Page 67 of The Glass Girl

“You have another hiding area,” Brandy points out, and Billy frowns.

“Ouch,” he says. “Yuck.”

Brandy walks into our room and stretches out on a bottom bunk, arranges her voluminous hair behind her on the pillow, and begins to inspect her long pink nails. Billy goes to his room.

Holly looks at her sneakered feet and then at me, her sunken eyes like dark pools.

I stare into our room from the hallway. None of this seems like a good thing. Like Holly said, it seems prisonlike and kind of…dumpy? I thought rehabs were more hospital-y and clinical-looking. So far, everything seems kind of like a very low-rent apartment complex. Ratty furniture, spare walls.

I’m beginning to regret agreeing to come here, even thoughI don’t think I had much of a choice. Anger and fear flare inside me. They’re going to search me? I’ve never even been to a gynecologist. I shudder. This can’t be legal.

Amber and Kristen and Lemon. Amber snitching on me in the intervention room and Kristen and Lemon abandoning me.

If it wasn’t for all of them, I wouldn’t be here. I hope they go to hell. And when I get out of this place, if I ever get out, I’m never speaking to any of them again.

I look up and down the hallway for exits. Maybe I could sneak out. Run. Make it…somewhere? But where would I go? I’m not even sure exactly where this place is.

I can’t even call my mother and beg, because I don’t have a phone. And my body really hurts—

I give up and walk into the room. Holly is already on the bunk over Brandy, so I sit on the bottom of the second bunk bed set.

“I can tell what you’re thinking,” Holly says to me. “Because I thought about it, too. But it would be hard to leave. There’s nothing around out here for miles. It’s all desert. We’re all alone.”

“This is really the worst,” I say. “I don’t deserve to be here. I didn’t do anything wrong. I just messed up.”

Holly nods slowly. “Yeah. Right. Me too, I guess.”

I could sleep for a thousand days, I think. That might be the only decent thing to come of this whole shitshow—not having to deal with my life for a little while.

“Girl,” Brandy says, leaning out of her bunk and angling her face up to Holly, “whatever you got up your vajayjay, get it out now.”

Holly rolls over toward the wall, her shoulders starting toshake.

Brandy turns her eyes to me. “You stashing?”

“Stashing?” I say. “What even is that?”

“You’re a boozer, then,” she says. “Stashing is hiding shit in your holes. Like Fran said. Little baggies of whatever. Or swallowing a baggie beforehand and shitting it out while you’re here. Not that I’ve done it. I just know about it. That’s a little too gross for my taste.”

“That’s absolutely disgusting,” I say. “That’s completely desperate.”

“You do what you have to do, I guess,” Brandy answers. She reaches up and pokes the underside of the bunk, where Holly is curled and silent.

“Isn’t that right?” Brandy calls to her. Holly doesn’t answer.

Brandy shrugs, lying back down and looking over at me. “But I can’t wait to find out what happened to your damn face.”

“It’s not really that interesting of a story,” I say.

From her top bunk, Holly whispers, “So if I did have, like, something…what am I supposed to do with it?”

“Well,” Brandy sighs. “You have a couple of options. Not that I know personally. I’ve just heard things. One, you can go in that bathroom over there and take it out and flush it down the toilet. Two, you can take it out and swallow whatever you have and, like, OD, or whatever, since I don’t know how much you’re packing. But they’re gonna take a blood test and make you pee, so they’ll find it in your system and you’ll spend longer in Detox. Three, you can take it out and hand it over when they come get you for Search. Option three shows you’re being honest, which may score you some points.”

“And you know all this how?” I ask Brandy.

“I did this once before, but at a different place,” she says.“Which, by the way, wasa lotnicer than this one. I’m guessing Detox rules are the same at most places.” She kicks off her pristine white sneakers and lets them fall to the tiled floor.

Holly shifts in my direction and blinks, like she’s thinking very hard about something, then climbs down the ladder, walks into the bathroom, and shuts the door.

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