Life on the Level (15 page)

I go to take a spoonful of cereal. The yellow flakes are soggy, but at least it’s sugary. I grit my teeth and hiss.

Maddie stands. “Are you okay? Should I get someone?”

“It doesn’t matter if you do,” I say, piling on the pathetic. “They won’t give me any stinking pain meds.”

“That sucks.”

I hold my head with my hands. “It’s fine.”

I push away my food. Maddie reacts just the way I want her to. She pulls her chair closer to me and leans in for a whisper.

“We’re friends, right River?”

“I think so.”

“Well.” She looks over her shoulder as someone walks down the hall. “I think… I think I might be able to help you.”

I set hopeful eyes on her. “How?”

She shrugs one shoulder. Maddie seems loyal enough that she wouldn’t rat out her source. But all I need is an in, a crack, and I’ll figure the rest out. If Taylor thinks he can intimidate me, he’s wrong.

“I’ll come back. Tonight. Just, don’t ask too many questions.”

“I promise.”

• • •

Later in the day, Julie brings me a bunch of flowers. She’s scratching at the inside of her wrist. I’m still not sure what’s wrong with Julie, because she doesn’t talk much. She doesn’t strike me as a druggie, but sometimes it’s the people least likely that take to it the most.

“How’re you feeling?” she asks.

“I’m better. My head hurts a bit.”

I take the flowers from her and sniff them. The pollen is thick and yellow, and makes me sneeze. Looking at them makes me happy, though. It’s a strange feeling to get flowers from someone I hardly know. The attention that everyone here is showing me makes my heart twist and turn. It’s like I’m being rinsed out from the inside. How can these people give themselves so easily to others? Isn’t it emotionally taxing?

“Everyone was so worried. They thought you might be—” She looks over her shoulder and whispers like she’s telling me the latest gossip. “A vegetable.”

I chuckle, and share my chips with her. “Thanks for coming to see me.”

“River,” Julie asks shyly.

“Yes?”

“Do you think you can help me make a dress? A costume really.”

“Costume for what?”

“Halloween, duh. Helen says we can have a party. I want him to notice me.”

I swallow the lump in my throat. “Who?”

She turns bright red. “No one. Just. Someone.”

“You don’t have to tell me.” But I already know.

“Good. Anyway, can you? None of the other girls dress like you.”

“Like what?”

She shrugs. “In all black. Mysterious and stuff. Like you’re ready for it to be Halloween all the time.”

“Thanks, I think.”

Halloween is at the end of the month. Have I already been here for a month? If I were home, I’d be planning my group costume with the other bartenders. Last year we were zombie Disney characters. I was a zombie Alice in Wonderland.

“We get stuff from Goodwill and some thrift stores, and they let us make things out of what we’ve got. It’s kind of stupid.”

I hold her hand. “It’s not stupid. It’ll be nice to have one day where we can have fun and pretend to be someone else. That’s the point of Halloween right? Besides the candy?”

When she smiles her whole face widens, revealing dimples I’ve never seen before. She gets up and throws her arms around me.

“Thank you, River. I’m really glad you’re okay.”

Dear Sky,

I have to wear a neck brace because I fell off a horse. Don’t worry! I’m fine. Or worry, and come visit me instead of traveling with your handy man tool. (Don’t tell Hayden I called him that.)

There’s something going on that doesn’t feel right. Remember the guy I told you about that runs this black market barn? I think he spooked my horse. What’s that, you say? You want proof? Even I know that I can’t just accuse someone like that. Who is everyone going to believe? The hand that’s worked here for years, or the newbie addict? It’s funny that everyone wants to helps us become better people, but when it comes down to it, our word means shit. So I have to get proof. I know what you’re going to say. Do you know that every time I do something bad, or get ready to do something bad, I hear your voice? I think you should be Jiminy Cricket for Halloween. It suits you.

P.S. Where are you?

P.P.S. You’re a nurse. They tell me I have to wear this brace for another week. Is that true, or are they just doing it to make me look stupid?

Love,
Riv

• • •

While I prefer being in my own bed, I still want to rip my neck brace off and set it on fire. I made the mistake of saying this in front of Ransom and everyone else during a group session. I’m not used to checking what I say all the time. I also never realized that all of my crazy threats tend to be explosive. The pyro kid has started sitting next to me ever since I said that.

“My name is River Thomas.” I wave at some of the new people. It’s getting easier to speak to everyone. It’s like I’m watching a movie of myself. If I look at all of this as an out-of-body experience, it feels easier. “I’m an alcoholic and I have a gambling problem.”

There are two new people in our group: Jermania Nelson (will snort anything in powdered form) and Randy Rider (prescription drugs, and from the smirk on his face as he undresses me with his eyes, sex).

“Spend too much time at the slot machines?” Randy asks. He’s sitting on his chair like he’s the coolest cat in Cool Town. He’s got a taut, swimmer’s body. He scratches his crotch, and I can tell he’s not wearing any underwear. His ash blond hair falls around cheeks that were chiseled by Aphrodite, goddess of sex herself. Too bad a nice body and an even better face can’t make up for how annoying he is. He’s like Disney’s John Smith without the compassion, Jamie Lannister without the quick wit.

Ransom reprimands him, but I can hold my own.

“Yeah, I sit right next to your mother.”

There’s a flurry of “Ohhhhhhhhhhh,” before Ransom decides to reprimand me instead, because I should know better.

“Anyway,” I say. “I always thought that everything I did was normal. When I was in elementary school, I was teaching kids how to make Go Fish more interesting.” That one always gets a laugh. “As I got older, I never thought there might be something damaging about staying up for two days straight, sitting at a poker table surrounded by people with bleary eyes and down to their last dime. It’s just something I grew up with.”

“What made you decide to change?” Ransom asks me.

I look around the room at the other patients. I’ve always been worried that people here would judge me. But I think the only person actually judging me is
me.
They quietly wait for me to answer the question. I stall by digging my fingers under my neck brace to scratch where it itches the most.

“After my dad died. I mean, he was the one who taught me how to play. Learned everything I know from him, even the things he hated about himself.”

“Time out,” Randy says. “Your own pops had you playing poker?”

I walk away from my chair and stand right at the center, facing him. I don’t look very menacing with this thing around my neck. “Do you have a point or do you just like to hear yourself speak?”

He shrugs one shoulder in that way slackers have. All,
I’m just saying, man
. “I’m just saying, man. It’s kind of obvious why you’ve got a problem. He’s, like, the one that got you started.”

“You need to shut your mouth if you know what’s good for you,” I tell him.

“Randall,” Ransom warns him.

“What?” Randy says, putting on an innocent smile. “We’re supposed to talk right? I just feel like telling it how it is.”

I scoff. I’m going to tell Helen that
this
is what I get for sharing.

“River, please continue,” Ransom says.

Everyone looks between Randy and me. The mix of excited and worried faces is a blur.

“I’m done.” I start to return to my seat.

“Don’t worry,” Randy says. Ransom is asking him to be quiet, but he just keeps talking. “I know how it ends. Pop starts her working the poker table at seven and by seventeen she’s turning tricks. I think I saw that on CSI.”

I laugh. It’s strangled-sounding and ugly. I’m not hurt. He’s as far away from the truth as Pluto is from Earth
.
But something snaps inside me. Fire runs down my body, and pain flares in my neck as I lunge at him. I smash my fist across his cheek. His scream is high-pitched; he’s holding his arms up. Hands land around my waist and yank me away. I’m still punching and kicking. Chairs scrape back, and people stand. Someone runs out the door.

“Put me down!” I scream. “Let go of me!”

But Ransom is holding me the way I would hold a pillow over my shoulder. He walks me out the open door, into the hall, and towards the medical wing before finally setting me down.

Nurse Jean comes running out of another room with her stethoscope around her neck. Her dark eyes are wide, then become soft when she sees me. Everything about me is tense. My hands are balled into fists, and I hunch forward. In my next life, I’d like to come back as an armadillo. I want to be able to curl up into a ball. I want to have the toughest skin.

They take turns saying my name. River. River. River.

My thoughts are dizzy. I feel like that time I was thirteen at San Gennaro’s fair back in Queens. I gave the carousel operator a twenty to make it go faster than normal. I held onto that chipped pastel horse for dear life and screamed the whole time. Sky and Leti and my dad just stood there, watching me giggle and scream. Everything was blurry and colorful, and when it was over, I stumbled dizzy and giddy off the ride and held out my arms and my daddy caught me.

My daddy always caught me.

Finally, I look up at Ransom and Nurse Jean. I shake my head but don’t smile.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine,” Ransom tells me.

I hold up the hand I hit Randy with. It’s pink and throbbing. “You’re right. I need some ice.”

“We don’t deal with our emotions using violence,” Ransom says.

“You don’t,” I say. “But if he talks to me like that again, his face is going to be the least of his problems.” Talking big makes me feel big. I think of all the times I’ve thrown out threats to guys who try to cheat at the table or treat me like a waitress because I’m a girl. Back then, I had even bigger guys at my disposal—my godfather, and bouncers who watched me grow up. Here, I don’t have anyone. Here, I’m alone.

“No,” he says firmly. “You won’t. Listen to me, okay. I need you to
listen
to me. You will not raise your hand to another patient ever again. Don’t jeopardize your place here for some punk who gets off on getting under your skin. I expected more from you, River.”

“Maybe that was your problem. Expecting more from me. This is all I’ve got. This is all you’re getting.”

I turn away from him. I don’t want to leave things like this. I tell myself to say more, but I’m not thinking straight. I’m angry. I’m angry down to my bones, and there’s nothing anyone can tell me to make it any different.

Ransom leaves the room, and I deflate. I can feel tears stinging my eyes. I pace around the room, my head throbbing with pain. I’ve never had to stop myself from crying so often. It’s not that I’m dead inside; it’s that I don’t usually let people like Randy get to me. I know where I come from and I’m not ashamed. Being here won’t change that. I still know myself. I’m the kind of person that loves fiercely and completely. I love my friends, and I loved my dad. My emotions are black and white. I either like someone or I don’t. I never learned to pretend to be nice. I care what someone thinks, or I don’t. I’ve always been straight up. That’s how I’ve protected myself. It’s easier to leave than to get left.

Randy doesn’t know what he was talking about. That’s what I get for “sharing” in the first place.

Nurse Jean returns. “Sit still for once.”

“I can’t. I don’t know how.”

“Try.” She takes my hand and holds it in hers. It’s a friendly touch. She places an ice pack across my knuckles.

A single tear falls down my cheek. I turn my face to the side so she can’t see it. I’m sinking into the cooling feeling of the ice pack when Hutch comes in. My heart flip-flops when I see him.

“What’s going on?” He looks around the room, like he’s expecting a crime scene.

“What are you doing here?” I don’t hide my annoyance. It’s not that I don’t want to see him. I just don’t need another lecture like Steve’s. Besides, he’s not my counselor. He’s going to get us both kicked out if he keeps acting so reckless. Says the girl who just decked a guy.

Even though I try not to look at Hutch, my eyes flick to his face. I see worry and fear and something like love.

Just then, Ransom comes back with Randy. Randy holds a wad of napkins to his nose. His piercing blue eyes glare at me. He’s mentally punching me back.

“You’re lucky I don’t hit girls,” he spits.

“You’re unlucky I do,” I sing song.

“Enough,” Steve says. “Hutch, can you help me out here, please?
You
two are lucky Helen went to town this morning.”

“I would like to file a complaint,” Randy says.

“I got it, Jean,” Hutch tells the nurse. He takes the icepack from her. She purses her lips and goes to put on latex gloves.

Hutch gives me a look that asks, “are you okay?”

I nod lightly and a tiny smile escapes my lips when he takes my hand in his.

“Seriously,” Randy says, since no one is paying enough attention to him. “I fear for my life.”

“You should,” I whisper.

“She’s a nut job. Why isn’t she in the loony bin instead of here? My parents are paying top dollar to have me here, and this is the kind of service I get?”

“This isn’t the Four Seasons,” Ransom reminds him.

I turn to him. “Me in psych? Which one of us is the sociopathic narcissist? You’re lucky I’m not wearing any of my rings, pretty boy.”

Randy smirks. “At least you admit I’m pretty as fuck. If you wanted to touch my face, all you had to do was ask. I’m in room 3F if you want to look at the rest.”

“Thanks, but I’d rather stay STD free.”

“Randall!” Hutch shouts. I’ve never heard him shout. “Enough.”