There’s a spider on the ceiling. It’s huge—the kind you’d need a tank to squish. With hairy legs, it dangles from an invisible thread, shimmying across the shadowed ceiling like it’s flying. Show-off.
I’m lying on my back in a spectacularly UN-comfortable bed. I was assigned to it by a four-foot-nothing nurse named Rita, who dropped off my duffel (unzipped and searched through, my green hoodie hanging out) and wouldn’t leave until I swallowed the pills from the little paper cup she pushed at me—ibuprofen and something for nausea. Every few hours, Rita sticks her head in the room to make sure I haven’t gotten up and wandered away. Or that the guy in the bed next to me is still breathing.
Both are legit concerns in a detox unit, I guess, except for the fact that the dude next to me is mumbling so much in his sleep any idiot could tell he’s perfectly alive. And even if I had the energy to get out of bed, I’d have no idea where to go. I’m stuck here, in Unit 7, Room 12, staring at a huge fucking spider on the ceiling and wishing I had spidey-senses so that I could shimmy up the wall and disappear through a crack in the plaster.
I’m seriously losing my mind. It’s been like 10 hours since Mom and I finished up at intake—the pile of paperwork, the list of humiliating questions. What substances have you used in the last 90 days? How often do you use? I replay my answers, counting the times like sheep. Once a month, once a week, every three days, every two . . . That’s insomnia for you, I guess. Not that I could sleep anyway, what with Jabber Jaws next to me, and Nosy the Nurse, and the obvious insect infestation problem. I just want to go home.
I don’t belong here. People in this unit scream in their sleep, hooked up to so many IV drips that they can’t even get up to take a leak. There are so many doctors and nurses wandering around that I might as well have stayed in the hospital—at least there, the metal bed was adjustable. Plus, they had JELL-O. And TV.
I miss Savannah.
Rita told me I’ll only be on this unit for a couple of days. We had a nice long chat, she and I, while she took my blood pressure and temperature and did a couple of other useless tests that won’t tell them anything. I highly doubt a well-controlled sniffing habit is going to show up on a blood pressure reading. It’s like they’re looking for medical proof that I’m sick, so they can make me “better.” Pretty soon they’ll figure out there’s nothing wrong with me and send me home.
I’d said as much when Rita capped the little vial of my cherry red blood. Then I asked to use the phone. She flashed me a cutesy half-smile and told me detox residents are on blackout. No phone calls or visitors for the first five days.
Not that Savannah’s dad would let me talk to her anyway. Even if she wanted to. I close my eyes and silently beg for sleep.
“Hey. Hey, buddy . . . you awake?”
I roll over and glare at my roommate. “You mean you also talk when you’re awake?”
He grimaces, his ruddy skin coated in freckles. “Yeah, the sleep-talking, right? Sorry about that.” He props himself up on his elbow, runs his hand across spiky red hair. “The nightmares are the worst. If I scream, just throw something at me. I won’t be mad, I swear.”
I flop onto my back, lifting my pillow so it covers my face, and grumble into the warm cotton. “Don’t tempt me.”
Jabber Jaws gives a hiccupy kind of laugh. I’ve barely crossed into drowsy territory when his voice tiptoes under my pillow.
“I must’ve been out cold when you got here, huh? Didn’t even hear you show up. What’s your name, anyway?”
I slap my pillow away from my face. “Dude! Can’t you see I’m trying to sleep?”
“My bad,” he squeaks.
I flop over onto my side, twist up my sheets in my fists, and squeeze my eyes shut. Sleep, please, sleep.
“My name’s Ronnie, by the way.”
You have got to be kidding me.
I flip over spastically, gritting my teeth against the stabbing pain in my ribcage that a little ibuprofen just can’t touch. I’m fully intent on ripping Ron a new one, but when he stretches his hand across the chasm between our beds, I see how bad he’s shaking.
I grip his hand and squeeze. “I’m Eli.”
Ron gives me a jittery smile. “My friends call me Red.”
No kidding. I roll onto my back and pull my thin blanket up to my chin. “So, Red,” I say, stifling an enormous yawn, “Give me the lowdown. What do I need to know about this place?”
“It’s alright, I guess,” Red says. “Drugs have taken over the neighborhood, though.” He laughs at his own dumb joke, a raspy chuckle, and I smile in spite of myself.
“Seriously, though,” Red continues. “I’ve heard stuff about other places, bad stuff. Bed bugs, quack therapists, that kind of shit. Not here, though. Other than detox, I’ve only seen intake, but as far as I can tell, this place is pretty swanky. You and me musta got lucky.”
I close my eyes and think about a conversation I’d overhead in the hospital, when Mom and Steven had assumed I was asleep. “There’s the ambulance ride, all the tests. Not to mention two days in the ICU,” Mom fretted, her voice a strangled whisper. “How much will it all cost?”
Steven had soothed her, whispering that money should be the last thing on her mind, and I’d remembered all the nights I’d stood as a little boy in the kitchen doorway, listening to Mom scream into the phone about rent money, child support, or unpaid bills. Dad would do his best, always showing up a few days later with a couple bags of groceries or his tool box to fix something around the house—a leaky toilet, a loose stair tread. Then Mom would be happy, and she’d let him take me for ice cream or a catch in the park.
I’ve never heard Mom and Steven talk about money because there was never any shortage of it. If it weren’t for Steven’s money, Mom would never have been able to afford a place like LakeShore. Then again, if it weren’t for Steven, I wouldn’t be here at all. “Sure,” I say to Red, sarcasm prickling my words with ragged edges. “Real lucky.”
I stare into the dark as Red tells me all about the various medications available in the nurses’ station (Even something to help you shit if you can’t. Imagine if they sold that on the street?) and which nurse is his favorite (a super-hot brunette that brings him broth for dinner). His chatter is weirdly soothing, like a light on in the hallway bathroom or the TV on downstairs. Because it makes you feel less alone. I let my eyes close as Red talks, and little by little, sleep finally finds me.