Page 65 of The Glass Girl

And then, “Billy.”

“Holly,” whispers the girl in black next to me.

It’s like we’re on a plane that’s going down, we’re going to die, and suddenly we have to make sure at least one person knows us before we, and everything we ever were, disappear forever.

“Bella.”

—

Tracy drives down a long dirt road to a sprawling, ranchlike compound of brick and adobe buildings. It feels like the middle of nowhere, just desert with cacti spreading out in a repeating pattern of brown and green, brown and green.

She stops at a wide iron gate withSonoranwritten in curly letters on one side andSunrisein the same lettering on the other side. She enters a code on a keypad and the gates open, severingSonoran Sunrisein half. She drives the white van inside and the gates whine shut behind us.

—

Welcome to the Beginning of Your Life, says the mat outside the adobe building. Tracy leads us inside. I hang back, behind Holly.

A woman with spiky gray hair and faded jeans stands up from a fraying couch in the lobby.

“Hey, everyone,” she says. “I’m Fran. I’ll be taking the four of you to Detox, where you’ll stay for three days while we figure out what shit you put into yourselves and try to get it out.”

She smiles, like this is funny. No one laughs.

“You’ll need to leave your bags here,” Fran says. “Just set them anywhere and say bye to your stuff.”

“Excuse me,” says Holly. “Why?”

Holly is so thin her black clothes hang from her shoulders. There’s dog hair on the back of her hoodie.

“Bag search,” Phil says amiably, taking a seat on the worn couch. “Have to make sure you aren’t bringing in drugs, alcohol, weapons, stuff like that.”

Holly hesitates, her dyed-black hair falling over her eyes. She steps back. I step out of the way so she doesn’t bump intome.

“No,” she says, holding her backpack tight in her arms. “No. Uh-uh. This is my personal stuff. I don’t want your hands on it.”

Tracy and Fran look at each other. Phil sighs, like he’s used to this, and I guess he is.

“Okey-dokey,” Fran says, shrugging. She checks her clipboard. “You’re Holly, right? If you don’t consent to search, you can’t come in. You’ll have to call your people to come get you.”

“No.” Holly’s voice wavers. “They’ll kill me.”

All three of the adults are looking at her, faces impassive, waiting.

“Just give itupalready,” says the Kardashian girl, Brandy. “I have topee.”

“Shit,” Holly says, looking at her feet like she’ll find ananswer there. Or a way out. I feel kind of sorry for her. She’s obviously got something she doesn’t want anyone to see or have.

Slowly, as though it’s very painful, Holly lowers her backpack to the floor.

All of us line up our suitcases and bags in a row. I’m not afraid of what might be in mine. My mother packed it; I know there’s nothing in there.

I wish therewas.

Then Phil holds out a plastic tub. “Phones, too.”

Brandy yellsnoso loudly my ears ring. Billy clutches his phone with both hands, and Holly trembles as she holds hers. I have no phone, so I have no dog in this fight, but I have to listen anyway as Tracy says “Phones are a distraction and not conducive to your recovery if you are in contact with people who may hinder that process” and “You may use the house phone after ten days, but we need to approve your call list” and “In time you’ll earn the right to use your own phone for an hour a day, but not until youearn it.”

Honestly, I do not care. I don’t have my phone, and I don’t want to talk to my parents anyway. And I don’t have any friends left, apparently, so there’s that. As Billy and Brandy complain, I look around at the room.

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