Her words vibrate through my chest, bang around in there. I hear the tears in her voice. They’re like a cold I don’t want, becoming contagious, until my eyes want to fill too. Quickly, I rub them, and that easily, the feeling is gone. It shouldn’t be like that. Most people would feel things more than I do. Most people would cry. Maybe talk about stuff, but I can’t do that.
“I’m trying here. I really am.” She touches my shoulders from behind. “I’m scared.”
My heart drops, swimming around in my stomach, becoming a ball that’s kicked around in there, getting beaten up. She’s my mom. Nothing is supposed to scare her. I’m definitely not supposed to scare her. “I would never hurt you or Holly.”
I wouldn’t. I know I wouldn’t. She has to know I wouldn’t, doesn’t she?
Glass shattering fills my brain. The trophy case hitting the floor. My fist connecting with flesh.
Would I hurt them? No. I shake my head. That was different. I didn’t mean what happened. It had nothing to do with Mom or Holly.
“No. Absolutely not. I don’t doubt that for a second, okay? I’m scared for you. That’s all. I know how hard this is. None of us know how to deal with it. We’re all doing our best, and that’s what this is. I’m trying to do my best for you. Holly and I, we want our Hunter back.”
My legs almost buckle. As much as I hate it, I can’t stop myself from turning around. From pulling her into a hug. I don’t know how to break it to her, to tell her that I’m lost. That I don’t think I’ll ever be the same Hunter again. So instead I just hug her, and let her think there’s a chance.
CHAPTER THREE
MRS. SPENCER waits outside of the room while we say good-bye. When she returns, she hands me a copy of the daily schedule, which I toss onto the bed. I don’t want anything to do with it. She seems okay with my behavior for now because she leaves, telling me I’m welcome to talk to her if I have any questions.
I stand by the window as my mom leaves me. I can’t believe her. What kind of parent would do that? After everything we’ve been through, we should be together. Who’s going to take care of her and Holly while I’m gone?
There’s no reason for me to keep standing here. The window faces the wrong direction for me to be able to see her, but I still don’t move. I’m frozen to this spot. Maybe I can stand here the whole six weeks they’re keeping me locked up.
More people are walking around now. There’s a group by the basketball courts, one sitting in the middle of the field, and another by the garden. The stables are on the other side, so I can’t see them from here, but I wonder if there are groups there too. It’s almost like school, people hanging out with their friends and not caring about anyone else.
Only I won’t have friends here.
Don’t want them.
It takes a second before I realize I’m rocking left, right, then left again. It’s hard for me to stay still sometimes. That was never a problem before, and I don’t understand why it is now. Just like with my leg earlier, I try to make myself stay still, but it’s like all this energy is going off inside me. It’s sending shock waves throughout my body, and I just need to move.
The sparks don’t stop, getting strong enough that I feel like I’m going to burst out of my own skin if I don’t move around.
I reach for my bags before I remember that I don’t have them yet. They’ll bring them to me after they go through them, which is really screwed up if you ask me. There’s no reason they should be able to go through my crap. Mom didn’t do anything about that one either.
Bed. I sit down on it, back against the old headboard, my thumbs drumming on my thighs.
It’s quiet in here. Too quiet. It’s never that way at home. Holly runs around like she’s on crack half the time. She’s always been like that, happy, energetic… maybe that’s why I didn’t see. Why I didn’t know.
Mom’s obsessed with music. She always has it playing in the background—makes it so she’s not lonely, she says. You can’t be lonely with music; and suddenly I wish I had some of my own to play, something loud and hard to drown out the quiet. All this aloneness is about to drive me insane. Maybe that’s how they keep people here. Drive them nuts so they actually belong in this place.
There’s a sharp knock on the door, making my heart jump, and then it just pushes open.
“Hunter? I’m Bill. I have your bags for you,” some old dude with a big stomach says from the doorway. “Here you go.” He holds up two bags that aren’t the bags I brought my stuff in.
My pulse automatically starts running a marathon. “I don’t even get my own bags? What am I going to do with them that I can’t do with yours?” My body feels twitchy.
“I don’t make the rules. I just follow them. Life’s like that.” Bill winks at me and I groan. Life lessons already?
“That was a good one. I’m cured now.” I shove off the bed and grab my things, my nerves getting more and more agitated when Bill starts to laugh.
“You’re going to be a lively one. You play ball?” he asks, and I see the baseball hat in my bag. The hat I didn’t put in there. Subtle, Mom.
“No comment.” Swinging my arms, I let my bags plop to the bed before I sit on it again. All my stuff had better be here. I’m going to freak if it isn’t.
“They administer your medicine, so it’s gone. Otherwise, I think you did pretty well with the packing,” he says as though he read my mind. The meds are new for me. Antidepressants. They don’t seem to get that I’m not depressed. I’m pissed off, and that’s not going to go away.
“It’s late. You won’t have therapy today, but you’re on schedule tomorrow. Dinner is at five.” Without another word, Bill walks out, and I wish I could throw something at the closed door. Somehow, I find a way to keep myself in check.
MY DOOR opens again at five, and I’m still sitting on the bed. This time it’s Mrs. Spencer, holding a tray of food.
“I had a feeling I’d find you here. You should have come out and met some people. You never know. You might meet someone you get along well with.”
“I don’t think so.” The more she pushes me on it, the more I’m going to fight her. You’d think that would be obvious.
“That’s the attitude we expect from you, and today, we’ll accept it. Starting tomorrow, you’ll be involved more. You won’t be able to stay in your room all day, Hunter. I brought you dinner.” She holds up the tray.
“Not hungry.” Mom used to tease me that I’d eat her out of house and home. Then I’d always reply about being a growing boy, and we’d all laugh like it was this super funny, creative joke. I’m rarely hungry anymore, and when I am, the thought of food sometimes makes me sick. There hasn’t been a ton of weight loss, but some. What really gets me is my muscle mass. My arms are scrawny. I’ve never been scrawny before.
Mrs. Spencer gives me that smile I hate and then walks over, setting the tray down. “Come on, let’s not do this. I get it. I know you’re angry and you have to play the part, but that’s just going to make this harder on you. No matter how much you don’t want to believe it, you’re here because your mom loves you, and we want to see you succeed. You can call her tomorrow. Phone calls are monitored and restricted to certain times, but at Better Days we believe building and keeping strong family relationships is beneficial.”
Who does this lady think she is? A twitch starts going off inside me, a spark, as I shove the tray with my foot. She doesn’t move when it hits the floor. There’s a part of me who knows that was wrong, that kicking trays of food off a bed isn’t something I do, but the urge is stronger. The anger that grips me so hard sometimes, I don’t think I’ll ever break free. It’s a fire that’s always there, the flames going from stifled to raging in seconds. “Don’t try to tell me how my mom feels. You don’t know her. I do.” I know she loves me. No matter how pissed I am at her, I know she thinks she’s doing the right thing. But she’s wrong. Mom’s always been ruled by her heart. Her heart’s more like her brain, her engine, every important
part of her. That’s what made her send me here, trying to think with her heart.
Mrs. Spencer sighs. “That’s not what I meant, and I think you know that. We’re pretty easygoing here. We like to have a good time, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t work to do as well. You have to work with us, and you have to respect us, the same way we’ll respect you. Please clean up the mess, and I’ll get you another plate.”
She crosses her arms and stands there, probably worried I’ll off myself with the spoon somehow. I’m rocking again, words slamming around inside my head. I want to tell her to fuck off. I want to tell her to go to hell. I want to curl up and go to sleep, to stay in bed for a week, a month. I want her to get out of my room… but I know the only way to make that happen is to do what she wants.
“Whatever.” Kneeling down, I use the spoon to pick up the runny mashed potatoes and chicken before scooping up the corn, making a pile on the tray. “Happy now?”
Our hands accidentally touch when she takes the tray from me. “It’ll be okay, Hunter. I promise. It’s not your fault.”
I drop my head, keep my gaze toward the floor. She doesn’t know. Holly looks up to me. She always thought I would protect her. Mrs. Spencer doesn’t know what it’s like to let someone down.
CHAPTER FOUR
MY DOOR opens slowly at close to eight. It’s obviously not Mrs. Spencer or Bill since they knock first… though, what’s the point of knocking if they don’t wait until I say come in?
A guy about my age comes in—he’s black, with a small afro, and really long legs. He’s gangly, dark-framed glasses on his face, his hands twisting together like he’s nervous. “H-hi,” he mumbles so softly I can hardly hear him.
“What’s up?” I ask. Maybe he’s the quiet sort. Cool. Because chatting the night away and playing a game of getting-to-know-you is the last thing on my mind right now.
His hands don’t stop moving. It’s stressing me out a little. What’s he doing with those things? That better not be what I look like when my leg gets going or I do that rocking thing. He makes me feel like I can’t keep still. I’m not sure if he’s going to bail or charge me as he continues starting at me, his hands never stopping.
“You cool?” I ask as he says, “Casey. I’m Casey.”
“Yeah, they told me. My name’s Hunter.”
Casey glances back at the doorway and then into the room again. He looks a little more relaxed than he did a second ago; meanwhile, I’m trying to figure out what he’s so uncomfortable with.
“I play. Do you care if I play? I need to play.” Each of his words are spoken faster and faster. Casey nods and I look at the clarinet box. “I mean, if you don’t want me to, I won’t. But I kind of need to. I like it. I’m pretty good. That’s what they say, but—”
“I’d rather you didn’t. Headache,” I lie. Sitting here listening to the clarinet isn’t what I want to do with my night. Not as if I’m doing anything better, but still.
“Oh. Okay.” Casey drops his head and then walks over to his bed. He kicks out of his shoes, but he’s still wearing pants and a T-shirt when he climbs onto his mattress, pulls the blanket over his head and… nothing.
Um… okay….
It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him he can play—I’m not sure if that’s what he’s upset about or not—but then the little pinpricks of annoyance start sticking into me again. Just because I don’t want to hear the clarinet my first night here, I’m an asshole and he’s going to climb into bed and ignore me? He even left the door open.
“Hey, no worries. I got the door. Wouldn’t want you to have to close it when you come in.”
Casey doesn’t move. Doesn’t reply.
Jerk.
The door slams when I push it, but he still doesn’t say anything. As soon as I grab my bag to go into the bathroom to change, I realize what must be going on. He doesn’t want to talk to me. He doesn’t even want to get changed with me breathing the same air as he does.
He must know.
They must have told him what I’m in here for… what my dad did. What I let happen to Holly.
“You know what? Fuck you,” I tell him before slamming the bathroom door like I did the other one. I keep my eyes from finding the mirror. I don’t want to see myself—my dark brown hair, and light brown skin, both of which I got from my mom. She’s Mexican. Those aren’t what I’m really trying to avoid, though. It’s my eyes. The light green, and dark lashes. How round they are, like I’m trying to take in the world. That’s what Mom always said. My eyes are just like Dad’s because we’re always so interested in everything.
So, instead of focusing on that, I give my attention to my bag. My toothbrush and toothpaste are gone, but there’s a new package of both on the sink. I use them before changing into basketball shorts and then going out to get into my bed. There’s still a Casey-shaped lump under his blanket, just like there was when I went into the bathroom.
It’s early, but I have nothing better to do, so I hit the light and get into bed.
And lie here. You’d think I would be used to it now, being unable to sleep. Sometimes my mind won’t stop sprinting through everything that happened, like it’s running a marathon. It has to get through it all in chronological order, and then it runs another lap, going over it again.
Other times, there’s just nothing. My mind will be blank and my eyes open for hours on end.
Three times. Someone sticks their head into our room three times during the night. My mouth opens, and I’m about to ask Casey if it’s always that bad, but then I remember he’s a jerk who thinks I’m a perv, so I close it again.
For hours I lie here, counting down the time until the next person sticks their head in.
It’s almost light outside when I finally fall asleep. It can’t be more than a couple hours when an alarm goes off. My eyes pop open and I jerk into a sitting position.
I automatically whip my head toward the other bed, but Casey isn’t there anymore. The bed’s made, another guy sitting there, his knees bent, feet on the frame, looking at me. He’s got blue hair, the front sort of hanging in his face. He’s smaller than I am, but he looks about sixteen, like me. “The clarinet helps him relax when he’s nervous. It keeps his hands busy. If he needs to play, you need to let him.”
“Whatever.” I throw the blanket off the bed and stand up. The other guy doesn’t move, but he keeps his eyes on me.
“It’s his thing. He’s a nice guy. Let him play.”
My vision starts getting fuzzy around the edges. His voice sort of echoes in my head. Pain shoots through my jaw, I’m gritting it so tightly, but the other guy doesn’t seem pissed at all. It’s like he’s telling me we live in Colorado or something, stating a fact and that’s that.
His body doesn’t look tense. My eyes don’t miss the scars on his arms, some bigger than others, where someone or something sharp met his skin, over and over. Did he do it to himself, I wonder? “What are you, his protector? His bodyguard?”
That makes him roll his eyes. It’s not the response I was looking for. My fists squeeze tighter… when did I clench them, anyway?
“Maybe.” He smiles and then pushes to his feet. “And I’m not trying to be a dick, but if I need to, I’ll be one. Just be cool to him. Let him play his instrument if he wants. It’s not that hard.”
He walks over to the door before he stops. “See you at breakfast, Hunter. You can sit with us if you want.” The door doesn’t slam when he closes it behind him.
Yeah, not likely I’ll be sitting with him. What was up with that, anyway? Sitting there watching me sleep? Talk about creepy. I fall down to the bed, neck bent, elbows on my knees and hands in my hair. I can’t help but squeeze my fists together, even though it pulls on my hair.
Screw him, and screw Casey too.
“HAVE YOU met any of the other kids yet?” Mrs. Spencer asks as she walks with me to get breakfast. I guess she figured if she didn’t come get me, I wouldn’t go. She was probably right. I’m so damne
d tired.
“Do you work every day?” I ask her and she laughs.
“Tired of me already?” She doesn’t give me time to respond, not that I would, before continuing, “I guess you must have met Casey last night. He’s a nice boy. Did he introduce you to anyone else?”
Yeah, really nice guy. He sent his bodyguard after me like I’d be scared of some runt with blue hair. “Nope.”
“This way,” Mrs. Spencer says. Next to the lunchroom, there’s an office with an open square taken out of the wall. Two ladies stand inside, and Mrs. Spencer tells them, “Hunter Donovan.”
One of them gets my pill before handing it to me with a small paper cup of water.
“Why am I taking medication if it’s obviously not working?” If the pills were doing their job, I wouldn’t be here. Still, I take it.
“Why do you say it isn’t working?” she asks.
That’s a tough one. “Oh, I don’t know. Because I’m institutionalized?”
She doesn’t answer, instead telling me I need to go get my meds every morning before breakfast. Then we head into the next doorway. I take the time to really look at it in a way I didn’t do yesterday. It’s not like a school cafeteria. Not really. You can tell they tried to make it more welcoming than that, murals painted on the walls, carpet, and round tables of different colors. It’s so crazy how people think stuff like this will work. Like we’re dumb and get distracted by bright colors and paintings of smiling faces on the walls. They won’t make us forget where we are. I’ll never forget, and I’ll never be like the paintings on the walls either. There’s not a part of me that will ever think being here is okay.
“Go ahead and eat. There’s a group therapy lesson after breakfast.”
Really over having Mrs. Spencer baby me through this whole thing, I walk away from her. I head to the front where they give me apple cinnamon oatmeal and toast. It looks just as crappy as school lunch food.