New Horizons (12 page)

“Why’d you push her?—you had to know that was stupid.”

“I think she tripped over a stone.” I smiled.

Guy sighed. "Listen, if you ever want to talk to someone there are counsellors around. You know that whatever you say is confidential. It’s good to talk about things with people who you’ll never have to see again in the real world. Take advantage of that."

"I don't even want to talk to you, so why would I want to talk to anyone else?" I stood up from my chair.

“We called your Dad.”

“Yeah? What did he say?”

“He said to do whatever we can to straighten you out.”

That wasn’t all that scary to me. Because Dad always said things like that.

“What do you think of that?” he asked.

“I think that’s something an old man would say. An old man with a lazy daughter. Sounds about right.”

“Would you like to know what your mom said?”

“My mum?” My stomach dropped. “She knows I’m here?”

“Yes.”

There were a lot of reasons why I hadn’t talked to Mum in while. I had talked to her in the beginning of their separation, but then slowly stopped. It was easier that way because it hurt seeing Mum. I missed Mum every day of my life, even more when I was around her. She was so happy all the time, and I had thought she was happy in her marriage. That was the thing about people—that they could pretend to be one thing, and another, and another, and you could believe all their different versions until the day they exploded. And then you didn’t know what to believe.

“Do you want to know what she said?” he asked.

“I imagine she’s angry at Dad for sending me here. I’m surprised he told her.”

“No, your Mum was the one who sent you here.”

I smiled.

“Why are you smiling?”

“Because you’re funny.”

“You don’t believe me?”

“That’s right.”

“Both your parents agreed to send you here.”

“My parents don’t talk to each other.”

“They talked about putting you here.”

I shook my head. “There’s no way.”

“Your mum said she doesn’t want to see you until you’re better.”

I laughed.

“Would you listen? That shouldn’t be funny to you.”

“It is—because Mum wouldn’t say that. She always wants to see me, and she would never agree to do something like this.”

“Well, she did send you here. She doesn’t like who you’ve become—that you’re doing things you wouldn’t normally do.”

“She’s one to talk.”

“You honestly think you’ve been acting okay?”

“I know where this is going, and I just want to say that I didn’t do anything. That gun probably wasn’t even loaded. And I’m fine. Nothing happened. It just scared them.”

“It didn’t scare you?” Guy asked. That was his job. To pick and prod at me until I burst. And it was annoying that he knew how to do that—to get me to talk. To admit things that may or may not have happened.

“Stop looking at me like that,” I told him.

“I’m sorry that event happened to you, but the situation could have been—”

“Thank you. I’m aware.”

“Your mum doesn’t want you back until you’re thinking clearly again, and can see the difference between right and wrong behaviours.”

“I didn’t want anything to do with her first, so I don’t know why she is saying stuff like that—it’s kind of childish.”

“It is childish, isn’t it?” His upper lip twitched as he looked at me.

“What exactly do you want me to say?”

“I don’t want you to say anything. I’m here to tell you that you’re going to be out of this place in September. That’s in a few weeks. We wipe our hands of you, and we forget about you forever—because nobody gives a shit about you. And the sooner you realize all that’s guaranteed in life is yourself, the sooner you’ll be free.”

I left the office. There was nothing else to hear after that. Because I had heard every single kind of speech possible in my life, from all kinds of people—friends, family, teachers. About joining the Navy. Going out west where all the jobs were. Going to an Asian country to teach English. Nursing. Like Amanda this, like Amanda that. They were all ideas—like I hadn’t thought of them before. And these speeches were meant to inspire and get the wheels turning, but only put me in a deeper hole.

My problem wasn’t a lack of support. It was lack of motivation that crippled me into a black hole. The day I decide to climb out, if ever, is the day I decide to wake up.

Days and nights were flying by. It was the same thing day in and out. Group runs to tire us out, classroom readings of poetry meant to open us up and participate—have a real, subjective opinion. I went through it in a daze, we all did, because it was easier to be a robot than fight back. We looked forward to nights, when we could be on our own. It was nice to lay in the dark and think about home.

We were supposed to be asleep and dreaming, but I was reading the names across the ceiling and listening to Karen tap her nails on the wood. I didn’t have nails. I had bit them off and I wasn’t even a nail biter. That’s what happened when you were bored—you could do things you didn’t think you would ever do.

It was hot in the cabin, but at least it was windy out. We opened the window and there was a cold breeze that came in and pushed some of the hot air away. I laid on top of my grey blanket, and hoped to feel any kind of cold. It even came down to me taking off my shirt, which was something I never thought I would be comfortable enough to do. Maybe if there was no one around the bra would come off too, but that wasn’t the case. It wasn’t dark enough to be that free.

“I’d kill for a razor,” Karen said. “I’ve got hair growing out of every crevice of my body.”

It had almost been a week and a half. All the crevices on our bodies were getting sticky and sprouting hairs. I was in the same situation as Karen. My legs were prickled and my underarms were like a garden. Under the shorts was another story but that didn’t bother me because it wasn’t ever a palace down there anyway.

Green Gables began to cry.

“Come on. It’s not that bad. You’ll get out of here soon,” I said. “A couple more weeks and we’re out of here. We’re almost half way there.”

Green Gables kept crying. There were tears pouring down her face, and she sounded like she was hyperventilating. I didn’t know what she was thinking about that was making her cry so much, and I didn’t ask her because I didn’t want to know.

“I don’t know why you’re crying.” Karen leaned over the edge of her bunk and peered down at Green Gables. “You’re always crying about something. Aren’t you all cried out by now?”

“It’s just that I’m dreading going back home.”

Karen burst out laughing. So did Twin and Twinner. Because that was hilarious. What kind of person dreaded going back home? A person who wasn't thinking clearly.

“Dreading going home? You’re absolutely nuts,” I said. “There is nowhere else I’d rather be than back in Basinview. I might even be a little happy if I were home, at least for a little bit. I would be relieved to see my street and my house.”

“Obviously I don’t want to stay here, but I don’t want to go home because I don’t want to be molested anymore.”

The trees tapped on the glass of the window, and the door rattled from the breeze like it always did. But this time, it seemed louder than ever. The wind was violent, and pushed against the outside of the cabin, shaking the boards. It felt like the walls were going to fall in on us.

It was a shock, to say the least. None of us had expected her to say that. None of us had said crazy personal things like that, because nobody cared what your fucked up situation was. But Green Gables wasn’t ever supposed to say something like that. Green Gables was carefree and young and full of braces. Green Gables wasn’t supposed to get molested, and she most definitely wasn’t supposed to tell us about it.

“That sure shut you guys up.” Green Gables sat up and moved to the edge of her mattress so that her feet touched the wood floor. She already seemed different to me.

“We weren’t expecting that,” Karen said. She looked over at me. I shook my head to get her to stop talking. I didn’t want to hear anything else.

Twin moved to the edge of her bed until her feet touched the floor. Her hair was wild and frizzy from the humidity. She had a pen in her fingers that she had swiped from the mess hall. It was her new smoking device, and she brought it to her lips while she examined the floor. Things were getting real in the cabin, and she was the kind of person who wanted it to keep going.

“Imagine waking up in the middle of the night because your step-dad wants you to help him sleep. And then imagine getting the courage to tell your mom, and her calling you a liar.”

“What exactly did he do?” Twin asked. She took the pen out of her mouth and held it in her two fingers before taking another long, imagined drag.

“Fuck off,” I said.

Twin had a smirk on the side of her face. Our cabin should have been asleep. But little secrets were keeping us wide awake. Green Gables was saying scary stuff that she wasn’t supposed to be saying to us. She was supposed to be cheerful and motivating and fun. She wasn’t supposed to know about the things that nightfall brought on. But that was why she was at New Horizons. In the real world, Green Gables had been turned to stone, and New Horizons was supposed to wake her up, push her back into reality, and terrify her back to life.

“Sometimes it helps to talk about things,” Twin said.

“Let’s hear some of your shitty, little stories then,” I said. “You’re not exactly prime real estate either. Now tell me, was it eighth or ninth grade your baby tits popped into points and gave you those deep ass stretch-marks across your chest, or was it just gradual? It’s killing me not knowing the story—I just have to hear about it.”

“Are you going to chuck me in the woods too, Valerie?” Twin asked. She put on a baby voice and everything.

“I just might, thanks for asking. I doubt anyone will help you up though. We might just forget about you out there.”

“You’re a fucking lunatic,” she said.

“Yeah, sure I am.”

Green Gables cried even louder. Probably because we had taken the spotlight off of her. She sobbed on her bottom bunk and wiped the snot off her face with her grey blanket. None of us went down to her bunk to comfort her. What would we say? There was nothing to say. We were all there for crazy specific and not so specific reasons, and the scary specific reasons weren’t supposed to be ever,
ever
talked about.

But they were coming out. And that was hard to listen to.

"I was sent here because I’m a pathological liar…but I never lie,” Green Gables whispered. She wiped her eyes. Her red hair was messy and vibrant.

"It’s okay.”

I looked over at Karen. The most solid stone of all was finally cracking. I glared at her across the room, scared of what she as going to say. I didn’t feel like fighting with everyone in the cabin.

“We all have a story,” Karen said. She laughed after. There was nothing funny with what she was saying though.

I wanted to fly across the room and shake some sense into her—scream in her face for opening up. Because if she was falling for her emotions, what did that mean for me? I didn’t like seeing the hardest girl of all of us fall down. She needed to stop talking. I didn’t want to know anything about her. I wanted to hate her forever, because that was so much easier than understanding her.

“We must have the same kind of mom or something too." Karen leaned her back on the wall and sat cross-legged on her mattress. "I got pregnant at 15-years-old, and my mom made me get an abortion."

Twinner gasped. Maybe she had been holding it in the entire time up there on her top bunk. We all had been. She had no shirt on, and no shorts, and her hand was on top of her flat chest. Below her, Twin was absolutely enjoying every second of the train wreck. Because it was exciting to hear that people had problems, especially when their problems were more messed up than your own.

I tried not to have a reaction. I stayed completely still and pretended I didn’t have ears. That was what you were supposed to do when you were hearing unbelievable stuff. But it was hard not to picture the whole thing when she admitted she had an abortion. I pictured Karen walking into a hospital, the nurses leading her into a room. I wondered if anyone had gone with her. I wondered if she cried. Surely, she had cried.

"And I used to be pretty like you guys too," she said. “I had long pretty hair and a pretty body.” Karen laughed after. “It went away though. Because that’s what pretty things do. They don’t last if you don’t keep it up. It takes work. And I was too depressed to look after myself. Obviously it wasn’t like I wanted to keep that kid or anything. But I just realized how stupid everything was after I did it. I couldn’t straighten my hair like I normally did, and putting on eyeshadow and that kind of shit felt so fucking pointless.” She wiped her face. “My mom is hiding me from the rest of the world. I can’t get any better. And that’s fine with me. But it kills her having me as a daughter."

If we thought it couldn’t get quieter, Karen’s story sucked all the life out of the place. I didn’t even want to move on my mattress. I wanted to be asleep so no one could ask me what my story was. There was nothing to say about me and I wasn’t into contributing. Karen had hit many painful targets, and it made thinking about anything else impossible. If I had a ball I would bounce it, just for something to concentrate on. But there was some heavy breathing from somewhere in the room, and then Green Gables let out a choking sound—