Page 153 of The Glass Girl

I nod.

The other girl says, “You don’t have to say anything right away. It helps, but you can take your time. Don’t feel rushed.”

“I didn’t say anything for, like, ten meetings before I felt brave enough to really talk,” Girl One says.

“Okay,” I say.

“You do have to introduce yourself, though,” Girl Two says. “That’s kind of the rule. Just so you know.”

“I remember that,” I say. “From…rehab.”

Girl One laughs. “You don’t have to whisper it. Everyone here’s in the same boat. Where were you? I was at Spirit Hills. That’s in Phoenix.”

“Sonoran Sunrise,” I say.

Girl Two nods. She’s wearing a huge puffy parka and has tattoos of tiny stars along one side of her neck.

“The goats,” she says. “That place is all right. That’s what I heard, anyway. I’ve been to some bad ones, believe me. Like prisons.”

Beth is talking and suddenly stops. I realize everyone in the room is staring at me.

Girl Two nudges me gently. “It’s okay,” she whispers. “Just get it over with. Rip off the Band-Aid.”

I look at my lap, at my fingers twisting together.

Wren, sparrow, roadrunner, quail.

“Hi. I’m Bella. And I drink a lot. I mean, I did.”

Everyone says, “Hi, Bella,” all at once.

And one by one, they say their names.

“Bella’s been home, what did you say? A few days now?” Beth’s eyes are kind. “Is there anything on your mind?”

I hesitate.

“It’s all right,” Beth says, sipping from her paper cup. “We’re all friends.”

“I start school again tomorrow,” I say quietly. “I haven’t been there in two months.”

A boy—Ethan? Efrain? I can’t remember, but it had anE—across the circle lets out a loud guffaw.

“Oh, man,” he says, shaking his head. “School? Good luck. It was bad before, it’ll be bad again. Just try to get through the day. And stay away from the bathrooms.”

Girl One nods. “I got a UTI after my first week back at school because there wasn’t a bathroom I could go in where people weren’t doingsomething.”

“I just do online school now,” a girl sitting next to Ethan-Efrain says. “It’s so much less bullshit, really. And I can use the bathroom whenever I want. But that basically means I never leave my house, except for here.” She laughs nervously. “My life now is like,microscopic.Get up, grab a Pop-Tart, sit at my desk, log in and sit there for six hours, then go back to bed.”

“You can’t escape the world, though,” Beth says. “Not forever. At some point, you have to get back out there and figure out a way to exist.”

“No thank you,” says the girl primly. “The world is not a good place for me. It wasn’t when I was using, and it isn’t now that I’m not. I’m better off hiding.”

“I’m with her,” says another girl. She’s knitting furiously, bright blue yarn in her lap. “Except I can’t really even hide at home. My parents didn’t stop drinking when I came home. I sit there all night waiting for them to pass out and then I pour out whatever’s left over because smelling it literally makes me…makes meachefor it. You know?”

Everyone nods.

Next to me, Girl Two—Ashley, I think—says, “Just go to school. Keep your head down, do what you can, and protect yourself. I have fifty-two days now. That means something to me. Every night I text myself to congratulate myself, because the only person who truly cares about me is me. Everyone is all positive when you first get back, but that fades away. No one wants to deal with your shit long-term, you know? They just want you to get over it so they can go back to normal, whatever that means. And you know what? Sometimes youhave to lie to save yourself. In a bad situation with unsupportive people? Lie. Get out. Tell them you’ve got to catch a bus. Or you have homework. Make something, anything, up. Just get out of there.”

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