From The Wreckage - Complete (47 page)

Swirling the red stir stick around in his cup, he wanders over to two posters framed in black; feigning interest in the words, in their images, to keep anyone from approaching him. One is a simple black background with a young male dressed in a clean white tee shirt, jeans and barefoot. The saying,
Is life even worth living anymore?
is across the top, and the answer,
There is always HOPE
screams at him in large letters at the bottom. He rolls his eyes. He’s not suicidal and never has been, yet this is what the past six months have been like for him…pretending to be a broken-down teen in need of help for his non-existent alcoholism and his apparent depression. 

He reads the other sign. The picture is of a girl — need to show gender neutrality, of course. Her arms have black words written along them.
Talk. To Someone.
The hand with ‘talk’ covers her mouth. The tagline ‘
Reach Out
’ is placed vertically along the left side and the disturbing statistic ‘
one in six teens suffers from depression
’ adorns the bottom. He shakes his head. One in six? It’s not the first time he’s heard the numbers. He believes them, and he even has sympathy for those who are dealing with it. He just doesn’t believe it’s his problem. He was fine. He was finally happy again…until.

The wooden door opens with a click and the staccato sound of heels entering the room pulls West from the posters. The other patients ready themselves. Chairs shift and scratch along the floor as the new occupant crosses the linoleum floor, all smiles, and calls out a cheerful, “Good morning.”

A few hollow ‘Mornings’ go out as the other standing patients make their way to their seats. The group’s therapist, West assumes, cocks her head to the side and looks at West.

“You must be West. Come, come join us. We’re glad to have you join us today.” She smiles and takes her own seat; waiting and watching West behind her white glasses.

She resembles a middle-aged hippie with her flowing skirt and loose, wavy hair. Not at all like the uptight therapists he’s been seeing for the past six months. West approaches the group cautiously; aware of the stares he receives.

“Everyone, this is West and he’s going to be joining our group-” she starts, but West interrupts her immediately. 

“For the day,” he drawls pointedly. “I’m only here for the day.”

The older gentleman to the right of the therapist frowns.

“Well, yes…sure. I’m Hannah, by the way. Why don’t you tell everyone a little about why you’re here?” Her smile is overly bright and cheerful for someone who spends all day with a bunch of depressed people. It almost makes him feel guilty for not being friendlier.
Almost
, West thinks with a twisted grin.

“My therapist said I had to attend one of these group meetings before I could be released. I don’t get the point.”

There’s a smattering of laughter and Hannah makes a note in a small notebook sitting in her lap.

“West,” she chides softly; a mother scolding her wayward son. “Tell us your story.”

“My story?”

“What brought you here?” she prods; nodding her head gently. “I know you've been told before, but I will remind you and everyone in this session that everything you say here is confidential. No one will ever use your story against you or to hurt you. It helps to share and talk out your problems with others who have been there.”

It sounds like a rehearsed speech, like a direct quote from a sister poster to the ones he’s already read hanging on the wall of not only this room, but so many others throughout the facility.

He scans the room and decides to check the other patients out. He recognizes a few from recreational time, but most are new to him. There’s an older woman with a sunken face and a man who looks to be a few years older than him, sitting on the edge of his seat; tapping the toes of his shoes on the cream and blue marble floor. Ten strangers who, for whatever reason, are also confined to this place to ‘get better’. He wonders what brought each of them here. His gaze falls back on Hannah with a low sigh.

“I’m West. I’m here because I have a habit of giving up everything I love.”

“Can you explain that, West?”

“Do I have to?”

“Well, you could wait and try to explain it at next week’s meeting. It’s your choice.”

Damn! Her sweet hippie look is just an act
, he thinks to himself as he rolls his shoulders and sits up straight.

“According to my therapist, I give up things I love to punish myself.”

“From what?” asks a small girl about his age. She’s twisted up; her slim legs crossed and wrapped around each other, her arms folded around her waist. She looks like a human pretzel. She wears long pants and sleeves, even in summer, and West guesses she probably has an issue with self harm. He learned early on in his stay that many of the patients here have serious issues. More serious than he thought his ever were. He looks at the girl. Her brown eyes are huge, almost like a cartoon Bambi's eyes popping out of her head. They’re misplaced amongst the other, more fragile features of her tiny face.

“What are you punishing yourself for?” she asks, sitting straighter now. “What did you do?”

“Danica!” Hannah warns. Danica ignores the reprimand and raises a dark brow at West.

“Why are
you
here?” he counters snidely and leans back in his metal chair.

The other members of the group sit quietly and look down at either their hands or the floor. West figures they’re probably happy to let anyone else take over the meeting if it means they don’t have to speak.  

Without blinking, Danica pulls the sleeve of her long, black tee up and flashes her arm at West. Her forearm is covered in precise little lines of scars. Row after row of white scratches attesting to the fact that she does, or did, self-mutilate. She’s not shy about it, though. She leans over and pulls up one loose leg of her sweatpants and then the other. He holds his breath as he takes in the massive scars covering her calves. They look like burn scars. Old and healed over, but they still cover her shins and calves. 

“I punish myself because I lived.” 

West says nothing; he just looks away as Danica pulls her clothing back over herself. The group leader moves on to Charles, a depressed ex-banker who tried to down about thirty pills too many when he lost his job, wife and dog. 

He walks over to stand before the girl with the scars, Danica, as soon as the meeting ends. “Soooo…I feel pretty low now.”

“Oh? Why is that?” she asks; craning her neck to see him from where she still sits. She stands slowly, untangling her long limbs, and West is surprised to see how tall she is. No wonder she looked twisted and pretzel-like when she was sitting down.

“I shouldn’t have asked why you were here. It’s not my place,” he explains; taking the metal folding chair from her hand and following the lead of the other patients, leaning it against the wall.

Danica laughs lightly and follows behind him.

“You really haven’t been doing group meetings, huh?”

“No. It wasn’t part of my deal.”

“Deal?”

“Never mind,” he replies; not wanting to get into the real reason he’s at the clinic in the first place. Her round eyes study him and he shifts nervously under the scrutiny of those big, sad eyes. “I give up. You know, it's not really that big of a deal, but I screwed up and my dad made me come here, thinking I needed help for my ‘issues’.” He makes air quotes as he says ‘issues’. Walking back to grab the chair he’d been sitting in, he places it in a pile with the others.

Facing Danica again, he adds, “I get out in two weeks.”

“Are you sure?”

“Sure that I get out of here? Pretty much.”

She checks her watch, grabs his arm with a sigh and pulls him out through the glass double doors in the back of the room. They step into the common area and she leads him over to a large oak tree. She closes her eyes, breathes deeply and lifts her face to the sun.

“Are you sure that what you're giving up isn’t a big deal?”

“You ask lots of questions,” he points out; leaning against the tree. “Look – I did something stupid, and to keep people from getting into trouble, I took a deal that landed me here. End of story.”

“Is that what your therapist says, or you?”

“I told you inside. My therapist thinks I’m punishing myself. It’s a load of crap.”

“Why does he think that?”

“It’s a she – Dr. Steel – and she thinks that because I had to walk away from my life when I came here.”

“And?” Danica crosses her arms and watches him carefully as she asks her invasive questions. West likens her to the many doctors he’s had to talk to in the way she tries to poke him for answers. But for some reason he doesn’t try to hide them from her. Maybe it’s the way she so effortlessly showed off her own secrets in the group session.

“I guess I go to extremes. When my mother died six years ago, I gave up the only thing I cared about at the time because I was so angry and blamed myself. Then six months ago, I had a car wreck and almost killed the one person in this world I loved more than anything. I took the deal to come here without a word to her.” He lowers his face, scratches his head and brushes back his long hair. He needs a haircut badly. “I haven’t spoken to her since.” 

“Your girlfriend?”

“Yeah.”

Danica lowers herself to the ground and West follows automatically. “Why did you do that? Leave without a word, I mean?”

He thinks about her question and goes back to the moment when he crawled his way out of the smashed Jeep and found her broken body sprawled on the side of the highway. He thought he cared about her when they were trapped in the Grier house after the tornado, but no. He never knew the real fear of losing her until the night of the wreck. His pulse races just thinking of it.

“Hey?” Her skinny hand touches him, which causes West to jerk away and stand quickly. He’s still agitated by the touch of anyone who isn’t Jules. 

“Oh! Sorry,” she offers, surprised at his response.

He stands there, looking up into the green foliage of the large tree, and doesn’t bother to reply.    

“You’re not ready to leave.” 

She says it with the authority of someone who should know. Stuffing his hands into his shorts, West looks at her sitting in the grass. Her hand rubs along her sleeved forearm. She reminds him of a junkie the way she taps her arm as if she’s simulating the pressure, the release, she would get if only she could run a blade over her skin.

It’s the same thing he does to himself. When the pressure of losing Jules is too deep, he rubs his palm and visualizes her hand in his; the strength she gave to him with her touch. 

“I need to leave. I need to find her before school starts in a few weeks…to win her back.”

Danica laughs. “Of course you do! You’re willing to give it all up for her, right?” She’s smart, he’ll give her that. ”You have to take care of
you
before you can take care of
her
.”

“I’m fine.”

“Really?” She stands and West steps back as she gets up in his face. “This isn’t my first trip to the rodeo. You’re
not
fine. You’re in denial. Do you love your girl? Then get strong for her.”

“Damn, you're pushy. You remind me of Jules.” 

“Jules, huh?” She smiles again and backs away; her aggressiveness turning down a notch. “Pretty name.”

“It’s beautiful.
She’s
beautiful.”

“Look, I’m no expert, but I could be for all the therapy I’ve had. I don’t know your whole story, but until you admit your issues, you’ll never be healed. You want to end up here again? It may feel like a bunch of B.S. they’re feeding us here, but it’s not.”

“Danica?” An older gentleman West recognizes as a doctor at the facility stands in the propped open glass doorway.

She glances at her watch and waves her hand towards the doctor. “Sorry, I have a session. I hope I’ll see you around, West. Think about what I said.” When West doesn't speak, she nods and tips her head to the side. She jogs towards the doors slowly.

“Hey!” he calls out after a moment. He balls his hands deep in his pockets to keep from pulling them out; to keep himself from rubbing on his palm. “Thanks for the advice. Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m not ready yet, but what do I do?”

“You stay,” she suggests with a shrug. “You get better.”

He simply nods and turns the idea around in his head. “Thanks.”