I closed my eyes, trying not to sound as infuriated as I was. This was Jude’s fault, but they were the ones who had to pay. “I know,” I said evenly. “I’m sorry.” The apology tasted foul, and I felt the urge to spit.
“I just keep—What if the police found you an hour later?” Daniel rubbed his forehead. “I keep thinking about it.” His voice shook, and he finally broke off the tab on the soda can. He dropped it inside and it landed with a clink.
His words made me wonder. “Who called them?” I asked. “Who called the police?”
“The caller never left a name.”
There’s this look people give you when they think you’re insane. On the ferry to the Horizons Residential Treatment Center on No Name Island the following morning, I got it.
The wind snapped at my skin and tumbled my hair in front of my face. I smoothed it back with both hands, exposing the twin bandages on my wrists. That’s when the captain, who had been chatting with my father about the ecology of the Keys, realized he was taking us to the glorified mental hospital, not the resort that shared the island. A slow wariness crept into his expression, mingling with fear and pity. It was a look I was going to have to get used to; the doctors told me that my wrists would scar.
“We don’t have too far to go,” the captain said. He pointed at some indistinguishable clump of land in the open ocean, and I felt obscenely small. “No Name Island right there, to the east. See it?”
I did. It looked . . . desolate. I recalled Stella’s words.
Lakewood is . . . intense. It’s in the middle of nowhere, like Horizons—practically all RTCs are.
“Do you like astronomy?” the captain asked me.
I hadn’t really thought about it.
“Look up at night, at the stars. The island is off the power grid, though the electric company is lobbying hard to change that. Most of the No Name residents don’t want it, though.”
I couldn’t imagine not wanting electricity. I couldn’t imagine not having it. I said as much. He just shrugged.
I must have looked panicked, because my mother reached over and smoothed her hand over my back. “Horizons is powered by solar energy and generators. There’s plenty of electricity, don’t worry.”
As we approached the island, a small dock appeared before us, with just a few boat slips and a sign:
LAST FERRY DEPARTS SIX PM, NO DEPARTURES IN INCLEMENT WEATHER
The captain looked up at the iron sky and squinted. “Might be changing things up today,” he said. “Those clouds aren’t friendly.”
“That’s what the cabin’s for,” my mother said to him, nodding in the direction of the covered part of the boat. She didn’t like being told she’d have to leave me before she was ready. She looked at me, and I could tell how much it hurt her to leave me at all.
The captain shook his head. “It’s not the rain, it’s the waves. They get choppy in the storms. Best be getting on, otherwise you’ll be spending the night.”
“Thank you,” my father said to the captain. “We’ll be back soon.” We disembarked, my parents quietly toting the luggage I didn’t even get to pack myself as we left the ferry.
I didn’t get to see Noah before we left, either. It would be twelve weeks before I saw him again.
The thought turned my stomach. I pushed it away.
It was then that I noticed a golf cart idling near the dock. The Horizons admissions counselor, Sam Robins, nodded condescendingly at me. “Well, Mara, I wish I were seeing you again under different circumstances.”
Under no circumstances.
“Come on,” he said to my parents. “Hop in.”
We did. The golf cart whizzed around a paved path surrounded by tall reeds and grass. We stopped in front of a cluster of whitewashed buildings with bright orange Spanish roof tiles. There was lovely, wild landscaping in the courtyard, evoking my mom’s issues of Cottage Living. Purple hibiscus and white lilies edged a small pond filled with goldfish that drifted lazily near the surface. There were neat hedgerows lined with some kind of pink wildflowers and yellow daisies everywhere. It felt inappropriately cheerful and I hated it.
The four of us walked into the pristine building—the main one, I guessed, since it was in the front. The walls were white stucco and the floor was white tile. Pedestals with a statue or figurine on top dotted the occasional corner, and terra cotta pots filled with manicured topiaries flanked the doorways. But other than that, the space and decor echoed Horizon’s outpatient counterpart almost exactly.
“Hermencia will check your suitcases and your clothes, Mara. And lucky you, it’s the retreat weekend, so all of your friends are here.”
The retreat. I ended up on it after all.
At least Jamie would be here to launch me into my mandatory sentence before he got to go home. That was something.
My parents went off to sign paperwork and I was ushered into a room by a woman who wore a neutral expression beneath a thick, short mop of dark hair.
The woman nodded curtly. “I need to check for anything dangerous.”
“Okay.”
“Are you wearing any jewelry?”
I shook my head.
“I need you to take off your clothes.”
I blinked stupidly.
“Okay?” she asked me.
I just stood there.
“I need you to take off your clothes,” she repeated.
My chin trembled. “Okay.”
She stared at me, waiting. I unzipped my hoodie and shrugged it off of my shoulders. I handed it to her. She put her arms through it and placed it on a table. I looked down at the floor and lifted my tank over my head. It landed softly on the tile.
I stood there, breathing hard in just my bra and my jeans. My spine was bent and my arms had unconsciously wandered over my chest.
“Your pants, too,” the woman said.
I nodded but didn’t move for one minute. Two.
“Do you need help?” she asked.
“What?”
“Do you need me to help you?”
I shook my head. I pressed the heels of my palms into my eyes and inhaled. Just clothes. They were just clothes.
I unzipped my jeans and they fell around my ankles. I stood still, exposed to the air as the room began to slowly spin. She inspected my clothes with her hands and my body with her eyes and asked if I had any piercings she couldn’t see. I didn’t. Finally, she placed my clothes back into my hands. I clutched them against me and then almost tripped as I rushed to put them back on.
When we were done, my parents had signed the paperwork and then I had to sign more paperwork, acknowledging the rules and regulations that hemmed me into my new life. Three months with no outside contact. Phone calls to family were allowed, but only after thirty days. I signed, and felt like I was bleeding on the page.
Then it was time to say good-bye. My mother squeezed me so tightly. “It’s temporary,” she said, trying to reassure me. Or reassure herself.
“I know,” I whispered as she pulled me even closer. I wanted to hold on to her and push her away.
She smoothed my hair down my back. “I love you.”
My throat burned with the tears I wanted to cry but wouldn’t. I knew she loved me. She just didn’t believe me. I understood why, but it hurt like hell just the same.
56
