Thicker Than Water (20 page)

“Can you help others? Can you improve the lives of the people around you?”

I can feel the tears piling like Tetris tiles behind my eyes. I swallow and shake my head.

“I don't know, sir. I'm sorry—I'd like to think I could help others and make people happy. I—I just don't know.”

He narrows his eyes, then jabs a finger at Dr. Schafer's letter.

“Did she recommend you for a fellowship at college?”

I nod. “Yes, sir.”

“Did you plan on attending Edenton University in the fall?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What were you going to major in?”

Were.
Not
are.

“I—chemistry, I think.”

“And who told you that you could do that? Who believed in you?”

My head is starting to spin, then subsequently ache. I know that Jennifer is unsure of what's going on, too, because she
keeps shifting from one foot to another. Neither of us knows what to do here except to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

“My mom,” I finally say. “My mom told me I could do anything. That I could be anything.”

I look at my hands. I look at Jennifer's shoes. I look at Bruce Mason, then past him, out at the rows of benches. There aren't a lot of people who stuck around to hear the verdict. No Jason. No Lucas. No teammates or coaches or next-door neighbors. In fact, the whole back row is empty, save one person.

My father, sitting on the defense side.
My
side.

“I'm ready to hand down my verdict,” the judge said.

I DON'T USUALLY DREAM, BUT LAST NIGHT WAS DIFFERENT. MAYBE
it's because I'm back at BT. Maybe it's because there's more room in my mind for something like imagination. All I know is that, last night, I dreamed that Jennifer and Trina were twin sisters. They couldn't bear to live apart, so one moved across the country to be with the other. Then they moved again to be closer to me.

Now they're both standing in my room. Besides yesterday in court, it's the first time the three of us have been in the same place at the same time.

“We can appeal the sentence,” Jennifer says quietly. “All the charges were dropped, save the distribution charge. An acquittal was the
only
acceptable course of action.”

Trina nods in agreement. They are standing side by side, equally certain of what they believe. Each of them, so sure about me. I smile.

“Thank you, both of you, for everything you've done.”

“I don't understand why you don't want to fight this, CeCe,” Trina says. “You don't deserve another nine months in supervised treatment. You've already served your time here. There are plenty of outpatient programs I can recommend to the judge.”

Trina looks frustrated. I change the subject.

“Since Dr. Schafer had me exempted from my final exams, the school sent me my diploma. Dr. Barnes enrolled me in your psych course in the fall. And I'm taking two more classes, too—Freshman Comp and Bio—but those are online.”

Jennifer shakes her head. “You should be in college.
Real
college. You shouldn't be stuck here.”

“You don't have to be
at
college to be
in
college,” I say firmly.

“You don't get it. This is a sentence—a judgment. You'll have to carry this with you. It isn't fair, CeCe. Not when you're an innocent person.”

I want to laugh at that. I'm many things, but I'm not innocent.

“Besides,” I say, “it's nine months. It could be worse.”

“What about your dad?” Jennifer asks.

I sort of shrug and fold a sweatshirt.

“I don't know.”

“Has he come to see you yet?”

“No.” I look down. “We talked after the sentencing and he said he'd come when he could.”

Jennifer looks at me and shakes her head. “People are still going to think it's your fault that your brother is dead.”

I look out my shoe-box-sized window of reinforced glass. The sky is white and overcast, like someone took a cloud and spread it thin over the world. I close my eyes.

“I know the truth.”

Jennifer shakes her head.

“I've never left someone here who wasn't supposed to be here.”

I want to chuckle about that. “It's about time you felt that way.”

“You ready?”

I look up to see Tucker leaning on the doorjamb of my room. I grin at him and, just like that, we're wearing matching smiles. It feels glorious.

“Yeah—just about.” I close my therapy journal and tuck the pen into the spiral's twisting metal binding. Barnes gave the “all-clear” for me to have writing utensils unsupervised, which feels sort of like a victory and a lot like a gift. I hugged him yesterday when I got back from court, and I think his heart might have stopped for a second, he was so shocked. I was kind of shocked, too, if you want to know the truth.

Trina and Jennifer both hug me now, too, and promise to come back to see me next week. Something tells me they actually will—and something tells me that I can't wait until they do.

Today's group therapy topic is role models. Cam looks a
little smug when Barnes announces it—apparently the theme was her idea. I roll my eyes at Tucker, who just shrugs.

“Role models,” Cam says, her arms spread wide, “are people you admire, people who you feel are examples of what you yourself desire to be. So, today, we're going to talk about how role models have played a part in your life.”

Dr. Barnes smiles at Cam, then looks at the rest of the group. “So, who would like to start today?”

I glance around, then slowly raise my hand. At least half of the eyebrows in the semicircle pop up in surprise.

“Cecelia,” Dr. Barnes says, nodding at me encouragingly. “Please—tell us about a role model in your life.”

I clear my throat, then cross my arms over my chest. It's a defensive move and I know it, but I feel like I need a little bit of armor on if I'm going to open myself up.

“My brother,” I say. My voice is sort of scratchy and I cough to clear it. “My older brother, Cyrus, has always been my role model—ever since we were really little.”

Cam nods, then leans forward to rest her elbows on her knees.

“Can you think of a memory with Cyrus where you were looking up to him? Where you wanted to be just like him?”

I force myself not to snarl at her, not to say “no” and clam up the way my body wants me to. Despite everything that's happened in the last several months, or maybe because of it, I know that keeping quiet isn't going to do anything but hurt me. Keeping quiet—keeping secrets—well, the things
I carried silently ended up making me want to speak more than anything else.

“Cy and I—well, we fought a lot when we were little. I mean, not when we were
really
small, but when we were both in elementary school.”

I smile, thinking of how I'd followed him around like a puppy, wanting to be part of his secret clubs and soccer teams and never understanding why he wouldn't let me.

“But there were a few things we did together with just each other—no friends or parents or teammates. And when it came to Queen's ‘Bohemian Rhapsody,' Cyrus and I were totally on the same page. I don't know what it was about that song. We just loved it. We'd perform it like we were actually out onstage.

“I wanted to be just like my big brother—and he let me copy him. He would lead and he'd let me follow in a way he usually didn't—at least not at that time.”

I drag air into my lungs, wait a few beats, then exhale. Talking has never felt so physical. Or so necessary.

“We had a tradition—we'd always sing the last lyric the exact same way. And it felt . . . good. It felt like we were sharing something important.”

I look down at my lap, then up at the faces around me. Aarti is grinning at me and I smile back at her. Barnes and Cam are both wearing the same expression directed toward me—pride mixed with something else. Something like wonder.

“What was the lyric?” Tucker asks softly.

I blink over at him. He's got both hands cupped on his thighs, palms up as though he's ready to receive something. I can't believe I've managed to find this beautiful boy in a place so full of damaged souls. I can't believe I've been this lucky.

“Any way the wind blows,” I answer softly.

His mouth kicks up on one side.

“That's a great lyric.”

I nod.

“Yeah. It really is.”

As the focus shifts away from me, I try not to watch Tucker—his face, his hands, the parts of his body that inexplicably seem to draw me in. Instead, I watch Aaron as he talks about a recent visit with his mother and sister—about how difficult it was to look them in the eye and say all the words he'd been saying to us for weeks. Words like
I fucked up
and
I'm ashamed
and
I'm sorry
. For the first time in group therapy, I'm feeling less zoned out and more tuned in. For the first time, I'm actually feeling empathy.

When Barnes dismisses us, Tucker and I walk close enough together that our hands brush periodically. It's probably obvious, but the guard behind us doesn't say anything. At the end of the hall, I duck my head into the common room, then motion for Tucker to follow.

“You wanna play checkers?”

He quirks an eyebrow at me. “Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously. I love checkers. My mom and I used to play all the time when I was little.”

Tucker heaves a sort of patronizing sigh, but I know he doesn't really mind. We sit on opposite sides of the small square table by the window and I start setting up the board.

“You don't talk about your mom a lot,” he says. I glance up at him and he's watching my hands as I sort through the red and black plastic pieces.

“What do you want to know?”

He's quiet for a second and I hand him a stack of red discs.

“How did she die?

I exhale. “Cancer. Breast cancer. She'd had it before I was born, but it came back when I was eleven. By then it had metastasized in her liver.”

“That must have been hard.”

I swallow. “Yeah. It was hard. It still is hard.”

We fall silent then and I glance out the window. I try not to close up and bolt from the room. All I want to do is run. All I ever want to do is run. And I can't do that anymore. I don't
want
to do that anymore. I want to let him in.

“Did she look like you?”

I glance back at Tucker then. His eyes, with their chocolaty centers, feel more and more like a gift I couldn't have possibly expected. I think of Mom's smile and her sharpened green gaze. I think of her laugh and the way it was more musical than music. I think of everything I've tried to forget.

“She was beautiful,” I say quietly.

Tucker reaches out to take my hand. “Then she must have looked like you.”

I can't help but smile at that, then sort of shrug.

“She gave me all the best parts of myself.” I glance around the room, then look back at Tucker. I know he sees the tears in my eyes and, for once, I don't care. “And I'm going to spend the rest of my life proving it.”

Tonight, when I'm alone, I sit down on my bed and face the wall. I have three pictures taped there now. One is of my mom holding a newborn me at the hospital. The second is the Polaroid of Tucker. The last one is a snapshot of me and Cyrus. I think he's eight or so, which would make me six or seven. We're both grinning at the camera; I'm missing a few teeth and Cy's got a cut near his right eyebrow. I remember he got it falling out of a tree at our grandparents' house. A branch had barely missed his eye. By the time the picture was taken, though, he'd gotten over it. That's something I'd always admired about my brother, my role model. He could forget being hurt in favor of being happy.

So, I'm attempting to take a page from my brother's book, attempting to be happy as I'm starting to feel things again—things I haven't felt in longer than I can remember. Things like potential for the college classes I'm taking with Trina. Things like kinship with Aarti and the desire to write Natalie a letter—something I probably should have done a long time ago.

And things like romance. Like the need to be in someone else's arms. Tucker told me Barnes pulled him aside while I was at court and gave him a long lecture about romantic fraternization and rule-breaking and code violation. At the end
of it, though, he'd patted his shoulder and said, “Be good to her.” Which I guess is the closest thing Tucker and I are going to get to his blessing.

Now I open up my composition book to the page where I'd left my pen tucked inside. Last night, I wrote a poem—my first one ever. I sort of hope it isn't my last. Science and math always seemed to be my strengths. Now I'm not so sure.

I'm beginning to think there could be a place for me in a world that's less brain and more heart.

CANOE

By Cecelia Price

In this life, I've found

we have to be in pairs for balance—

two oars, two life preservers,

one person on each end.

When we row,

it's for the sake of moving.

When we have to jump,

we take a deep breath,

close our eyes

and count to three.

Drug addictions have tentacles—they twist and turn and wrap around people, making victims of the family members and loved ones on its periphery. If you or someone you know is struggling with the far-reaching effects of addiction, please do not hesitate to contact a local support group or hospital in your area.

You can also visit the following:

Center on Addiction and the Family (COAF)

Toll-free: (888) 286-5027

www.phoenixhouse.org/family/center-on-addiction-and-the-family

Partnership for a Drug-Free America

Toll-free: (855) 378-4373

www.drugfree.org