Asylum (8 page)

            “Close
enough,” Chloe agreed.  Sam watched her expectantly.  How much, Chloe wondered,
how much can I really tell her?  The old venomous voice that usually had an
answer for everything wasn’t saying anything just then, but it was there. 
Chloe could feel it, holding its breath.  Waiting for her to expose them both.

            “I
don’t have a dad,” Chloe began, “just, just my mom, and my sisters.  I have two
sisters, I’m the youngest.”

            Sam
was watching her avidly, huddled up with her arms wrapped tightly around her
knees, her chin propped on top of one, and her pint glass within reach on the
ground next to her.

            “My
Dad--he… well, I don’t really know what his deal was.  My parents got divorced
when I was a baby, and I’ve never even seen him.  He lived in like Germany or
somewhere, I don’t even know, but my mom, she…she’s a real bitch.” Chloe forced
the words out.  It felt good to say.

            Sam
giggled.

            “She
is, really.  She’s on the school board, and she owns a book store.  She thinks
she’s like the most important person in the whole dumbass town.  She has this
belief that everyone is watching us, judging us, all the time.  Like,
everything we do has to be perfect or everyone in the world will talk about
us.  My sisters, they’re just like her, and so, of course, she totally loves
them.  My oldest sister went to Michigan State and now she’s going to grad
school there for her MBA, and my other sister is at U of M, and she’s planning
on going to law school.  She’s like a super genius, so she’ll probably end up
at like Harvard or somewhere.  So, she had the two of them that she just
bragged about to everybody like
Oh-look-what-a-great-mother-I-am,
my-girls-are- sooooooo-smart-and-successful…
and then, there’s me.”

            “And
then there’s you,” echoed Sam, “cheers, fellow loser!” Sam lifted her pint
glass in salute.

            Chloe
chuckled and took another sip off her own mug.  She was starting to feel
light-headed.

            “So
what was it that made you the black sheep?  Your grades weren’t as good as your
sisters or something?” Sam asked.

            “No,
it wasn’t that, I…” Chloe trailed off.  Her fingers rubbed nervously against
her mug as she took a deep breath.

            “I’m-I’ve
got other…problems,” she admitted.  Sam continued to watch her, as Chloe tried
to find the courage to keep talking.  “I’m not…I’ve got some crap wrong in my
head.  Ummm…like, I used to hear things that weren’t really there, and once in
awhile see things too.”

            “Like
schizophrenia?” Sam offered.

            “Yeah…well,
sort of, no…actually that’s pretty much it, schizophrenia, I guess,” Chloe
reluctantly agreed, “Look, it’s not as bad as it sounds, really.  I mean, a
couple of years ago, I just started thinking when I was alone that I could hear
voices whispering sometimes, and I never told anyone, because I knew it was
crazy, and they weren’t real, so I just ignored them.  Then, I started seeing
things.”

            “What
kind of things?” Sam’s voice was almost a whisper.

            “I
don’t know, Sam.  It wasn’t like pink elephants marching around or anything.  
Just sometimes, it seemed like I could see
something
that always moved
away really quick when I tried to look at it.  Something that I would just
barely catch out of the corner of my eye.  I thought I could just ignore it,
but it started happening so much and the whispering all the time…I got to a
point where I knew I couldn’t handle it by myself anymore, because I was
starting to think it was real.  So I told my mom about it.”

            “And
what did she do?” asked Sam.

            “She
thought I was making it up for attention, and she wouldn’t even listen, and
then…then, this one day I was home alone…” Chloe choked up.  She could hear a
distant rumbling in her ears that usually preceded tears.  She cleared her
throat and blinked rapidly.

            “This
one day… the voices just got really loud and they were all telling me the same
thing.  They were all telling me that this guy…this guy who was a friend of my
mom’s, was bad, that he was going to try and hurt me.  So I-I…called the
police.  I told them he was trying to hurt me”

            “Bet
she loved that,” Sam guessed.  Chloe smirked and took another long drink from
her mug.

            “Yeah. 
First she had me tested for drugs, and I came up clean.  Then she sent me to a…
a…well, they called it a
rest home
, but it was basically a psych
hospital.  She was so embarrassed that she wouldn’t speak to me for weeks. 
Then she finally visits and right away she was all like: ‘You did this on
purpose!  You did this just to hurt me!’”

            Sam
snorted in disgust.

            “So
my transcript got all messed up, because I had to leave school for awhile.  I
ended up having to take summer classes, I almost didn’t have enough credits to
graduate on time, and no, my grades were not actually that good.  Once I
actually had to go back to school…well, that was pretty bad.  Somehow, everyone
knew.  It is a small town, after all.  Everyone was always pointing and
whispering, cracking jokes.  Just asinine stuff.  Some big, stupid, jock guy even
tripped me in the hallway and kicked my books one time.  I never understood
why.  I just hated my life, just
hated
it.  I thought, if I went really
far, maybe…maybe I wouldn’t run into anyone that knew.  I could get away from
my mom and my sisters always thinking that I was faking it.  I could just start
over and be…normal.”

            “Fuck
normal!” Sam insisted.  “You’re going to be better than normal!”

            Chloe
let out a long sigh.  It felt like she had been holding it in since the first
day she arrived.

            “So
now you know.  Your roommate is a psycho,” Chloe confessed.

            “Well,
you’re not the only one,” Sam laughed.

            “Don’t
tell me.  You’re a serial killer?” Chloe smiled.

            “Serial
slut, actually,” Sam’s voice sounded bitter.  “My high school experience was
kind of similar to yours.  See, there was this guy.  He was really hot.  Kind
of built and just a gorgeous butt on him.  He was super popular, of course, but
so was I.  He seemed really nice, and smart.  I mean, he was the total
package.  I had a huge, huge crush on him.  It wasn’t just an
I-want-to-sleep-with-him kind of thing.  I wanted to be his girlfriend, I
wanted to write ‘I luv Evan’ all over my notebooks with little pink hearts like
I was in grade school or something.  He finally asked me out.  We went to a
movie, and then instead of taking me home, we drove around on these deserted
back roads until he found a place to pull over.  I thought…I don’t know what I
thought, I should have known what was going to happen, but I thought at least
he was going to be romantic about it.  I thought he would…I thought….he just….I
just…I couldn‘t push him away, and he grabbed my hair…and…and...”

            “You
were
raped
?” gasped Chloe.

            Sam
winced.

            “God,
I hate that word.  Just hate it.  It sounds so melodramatic.  I told him to just
wait a minute, to hold on, and he said that he knew I did it with
everybody
. 
Started naming guys left and right that I supposedly had sex with.  Really, I
had only ever slept with two guys, and I tried to tell him so, but he started
saying how everyone knew I was a slut.”

            Sam
made a fist and pounded her knee absentmindedly. Chloe stared at the ground.

            “So
I tried to push him away, he was stronger, and he grabbed me by my hair
and…that was that.  It sounds like one of those movies on Lifetime, doesn’t
it?” Sam asked.

            “It
sounds like it was awful,” Chloe replied truthfully.

            “What
was awful was going to school Monday.  I was so embarrassed.  I didn’t want
anyone to know.  I just kept thinking about how he said everyone already
thought I was a slut, and if I made a big deal out of it, people might think it
was my fault.  I should have gone to the police the second he dropped me off. 
I know that now, because when I went in to school he had told a bunch of
people.  All my friends knew, the whole school knew.  He had a bunch of the
guys chanting “slut, slut, slut” at me every time I walked by them.  Someone
keyed the word ‘slut’ into my car.  People I didn’t even know would walk by me
in the hallway and just say ‘skank’ or ‘slut’.  I just had enough at one point. 
I thought, my reputation is already in the toilet, who cares now?  So I went
down to the guidance counselor, damn helpful people those guidance counselors-”
Sam rolled her eyes.

            Chloe
snorted.

            “And
I told him what had happened to me, and how this guy had everybody calling me a
slut, and instead of doing anything about it, he called Evan down to the office
and asked to hear his side of it.”  Sam pursed her lips in disgust.

            “He
didn’t!” Chloe was dumbfounded.

            “He
did.  And sure enough, Evan tells him that I was the one who had pursued him,
and that I was just angry because he didn’t want to have a relationship with
me.  Then he gets all his friends to come down to the office and back him up,
saying how they had all slept with me.  So this brilliant guidance counselor
starts asking my friends all about it.  Brilliant.  Because this is just what I
want, for everyone in the world to know everything that happened, and of course
I had never told any of my friends what had actually happened, so Sherlock Guidance
Counselor deduced that I was the one lying.”

            “Oh,
that sucks!” Chloe steamed.

            “Yup. 
It really sucked, Chloe.  Because after that, I still had another year of high
school left, and the whole time I was the slutty girl who had tried to say a
guy raped me, because he didn’t want to be my boyfriend.  I even had girls
coming up to me and saying that I was scum because I was the type of girl that
made it harder for all the poor girls who actually were victims to come
forward.”

            “I’m
so sorry, Sam.”

            “For
what?  I learned a lesson, don’t trust anyone!  That shit is all behind me
now.  We’re in the same boat, we’re both starting over.  I need a refill, how
bout you?”

            Chloe
handed over her mug, and watched Sam divide the last of the two liter between
their glasses.  In the parking lot below, an engine roared to life and a pair
of headlights snapped on.  For a minute, Sam and every tiny thing under the
cupola were thrown into sharp relief, casting long, black shadows across the
roof.  Chloe watched the car back out and speed away. 

            It
seemed to her that there was a strange sort of rawness between her and Sam. 
Everything was out on the table, and neither of them had anything else to say
at the moment.  They could each hurt the other now.  We can each help the
other, she immediately corrected.  She wasn’t sure how to start conversation
again.

            “We’re
out of pop,” she ventured.

            “I
know, and we still have vodka, I would almost go down and get some 20 ouncers
out of the machine, but if one of the girls catches us-”

            “We’re
stuck buying all Jen and Melanie’s drinks,” Chloe finished. “Wish there was
somebody walking around down there.  We could flag them down.”

            “Yeah. 
Help us!!! We’re out of mixer!!!” Sam waved her arms

            They
both laughed at the idea.

            “What
time is it anyway?” Chloe wondered.

            Sam
glanced at her watch.

            “Ten
to two.  Two more hours of this.  Just sitting here,” Sam let out a frustrated
sigh and fell over on top of her blankets. Her shoulder crushed the Ouija board
game box.  She pulled it out from under her and held it out to Chloe.  “Let’s
at least do this Ouija thing.  I’m bored.”

            “I
don’t know, I think Ouija is kind of-”

            “Bawk! 
Ba-a-a-wk!” Sam clucked like a chicken.

            “You
must not watch a lot of scary movies,” Chloe talked over Sam’s taunts, “because
that’s always what happens.  Someone says ‘Hey, let’s do this Ouija thing’ and
the other character goes ‘no, I’d rather not,” then the first one taunts them
until they give in and then BAM! Time to call the exorcist.”

            Sam
laughed again, but sat up and opened the box anyway.

            “Sam…”
Chloe complained.

            “Oh,
stop!  It’ll be fun.  If you get scared and hear voices or anything I’ll smack
you around a bit and remind you that you’re crazy.”

            “Thanks,”
Chloe snapped, but all the same she scooted closer and sat cross-legged as Sam
moved the instructions from side to side, trying to find enough light to read
by.      “Use the flashlight, genius!” Chloe reminded her.

            “Oh
I almost forgot,” Sam grabbed the flashlight and snapped it on.  “Okay, so this
thing-” Sam held up a white triangular piece with a clear plastic window
embedded in it, “is called the pla... planchette. We both put our fingers on it
and ask it questions, blah, blah, blah.”