We'll Never Be Apart (2 page)

Outside the exam room a big guy with a mullet stands guard. He follows us as we walk down a hallway that quickly turns into another. A sterile maze. We pass a sign that says
ADMITTANCE WARD C,
then another that says
PATIENTS ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT
. He swipes a badge over a black box and the doors swing open. I shift my duffel bag uneasily. There's a familiar rush of anxiety as we come to a second set of doors. Once again the guy with the mullet swipes a card over a black box and the doors seem to magically swing open. As soon as I step over the threshold, they swing shut behind me with a soft clink.

The place looks the same as when I left it, like something ate the 1970s and then threw up all the furniture here. We're in the common area, the coed area. There's a box TV with two channels, one with good reception. We used to have a DVD player for movies, but some kid peed on it and it shorted out. There are a couple of couches with pillows that look like they're frowning all the time, some cracked green leather chairs, a few imitation wood tables, and steel mesh on all the windows. I think about the time I visited the zoo as a kid, pressed my face between the steel bars of the polar bear cage, and watched the animals pace. Their padded feet were silent and had worn huge, gaping tracks in the dirt. How many months would it take to make such deep grooves? My toes curl in my laceless shoes. The common area is empty, probably because it's close to dinnertime. The smell of beef stroganoff permeates the air.

“Donny will take your bag to your room,” Nurse Dummel says. I shrug the duffel off my shoulder and hand it over to the tech. He takes it from me, narrowly avoiding skin-to-skin contact.

The nurse keeps walking and I hurry to keep pace with her long strides. The C ward is shaped like a circle with three arms, the common area at its center. Two of the arms are long hallways that stretch into dead ends—they're all patient rooms. One hallway is for boys, the other for girls. The third hallway houses the cafeteria, the recreation room (where you can glue shells onto wooden boards or ride one of three exercise bikes), classrooms, doctors' offices, and group therapy rooms. The nurse leads me down the third hallway toward the doctors' offices. She pauses in front of a plastic chair just outside a door across from the cafeteria.

“Wait here,” she says. She knocks on the door and then enters.

I look at the chair. Its cracked seat looks uninviting and painful. I jam my hands into my hoodie pockets and lean against the wall.

I've just begun to chew the inside of my cheek when there's a buzz, followed by the cafeteria doors swinging open. A steady stream of teens emerges. Their gaits are sluggish and their gazes downcast, like they're afraid to make eye contact. Cellie used to tell me they were like jellyfish. Overmedicated jellyfish. Gelatinous balls whose touch is poison and who always have to move, because if you stop moving, you're dead. Most of them I don't recognize. Which isn't a surprise. Savage Isle is state funded, so patients are encouraged to stay for as little time as possible. Plus, my last stay here with Cellie was short—cut short, I should say. Barely enough time to make friends or, in Cellie's case, enemies. I study the new crop of patients as they exit the cafeteria. A second buzzer sounds and the jellyfish move a little quicker (a change in the tide), off to the common area or rec room for “free” time. The irony is not lost on me.

The last patient out is a boy. A boy with a measured, unhurried walk. A walk that screams the opposite of jellyfish. He wears one of those baseball hats with no logo, just solid black. He's definitely new. I would've remembered him for sure. His head is bowed, so I can't see his face. Two techs follow close behind him.

“Move it along, Chase,” one of them says.

He doesn't turn around. His only acknowledgment is a slight tilt that brings his head up and makes his eyes level with mine. They are blue, the kind of blue that is so light it makes his face look pale. A long scar runs down his left cheek. From a razorblade? A knife? Something sharp that can cut deep. Despite the scar, he's not bad looking. If he weren't so banged up, he would be out-of-this-world hot. If anything, the gash tempers his beauty, makes him seem real and maybe a little dangerous. He wears a thin T-shirt and jeans that ride low. He's noticed me staring at him. His eyes crinkle at the corners. He laughs, low and sexy, takes off his baseball hat, and smoothes a hand over his mussed blond hair.

My cheeks grow hot with embarrassment, and the guilt I feel is almost as immediate as my body's response. For one split second I forget about Jason's cinnamon breath, the curve of his smile, and the touch of his callused fingers. All because of this stranger whose eyes make me feel all lit up inside. I bite the inside of my cheek,
hard.
The boy passes me, leaving behind the scent of clean laundry.

The door beside me opens and the nurse reappears.

“All right, Alice, the doctor will see you now.”

I push off the wall, keeping my eyes on the boy's retreating back. Just as I'm about to enter the office, he stops, glances over his shoulder, and smiles at me. Intimately. Like he's happy to see me. Like I've just made his day. He smiles as if he knows me. And I get an odd sense of déjà vu. (Jason would say it was a glitch in the matrix.) I can't seem to shake the feeling that he actually looks familiar. That I've seen his face before. That I know him, too.

The doctor's office is cluttered. Shelves and file cabinets, bursting with books and stacks of paper, line the walls. It's like I've been sucked into a vortex and I'm standing in Dumbledore's office.
I wish.
I also wish I didn't know this office so well. But I do. Dr. Goodman stands in the middle of the room. He's young, with thin wire-rimmed glasses. I always thought he looked like the kind of guy who doesn't own a TV. He holds a thick file between his pasty hands. My file.

“Hello, Alice,” he says. He waits, as if he expects me to say something. I don't know why he would, based on our past history of awkward, semi-silent therapy sessions. “It's nice to see you again.” He crosses the room and extends a hand for me to shake.

I look down at his open palm and my hands twitch inside the pockets of my hoodie. I like the way the fleece lining feels, soft like a teddy bear. I remove a hand, shake his, and then quickly stuff mine back in my sweatshirt.

“Please, have a seat,” he says, motioning to an armchair. He addresses the nurse, who hovers in the doorway. “I think we can take it from here, Ms. Dummel.”

Nurse Dummel puckers her lips. I wonder if she knows that her face looks like an asshole when she does that. She gives me a long, lingering gaze before nodding her head. “All right, Dr. Goodman. Donny'll be coming back to escort her to her room. He'll be right outside the door if you need him.”

“I'm sure we'll be fine,” Doc says. The nurse gives me one more assessing glance, like I'm a downed power line throwing off sparks, then leaves, shutting the door behind her.

I settle into the chair and Doc sits across from me. A heavy silence stretches between us. Doc crosses his legs, adjusts his tie, clears his throat. He picks up a yellow legal pad and a pen from the table next to his chair. “I'm happy to see you, Alice. It looks as though you're recovering well.” I wait for him to get to the point. Usually our meetings follow an agenda. Sharing feelings. Exposing secrets. Talking about the past.

“Do you know why you're here, Alice? Do you know why you've been returned to the hospital?”

Images surface. Pictures of my great escape with Jason. Spirals of stairs. Murky water. A red barn at night. But the memory is like water slipping through my fist. My voice is quiet as I speak. “There was a fire.”

Doc jots something down. “Tell me about that night, Alice. The night you left the hospital.”

I knot my fingers in my lap and stare down at them, still unable to meet Doc's eyes. After a while, my gaze shifts toward the window. Outside, the sky is overcast and gray. A thick fog rolls in behind the steel mesh and it's hard to see anything beyond the hospital grounds. “How come it's always so foggy here?”

The doc glances out the window. “It's because we're so close to a lake. We're in a convergence zone. Does the fog disturb you?”

Why does he have to answer every question with a question? I shrug a shoulder. “No, it doesn't disturb me. I just think it's weird, you know? If we can't see anything but the fog, how do we know we exist beyond it?”

He chuckles, and for once, his hand doesn't move to scribble on the yellow notepad. “That's very philosophical of you, Alice. Perhaps you should walk through it and see what comes out the other side.”

I know what's on the other side of that fog. It's water, deep gray water that makes your bones shake and your lips turn blue. I know because Jason and I swam across it. He pulled me to shore and covered my shivering body with his.

“Alice, are you listening?”

“I'm sorry. What were you saying?”

“I was asking you to tell me about the fire.” Doc taps the pen against the notepad.

Maybe it's an act of mercy, this lapse in my memory. Maybe my brain doesn't want me to find out what happened. It's rejecting the possibility that my sister, my own blood, could do this to me—to Jason. Too bad I don't need my head to tell me what my heart already knows. “I don't remember,” I say.

Doc shuffles some papers around and brings my file to the top. He opens it. “I have the police report here from that night.” I stare at my left hand, the one without the burn. I study the bitten-down tips of my nails and the worn cuticles. Cellie used to tell me that the white parts underneath the nail were lies. When she thought I wasn't telling the truth, she'd grab my hands, inspect my nail beds, and claim that the white part had spread. Then she'd accuse me of things. Of keeping secrets. Of wanting to hurt her. Of loving Jason more. “Was Celia with you that night?” Doc asks.

“What does your report say?”

He glances at the paperwork. “It says she was.”

I blink and see an image of my twisted twin. The memory comes screaming back. She's standing over Jason and me while the fire blazes around us, the look on her face a cross between pity and revulsion. I feel a million things in that moment. Bad things. Hateful things. All directed at my sister.

Doc uncrosses his legs and leans forward, his nose brushing up against my personal bubble. I press myself back into the armchair. His breath smells like old coffee, bitter and stale. “Do you know why you're here, Alice?”

I shake my head. All I can think of is Cellie. Cellie and Jason. The vision shifts and there's only smoke. I can't see Jason but I can feel him. His hands touch my face and he whispers something to me, but the words don't compute.
“Jason.”

I don't realize I've actually spoken his name out loud until I see the stern expression on Doc's face soften. So far I've managed to hold off on asking Doc about Jason, but now, with this compassionate look he's giving me, I feel my resolve unraveling.

“Alice.” He says my name like it's an apology. “I'm afraid Jason didn't make it.”

Something that feels like a jagged rock lodges in my throat. For a moment there's nothing in the room but my ragged breathing. Jason. Dead. Gone. So final. I reach for the image of him again. I see him smiling that crooked grin of his, as if he had just hijacked the world and was going to take it for a ride. I see us, two people with the moon at our backs, running with our arms opened wide. In love. Foolish. And living on borrowed time. A sob breaks in my throat. Doc reaches for the tissues on his side table and offers the box to me, but I recoil. I swipe at the tears and force myself to breathe evenly. Raw grief still simmers below the surface, but at least I've stayed the panic attack.

Doc settles the tissues back on the side table. “Would you like to talk about Jason?”

I shake my head. How could Cellie do this? I've known for a long time that she wanted me dead—was plotting my death by a thousand tiny cuts. But Jason? She loved him. At least I thought she did.

“I can imagine this is very difficult.” He tries to sympathize, but it comes off as patronizing. “I remember you shared a foster home with Jason a few times.”

Twice. Jason, Cellie, and I shared a foster home twice. A hot tear slips down my cheek but I stay mute. I force my features back into a cool façade, a mask I'm used to wearing and have perfected.

Doc taps his pen against his legal pad. “I'd like for you to be able to talk to me, Alice. I know in the past our conversations have been difficult. I understand if you're not ready.” He closes the file, shuffles his stuff around, and takes out a black leather-bound book. “There's something new I'd like for you try. As part of your therapy, I'd like for you to journal.” He moves to hand me the journal, but when I don't reach to take it, he places it gently in my lap. “I won't read it unless you want me to. But I believe it will help you. I want you to start at the beginning, at your first memory, just write it all out. My hope is that it will bring you clarity and a way to exorcise your emotions. Grief is a powerful thing, and sometimes, if it's ignored, we can become lost in it.”

I resent the “we” in his speech. We are not a “we.” There is
him
and then there is
me
. Nothing connects us. He leans over again and places a ballpoint pen on top of the journal. My fingers touch it involuntarily. We're not allowed to have pens. In the wrong hands they can become weapons.

As if reading my thoughts, Doc says, “Usually you wouldn't be allowed to have a pen. It's a privilege reserved for yellow- or green-banded patients. But I believe it's the appropriate therapy for you. I also believe I can trust you with it. Can I trust you, Alice?”

I give a swift, jerky nod, mentally cataloging these two new items, adding them to my others. It's a foster kid thing. Tallying your possessions, counting and re-counting them like precious jewels.