Keaton School 01: Escape Theory (6 page)

A girl with stringy blonde hair had appeared before them, her eyes puffy with tears. Her skinny arms hung limp against her frayed cut-offs. She clutched an orange prescription bottle in one shaky hand.

Devon didn’t even recognize her at first. “Isla?” she whispered.

It was the hair that threw her. Isla had always been a perfect blonde, as if she’d just stepped out of a shampoo commercial. Now it looked as if she’d stepped out of an airplane crash.

“Devon, I need your help.”

Name: Isla Martin

Session Date: Sept. 7

Referred by: Mr. Robins

Reason for Session: Hutch’s girlfriend

“You’re such a sweetheart,” Isla said in a soft, high-pitched voice. She was lying on her side in bed, one arm tucked under her head. Her other arm was extended, fingers wagging like jazz hands that had lost most of their jazz. She beckoned Devon to her with a limp flick of her wrist. “Lemme see,” she whispered.

Devon placed the green sweatpants and sweatshirt on the edge of Isla’s bed in a neat pile. “I just grabbed the first stuff I saw, hope it’s okay.”

That wasn’t exactly true. When Nurse Reilly sent Devon to grab overnight clothes for Isla in the Health Center, Devon found most of them in a massive pile on Isla’s floor. Funny: it had reminded Devon of the piles of leaves her mom would pay her to rake up in their yard every fall. Five dollars for the whole yard. She’d always have to fight the urge to leap and belly-flop onto the middle of the pile. It was worth an extra half hour of raking for one chance to fly into
the air and land in the soft cushion of leaves, sending them flying up around her in a
whoosh!
, as if the pile was exhaling an excited burst of leaf breath. She would slowly sink closer to the ground as the leaves crunched beneath her.

Isla’s laundry pile was limp and sad in comparison: a miserable support group for lost and found items. If Devon tried to belly-flop on the clothes, they would probably just sag and give in to her weight, a frail moan in response. She had found the sweats and sweatshirt by picking the first two colors that seemed to match. She also made a mental note to return to the room later, to fold and put away the rest of Isla’s clothes. That way when Isla left the Health Center she could return to a clean room.

Not like Isla would ever do the same for Devon, but that was the power of Isla. She was always getting people to do nice things for her. Devon was used to being an audience member of The Isla Martin Show. Isla’s flowing skirts, wavy-blonde hair and glittering blue eyes swept everyone under her spell—and the only acceptable responses would be, “of course,” “here you go,” and “do you need anything else?” And when she and Hutch were together it seemed that the combination of their beauty and charm could power the entire school.

Now she seemed … small.

“These are great. I just want to be cozy, you know.” Isla sat up in bed and stretched her arms to the ceiling in a long, luxurious yawn. If she hadn’t been such a mess, the gesture might have been sexy: a lean cat just waking up from a nap. But all Devon could think was:
This girl is way too skinny. And she needs a shower
.

The afternoon had been a blur, mostly a fight to get Isla to the Health Center, in spite of her shaking and sweating and incoherent mumbling. The prescription bottle was for OxyContin. There were still a few pills inside. Devon’s peer counselor mode took over. Her first priority had been to get Isla to the Health Center to make sure she was physically okay. Devon deliberately
avoided explaining the Oxy to Nurse Reilly when they got there. It would have escalated the situation from “distraught girl” to “drug addict,” which could have brought with it a whole army of unwanted faculty.

Devon needed a chance to figure out how to approach this one first. Isla was more than a bereaved girlfriend: she could be suicidal, or she could have been Hutch’s pill supplier, or both. Being in possession of the pills alone could get her expelled. But there was too much Devon still wanted to know about Hutch’s death; she couldn’t turn Isla over to the faculty just yet. It wasn’t selfish, Devon reasoned, as a peer counselor she was looking out for Isla’s best interests, and maybe there’d be helpful insight into Hutch. They’d discuss it in session together and Devon could ascertain if Isla really was a suicide risk.
^*
She’d get Mr. Robins involved if she needed to, but only in a worst-case scenario. That’s what a good counselor would do, right?

Isla rubbed her eyes and glanced around. She wrinkled her brow, as if confused by the fact that she wasn’t in her dorm room. She blinked at the rows of neatly made-up twin beds and fluorescent lights. A faded quilt was folded at the end of each bed: a flimsy effort at making the Center feel more homey. Of course, most Keatonites who used this part of the Health Center were freshman going through a bout of homesickness. A quilt that reminded them of Grandma—and a cup of hot chocolate with Nurse Reilly, whose wrinkled face and gray-haired bob would look equally at home in a nurse’s uniform as it would on a box of cookies … the standard and most effective cure on campus.

Devon knew. She’d been here herself.

With marshmallows floating in the mug of cocoa, Nurse Reilly had let four-week freshman Devon babble on and on about everything she missed at home. When she’d finally wrung herself out, Nurse Reilly took Devon’s hand in her own—silky soft and
gnarled—and promised that before she knew it, Devon would have all of those things and more at Keaton.

For better or worse, Nurse Reilly was right. Going home over the summers the past two years felt like a limited stay in a vaguely familiar hotel. Devon often wondered if the boarding school experience was an extended case of Stockholm Syndrome: where the prisoners started to identify and even bond with their captors. Did being a peer counselor mean she had gone to the other side? Was she the prisoner that betrayed her fellow prisoners for a bigger slice of bread: in her case a recommendation to Stanford?

No. She was here to help. She
wanted
to help, bigger slice of bread or not.

Isla crawled out of bed and pulled her black tank top over her head. Her purple padded bra looked wrong, almost too bright and happy on the sad shape her body was in. Devon could see her ribs jutting out over her flatter-than-flat stomach. Hip bones popped out of the top of her jeans. Faded red scratches ran up and down her arms. Devon turned her back while Isla unzipped her jeans.

“Please, like we’ve never seen each other naked before,” Isla said with a short laugh.

That was true. But Devon had never seen Isla in this state before, either. Even though they had lived in the same dorms for the last two years, shared the same communal showers, and brushed teeth in their pajamas next to each other countless times, Isla’s inner light always burned brighter than everyone else’s. Her perfection made the guidelines of beauty clear to the rest of the girls: Isla on top, Keaton mortals below. It was one less thing to think about. But now, Isla looked broken, like a phoned-in version of her former self. Devon didn’t want to accept it. If Isla’s standard of beauty could be cracked, what did that mean for the rest of them?

Of course, if Devon were to
work
with Isla, she would have to start seeing beyond the glorified image of
the
Isla Martin. She would have to accept the dark rings under Isla’s eyes and the way
she couldn’t hold eye contact. In session, Isla wasn’t superhuman. She was just another sixteen-year-old who needed help.

“You slept through the afternoon. Probably needed it,” Devon said, pulling a nearby rocking chair next to Isla’s bed. “Nurse Reilly said your pulse was racing. Like you were having a panic attack or something.”

Isla pulled her long blonde hair out from underneath her sweatshirt and tied it into a knot on the top of her head. Frayed split ends poked out like a warped halo. She pulled the covers over her lap.

“I didn’t need a trip to the Health Center, you know,” she said after a minute.

“Sorry about that.” Devon turned away, and instantly regretted it. Bad form. She was losing her footing in this conversation before they got started.

“Whatever, it’s pretty chill in here,” Isla added. “It’s easier than being out there. Everyone giving me their pity faces, the forced frowns. I’m so over it.”

“Well, I promise not to give you a forced frown if that helps.” Devon smiled, but Isla rolled her eyes and studied her fingernails. “Mr. Robins said he spoke to you about seeing me.”

“Yeah, I’m, like, supposed to talk with you about my issues and stuff.”

“It’s just for a few sessions.” Devon pulled her notebook from her bag and dropped it unopened into her lap, then leaned back. She hoped the gesture was non-threatening.
^†
It felt good to have something to write in, something that made her feel removed from their existing relationship, however thin that was.

Isla smirked at the pad of paper. “So, what? Are you going to peer into my soul, Devon? Show me the error of my ways?”

“How about we start with the Oxy. Why’d you give me those pills?”

Isla chewed a nail.

Devon smoothed out the empty page of her notebook, shiny Mont Blanc pen poised. But her heart had started to pound again. “Isla?”

“I didn’t give them to you. I just wanted you to hold onto them for a bit. There’s a difference.”

“Fair enough. Why did you want me to hold onto them?”

“I just did, okay? With Hutch and everything.…” Her voice trailed off and she studied her fidgeting hands in her lap.
Therapy is what happens when you let the subject fill the silences
, Devon reminded herself. Isla’s eyes brimmed with tears. “Maybe I didn’t want to end up like him,” she said in a hoarse voice. “Is that the answer you’re looking for?”

“Why do you think you would? Are you planning on taking those pills?”

She stared back down at her hands. “I wasn’t there for him. And now he’s not here. I just worried about, like, what if I got into a bad place like Hutch did and had those pills around.… I just didn’t want them in my room anymore, okay? I thought I was making a good decision.” Her tone hardened. “Why are you grilling me for it?”

“No one is grilling you. You’re right; it was a good decision.” Devon made sure that her tone was warm, inviting Isla to open up. “I’m glad you asked me to hold onto them for you. Do you think Jenny Martin will miss them, though?”

Isla’s head snapped up to meet Devon’s gaze. “What?”

“The pills. I noticed the prescription is made out to Jenny Martin in Portland. Is that someone in your family. Maybe your grandmother?”

Isla scratched at her arm and stared at the yellow daisies on her quilt. Her pupils flickered. Devon had struck the vital nerve.

“How about an alias for Isla Martin?” she pressed, even though she knew she was reaching. “Is Jenny Martin a name you use to get prescriptions filled in Portland?”

“Shut up!” Isla snapped. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. Why am I even talking to you? Just give them back.”
Her voice was no longer raspy or choked. She held out her trembling hand, palm up to Devon. “Give them back, NOW.”

Jackpot
, Devon thought. But having her suspicions confirmed gave her no pleasure. “I’m sorry, but I can’t. I’ll hold onto them for you though, okay?”

“You’re not going to rat me out?”

Devon shook her head and gazed into Isla’s bloodshot eyes. “Part of the deal here is that nothing we talk about gets shared with anyone else. So, as long as we keep talking, and I feel like you’re not a danger to yourself or others, no. I won’t rat you out. That’s the truth.”

Isla folded her arms. “That’s still a pretty lame reason for not giving back what’s mine.”

Devon held her hands up in a mock surrender. “Hey, you gave them to me in the first place. I’m just doing what you wanted.”

“Touché.” Isla leaned against the cold cinderblock wall.

“You and Hutch have been together since last year. Did you talk to him at all that night? Did he give you any indication of what he might be thinking of doing?”

“I didn’t see him that night, okay?” Isla said.

“Okay. Was that for any specific reason or just circumstance?”

Isla laughed in a hollow breath. “We broke up over the summer. Clearly you didn’t get the memo.”

Devon swallowed. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know.” Her mind raced to process. They weren’t together anymore? Hutch was single again? When he asked to have pancakes with her again he was single? His smile, his question all had new meaning. She shoved the swirl of thoughts away. “Do you want to tell me about that?”

Isla sighed. “You don’t have a cigarette on you, do you?”

Devon laughed. “What we say in counseling is confidential, but that’s the only rule I can slightly bend. Smoking in the Health Center is definitely not going to fly.”

Isla had to laugh, too. “Figured it was worth a shot. If regular rules are suspended in these little sessions, ya never know.”

“I’ve got gum.” Devon offered her a piece of Winterfresh from the pack in her pocket. “Might be stale, but it’s better than nothing.”

Isla took the gum and started chewing, opening her mouth wide. Devon tried not to stare at the gum being violently tossed back and forth between her teeth.
She really is a wreck
. Isla twisted the wrapper into a long wormlike strand and rolled it between her fingers.