The Glass Girl: Part 4

I open the folder on my lap. A plethora of papers and brochures and a You got this! sticker. A plethora of information for me on how to live now.

It’s all a little too much for me. Being in the house is overwhelming after being at Sonoran Sunrise for two months.

I clamber over her, wedge myself under the blanket. I have to lie on my side to make myself fit.

But nothing’s under the bed except small pairs of underwear and a smattering of Woodzeez. I panic for a minute: Where’s my stuff? I don’t want a demerit.

“You won’t even trust me with an aspirin?” I say, exasperated. “That seems excessive, don’t you think?”
“No, I don’t,” she says.

I look up one side of the street. Down the other. I don’t have a viable escape plan.

Make a protective shield around your body that no one can penetrate. You have your makeup. You have your baggy clothes. You are impenetrable.

“You look skinnier,” she says, giving me the once-over.
“I did a lot of running,” I say. “And there was a gym.”
“Swanky,” she murmurs.

“I just wanted to say, Bella,” Vanessa says, flicking out a pillowcase, “that I’m really sorry I missed all the signs. I should have been better. I should have been more cognizant. More present.”

Sometimes I wonder if you remember those songs. I do. I had a couple on rotation, like “Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk” and “Alive” (you really liked that one because no one can do Eddie’s baritone like me.)

I stayed right there on my little makeshift pool-lounger bed. I stayed there every time after, too. I stayed the whole night, every time.

I don’t think you’ll truly understand unless you become a parent someday. That sometimes we inadvertently break our kids’ hearts. Then we have to live with that.

Books of poetry with her handwriting in the margins, which makes me think of José and Patty’s Place and the snippet of poetry he recited to me. I am a watercolor / I wash off.

If your mother wishes, at any time, she can give you an at-home test. If you fail this test, you go back to rehab. In time, certain parameters can be lifted after discussion with your group leader and your parents.

I am too much, too little, too bruised, starry-eyed, scared, wren sparrow roadrunner quail, and one day I hope I look back at all these photographs and think I was beautiful in my brokenness, in all the pieces I keep gathering up and trying to suture back together.