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Authors: Julia Mayer

Eyes in the Mirror (9 page)

BOOK: Eyes in the Mirror
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chapter 9

Feeling Defeated

Samara

I looked at Dee in the mirror and thought,
We're back
. I heard my father calling me, and I wondered what he was doing home so early on a Friday.

“Samara, can you come down here for a minute?” I went downstairs and stopped on the landing, looking down at him. He had one hand on the banister and a foot on the first step. “I wanted to give you this…” He held a pamphlet toward me. “And to see if you started packing already, if there's anything you need…”

“Packing? Packing for what? Where are we going?” I walked down the stairs and reached out to take the pamphlet he was holding. It took a moment to sink in.
Reality Rehabilitation
. I opened it and stared at the inside. It was filled with text, but I didn't understand any of it.

“Rehab? I'm supposed to be…I'm supposed to be packing for rehab?”

“We talked about it, honey. It's only for a week. To help you deal with…help us deal with…” his voice trailed off.

I felt a small flame begin in my stomach, come up through my intestines, and burn out the back of my throat and the roof of my mouth. I was sure that when I opened my mouth I would breathe out fire, but instead I screamed, “I am not going to rehab!”

My father took a step back, and I looked down at him from three stairs up. “Samara, you…you said it was a good idea. We talked about this,” he repeated meekly.

“I must've been out of my fucking mind. There's no way I'm going.”

“Yes, you are. This is not your decision. This is what's best for you, and it's not your decision.”

“To hell it's not,” I said. I ran down the stairs and stomped out of the house, unsure where I was going.

***

I found myself outside the cemetery where my mother was buried. I had never been to visit before, though Dad had pointed out the grave when we drove by the cemetery once. I hadn't even been to her funeral. My father had told me that it would be too much for me to handle, and I guess it would have been.

The man at the gate of the cemetery asked if I wanted to buy flowers. I shook my head and put my hand on the gate in front of me. All I needed to do was push it open and walk in and ask my mom for help. But I couldn't. I had never been able to go in, not since she died.

The man with the flowers continued pushing me to buy, and finally I crossed the street to get away from him. I went to a park and sat down on a bench.

When Mom died, instead of letting me mourn, my dad had told me to write letters to her.

“It's better than crying,” he told me. “Write down everything you wish you could tell her. Then give them to me, and I'll send them to her so when you get to heaven, she'll be all caught up. It will be like she was here all the time.”

I wrote letters for years, giving them to my father in sealed envelopes addressed:

My Mommy

the Most Beautiful House

Heaven, the Sky

After I had stopped writing, when I got old enough to realize the letters were never being sent, that there was no heaven, that I wasn't going to see my mom again and she wasn't going to see me again, I went into my dad's room while he was out. I went through his sock drawer and his closet and eventually found them all on the back of a shelf tied up with a red ribbon. I moved them into my room, but I was never able to bring myself to reread them. What had my life become since she died?

Sitting on that park bench, I wondered for the first time in a long time what I had written, what I had told her. I realized how cold I was. I had stormed out without thinking about where I was going or the fact that I might like a jacket when I got there. I looked around and wasn't surprised that there wasn't anybody else in the park. In the few days since I had left, it had gone from fall to winter; the trees were barer than they were orange or red. I got up and slowly walked home. I sneaked in as quietly as I could and tiptoed up the stairs.

I closed the door of my room and opened the third dresser drawer. There, underneath my sweaters, was a stack of envelopes tied with a red ribbon. I sat on the floor with my legs crossed and stared at the stack for a moment. I untied them and ripped open the one on top.

Dear Mom,

Since I last wrote to you, I've started seeing somebody new. I like him. More than the last one, at least. I don't know if you would approve. I don't think so. A few weeks ago, I got drunk with him. It felt good. For one night, I wasn't thinking about you. Everyone else doesn't think about you all the time, but the only time I don't think about you is when I'm distracted. Then at night when I'm alone in bed, every moment that I didn't think about you makes me feel guilty. I don't want to feel bad. Not like this. It's…it's too hard. So now I sometimes get drunk before I go to bed.

One year ago today, I came home from school and I wanted to show you a report I had done well on. One year ago today, I had to see your empty eyes that didn't love me anymore. One year ago today, I cried while I was lying in bed by myself and Dad was downstairs making “arrangements.” One year ago today, I had to tell my friends that I didn't have a mother anymore. One year ago today, you left me. Alone. To figure things out.

So today I figured things out. Today I thought the less I can think about you, the better. Today I decided I want to do things without wondering if you would tell me they were okay. Today I cried alone in bed when I woke up and then cried alone in the shower. Today I am crying alone in my room while I write you a letter.

But tomorrow I will not cry anymore. Tomorrow I will not think about you at school or on my way home. Tomorrow I will not write you another letter. Tomorrow I will do anything it takes to not worry about you. Tomorrow I will think of a way to make things better. Tomorrow I will not tell you things that will upset you.

I hope you don't miss me as much as I miss you.

Your baby girl,

Samara

I reread the letter and remembered why I had stopped writing the letters. While I was sitting in the park, I had thought it was because I'd stopped believing she would receive them. But in my room, rereading the letter a third time, I realized it was because I was embarrassed. I was ashamed of what I was doing, so ashamed that I couldn't even tell my mother about it in a letter she would never receive.

I looked at my arms and felt the cuts burn as my tears fell on them. I would have been thirteen when I wrote that last letter. And already, I had been acting older than I should have.

I sneaked back down the stairs into the front of the house and slammed the front door. My father came out when he heard the noise.

“I know that this is hard for you,” he said as he walked in, “but I'm your father and I know what's best for you.”

“No, Dad,” I said, shaking my head. “I don't care what I said last week.” What had Dee said last week? “I'm not going to rehab. I don't need it. And I'm not going.”

But three days later, I found myself on a plane to Florida.

***

I spent most of the trip wondering how Dee's conversation with Jamie had gone and if he
had
known it was me the whole time. If it brought the two of them closer or pushed them farther apart. I wondered for a moment if Dee had sent me to this place, had agreed to this, just to get me away. But angry as I was at her, I didn't think that was Dee. And she hadn't known about Jamie when she had told my dad.

As the cab drove up to the…institution, I guess…I couldn't help but think it seemed dank and gross. It was brighter inside, but the trees outside did very little to cheer up the concrete exterior. There were windows, but they were barred like a prison. There was a courtyard in the center of the building that was filled with flowers. But I couldn't see that from the outside. I shuddered.

A nurse met me outside and smiled. “Welcome.”

She walked me in and down a long hallway. It was brightly lit, but something about the whole place still felt depressing. Which was strange because this place was supposed to be able to cure me of sadness. Or anger. Or something.

“This is your room. Your roommate hasn't arrived yet, but she's on her way. Her name is Sasha. I'm sure the two of you will get along fine.” I looked in. The room had flowered wallpaper and two made beds. I watched the nurse out of the corner of my eye. She was still smiling in a weird, fake way. I turned around and looked at her straight on.

“Something else?”

She continued smiling, unfazed. “I'll let you get settled for a few minutes. Come on out when you're done.” I moved in after her and began to close the door.

“Open, please,” she said, smiling. I nodded, already feeling defeated, and dropped my backpack on the bed. I walked around the room, looked out the window and tapped on it. Plexiglas. I went into the bathroom. No mirror. No way out. I walked around and found a nurse to ask about it.

“Mirrors encourage focusing on our outer image. We want to see what's inside,” one of the always smiling nurses told me when I asked. They took girls with all sorts of problems, and I think the lack of mirrors was mostly for the girls with serious eating disorders. But I guess the reason was supposed to be overarching.

When I got back, Sasha was there unpacking. At first, she refused to tell me why she was there, but later in the week she admitted to me that she had tried to kill herself a number of times. That didn't seem to be the most immediate reason. But she wouldn't say what the trigger was that had brought her here this time.

Once she finished unpacking, she just sat on her bed curled up, watching me unpack. She didn't have much with her. I guess I brought more than I needed, but how do you pack for rehab? About half of what I had stayed in my suitcase the whole week, but while I unpacked the first night, I could feel Sasha's eyes on my back.

“First time?”

“What?” I asked her.

“Is it your first time in a…in a place like this? In a hospital?”

“Yeah. My dad sent me. What about you?”

She smiled ironically. “Before I came, I sat down to figure out exactly how much time I've spent inpatient this year. I've spent more time in a hospital this year than I have at home.”

I stopped unpacking and sat down on my bed to really look at her. She was pretty, but she was so thin that she looked gaunt. She had this look…this sad look, like the one my mom used to have when she thought no one was watching. Sasha had dark brown eyes that seemed like they sunk into her head further than other people's. Her hair was wispy and thin. She seemed to melt as I looked at her. She stared back at me, hardly blinking.

“Does it help?” I asked finally.

“I think it would help if I could be in a hospital all the time. But otherwise, I mean, for a little while. I guess. I don't know…I get home and it feels like everything just comes back.” I nodded. She pursed her lips for a moment. “It won't help you if you don't want it to,” she said.

I wondered if I did want it to. I wanted to stop cutting. I wanted to stop feeling this way all the time. In a way, I knew it was good that the hospital had taken everything away from me. I wasn't sure that deciding I wasn't going to do it was going to be enough. Maybe I did need the help. Or at least the friendship. But on the other hand…well, I already knew I wasn't going to cut myself anymore. If I could get through the hellish week ahead of me, maybe I could try for change. Try to make things be different when I got home.

We were given the first day to get to know each other. My roommate recognized about a quarter of the girls there, and they immediately formed a group of “frequent visitors.” Sasha invited me to join them and I tried sitting with them for a little while, but they were swapping stories about what had happened since they were last institutionalized…I guess they had found their community. Most of them were part of an online support group where they were able to stay in touch and try to keep each other out, keep each other clean. Or whatever the equivalent is when you're depressed.

“I thought I was doing really well,” said one girl. “I decided to go off my meds because I was tired of that…that flat feeling.” There was general nodding. “I did okay for a couple of weeks, but…” She trailed off and gestured to where we were. In the over-flowered garden of a cement hospital.

I didn't quite fit. Apparently, I was old for my first visit, at least according to these girls, and I wasn't really ready to talk to them about what I had gone through.

On the second day, I spoke to one of the psychiatrists for a short while and then to a nurse for most of the afternoon. She asked if I had made friends with the other girls, and I told her I hadn't. Sasha was nice, but she wasn't a friend. I mean, we probably wouldn't have even talked if we hadn't coincidentally been in the same room.

“Sometimes, it can help to talk to other people who are going through the same thing,” the nurse said, inclining her head slightly to the side. “You shouldn't count on someone else for your recovery, of course, but it can help. That's why we have this secluded location. Build a support group for yourself. You can stay in touch if you choose to afterward. And if not, there are groups you can join when you get home.”

“I'm not really ready to tell a bunch of girls who are trying to kill themselves that my mom succeeded.” Plus, I thought to myself, I don't think telling them I slept with my reflection's boyfriend would go over too well. Ever since I'd arrived, I had been worrying about someone finding out why I was really there, finding out about Dee, and claiming I was schizo or something.

I looked at the nurse and almost felt bad for her. She was forced to keep a smile plastered on her face all day, and I tried to focus on what she was saying, instead of on the abnormally chipper way she was saying it. I wondered if she was a rehab graduate. If I felt like I was stuck here forever, what must she feel like? I mean, I would only be there for a week.

BOOK: Eyes in the Mirror
5.69Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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