Page 140 of The Glass Girl

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She doesn’t come back for a long time.

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And then longer.

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I can’t get up. I am jelly, water, soft bone, squish, becoming small and invisible in this pen of animals. A goat wanders over and nestles my leg with its damp nose. Soft. Soft fur. Sleepy. Me and the goat are sleepy.

Please come back, Charlotte.

I.

Day Twenty-Nine

It’s as familiar asan old sweater you thought you lost but find buried on the bottom of the closet under shoes and old comics. Or shoved inexplicably underneath the back seat of a car. It smells fusty from disuse but you put it on anyway and instantly its warmth, that feeling of comfort, rushes right back to you as you bury yourself in it. You feel like you’re home.

Only, this home is not a comfortable sweater. It is sweat on my forehead and pinpricks of pain shooting sharply behind and in front of my eyes. It is everything inside my head and heart suddenly weighted down, again again again, after twenty-eight days of what I realize now, sitting in the stinking goat pen, curious noses pushing at my cheek, and staring at Tracy, who is watching me, who is sitting on the pen floor with me, who is waiting for me to say something, I realize now it was a gradual lightening I felt all this time, even though I didn’t want to. Even though I fought it. Even though I didn’t want to admit it felt good.

To not wake up this way. The way I am now. The way I was for so long.

I push myself up into a sitting position. Bits of hay and feed fall from my cheek. A few chickens skitter over with excitement.

Tracy takes a Polaroid of me and stands before me, flapping it slowly.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“The Feed Dude,” Tracy says. She stretches her neck. I wonder how long she’s been waiting for me to come to. “Was it the Feed Dude?”

I look over at the supply room door, the padlock hanging open. I know that inside, among the stacks of bags, is one with a tear and a small smiley face on the side.

I nod slowly. Which is a mistake, because I have a crick in my neck from being passed out on the ground. I don’t know how long I’ve been in here. I only remember Charlotte, and the bottle, andshhh shhhanddoesn’t this feel better now.

“Where is Charlotte?” I ask. My mouth is dry. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.

Tracy reaches into her jacket pocket. Her nose and cheeks are red from the cold morning. She throws a bottle of water at me. I catch it, drink, swirl the water in my mouth. I wonder why I don’t have to pee and then I realize why. I peed myself. I’m sitting in wet, smelly jeans.

Tracy says, “She’s gone. She was here for two and a half months. She turned eighteen yesterday.”

“Oh,” I say.

“I think,” Tracy says slowly, “that the reason she acted out, didn’t complete steps, maybe, was so she could stay here longer, until she turned eighteen.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“I don’t think she wanted to go home. And now she doesn’t have to. Someone picked her up a few hours ago. It wasn’t her family.”

“Bella,” Tracy says. “Charlotte didn’t care about you. You were a sport to her. Today was your day twenty-nine and Charlotte did you dirty.”

I burst into tears. Giant, slobbery, snot-from-the-nose tears. Giant, gut-wrenching, shame-filled sobs.

I had twenty-nine days. Charlotte didn’t do me dirty. I did myself dirty.

“You’ll meet more people in life like that, Bella,” Tracy goes on. “They’re all around us. Sometimes we don’t see it right away, but we learn. You’re fifteen. You’re just beginning at life.”

She stands up, brushing off her backside and knees.

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