Borderline (The Arcadia Project, #1)(36)

They’ve all given up on you. Dr. Davis, Dr. Scott, your own father. They can’t all be wrong, can they? There’s something wrong with you, deep down. Everyone can tell.

Stop it. Stop thinking. Fix something you can fix, like those hangnails.

Breath coming fast, eyes burning, I found a pair of cuticle scissors in the suitcase next to the mattress. One of my hangnails was stubborn, so I tore it off with my teeth. The stinging little notch it left in my skin filled in slowly with red. The pain was like a lighthouse, sweeping away the dark.

By the time Dr. Davis answered the phone, it was too late, and all I could do was cry.

“What’s the matter, Millie?”

Her voice didn’t belong to any reality that made sense anymore. I had washed out of dialectical behavior therapy. I was never going to see the beige walls of her office again. So I just cried, and she sat silent on the other end of the line. Except there wasn’t even a line. Not even the barest thread of physical connection linked me to anyone on this planet.

“You know I have to ask you, Millie. Are you having suicidal thoughts?”

I stopped crying, finding annoyance. “No. Never again. I’ve told you.”

“Have you engaged in any self-harm behaviors?”

I looked down at the cuticle scissors in my hand, the wetly welling slashes of red on my bare thighs.

“You could say that.”

“You know how this works,” she said calmly. “Once you’ve engaged in a target behavior, it’s too late to call me for coaching. I have to end the call now.”

I started crying again, the ugly kind of crying that’s like your eyes are throwing up.

“I want to go home,” I said.

“Where’s home, Millie?” When I didn’t answer, she asked it again. “Where’s home?”

I didn’t have an answer. I ended the call so I wouldn’t have to hear her hang up.

? ? ?

I woke to a rap on my door. It was still dark outside. I groped by the air mattress for my bathrobe and pulled it on. As I hefted myself clumsily up into my wheelchair, there was another knock at the door, louder. “Just a minute!” I snapped. “For God’s sake, I’m a cripple.”

I took the brake off the chair and wheeled my way to the door, throwing it open to find a groggy and pissed-off Teo. “Let me in,” he said forcefully. I was so startled that I backed off the chair and did as he asked; he shut the door behind us. “Show me your arms,” he said.

I wasn’t quite awake enough to process what he was saying. He grabbed my hand and yanked it up toward him, pushing back the sleeve of my robe. There was nothing there, but now I knew where he was going with this. I twisted my fingers out of his grip and started to back the chair away again.

“Don’t you try to hide,” he said. “Take that off.”

“Excuse me?”

He went for the ties of my robe, and a smoky phantom of whiskey teased at the back of my throat. I shoved the heels of my hands hard into his chest; he grabbed my wrists. My gut liquefied with terror. Even as we struggled, some half--rational part of my brain knew that he was trying to help in his twisted idiot way. “Don’t, Teo, don’t, what are you doing? Get your hands off my body!”

I have never seen a man let go of anything so fast. He turned and walked away and leaned his forehead against a -window. I stared at the back of his head, feeling the pulse pounding in my ears.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he said.

“Yeah, well, in general, don’t ever f*cking do that to a woman. Or a man. Or a dog.”

“I’m sorry, okay?”

I took a minute to catch my breath, slow my heart. Then I said, “If you’re looking for something in particular, try using your words like a big boy.” Carefully I inched my robe up to expose as little of my skinny, fuzzy, cut-up thighs as I could while still showing the damage. “How did you know?” I said.

He knelt by my chair and peered at the carnage with a clini-cal eye. Monty’s claws could have done worse; the puckered flesh around my thigh amputation was a far more dramatic sight than anything I’d just done.

“Is this all?” he said, sitting back on his heels.

“Yeah.” I was glad, at least, not to have to explain why I’d done it. Not to this guy.

“Davis called Caryl, and Caryl called me. So now you don’t get to sleep either.”

“I’m sorry.”

He leaned forward on the arm of my wheelchair, staring me down. “If Caryl ever calls me in the middle of the night again because of something stupid you’ve done, there won’t be enough sorry in the world.”

“I called Dr. Davis, not Caryl! It was supposed to be confidential! How does she even know Caryl’s number anyway?”

“They’re like, arch-nemeses. Davis calls Caryl all the time to grill her about the Project and beg her to come back to therapy. For all they both knew, you could be bleeding out in here. Caryl thought it was her fault, Millie; she was raving some crap about a fight you two had. She was crying.”

“Bullshit.”

“She’s like a ten-year-old inside, and she worships you, thanks to that stupid movie.”

“What movie?”

“Yours.”

“The Stone Guest? How would you even know?”