Page 53 of The Glass Girl

“This just seems like a stupid test. I’m not in school right now. I don’t have to take a test and I’m not afraid of anything.”

She takes a pen out of her bag. “Okay. Prove it.” She balances her clipboard on her lap. “Do you remember what happened the other night?”

I roll my eyes. “I was drinking. I drank too much. Happy now?”

“Right, but do you remember what happened the whole night? Some of it? Pieces of it?”

The broken plate. My dad getting mad. Silent dinner. Texting Kristen. Lemon’s friend’s car. Party. Getting sick outside. Lemon’s friend sayingGross.Dylan kissing Willow. And then so much chanting and shouting…

My heart squeezes. “Some. Not all of it. I made a mistake. I drank too much. Smoked some pot. Big deal.”

Tracy’s writing on her clipboard. “It’s called a blackout. That’s what we call it when we can’t remember something that happened while we were drinking. Sometimes we even dothings while we’re blacked out. It’s not like you go to sleep, you know? Your body is still functioning as best it can, but you…It’s like your lights went out. But your body keeps moving. Until it doesn’t.”

I feel for the IV tube in my arm. Stroke it.

Did I…did I do anything else after the parts I can vaguely remember?

“Does that kind of sound like what maybe happened to you?”

“Maybe. I guess. But it’s fine. Here I am. I learned my lesson, okay? Can you go now? I’m tired.”

Her voice is matter-of-fact. “I’m sorry you had to learn some sort of lesson that involved your friends dumping you on your porch at three o’clock in the morning, Bella. And that that lesson involved fracturing your cheekbone and your mother opening the front door to find you unconscious.”

The memory of my mother screaming flashes across my brain.

I start to cry, and then I stop, because pain is shooting across my face. I feel it, gingerly. It’s lumpy and swollen. Fractured.

“What does my face look like?” Panicky.

“It looks bad. I’m not going to lie to you. But, Bella, you didn’t do anythingwrong.I just want to say that. You made a bad decision to drink so much, but you didn’t do anything wrong, do you understand?”

I shake my head.No.

“Tell me what happened to my face.”

Tracy says, “You passed out on your front steps after your friends left you. You fractured your cheekbone, but apparently the fracture is relatively stable, so no surgery, but unfortunately, your face absorbed most of your fall. You’re a mess, I’m sorry to say.”

She stands up. Touches my arm. I shift it away from her. She takes some papers from her clipboard and slides them onto the tray in front of me, along with a pen.

“I think you’ve been drinking for a long time before this, Bella. I don’t think this is just a one-night bad decision. I need you to answer these questions for me as honestly as you can so I can help you. Can you do that for me?”

I slide down in the bed, roll over and face the window.

“I don’t need your help,” I say. “I just need to go home.”

“I’ll be back tomorrow, Bella. We’ll talk then.”

I listen as she walks away.

—

This time, the drink the nurse gives me isn’t chalky. It’s fruity, like a smoothie. Goes down better. My mouth is thick. Hard to swallow, but I do.

There are a lot of sounds in hospitals. Beeps. Intercoms. Hushed voices. Loud voices. Crying. The squeaky wheels of rolling trays. Sometimes the nurses laugh at the station outside my room.

I miss my little sister. I wonder what my mom has told her about me, about what happened. Ricci smells like milk and Oreos and Magic Marker and I miss that.

I try to go back to sleep, but I can’t. I wonder when my parents are coming back. I want to go home. I don’t even care to which one.

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