Burn
Twenty
Exit
After the orderlies wrestle me down, their needles slide into me and ice replaces my veins. It tastes like a slushy, cold and crushed, and I grind my teeth against the bitter cold.
I am freezing over, an icy lake in the middle of winter. Dr. Gil is speaking quietly with Lauren, her face twisted with very word coming out of the doctor's mouth. Her sad eyes keep rolling back to me, where I'm lying on the messy sheets in my bed, the orderlies on either side, keeping watch in case I do something crazy, or even crazier that scratch messages into the wall and puke my guts out onto the floor. Since I'm on my back, I can see the ceiling and it's spinning downwards, spiraling like a coil.
"…I'm afraid…" Dr. Gil's voice fades out, static cutting in and the it's Lauren's voice.
"…Can't you…nowhere else…"
Derek's standing a little ways away, head turned to the side like he can't bear to look at me.
I can't bear to look at myself either: my hair's a wild nest of curls and tangles, my skin is pasty glue-stick colored, and big, blue and purple bruises under my eyes; in short, I look like death beat me over the head. Nate's talking to another doctor, Ramon hovering between the doorway and him. Royce is nowhere to be found but there's still a chill in the air, my breath escaping in short little grey puffs of air. My teeth chatter; I keep thinking I'm going to bite my tongue off and drown in my own blood, unable to move or scream for help because of the ice-blood in my veins.
"…I'm afraid…danger…herself and others…beyond our help…" I manage to focus my eyes on Dr. Gil's hawk-nosed profile, her thin, peeling lips, her beady eyes behind her wire-rimmed glasses.
She looks ashy under the clammy pallor.
There's this green tinge in my aunt's face and I know the pinched look her face; my dad and I used to call her Ready to Blow face.
It hits that it's my fault that she looks like that.
oOo
It turns out that Dr. Gil is kicking me out. Not even Mila, who binge-eats until she pukes everything up, has gotten kicked; not Amber, with her bony ribcage and squinting eyes; not Brady, who's recently taken up pulling his hair out.
I'm the first in the thirty-four years to be kicked out. I'm officially Number One in the Crazy House.
The orderlies clean up the soaked floor, soggy with pig's blood, and the vomit, no more than water; I don't remember eating anything last night.
The walls have to be patched up and sanded and re-painted.
They vacuum the paint dandruff off the ground and throw away my shredded clothes. The mattress is stripped; bleached; and dried and the bedding is swapped out with clean ones.
"I don't see how she could've done that all by herself," one of them mutters, the one with the rose tattoo on his neck. He's stretched out across my—no, the—bed, tucking in the sheets military-style.
"These nuts are all kinds of crazy. Remember that kid, Kari? She just about scratched her face clean off because 'the bugs were inside her'. She was a schizo," the other orderly says.
Rose Neck nods.
I'm watching them from the little folding chair, waiting for them to finish so they can shuffle my zombie body down the hall, load me up in that clunky old van to cart me off somewhere else.
Hopefully, there will be worse kids, like Kari with the cratered face, or Beth with the messed-up, balding head of baby hair.
The kids before me, the ones who got shipped off too because they were above normal crazy, the ones who pulled their hair out and scratched holes into their face and scrubbed their skin out.
The ones with blacked-out memories and bloody pieces of paper that make them hop from house to house.
Rose Neck glances at me. Flexes his huge muscles. He's one of those massive guys, body builder, but his entire head is shaved so he kind of looks like a beefed-up Mr. Mosby. "She's not that bad," he argues.
The acne-faced orderly shrugs. I call her Pepperoni. She's tiny, almost scrawny, with big, eyes that would make a Chihuahua look normal and wispy hair. I don't like her. She looks like she belongs here.
"Some of these kids are real fucked up," she says, shaking her head. Her arms are full of clean, soft pink bed sheets and I think of the old ones, covered in sweat and tears and blood, all from me. It's hard to believe.
She sneaks a peek at me, catches my eyes, and then looks away.
Caught, I think to myself and shift slowly, focusing entirely on the little movement. My legs are touching my nonexistent chest, knees bruising my chin with sharp jabs, and my arms follow the curve of my thighs, knuckles on my jaw, my lips, and I let my teeth touch the soft skin there.
"She looks so out of it. It kind of creeps me out." Pepperoni shudders as she throws the blob of sheets onto the meticulously made bed and nudges them with the toe of her sneaker.
Rose Neck frowns down at her, his bronze eyes narrowed. He obviously doesn't appreciate her lack of respect for us crazies, or our belongings. How can someone so shitty at their job still be working? Maybe the docs don't care either.
While Rose Neck fixes the bed, tucking and tugging so the sheets lie flat and flush against the mattress, Pepperoni wanders over to me. She's just a little bit taller than me so I have to roll my head back to look into her face. Her nose is squashed and wide, like someone slammed a hammer into it and her forehead is huge, covered with horribly crooked bangs that don't know how to be equal lengths; she looks like an emo kid gone wrong.
"You're really messed up."
Despite the ice in my veins, my croaky voice comes out. "Yeah. That's why I'm getting kicked out."
Rose Necks shoots her a glare and she steps out of the room, unable to bear being around me.
"She didn't mean it." He looks like he wants to throw her out a window.
I wouldn't mind being his size so I can throw Pepperoni and Dr. Gil and Mila out windows.
"She did."
The ice glues my lips shut again and Dr. Gil, stupid, mean Dr. Gil with her pointy nose, comes in. "We're leaving now," she says to Rose Neck.
He gives me this sad puppy dog look.
I'm really crazy.
I'm really sleepy too.