Okay.”
I wonder what he said happened.
“Do you remember that paper you wrote for your psychology class?” I meet her eyes and nod. “It seems you may have some experience with internal conflict.”
I blow air out my nose, a simulation of a laugh. “You think?”
“So what are you going to do?”
“About what?”
“I know some good people who could help. If you want somebody to talk to.”
“I don’t want anybody to talk to.” I look toward the window, wanting her to leave, this reminder of my failed perfect life.
“All the same. I’ve made you list, and I’ve spoken to them. Any of them would be happy to work with you.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do you want to help me? I’m a liar,” I say, setting my features hard and tight.
She looks at me until I look away. “Alison.” She reaches out and touches the top of my hand where it sits on the table. “Look at me.” I do, my features slipping. “Because I saw you with my daughter. That’s why I want to help you. It’s not a crime to be sad, it’s not a crime to feel strongly. It makes you human.”
“What does Jenny think happened?”
“Nothing. We haven’t told her anything.” She traces her fingertip across the blue vein on the top of my hand.
“I appreciate that. It’s probably best if she doesn’t know.” I pull my hand away and place it in my lap, under the table, out of sight.
We sit a few minutes more, and she rouses herself to go. “You’re going home tomorrow?”
I nod.
“I’ve left the list with the nurse. She’ll make sure to give it to you when you leave. How are you getting back home?”
“Darla, my roommate, is coming.”
“Good. Come and visit us when you feel up to it.”
“I will.” I look up at her, and I wonder if we both know that we will never see each other again.
After she has leaves, I think about the jumbled pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that is my life. I just let it all wander around in my head.
My mother had it right. She made sure she would never wake up.
The last thing the doctor says to me before signing the release is, “I suggest you avoid alcohol. It’s a depressant and can make your problems seem larger.”
I nod. The nurse takes my release form and helps me into the wheelchair. I don’t need a wheelchair, I can walk, but I’m too tired to fight about it and it doesn’t matter. It’s just protocol. Nobody cares if I walk out or ride.
Darla is waiting, and we share a long, mostly silent drive back to Poway. “Do you want to talk?”
“No.”
“What happened?” I hear the pity in her voice.
“Nothing. I just don’t handle alcohol.” I chuckle. I am my mother’s pathetic ghost. She is nervous of me. Unsure how to respond to my laughter, uncertain about the bandages on my wrists.
“What are you going to do?”
“Not drink.” I look over at her, the furrow in her brow, the weary expression. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make anybody worry.”
“No. It’s okay.” She looks at me, the tension easing.
“Thanks for coming to get me. I really appreciate it. I think it’s time for me to move on.”
She nods, and we drive. I appreciate that she doesn’t try to change my mind. Our silence rebounds in the car. When we reach Poway, my stomach roils. We pull into the parking lot, and I scan it for Cici’s car. There it is, four spaces down.
I follow Darla inside, in my bare feet, having taken off the heels I had worn to the party. They gave me scrubs at the hospital because the black dress was ruined. Cici is sitting on the sofa, and when I walk in, her mouth drops open. She leaps to her feet and comes toward me. I put my hand up, the bandage in full display, and turn past her, moving up the stairs. I close the door to our room, locking it behind me. I sit on the bed and wait for my mind to stop spinning. There is nothing else for me to do but to pack and leave.
I have thought through those terrible moments a hundred times over the last five days, and there is only one answer for why Cici did what she did. “Isn’t that your Baby Daddy?” she had screeched, and in the clouds of my memory, I could swear she was looking at Trey when she’d said it. I have seen the whole scene from outside of myself so many times now. I know she was looking at Trey.
She did it because she hates me. I let my mind roll. Did she ask me to come to California the way you tell someone that you want to get together with them, but with no real intention of it ever happening? Did she ask me to come here because it was the thing to say? Did she not think I would? Am I that person?
There was no room for me when I arrived. There was never a room for me. Sybil was never planning on moving out. Of course she wasn’t. They didn’t think I would stay. My face burns, thinking about the conversations that have been whispered about me. “Why is she still here?” says the Darla in my mind.
“I don’t know,” the Cici in my mind purrs. “I never thought she would come. I mean, I just said it, you know? Who moves across the country on that? Seriously.”
“Yeah, what a loser.”
Then Cici’s voice is loud in a memory: “‘Cause nobody wants you there, either?’” She had actually said that, the first night she wanted me to go with her to one of her bachelor parties. That wasn’t the alcohol or cocaine or any man—that was Cici, who had my number long ago.
Why did they let me stay? How could they have told me to leave? Oh God, I think. I am so stupid. She let me stay because I cut her rent in half, and all she had to do was tolerate a cot in her room.
She stole my money. I know she did. She stole my money or told somebody about it, and that person stole my money. I stew and chew on the skin around my fingernails until I have blood from three of them. Not enough, the little voice in my head whispers, and I wrap my fingers inside of my fists so I cannot see the blood—it is too tempting.
Cici is a tiger. It isn’t her fault that I refused to see her stripes. She doesn’t like me; she may even hate me. She may have liked me well enough at Life House, when she was trapped and had no other entertainments to enjoy, but not here. Maybe she even thought she liked me when I came, but she doesn’t now, and at least we both finally know it.