Thicker Than Water (5 page)

“Dr. Barnes, do you always ask questions you know the answer to?”

“What do you mean?”

I stand up. No one expects it. No one leaves group without being excused. Two guards are next to me before I can take a single step.

“Those people matter because they make the decisions now. The last decision
I
made landed me in handcuffs. I'm not allowed to make decisions on my own behalf anymore, Dr. Barnes. Isn't that the point? Isn't that why I'm here?”

Dr. Barnes doesn't stop me as I head for the door; he just motions for the guards to follow me out. I bite down hard on my lower lip until I taste the coppery blood ooze between my teeth. It's the only thing that prevents me from screaming.

AT DINNER, I'M SITTING ALONE NEXT TO A STAPLE-LESS,
pushpin-free bulletin board in the cafeteria when I see a pair of corduroy-clad legs approach.

“Is someone sitting here?”

I look up. Tucker is peering down at me, one eyebrow raised. I gesture to the bench across from me. He sits and places his tray parallel to mine. I look at what's on it. Smooth scoop of mashed potatoes topped with mucusy-looking gravy. The canned green beans are more brown than green. There's an apple in one corner, a carton of juice in the other.

“Are you a vegetarian?”

He looks surprised. I'm sure he assumed we'd eat together in silence—maybe we'd do that for a few days, a week, before I finally broke down and said something insightful. Whatever. I'm not that determined to continue my isolation. It sort of sucks.

“Why do you think I'm a vegetarian?”

I point to his food. “No meat.”

He looks at my BLT. The bacon—bits, not slices—spills out onto the yellow plastic tray. He shakes his head.

“No, I'm not a vegetarian. I just don't eat stuff that looks like something that used to be meat. Like your Bacos there.”

“Right.” I take a big bite of my sandwich. A dollop of mayonnaise smears against my cheek.

“So, is it an act?” Tucker asks. He takes a bite of his apple.

“Is what an act?”

He makes a flailing gesture, which I think is an attempt to sum me up.

“This . . . this person you're being. All tough and relentless, like you're wearing armor. Is she real?”

I shrug. “As real as anyone is, I guess.”

“Is she the same person you've always been?”

I'm starting to feel a little prickly under his scrutiny. I finger my wrist, remembering how I used to wear bracelets to fiddle with when I was nervous. I wonder if they're still in my jewelry box at home. If I still
have
a jewelry box. Or a home.

“Are
you
the same person
you've
always been?” I finally counter.

It's his turn to shrug. “I've always been a fuckup, if that's what you're asking.”

Tucker stares at me, then his eyes soften a little.

“So, why are you in here?” he asks.

“Did you not get the message in group? I don't want to talk about that stuff.”

“Look.” Tucker props an elbow on the table and rests his chin in his hand. “I think it's total crap that you know stuff about me and my life and I don't know anything about you and yours.”

“I never
asked
to know about your life. You
chose
to share it.”

“True, but when you agree to go to treatment, you agree to all the shit that goes along with it. That means hearing sob stories from people you don't care about. It also means you have to tell them yours. It's like an eye for an eye or something.”

“Uh, I wouldn't call my being locked up here ‘agreeing to go to treatment.'”

“Whatever. All I'm saying is that people are sharing their stories with you because they want to get better. I have a feeling that getting your life back—the life you
had—
might rely on you trying to get better. Right now, you aren't trying to do shit.”

The last thing I want is to get my life back.

“I think you need to be less concerned about me and my progress and more concerned about your own,” I mutter.

Tucker takes another bite of his apple, chews, and swallows.

“You know that whole thing Barnes was talking about—about support systems?”

“Yeah, what about them?”

“I don't know. I just think that if you actually talked to the group, then you won't feel so alone.”

“I'm not alone.” I say it too fast and Tucker almost smirks.

“Yeah, you are. You're just afraid to admit it.”

He stands up and looks me over.

“If you ever want to talk, let me know.”

It's been a long time since I've been able to talk to someone who isn't being compensated for working with me. Having a person to confide in, to trust, is a desirable prospect. Then again, it could also be a huge mistake—one I wouldn't realize I've made until it's far too late.

“No,” I say, forcing myself to glare at him. “My life is none of your business.”

Besides, if I let him in now, I know I'll never be able to get rid of him. His empathy will set up shop somewhere inside me, like in my chest cavity—in the space where my heart used to be.

“Let's try something else.”

Trina's leaning against the wall, looking up at the ceiling. Now, when I squint at her, she looks more like a kid than an adult.

“What does ‘something else' entail?”

She comes back over to the table and reaches into her bag. Out comes her trusty notebook and pencil.

“If visualization isn't your preference, then how about we do some journaling.”

“Journaling?” I raise an eyebrow. She nods.

“Therapeutic journaling. I teach a psychology course here and last week we did this great activity. I thought you might want to give it a shot.”

“You teach psychology
here
?”

“For the DOJ Education program. The classes are free, but you have to have a pristine record to sign up. I've actually had a few people earn their associate's degrees while they were incarcerated.”

For a second, I consider the ways being locked up is like being in college:

           
1. You have a roommate.

           
2. You share a bathroom.

           
3. There's no privacy.

           
4. You're away from your parents and family.

And then, of course, there are the ways this place is NOTHING like college:

           
1. You're under twenty-four-hour surveillance.

           
2. Your roommate is a criminal and probably wants to hurt you.

           
3. You don't gain the freshman fifteen; you lose it.

           
4. Two words—
Strip
.
Search
.

I could go on.

“Journaling is a great way to get down your thoughts, anything that's bothering you,” Trina is saying. “My students really like it.”

“Of course they do. They're bored out of their minds. They need something to fill up the time.”

Trina rolls her eyes. “Stop being so surly. Just give it a shot.”

I reach for the notebook and open it to the first page. I narrow my eyes until the blue lines blur—then I start to write.

Once upon a time, there was a girl. She had a family that was like a glass slipper on a stepsister—it was just the wrong fit.

I stop writing and push the notebook back across the table. Trina shakes her head.

“No way.”

“What?”

She gestures to the page. “That's not enough. You can do better than that.”

“No, I can't.”

“I see. So are you telling me you want to try visualization again?”

I scowl. “Tell me again how this is supposed to be helping me.”

“Just write, CeCe.”

So I do.

The girl tried to forge her own path through the forest. Hansel and Gretel stopped at the candy house, but the girl wasn't much for sweets. Little Red Riding Hood was helpful at first, but she became too worried about her grandmother to run from the danger.

I hand it back to Trina. She peers at my chicken scratch through her glasses. I brace for the inevitable irritation—the I'm-not-taking-this-seriously talk.

“This is good, CeCe. Really good.”

“Yeah, right,” I scoff, crossing my arms over my chest.

“Have you ever written before? Creatively, I mean?”

“I'm not the writing type,” I say, shrugging. “I mean, I never kept a diary or anything. I was more of a science nerd.”

Trina pulls up the waist of her jeans. All her clothes are baggy; they swallow her like she's something delicious.

“Would you be willing to try the writing thing more consistently? Use the journal as a regular intervention?”

I shake my head.

“I don't have to be here every time you write in it,” she urges. “It can be something you do on your own when the mood strikes you.”

“I'm not trying to be difficult,” I say, tugging at one earlobe. “I just don't need this therapy. Not to mention the fact that they won't let me keep a pen in my room. Far too many self-harming possibilities.”

“I can fix that for you—anytime you request it, a pen can be provided for journaling therapy purposes.”

I shrug. “I don't know.”

Trina drops her chin into her hand and looks me in the eye.

“Don't you want to get out of here, CeCe?”

I huff out a breath. “I want a lot of things.”

“Well, whatever those things are, none of them are going
to happen here. You have a chance at getting a lesser sentence if you can prove you're being rehabilitated. If you can prove you're getting help.”

She turns the notebook back around to face me. From here, my words look like dark train tracks winding over the page.

“A written journal expressing your feelings would be evidence of improvement for Jennifer to present to the court.”

Everyone around me has a strategy. A strategy to make me talk, a strategy to fix me, a strategy to win this case. I think I'm the only one with nothing invested in my own potential future.

“So, what do you think?” Trina asks me, cocking her head.

I used to know how to sugarcoat things. How to let people down easy. It's not a skill I've managed to sustain since I came here. Instead, I pick up the pencil again and scribble my response.

When the girl finally got home, the wolf was waiting. That's the thing about fairy tales—they're rooted in magic and dreams. And, like fairy tales, magic and dreams don't exist.

I push it over to Trina, who scans it quickly. Then she shakes her head.

“Cecelia—this is a place where you can be honest. You know that, right?”

I want to snort or laugh. Instead I just shrug. “Like I said, I'm not a good writer.”

Trina raises her eyebrows. “I beg to differ—but, regardless, this isn't about talent. It's about expression. Getting things out that are bottled inside you. Giving yourself a release.”

I don't know if I deserve that. Most days, the thick, oozing regret and horror that travel my veins like rotting blood—well, most days,
that
is what I think I deserve.

“Come on—if you start writing in the journal, I won't have to ask you as many questions out loud.”

I lift a brow at her, then grip the pencil a little harder.

“You promise?”

She holds up her hand in an oath-like motion. “Absolutely.”

I had hated everything about talking, so forcing myself to write in a spiral-bound notebook every now and then didn't feel like that bad of a trade-off. I look down at the notebook, then up at Trina.

“What should I write about?”

She thinks about that for a second. “How about you start with a memory of you and your brother?”

Since she doesn't smile when she says it, I guess that means she isn't kidding.

“I don't know if I can do that,” I admit. The honesty rolls off my tongue like a kind of bitter honey.

Trina does smile then, but says only one word.

“Try.”

June 14

Cyrus was always good at sports, but I was good at playing pretend. I could create entire worlds in my head—people and places and things and ideas. Living, breathing nouns. Before he got too old to imagine, Cyrus would visit the worlds I built in my bedroom. We'd pretend my frayed rug was a raft, floating over my wood floor ocean. We'd build forts with anything—chairs, pillows, stuffed animals—and live within those walls, even when those walls had Care Bear faces. Back then, it didn't matter who was watching.

Soccer was Cyrus's calling, but it was the cancer before Mom's cancer—it ate away at our family like it would never be satisfied. My parents were more than happy to feed it, and that's when things started to change. I'd invite Cyrus to tea parties that he never attended. I'd ask him to join me on journeys I believed so strongly in, journeys he was quick to discount as “fake”
and “for babies.” I was Cyrus's sister most of the time, but I was his baby sister when he wanted to keep me at arm's length.

Cy spent more and more time in the backyard and on the field, backed by my parents' encouragement. I spent more and more time in my room, and my raft became even more real. Out on my own ocean, I was adrift and Cy was the shore. He was where I should want to be, but I kept paddling out into the deep blue strangeness. It felt more like home than anything I already knew.

C.P.

JANE GOT HOME FROM WORK LATER THAN USUAL. SHE WORKED AS
a clerk for a lawyer in town.
The
lawyer in town. It was the one-of-everything kind of town—one stoplight, one diner, one Elks lodge, one Kroger supermarket. If you blinked, you wouldn't miss it, but you'd wish you had.

“My feet are killing me.”

Jane always complained about her feet. When we were moving into the farmhouse, she didn't carry anything because she couldn't put too much weight on her arches. She was constantly bitching about that place—the floorboards hurt her bunions, the land was too rocky to walk on. But when Dad first decided to buy the farm and start his organic seed business, Jane was his biggest supporter. Cyrus and I thought he was nuts. That was back in the good old days—Cyrus was the jock, I was the brain, and Dad was a somewhat normal parent.

“What about your job?” I'd asked.

Dad shrugged. “I'll quit.”

“What about money?” Cyrus had asked.

“I've got some saved up. Jane's got a little, too. We'll sell the house, get a small business loan. There are all kinds of programs for green businesses.”

That was the appeal at first—“going green.” Dad had a tendency to succumb to trends, just like a thirteen-year-old girl would.

But a year later, Jane had buyer's remorse.

She slammed the kitchen cabinet doors as she cooked dinner and grumbled, “I'm so sick of being the only person bringing in any money around here.”

She rooted around until she found the jumbo bottle of Cajun seasoning I'd stuffed behind the cereal boxes. That meant spicy, smoky air that wouldn't clear with the exhaust fan, air that made you cough like you were inhaling your first cigarette. In this house, we didn't eat comfort food—only food that somehow hurt us.

I started shoveling my shells and cheese into my mouth so that I could get out of the kitchen. Dad was sitting at one end of the table, poring over seed statements. He had a complicated chart system modeled after some successful agriculture company. I couldn't understand it and I don't think he really could, either.

“How's the seed business, Dad?”

He looked up, sniffed. “Okay. We're getting in big orders for heirloom tomato seeds.”

I nodded. Dad didn't have much help during the last seed harvest. I had Academic Team and Mock Trial. Cyrus had nothing but time, but he spent his in an Oxy-coma. Tomatoes were big business, all things being relative. They were the Google of the organic seed world.

Jane slammed a drawer and Dad and I jumped.

“I don't give two shits about tomatoes if they don't pay the damn mortgage,” she muttered. I scooted out of my chair and gave my dad a look. He forced a smile and rolled his eyes to heaven. I wondered if he could see Mom when he looked up there.

“'Night, guys,” I said, putting my bowl in the sink. I moved into the shadows of the hallway and stopped at the stairwell, waiting for the explosion. It took only a few seconds to detonate—Dad was the one to set it off.

“Dammit, Janey, you know I'm doing the best I can!”

“No.” Her tone was scathing, a blade of fury. “Your
best
would be selling off this land and getting a real fucking job.”

“What happened to our dream? Living off the land? Growing a life that matters?” He lowered his voice. “Having a baby?”

That one was a punch in the gut. It was the first time I'd ever heard them talking about having kids. A kid that belonged to both of them. But Jane just laughed.

“Are you kidding? We can't pay our bills as it is, Craig! How in the hell would we pay for diapers?”

“We could use those cloth ones . . .”

“Look.” Jane sounded tired. “We're not having a baby
until we can break even. Right now we're in so deep, we're lucky they haven't taken the farm already.”

“I know. I'm working on it.”

She didn't respond to that, but her silence said enough. A moment later, Cyrus started pounding up the basement stairs—I could feel each stomp through the floorboards. When he got to the landing, he brushed past me like a man with an agenda.

“Hey there, Cy-Guy,” I heard my dad say brightly. “How're you feeling?”

“Not so good, actually. I was wondering . . .”

All three of us knew what was coming next. I peeked around the corner, my lip curled in disgust.

“. . . could you lend me a few bucks? Lennon's girlfriend, Maddie, is taking a massage therapy class at the Learning Annex. She said she'd work on my knee if I wanted, but she's still gonna charge me for it.”

“That sounds like a great idea, son,” Dad said. “How much do you need?”

I inched forward in time to see Cyrus shrug.

“I dunno. Sixty bucks or so.”

Dad reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. He counted out some cash.

“Will forty-eight do it?” Dad asked. Cy looked disappointed, but reached for the money anyway.

“Yeah, I guess it'll have to.”

As Cyrus headed for the back door, I watched his left hand; it was gripping the money like it was a dirty napkin
or some kind of garbage. There went my chemistry lab fee. There went my brother. I shook my head. Nothing seemed to leave that house quicker than family or cash.

The only reason I ever went into the basement was because the washer and dryer were at the foot of the stairs. I never made it past the utility sink; I wasn't interested in seeing what my brother had turned it into. But, for once, I felt differently. I needed a blatantly obvious reminder of exactly what my lab fee was funding.

It was hours later, just after midnight, when I stepped down onto the old shag carpet, which was almost crunchy with dry rot. Our basement had the same cool dampness of everyone else's, plus the tinge of Cyrus Smoke and some sort of decay.

The space was technically unfinished, but Dad put up enough drywall to make a bedroom. Once Cyrus hurt his knee—well, once he'd seen Dr. Frank—he asked Dad to set him up down there so he wouldn't have to deal with stairs. When I said that that made no sense and asked what the difference was between going down a flight or up a flight, Cyrus called me a bitch and my dad called me insensitive. So I shut up and tried to ignore the three weeks of hammering and sawing and Dad's horrible country music wafting from below my bedroom floor.

Cyrus had a door with a gold handle. It was weirdly shiny and new in a house filled with rusty everything. I knocked softly.

Nothing.

I tried again. I leaned my ear against the door. Cyrus could've been home, but I doubted it. It was way too early. For a second, though, I thought I could hear him, pressed up against the other side, breathing hard. Then I realized it was my pressing, my breathing.

“Cy?”

No answer.

I tried the knob. It was locked.

I walked over to Dad's tool chest and dug out a putty knife from the bottom drawer, then lodged it between the lock and the jamb like a credit card.

The door slid open without a sound. No click. No alarm. No scream of indignation. Nothing but my involuntary gagging when the smell hit me full on.

Ever seen an episode of
Hoarders
?

Welcome to Cyrus's room.

I avoided breathing in through my nose. Cyrus wasn't there, but everything else was. And most of it was trash.

I picked my way over the floor, or what would've been the floor if it hadn't been covered with clothes and junk. There was a desk in one corner blanketed in magazines and fast-food wrappers. An old PC monitor sat on the floor next to it. The flat screen Dad got Cy for his birthday was leaning against one wall, plugged into a power strip. A can of soda was tipped on its side, a pool of syrupy liquid inching dangerously close to an extension cord.

It looked like a meth lab waiting to happen. All you
needed were some decongestants and a hot plate. I couldn't believe my dad let him get away with that shit. A wave of fury crashed up against my rib cage. I got reamed out if I didn't do the dishes, while my fuckup brother could house a miniature landfill beneath our feet and Dad didn't say a single word.

I took a few tentative steps, then spotted the unmistakable translucent orange of a prescription bottle on the floor. I leaned over and moved aside a ratty pillow. There were dozens of bottles. Maybe a hundred—all empty. He'd stripped the labels off, the ones that had his name and address, but some of them still boasted warning stickers:

            
Take with Food.

            
Do Not Operate Heavy Machinery While Taking This Medication.

            
Do Not Chew or Crush. Swallow Whole.

Then, right next to that, was his kit. One of them, anyway.

The glass from a picture frame. A razor blade. Straws—some from fountain sodas, some made out of what looked like pages ripped from magazines. A roll of foil. A rainbow of lighters. And an almost-full bottle of pills.

They were little and round. They looked harmless, like breath mints. Like baby aspirin. I pressed down hard on the cap. Carefully, I shook four tablets into my hand. I peered at them, transfixed. How could something so small cause so much damage?

Two thoughts entered my mind concurrently.

Take them with you. You can flush them.

Take them with you. You can sell them.

It's true that the things in my life that were the most essential seemed to be the most expensive. I still owed money to Dr. Schafer. I always needed to pay for gas. Sometimes I was stuck buying groceries. Or picking up Cy's prescription.

This could be like a refund. Like a reimbursement.

Jason's face was suddenly in my mind—his leering gaze, oily words asking about my brother—as I grabbed one of the empty bottles and let four pills slide inside. When I made it back to the door, I considered covering my tracks. But looking back over my shoulder, I was sure Cyrus wouldn't know the difference. The trash was the only thing that knew I'd been there and, as it crunched underfoot, it whispered,
Don't worry. It'll be our little secret.

It wasn't in a ditch or a Dumpster where I found Jason the next morning. It was behind the tennis courts at school. And he wasn't alone.

When I got closer, he and his buddies gave me a slow once-over. One of them murmured “nice rack” under his breath. I crossed my arms over my chest and jutted out my chin.

“What's going on, Goth Girl?” Jason asked.

“I want to make a deal with you.”

I felt awkward. I didn't know the lingo. I didn't even know what to charge. For the millionth time, I found myself faltering, thinking once again that this was a really bad idea.

“What kind of deal?”

I was about five feet away from the chain-link fence that bordered the court and, suddenly, I felt desperate to cling to it. Jason was wearing a shirt that said
Charles Manson had it right
. The guy next to him was covered in skulls—his jacket, his ring, the plugs filling the stretched holes in his earlobes. A couple of other guys were moving a little closer, having heard the interest in Jason's voice. I swallowed hard.

“I got what you asked me about.”

“The Oxys?” He sounded surprised.

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“Nice.” He elbowed Skulls and grinned at the others. “I knew Cyrus would come through.”

“Actually,” I began, feeling indignant. Then I stopped. Better for them to think Cyrus was behind it. That I was just a middleman, not a source.

“So how many you got?” Jason was asking.

“Four.”

“Cool. How much does Cyrus want?”

Crap. I had no idea about market values or any of that stuff. I should have done my homework. I was usually so good with research projects—just last week, I'd nabbed another A for my Organic Chem lab report.

“Um . . . the standard, I guess,” I finally say. “What you usually pay.”

Jason opened his wallet and counted out a few bills. He looked up at me, squinting.

“Two hundred, right?”

“Sure.” I said. I fingered the bottle in my jacket pocket. The edge of the cap felt unexpectedly sharp.

“Great.”

Jason wasn't slick. I saw him give a self-satisfied look at his buddies. I narrowed my eyes and did the math in my head.

“No, sorry—it's two hundred and forty for four. One dollar a milligram.” I have no idea why I said this. I must have heard that somewhere before. It sounded right, anyway.

“What?” Jason sputtered a little, then flipped back through his wallet. “Fuck, man, all I've got is two hundred and ten.”

“That's fine.” I smiled, snatching the bills from his hand. “I'll tell Cy I cut you a break this time.”

Reluctantly, Jason nodded. “Okay, good deal.”

I reached into my pocket again and pulled out the bottle. Jason stared at it.

“What the hell is that?”

“What do you think it is?”

“I don't want that!”

He dumped the pills in his palm and threw the bottle back at me, glaring.

“What the fuck? You trying to get me arrested or something?”

I watched the bottle roll into the grass. The cap was nowhere in sight. A flush of humiliation rose up my neck.

“Whatever, come on.” Jason grunted to his friends and they started to move back toward the gym doors. I checked my watch. I'd have to come up with a good excuse for being so late for English.

“Wait.” Jason stepped back toward me and handed me a slip of paper. “That's my number. You tell Cyrus—whenever he's holding, I'm buying.”

It wasn't until I turned to leave that I noticed Lucas. Like the other day in the library, he sort of hung back, like he was appraising the situation. He smiled at me as he followed the guys. In the breeze, his blond hair swirled above his head like soft-serve ice cream. For a second, I wanted to lick it.