Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 137433 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 687(@200wpm)___ 550(@250wpm)___ 458(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137433 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 687(@200wpm)___ 550(@250wpm)___ 458(@300wpm)
Pills.
Tranquility.
All in a small, square transparent bag.
Heaven.
I shove it back at her chest with quivering hands. “No. I’m done.”
“You need it,” she insists.
Someone bangs on the basement door loudly. Mom’s voice filters in through the crack. “I heard something crashing. Is everything okay?”
Thalia and I are locked in an unwavering stare-off, but she no longer feels as dangerous.
I drop the bag of drugs between us. It’s at our feet. Every cell in my body wants to bend down and pick it up. But I can’t. I want to do better. To get better. So I remind myself of all the people I cannot disappoint.
My parents. Daria. Lev. Myself.
“Bailey? Bailey, answer me!” Mom bangs louder.
“Take them,” Thalia whisper-shouts, her eyes turning into slits. “You won’t get another chance. Sydney is going out of town tomorrow. Do it.”
“Mom!” It takes everything in me to turn around and yank the door open.
I fall into Mom’s arms, crying, crying, crying. I’m full of glass and blood and demons.
“You should leave,” Mom clips out to Thalia, my head nestled in her hands.
I feel like the most fragile thing in the world right now. A tissue paper ripped to shreds.
Thalia picks up her stuff and scurries her way out.
Mom doesn’t ask about the mirror.
About the blood.
About the state of me.
She just kisses the crown of my head and tells me, “I love you. I love you. I love you.”
And in that moment, in the arms of a mother who loves me unconditionally, I know the meaning of true wealth.
Mom encourages me to take a shower. Perhaps because I look like the post-bucket Carrie scene.
I don’t argue for a change. I sit curled up under the showerhead, letting the water whip at my paper-thin skin.
When I hear the front door open downstairs and Lev announcing himself, I bark out a bitter laugh. Of course, he is finally here when I’m unavailable.
But this time, he says he’ll wait. I turn off the faucet, sitting naked and shivering in the shower, and listen to broken crumbs of his conversation with my parents.
“…not going anywhere. Your kid is harder to pin down than the president.”
“When did you try pinning down the president?” Dad asks conversationally. “You know his address is public knowledge, yeah?”
“She isn’t in a great place today,” Mom admits faintly.
“A great place for her would be rehab,” Dad interjects. “Kid is less than a hundred pounds. She’s a ticking time bomb.”
No, I’m not. I frown, huddling toward my mirror to take a good look at myself.
And then I see that maybe I am less than a hundred pounds after all. My cheeks are sunken, my skin is pale, and you can see the outline of every bone in my torso clearly.
“Well, what do you suggest, kicking her out?” Mom barks at him. Mom and Dad never fight, so of course, I’m filled with fresh guilt. Ever since I came back from Juilliard, I’ve caused nothing but trouble and heartache. I made my parents miserable. Destroyed Lev’s life. And caused Daria pain and sorrow.
“If her sobriety is at risk, heck yes,” Lev spits out.
I don’t know who I’m mad at, but I’m fuming.
Maybe it’s at him for selling me out or at myself for this gigantic fall from grace.
Or at the world, for making me believe for eighteen years that everything would be okay, just for me to crumble out of the safety net of my parents’ house in less than a year.
That’s it. I’m gonna go downstairs and shove it in their faces that I actually refused drugs just today, when Thalia tried to give them to me.
I step out of the shower and slip into a bathrobe. My skin is ice-cold and I’m trembling from withdrawals. They continue arguing downstairs when my gaze halts over my hip bone.
The carving of the dove has somewhat healed, and the jagged skin sticks out. I run my finger over it and shiver. A gust of wind. Like the window is open, but it’s not. It’s crazy, but I feel like something’s happening. Like Rosie is here somehow.
Downstairs, Lev says, “Where’s the draft coming from?”
I press my lips together, fighting tears. “Thank you, Rosie,” I whisper.
There’s a glimmer of hope in the sea of darkness I’m drowning in.
A small hope that Rosie is watching over us and maybe she has a big, good plan how to get us out of this.
“What draft?” Dad asks. I start putting my clothes on, walking over from the bathroom to my room, listening to them as I get dressed. “Anyway, I’m not feeling comfortable sending her back to Juilliard before she completes some sort of program. She’s been slacking on her support group meetings.”
“Well, Juilliard is no longer something we need to be worried about, for better or worse,” Mom says decidedly.
My heart grinds into miniscule smithereens. I can’t move.