Kiss of Broken Glass (5 page)

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All three of them.

After that, I’ll ride my bike to Rennie’s

and we’ll raid her mother’s bathroom,

paint our nails Lincoln Park after Dark,

and drink Monster until we get a caffeine buzz.

I want to tell the Pomeranian

that’s what I’m really thinking

just to see the look on her face.

But Donya warned me,

it isn’t worth it.

So I give her one of those

fake, elastic smiles

and deliver my best lines of BS.

“I’m here because I made an impulsive mistake.

But I’m feeling much better now.

And it will never happen again.”

Then I do a little curtsy-bob with my head

and the Pomeranian bubbles in her stupid

Scantron sheet and trots away.

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“Not bad,” she says. “Might even get you out.

Unless . . .”

“Unless what?” I ask.

Donya snaps her gum

and loops the pink strand

around her finger slow as taffy.

“Unless you got good insurance,” she says.

“Then you’re screwed.”

I follow Donya down the hall.

“What’d’ya mean I’m screwed?”

“Cha-ching,” she sings.

I stare at her, my face blank,

like she just spoke Egyptian.

“Oh, come on, Kenna,” she says.

“Don’t you get it?

If you got good insurance,

they’re gonna milk it.

Take their time with you.

Find your inner child

and all that crap.

But with no insurance—

Voila!

You’re miraculously cured.

Sometimes the same day.”

I don’t want to believe her.

But Donya knows this place like the inside of her pocket.

And if Donya says I’m screwed, then I probably am.

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At my school,
nobody
narcs on cutters.

Not the goody-two-shoes

who pretend they don’t notice

and turn their heads the other way.

Not the stoners who can barely

raise their eyelids.

Not the jocks who are too busy

growing tumors on their arms.

Not even the jerks who call us

emo’s
and
attention whores
,

under their breath.

Nobody.

So that makes Tara the first

narc in history to go running off

to “get help” just because

someone needs a Band-Aid.

Only that’s not why she did it.

Tara did it because she’s a freaking

competitive cutter who can’t stand it

if anyone has better scars than her,

and she got it into her head that

people were paying more attention

to me than to her.

That’s crap, of course.

But that didn’t stop her.

And now that I’m gone,

she’ll
own
fourth period lunch,

with her duct tape bandages

and her six-inch slits,

and she’ll be a freaking rock star

just like she wants.

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Does she think that Tara’s

a two-faced greedy bitch

for ratting me out?

Or that I’m a dumbass

for getting caught?

It’s a very tricky relationship.

The three of us.

I remember how one time

my math teacher spent the whole

period talking about triangles.

How they’re the strongest shape,

and that’s why they’re used for building

bridges and trusses because they won’t

geometrically distort, or some crap like that.

But as usual, school has nothing to do

with real life because if you ask me

triangles are the weakest shape of all,

ready to blow apart at any minute,

especially when the three corners are

Rennie,

Tara,

and me.

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He’d be a circle.

Pure.

Honest.

Perfect.

You can trust a circle.

It doesn’t have any crooked angles

hiding secrets in the corners.

It’s the same with Sean.

Sure. He can be annoying

when he blurts things out

like little brothers do,

but at least he says

what he means.

He’s not a liar.

Or a fake.

I bet you could search

a thousand classrooms,

and cafeterias, and gymnasiums,

and never find that kind of honesty

anywhere else. Believe me. I’ve tried.

I think Sean may be

the last circle on earth.

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It’s bad enough we have to spill our guts

at 8 a.m. when any normal teenager

would still be hibernating.

But apparently one gut spill per day

is not enough for Attaboys.

So when the afternoon rolls around,

they herd us back into the therapy

room for another session.

The only good thing is that Jag’s

sitting six inches away from me

in his Screaming Zombies T-shirt

and I can smell the faint woodiness

of skateboard on his skin.

Jag reaches his arms back to stretch,

and it’s like every muscle in his body

is in perfect, rippled balance,

and I can just imagine

how good he looks on his long board,

pivoting his Levi’s hips,

flexing his marble six-pack,

surfing the smooth cement

with his arms long and low

like fighter-plane wings.

He catches me staring at him

and smiles with that half-broken grin

until I feel so sweet and tickly inside it’s

like I’m swirling in a cotton candy machine.

Too bad Roger has to ruin it.

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Roger drums his pen on the whiteboard

like he wants to knock some sense into us.

He says we should talk about having goals,

because that’s what all adults think we need.

Goals and college plans and career objectives.

But what do they know?

I mean, who says their world is
right
?

What if our real purpose on earth is

something as simple as

Have fun.

Feel good.

Be free.

If it is, then 99.9% of all adults

are failing miserably on this earth,

and when they die they’ll probably

be reincarnated as boring worker ants

because that’s about all they’re good for.

I almost feel sorry for Roger.

Not because he’s going

to be an ant in the next life,

but because he really believes

the crap he’s writing on the board.

TOP THREE REASONS FOR HAVING GOALS:

* Goals keep you focused

* Goals give you purpose

* Achieving Goals is something to celebrate

He says it’s best to write your goals on paper

and he hands us a yellow sheet and a felt-tip pen.

I know I should play along and scribble something like:

* Quit cutting

* Get straight As

* Join a club

But that would be too easy.

And then someone might expect me to do it.

Besides, who can think about goals

sitting six inches away from Jag’s lips?

Those soft pink pillow puffs,

dreamy as clouds and totally kissable.

So that’s the first goal I write,

in microscopic letters:

Lock lips with Jag Mancuzzi,

Then I notice Skylar

looking even thinner

after three peas for lunch

and I scribble down another goal:

Buy Skylar a jumbo burger.

Finally Donya catches my eye,

pretending to walk with a cane,

like that’s how old I’ll be

when I get out of Attaboys.

So I smooth out my paper

and write my last one:

Blow this place!

And Roger is right.

It
does
feel good to have goals.

Right up until the time

he comes around and collects them.

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I wonder how long you can sit

in a folding chair before your spine

actually fuses to the metal.

Or how many Nemos

you can count on the wall

before you want to bang

your head against it.

As much as I hate the idiotic

group sessions, the time in

between is even worse.

It’s a million shades of boring.

The only entertainment besides

zoning out to Judge Judy reruns

or watching Bullhorn pluck her lip hairs,

is when we get a new arrival,

like the little head case

who rolls in right after group.

He’s about the same age

as my brother Sean.

Eight. Maybe Nine.

Supposedly, he jabbed

his teacher with a pencil.

But looking at him now,

crumpled in a ball on the floor,

he doesn’t seem dangerous to me.

It’s makes me wonder,

isn’t there something else

for an eight-year-old?

Like a ten-minute time-out,

or no recess,

or “Sorry, kid,

you lose your lollipop.”

Do they really have to Baker Act him?

Seriously?

And when he opens his mouth I realize

he doesn’t even speak English

because he’s all like

“lo siento, lo siento, lo siento”

but nobody’s listening

to the little stabber

no matter how many times

he says he’s sorry.

They try to lift him to his feet

and he goes sort of wild,

kicking and spinning,

knocking Ding Dong’s

sucker jar off the counter.

The orderlies swoop in

and loop this long white jacket

around him until he looks

like a caterpillar in a cocoon.

When they cart him off,

the only thing I can see

are his tiny inchworm eyes

crying out for help.

And it makes me think:

I don’t know why you

stabbed your teacher, kid.

But I sure hope you got her good.

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I’m staring out the window.

Tapping on the glass.

Trying to remember the last time

I actually wanted to see my mother.

Tap.

           
Tap.

                       
Tap.

Nope.

Nada.

Nothing’s coming.

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Okay.

Maybe I shouldn’t have rolled my eyes

at the very first question Mom asked.

But—”how’s the food?”

Like I’m at summer camp?

Please!

And now Mom’s going through that whole

breathe-deep-and-count-to-ten crap

like it says to do in the tough-love book

she always forgets in the bathroom.

Before long, she starts quoting chapter three:

“Blahblahblahblahblahblahblah . . .”

And then there it is:

Bad choices.

I knew she would say it.

That’s the book’s favorite phrase.

She grits it between her teeth

like a fat wad of bubble gum

so the other words won’t slip out.

The ones she really wants to say.

Like how I’m such a huge disappointment

and why can’t I be more like my sister?

I want to tell her,

Hey Mom, I’ve got news for you:

A hard-boiled egg instead of chocolate cake?

(That’s a bad choice.)

Vampire Diaries
instead of
Supernatural
?

(Bad choice.)

Plastic instead of paper?

(Bad choice.)

But shredding your arm with a razor blade

and getting Baker Acted like a psycho?

That’s not a
bad choice
, Mom.

That’s a freaking disaster!

But just when I’m about

to go off on her, I start to feel it.

The way my cuts tighten up

like Grandma’s arthritic fingers

right before a storm.

I guess I should’ve mentioned

how my scars can tell the weather.

Only not hurricanes or tornadoes.

More like the emotional weather.

Like when Mom’s waterworks

are about to spill.

So even before it happens,

I know her lips are gonna quiver

and the creases on her forehead