Page 89 of The Glass Girl

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The five of us sharing a room are me, Brandy, Holly, Charlotte and Gideon. Everybody gets dressed pretty quietly, turning our backs to each other or changing in the dorm-style bathroom down the hall. There are toilet stalls and shower stalls in there and a long row of sinks. On each of our dressers is a little basket to carry our toiletries to and from the bathroom.

“It gets easier,” Charlotte tells us, tying her pink hair into pigtails. “It’s not so bad. I mean, it sucks, but it could be worse. At night, you’re so tired you basically fall right to sleep.”

“Whatever,” Brandy says, pulling on some yoga pants. “I didn’t come here to wash dishes and feed shitty goats.”

Charlotte and Gideon look at each other, but I can’t tell what they’re thinking. That look Charlotte and Gideon gave each other…Are they the mean type?

On the way to gym, Holly whispers to me, “I don’t feel so well.”

“Are you sick?” I ask her.

“No, I just, like, I need to…you know.”

Charlotte glances back at us. “Are you still in withdrawal? Sometimes that can last longer than just a few days. You shouldn’t be out of Detox if you aren’t ready.”

“No,” Holly says. “I just…I’m thinking about it all the time. Getting nervous, you know? Itchy.”

She’s rubbing her hands together in an anxious way.

Gideon falls back and walks with us. “I get it. I remember. Gym will help. Work some stuff out of you. They keep you pretty busy here, so it’s kind of like, every task we do? Takes the place of using, you know? I think when we leave, we’re supposed to do that.”

“You want me to just go for a run if I want a drink?” Brandy says, pulling her long hair back. “Do some push-ups?”

“Yeah,” Charlotte says, chuckling. “Exactly that. Get ripped while you get clean.”

“Is that whatyou’regoing to do when you get out and you want to get wasted? Exercise?” Brandy asks her.

Charlotte laughs loudly. “Fuck no. I’m gonna get high asa kite and rob my biology teacher’s house and then set fire to my rich-ass-bitch dad’s Benz. That’s the first thing I’m gonna do.”

She gives us the thumbs-up and then saunters ahead of us.

Brandy looks at me. “Do you think she’s joking?”

“That was kind of specific to be a joke,” I say.

Charlotte stops in front of a brick building and looks back at us, waving. She pushes open the double doors.

We walk into a giant gym. Weight machines, rowing machines, mats, a thick rope that goes all the way to the ceiling, and a huge climbing wall. It looks like whatever they didn’t spend money on in the other buildings, they spent here. Everything is gleaming and shiny.

Phil, the guy who was in the van with us and took our phones, comes over and checks us off on a clipboard. Charlotte and Gideon head over to the climbing wall. Chuck is standing there, watching some kids inch their way up the wall.

My stomach curdles. I am definitely not doingthat.

“Newbies,” Phil says, “welcome to workout. One thing that’s going to help you in recovery is getting stronger not only inside but outside. Exercise is a way to create positive energy and release dopamine naturally. When we use, we release giant amounts of dopamine in our brains, giving us tremendous pleasure. That’s one of the reasons we like being high and drunk. It makes us feel gooooood, right?”

“Hell yes,” says Billy.

Phil gestures to the large and airy gym. “I want you to learn how to create that feeling of pleasure without damaging your baby brain and baby bodies. I want to retrain your brain. You’re used to getting your pleasure artificially, so I’m going to teach you how to begin to rewire your impulses.”

“I’m not good at PE,” Holly whines.

“Um, my face,” I say. “I’d really like to not mess it up any further.”

“There is no good or bad here,” Phil tells me and Holly.“There is only trying. That’s all I ask, is that you try. Can you do that?”

Holly shrugs.

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