Chapter Four
It was after dinner and dark when the Cliffhangers gathered on the stairs of the main lodge to wait for the trio's return. The truck's lights put an eerie glow to the trees lining the main drive for several moments before the vehicle pulled into view. Peter idled the engine for a long minute before turning off the engine and emerging from the car. Sophie approached the group, her face grim, while Peter pulled Juliette's limp form from the backseat.
"Sophie, what's wrong?" Kat asked.
"She got upset again, really out of control. The doctor sedated her, gave her some valium, to help her calm down."
They were silent a moment, until Scott voiced the inevitable: "Why?"
"Why was she so upset there? I'm not sure; maybe because she realized that she had done something very serious with consequences she didn't want to face. Or maybe because whatever triggered this incident in the first place is still upsetting her. I honestly have no idea, guys." Her forthrightness was surprising, but not unexpected. Still, the uncertainty of the situation was not reassuring. "We're going to stay with Juliette in Peter's office tonight," she said, nodding slightly as he passed by and Ezra jumped up to open a door, "and we'll see how things go in the morning."
The six students stared up at her, as looking as confused and lost as she felt.
* * *
"So what do we do?" asked Sophie quietly, arms crossed in front of her, hugging her even though she wasn't cold, in fact was flushed from the adrenaline of the past two hours.
"We can't do much, now," Peter said. "Juliette made the decision for us."
"We can't send her back home, Peter! She's been working so hard. We're getting somewhere with her."
"If we were, Soph, she wouldn't be hurting herself."
Sophie was silent for a moment, thinking as she paced back and forth in Peter's office, smelling the musty warmth of the fire from the common room. "Doesn't this just show that we are getting somewhere with her? That we're breaking down her walls?"
"I'd like to believe that, yeah. But it might also show that she's getting worse, and that all our work has done is put her in danger."
"I can't believe that. She's eating better, she's communicating more, she's—"
"Is she? Or are we seeing what we want to see? We forget that Juliette can be manipulative."
"Peter—"
"I don't mean that cruelly. I just mean that she shows us what she wants us to see. If she weren't good at it, she wouldn't be able to hide her problems so well."
"Even more reason why she should stay! She's starting to show us the problems, even if she can't do it safely yet."
"Safety's our main concern here, though. Juliette's safer with people who are looking out for her every minute, always watching her. We can't do that."
"Well that wouldn't help, anyway. Being guarded will just drive it further underground—and when she gets out again, her problems will be even harder to detect. We can help her better than anyone, Peter, by being here if she wants to come to us. By trusting her. By providing a supportive, loving, healthy environment. If she wants to destroy herself, she will. We can't stop her; no one can. We both know that from personal experience."
But should she be allowed to make that choice at her age? Can we make a choice that we know gives her power she might not be prepared to handle? We're not psychiatrists, Sophie, and I'm not sure that we should be messing around with this stuff."
"No, we're not doctors. But we mess around in every kid's life here, and we do it believing that a loving environment can help kids learn to solve their problems. We have emergency care when –or if—Juliette gets out of control again, so I don't see why we need to treat her any differently from any other kid here at Horizon."
"Maybe we shouldn't be dealing with any of them, then." Peter ran a tired hand across his eyes. "Maybe this is entirely too risky."
"Peter, why are you being so defeatist? We've made some real accomplishments here, why can't you see the good we're doing?"
"Because Juliette's right in front of us, showing the damage we're doing."
Sophie faced Peter, hopelessly deadlocked, at a loss; clearly, something needed to be done for Juliette, but she didn't know what. She just didn't want to let her go.
"I need to call Juliette's mom and explain the situation. She may well decide for us and remove Juliette on her own. This is her second episode."
"And if she decides she doesn't want to take Juliette out?"
"Soph, I have to recommend it. I have to recommend intensive psychiatric care, even if it means taking Jules from Horizon. Her health is my first priority, and we're simply not equipped for this kind of situation."
"Will you insist upon it?"
"I don't know." He reached out a hand and clutched her fingers, just for a moment.
* * *
"She'll be on in a moment. Mr. Scarborow."
Peter forced his head off the desk where he'd been collapsed for forty minutes, waiting for Juliette's mother to get on the line. He waited nearly ten more—pleasantly occupied by testing out every font on his computer—before the crisp, detached voice came on the line.
"Hello, to whom am I speaking, please?"
Peter could detect real annoyance behind the formality. "Mrs. Waybourne, this is Pe—"
"I've remarried and I go by my husband's name, Coatesworth," interrupted the woman.
"Fine, Mrs. Coatesworth," Peter said, exasperated. "This is Peter Scarborow and I'm afraid we've had a bit of a crisis with Juliette."
She sighed. "What has she done now?"
Peter was taken aback by the tone. Blame had already been assigned, even though the situation remained unknown. "Well—it's not so much that she's done something intentionally—"
Again he was interrupted. "What's she done, Mr. Scarborow?" Juliette's mother was clearly losing patience.
"There's been an incident. Juliette seems to have been dealing with a lot of stress lately and we were," he stumbled here, "unaware. This afternoon she had an intense self-injury episode and she had to be forcibly and medically restrained." Here he paused.
Mrs. Coatesworth sounded, for a moment, tired. "What did she do, Mr. Scarborow?"
"She scratched her ankle, badly, we think with her nails, and seriously bruised her arm. No bones are broken, but it will take some time to heal. Her wrist is particularly severe and the skin was lacerated in several places."
"Where is she now?"
"Here, at Horizon. Our on-call doctor took her into town for x-rays but thought hospitalization was unnecessary for her wounds. She's sedated now; she won't wake up until the morning. We have our psychologist coming for an emergency session in the morning."
"I see."
"We aren't really sure what state she'll be in when she wakes up."
"Yes."
Peter waited for several moments, but Mrs. Coatesworth did not continue. "Mrs. Coatesworth, should we expect a visit from you?"
"No," she answered, "no, I don't think that will be necessary. Juliette is in good hands and it sounds as if she will recover quickly. Thank you, Mr. Scarborow."
Understanding that the conversation was moving rapidly to a close, Peter jumped in with what he knew must be addressed, and addressed firmly. "I'm afraid the situation is not so easily resolved, Mrs. Coatesworth. As you know, this is the second incident we've had with Juliette in regards to her self-injury and it demonstrates a serious increase in severity. Horizon is simply not—"
"Are you ejecting her from your school, Mr. Scarborow?"
"No, not technically, but you must understand that Horizon is not equipped to give the psychiatric care that Juliette seems to need. As a facility we are not prepared to offer the twenty-four-hour observation that her behavior necessitates. I have a list of several excellent juvenile psychiatric facilities that I can recommend."
"Mr. Scarborow, you dealt well with Juliette's earlier outburst—"
Outburst?
Peter thought faintly."—and I am sure you can deal with this one as well." The woman's tone was placating.
Peter wanted to drop the issue, but thinking of Juliette's frantic screams earlier that day, he forced himself to continue. "Mrs. Coatesworth, I am not confident in Horizon's ability to maintain your daughter's safety. I recommend her removal from our program, in light of her problems."
"Mr. Scarborow, I sent my daughter to your school to receive help. She does not belong in a hospital and I will not send her to one. I trust that between yourself, your staff, the physician, and the psychologist, Juliette's problems are more than manageable. Now, you'll have to pardon me, I must attend to a previous engagement. Please keep me informed about Juliette's health."
The phone clicked before Peter could even lodge a protest. He sat there, motionless, phone still in his hand. He was delighted that Juliette could stay at Horizon, but his conscience gnawed at him—was it really the best place for her? Could they provide the best care for her? Was he doing her a disservice by selfishly allowing her to stay? There was no one to direct these questions to; he was the boss,, he made the decisions, even if they could be life-and-death. The responsibility weighed heavily on him.
* * *
Sophie found him like that, staring slightly slackjawed at the wall, going over and over the possibilities for complete and utter disaster that lay before him in this situation.
"Oh, no, Peter," she cried quietly. "When is she leaving?"
He turned in his chair to look at her. "She's not," he said, the surprise still new in his voice.
"What?"
"She's not. Her mother doesn't want her in a hospital. Embarrassment, I suppose—but her care has been left to us."
"Peter, that's great."
"Is it? And if we screw up and she slits her wrists, where does that leave us? We can't be responsible here, Soph."
"Peter, you act like this is only a threat with Juliette. Daisy could have done all sorts of things when we went to her mother's funeral. Kat could have died when she was coming to crisis over her sister. Scott could have collapsed under what happened to him. It's a constant threat with these kids, and we need to deal with it responsibly and proactively, but we can't let the threat control us with fear."
"But none of those situations was so critical. Juliette's the only one of the kids here who has and does act on her feelings so violently. She's the only one who puts herself in danger."
"You don't think running does the same thing?"
"No! There's no knife to the wrist!"
"No—just one kid against everything." She drew her arm sharply across the air.
"It's not the same, Sophie."
"I know it isn't, Peter! Juliette's in a critical situation. But between the doctors and us, I think we can help her come out of it."
"Is that what you really think, or just what you want to think?"
Sophie stopped, mid-rant, her arms dropping to her sides. "I don't know," she said softly.
"We don't have much time to decide a plan of action."
