Break(43)

“Where’s Leah?” I say.

“Hmm?”

“We haven’t seen her this morning. She wasn’t at breakfast or lunch.”

“I don’t know anything that I can share right now.”

I glare at him and scratch the knee of my jeans.

“So, what are we going to do here, Jonah? Are you ready to start constructing some new behavior?”

I say, “I don’t know anything that I can share right now.”

He writes something on his clipboard, and I hear applause in my head. Jonah: 1. Mental Health: 0.





thirty-six


NAOMI CALLS WHEN I’M IN THE LOUNGE AFTER lunch. We’re all crowded around the armchairs, worrying about Leah, when IMOAN appears on my caller ID.

“Hey, babe,” I say, smiling at Mackenzie as she takes her post behind the desk.

Naomi’s voice is comforting in its coarseness. “Well, you sound cheery.”

I admit that, despite all the shit with Jess and Leah and the psychologist, I feel sort of cheery.

“I heard she’s in the infirm,” Belle announces on her way upstairs.

Tyler groans. “She better not have had a heart attack.”

Stephen throws his hands over his head. “Tyler, don’t say that.”

“Anorexic girls have heart attacks all the time. It happens.”

I try not to listen. “How’s school?” I ask Naomi.

“Fine. And Jess is great,” she adds before I can ask. “I’ve been keeping an eye on him.”

“He’s eating?”

“Yep. He kicked ass in the hockey game, honestly. He’s doing great.”

“That’s awesome.” I cover the mouthpiece and catch Annie’s eye as she comes in from the courtyard, shuffling her feet against the ground. “Any news?”

She shakes her head.

“Jesse misses you,” Naomi says. “Every time I talk to him all he’ll say is how much he misses you.”

“He’s healthy.”

“Yeah. And sad.”

Belle runs in from the hallway. “She’s in the infirmary.”

“What happened?”

Her face is all red. “She broke her arm.”

I drop the phone. “What?”





thirty-seven


THE DOCTOR GATHERS US ALL TOGETHER IN THE common room because he thinks we’re worried about Leah.

“Because of her weight, her bones break very easily. Think of an old woman’s.” He straightens his glasses. “It’s unfortunate, but not shocking, and she’s going to recover just fine.”

God, I’m like the angel of bad health. I leave, and Jesse gets well. I come here, and Leah breaks her bones. I wonder if there’s an angel of bad health in the Bible, and I wonder if he got swallowed by a big fish or shoved from place to place like a pinball.

We’re sitting in a circle in the lounge. I stare at my lap, but I know everyone’s watching me.

Tyler mumbles, “For the good of the group, right?”

I shake my head. “That’s not what I meant.”

I feel so shaky and sore I think I’m going to pass out. My broken hand is throbbing.

“Leah should be home from the hospital tonight. Hopefully she won’t have to coincide with any of those Halloween burn victims.” He smiles, and Stephen and I flinch because we don’t like the words “burn” and “Halloween.”

“You’ve all got exercise period in ten minutes,” the doctor says. “Why don’t you go get changed while I speak to Jonah?”

I clasp my hands between my legs while the others clear the room. Tyler squeezes my good shoulder on his way out.

The doctor scoots close to me. It’s the first time he’s managed to make me feel honestly comfortable. “You know why I want to talk to you, right?”

I nod. “I didn’t tell Leah to do it.”

“But you understand how this looks.”

“Yeah.”

“Could you have said anything? To encourage her to do this?”

“I . . . explained to Mackenzie. She overheard.”

“Mackenzie?”

“One of the volunteers.”

“Right. Right.” He chews his lip. “The principle of this home is that you help each other heal, okay? If there’s a chance you could be interfering with the recovery of another patient . . . you understand that we have to take that very seriously.”

“Yeah.”

“Just . . . be careful, all right, Jonah? We don’t want to have to put you in isolation.”

I look up.

He smiles. “Just watch yourself, all right? Everything’ll be fine. Leah’s gonna heal up nicely, and you’ll be home in no time, all right?”

“Okay. Thank you.”

Annie’s waiting for me in my room.

“Hi,” I say.

She hands me a little slip of paper. I read the note: I believe in you.

I spin from the shoulders up. “Thank you.”

I think.

My nausea claims get me out of exercise period, but they still drag me out of bed for art and dinner. All I want to do is sleep. The psychiatrist lets me out of our session early so I can rest, and I crash until Mackenzie comes in to check my vitals.