A Danger to Herself and Others(39)

Now it turns out Agnes wasn’t so good after all.

Agnes can’t play the innocent victim with two boyfriends. The whole Matt-Agnes-Jonah love triangle could help my case. Judges and juries are easily swayed by this sort of thing, especially when it comes to teenage girls. (Double standard and all that, but at least it might play in my favor.)

Not that any of this will ever go to trial. But it’s good to have some new ammunition, just in case.





twenty-seven


I can’t sleep. If I complain, they’ll probably give me sleeping pills. I’m surprised they haven’t already. In the movies, patients in places like this always take pills. Pills in the morning, pills at night, pills at random hours in between. Blue pills, yellow pills, white pills. Chalky pills and long slim capsules. Pills to take on an empty stomach. Pills to take with food.

In the cafeteria at lunchtime (back when I still had cafeteria privileges), I watched orderlies distribute pills in little, white paper cups to some of the patients. Some girls had to open their mouths and stick out their tongues to prove they swallowed.

If someone refused to take her pills, the orderly stood over her with his hands on his hips.

If she still refused, the orderly reminded her that they could give her an injectable dose of the drug instead.

If she continued to refuse—the orderlies would sigh as if to say, Why can’t these girls see reason? A pill is so much less invasive than a shot—then the girl was led away, sometimes peacefully, sometimes kicking and screaming.

The orderlies don’t understand that a pill can be more invasive than a shot. Taking the pill implies that it’s your choice. Willingness to swallow what they hand you suggests that you agree with them: there’s something wrong with you; you need to take your medicine.

If they force a shot on you, at least you’re taking a stand. At least they haven’t made you believe there’s something wrong with you.

“What’s the matter?” Lucy mutters from her side of the room.

“I thought you were sleeping.”

“With all that tossing and turning over there?”

“I can’t sleep.”

“No kidding.” Lucy rolls over to face me, the rise of her hip silhouetted in the darkness. “Why not?”

Agnes and I used to do this. I mean, not this, not being locked in a room unable to control whether the lights were on and off. But we’d stay up nights, talking in the dark when everyone else was asleep.

What’s it like to be an only child?

Dunno. I’ve never been anything else.

Me either. I mean, I’ve never been an only child.

That’s not true. You were an only child for four years before your little sister was born.

Agnes has two little sisters, Cara (four years younger than Agnes and I) and Lizzy (seven years younger than Agnes and I).

Wait, proper grammar. Cara is four years younger than Agnes and me.

I don’t remember what it felt like to be the only kid in the house.

C’mon, you must remember something.

Agnes closed her eyes. It was too dark for me to see the patch of freckles behind her ear, but I imagined her hair falling across it. I remember climbing into my parents’ bed after I had a bad dream. Right in between them.

You never did that after your sister was born?

She slept in their room at first. I couldn’t risk waking the baby.

Her voice sounded different. She’d had to become so selfless at four years old, had to train herself not to cry if she had a bad dream because it might disturb her baby sister.

Agnes loved her sisters. But I was the only person who knew she also resented them sometimes.

I couldn’t join the soccer team because practice was after school, and after school I had to take care of Cara and Lizzy until my mom got home from work.

I couldn’t make weekend plans without making sure my mom didn’t need a babysitter.

Once when I was babysitting, I heard a loud thump from upstairs, and Cara started wailing. I counted to sixty before I went to her room just to see if she’d stop crying on her own. Agnes’s voice dropped to a whisper. When I finally went upstairs, I saw that she’d fallen out of bed. Her arm was twisted in this wacky direction. She’d broken it. Agnes bit her lip, tears brimming in her clear blue eyes. I never told anyone that. That I waited sixty seconds.

How could she tell me so much while never once mentioning Matt, the boyfriend back home everyone else seemed to know about?

Lucy sighs. “If you’re going to keep me awake with all that noise, the least you can do is answer my question.”

“What was your question?” I already forgot. Or maybe I wasn’t listening to her to begin with.

“Why can’t you sleep?”

“I’m thinking about my friend.”

“Which friend?”

I haven’t told Lucy about Agnes. She doesn’t know why I’m here. My reasons aren’t as self-evident as hers.

“I made this new friend over the summer. Agnes Smith. From North Dakota.” Now I’ve told Lucy about Jonah and Agnes. Not everything about them, but at least Lucy can say she knows they exist. That’s more than Agnes did for me where Matt was concerned.

“Why are you thinking about her?”

I don’t answer right away. Agnes must have told me about Matt. Maybe I forgot after everything that happened with Jonah.