Pieces of Us (25 page)

Katie

~
Somewhere, NJ
~

I
t’s safe here. The walls are an off-yellow. One of the nurses told me it’s called Antique Lace. My father has visited me a lot. My mother once. She took one look at my bruises, my broken shell, and told me to hang in there. Then she left, only to return an hour later to drop off a shampoo that was supposed to make my hair look full and shiny again. “I just bought it for Julie, and she’s more beautiful than ever. You can be beautiful again, too.”

“Thank you,” I said, because that seemed to be what she wanted to hear. She smiled and walked out. I followed the sound of her heels growing softer and breathed out in relief when I could no longer hear them.

My father walks in now, and I’m hoping this time I can make him tell me what I want to hear.

“Hey, honey,” he says, hugging me, then sitting in a plush chair across from me in the visiting room. The chair is burgundy. I picture the name of the color as Royal Red. “Here you go,” he says, placing every tabloid magazine known to man on the table between us.

“Thank you,” I say, but I mean it when I say it to him.

He smiles. “Anything new in here?”

“Same old. Therapy, painting pretty pictures of what we feel. I like it, though.” Truth is, I wish I could stay here forever. No one judges me here. Not out loud. They can’t.

“I’m glad, but I miss you.”

I smile. “Me too.”

He looks around, noticing something different each time he comes here.

“Sooo … ” I say, after silence. “How’s Julie?”

He tenses. “She and your mom moved out.”

“Oh! I’m sorry.”

He waves his hand like it’s no big deal. “Don’t be. I want to see your sister more, obviously, but she and your mother … they have different agendas than us.”

“What do you mean?”

He shifts uncomfortably. “I don’t mean anything. They’re just all about appearances, that’s all I meant.”

I see. He looks around again. There’s more. “What else?”

“Looks like the Yankees have a great shot of being in the World Series again!” He talks about baseball until my eyes glaze over.

“Have you heard from Alex?”

“I’ve seen him around,” he says, after a pause.

“Around where?” But how is it that I already know?

My dad opens his mouth. “Katie … ”

I make things easy for him. “Forget it. It’s about time she got my sloppy seconds rather than the other way around.” This mean streak surprises me, but makes me feel more alive, too.

“Anger is good,” he says. I think he means any emotion, happy to see me feeling something, different from the empty cask that was brought in here.

“And Kyle?”

“He’s been asking to visit you. I think it will be good for you. I’m working on it with the staff.”

“Thank you. How is he?”

Thing is, Kyle is a shell, too, but a walking, talking one. That time I saw his empty face when we watched the cars, I knew he was like me. I knew something was eviscerating him from the inside. He should come here before he cracks.

Julie

~
Cherry Hill, NJ
~

I
n the beginning, I was scared he’d call out
her
name while kissing me, but I shouldn’t have worried. He has never mentioned her at all. It’s like she never existed. I know, what kind of girl goes after her sister’s ex-boyfriend, especially after everything? But no one really told me what happened, and I don’t think there’s a reason to make my brain work overtime to fill in the holes.

One night, after he’d left the lake houses, Alex drove back up to see me. We thought everyone was asleep, but Babushka caught us kissing in my room. She didn’t flip. Didn’t kick him out. Nothing. But when he left, she said, “Yulya, what are you doing? She’s your
sister
.”

She said that word like it meant something. Like sisters had a code, like Katie had never broken it over and over. “And?”

She shook her head. “After what he did to Katie. He’s not a good person.”

“I don’t want to know what happened with Katie. That’s not my business.”

“Yulya—”

“No.” I turned away. “She’s not as perfect as everybody thinks. Do you know what she did? What did
he
do? Call her a whore? Maybe she needed to hear that. Maybe this time it will stick.”

My grandmother’s mouth set in a tight line. Color drained from her face. Then she walked away.

But not Mama.

When Alex visited me in Cherry Hill, Dad yelled, told him to get the hell out of our house. Not Mama. Surprisingly, she was the only one who supported me. It’s like I can do no wrong. Dad stormed out, but Mama told Alex to come into our kitchen. She talked to him. To
me
. That night, she brushed my hair and braided it. The next day, we went shopping and bought me new, pretty clothes. The kind she only bought for Katie before. She told me to spin around in the mirror. She said she was impressed that I’d hooked such a good-looking guy. He had nothing on Kyle, she said, laughing. I laughed with her. She told me she liked it when Alex was around because he made her feel young and alive. I get that. Chloe
died
when I showed her his pic. The cheerleaders told me I needed to try out, like, “for realz.” Now that Marissa and Katie are both gone, they “like so need a new Pyramid Girl.”

Mama told me not to do anything stupid. I only get one shot.

Tomorrow, Mama is throwing a house-warming party at our new apartment. She’s inviting all her fancy friends and told me to invite mine. She wants to show Alex off, she said. Show
me
off. It’s funny how things work out.

Kyle

W
hen you get there, she hugs you tight and doesn’t let go. Then she steps back and examines you. “You look the same,” she says, almost disappointed.

“Sorry.”

She shakes her head and smiles. “I just, I don’t know. Somehow I expected you to look different. I
feel
different. Dad looked different.”

You smile back. “I’m the same.”

“Hmm,” she says, thinking this over, then nods.

You grab a chair and move it beside her bed. That’s where she’s sitting. “So what’s been going on?” You want to talk to her like everything is normal, has always been.

“Well, as you can see, we’re in my room. That’s a
biiiig
deal. They trust me to be by myself with someone from the”—she drops her voice to a whisper—“outside.”

“And I’m the first to visit you under these new conditions? I’m honored.”

“You should be.”

“Does that mean you’re closer to getting out? Can I
spring you?”

“Nah, it’s good here. I’m staying here forever and forever.” She singsongs the last part, but you don’t think she’s kidding. “Want to join me?”

Not that you haven’t thought about it. You’ve been thinking too much lately. Jasmine has come around, always after his shifts. Always when you’re supposed to be asleep. Even Alex won’t rouse you from your sleep. But he
has
started hinting about you joining him and Julie. You laugh it off, like you think he’s kidding. But he’s getting more insistent. And you don’t understand. He’s not the same Alex. Some days he doesn’t get out of bed. Some nights he wakes up screaming Katie’s name. He walks around like he thinks her ghost will jump out and make him feel again, but can you call someone a ghost if they only died on the inside? And then you get it. He’s trying to get the old Alex back. The pre-Katie Alex. But he’s gone, roaming the grounds with pre-Alex Katie.

“Aaah,” says Katie smiling. “You
have
thought about it.”

You shrug. She gets off the bed and walks to the door, looking in one direction then the other. Satisfied, she closes the door and walks back to you.

“Let me show you what we do here,” she says, reaching under the mattress. She takes out a stack of drawing paper. “They want me to make pretty pictures and sometimes I do, but when no one is looking, I make these.”

She hands them to you. You look at the sketches of mutilated chickens. Some with blood dripping from their feet. Others from their wings. All headless.

“This is you getting better?” And here you thought this place could help you.

She smiles. “No. That was in the beginning. On my bad days, I draw some more. But I still have to keep them hidden because they wouldn’t get it.”

She reaches under the other side of the mattress. “This,” she says, “is what I’ve been drawing this week.”

When you don’t move to get them, she plops them onto your lap. At first you don’t want to look.

“Come on,” she says. “Don’t be a chicken.”

You laugh and look at the pictures. These chickens don’t have heads, but they have feathers. Their feet aren’t bleeding. The last one is whole, wings up in flight, stitches around its neck.

Kyle

H
ow is she?” your mother asks when you get home.

“Getting better,” you say.

“Good,” she says, but her mind is somewhere else.

You look at the clock. She should have been at work thirty minutes ago. You see her stockings on the chair beside her.

“You not going in today?” you say.

“It’s my fault,” she says.

“What is?” There are so many answers to this question.

“Alex. You were little; you may not remember. I had all those men.”

“I wasn’t that little. I remember.”

She puts her face in her hands. “We needed the money. I looked away too many times. They beat him up.”

You don’t remember this. How could you not have known?

“I remember some of them hit
you
,” you say.

She nods. “And him.”

Where were
you
? Why didn’t they hit
you
? Did Alex serve himself up instead?

“And me?” you ask.

She shrugs. “You were my baby. I protected you more.”

You don’t know what to say to this. She didn’t protect you enough.

“I messed up,” she says. “I should have saved you both.”

You blink at her. “You didn’t save me,” you say.

She blinks back, confused. “You mean your father? He was a sick man. I’ve apologized over and over for what happened with him.”

You see how old she’s gotten. How deep the creases near her eyes are. The lines around her mouth. But you need to tell her or you will drown. “No,” you say. “You didn’t save
me
.”

Then you tell her. About the first time with Alex and GDJ. About the others. About the bruises inside you no one can see.

She cries when you finish. Moves to hold you, but moves back unsure. “I’m sorry,” she says again. “I’m so sorry.”

Then she gets up and goes to the phone. “Julie is only fifteen, right?”

You nod.

She dials. A last attempt at saving someone.

Kyle

Y
ou are Katie’s plus-one to the Treatment Center’s Halloween bash. You go as a cowboy. Because you get to wear jeans and it reminds you of Wild West City. The gazebo outside is strung with black and orange lights. There is a band playing “Monster Mash.” They even set up a dimly lit haunted walk. Katie has seen none of it yet.

She’s bouncy when she sees you. Excited, happy. She’s dressed as a cheerleader. It’s symbolic, she says. That she’s owning all of herself. Past and present. She hasn’t gained back all the weight, and the skirt hangs slightly below her hips. Her still-too-thin hair is tied back with a ribbon. But her eyes are alive and fuller than you’ve seen in a long time. You tell her she looks beautiful.

She laughs when you say that. “I told you this place was magic.”

You stop in her room on the way to the party. She shows you more stitched-up chickens.

“You better not let them see these or they’ll think you’re all healed,” you say.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” The loudspeakers request that all residents and guests go to the gazebo.

“Before we go,” she says, reaching into a drawer, “I have something to give you.”

She gives you a stack of pamphlets about the Center. About asking for help.

You—

I.

You—

I.

I.

I.

I put the pamphlets in my satchel and take Katie’s hand. We walk through the double-glass doors. Through the darkness, into the lights.