Page 72 of The Glass Girl

“Oh.”

The woman looks at some papers on the desk. “You were sleeping and missed dinner. Do you want something to eat?”

I hesitate. I can’t tell if I’m hungry or not. My body just feels really…exhausted.

I tell her that.

“Alcohol poisoning really does a number on your nervous system,” she says. “The effects can last for quite some time. Things inside you are trying to adjust. It’s complicated.”

I can’t help it; I start crying. “My face really hurts and they won’t give me anything but ibuprofen. I just miss my mom. Can I call my mom, please?”

I expect the woman to sayoh, don’t cry,but she doesn’t. She just says, “No calls with parents right now, Bella, unless youwant to leave. I know everything is hard at the moment, but we have rules, and they’re meant to protect you.” She hands me a tissue and I wipe my face. “Parents get to visit on the fifteenth day for two hours, if that makes you feel better.”

I don’t think it does. That seems really far away at the moment. Eons away.

“I’m Janet,” she says. “I’m the night shift. I can play a board game with you, or you can watch a movie until you’re ready to go back to sleep. Or we can just talk. It’s up to you.”

She waits for me to answer.

I want to be home. I don’t even care which one. I just don’t want to be here, in this dumpy place in the middle of the desert, in a too-bright hallway talking to a woman named Janet,The Golden Girlspaused on her laptop.

I look down the hall desperately. I wonder if the doors have alarms. If I run, will they try to catch me? And if I run, where will I go?

My shoulders sag. I’m too tired and achy to run.

“Bella?” Janet asks.

I don’t answer. I just walk back down the hall and into the bedroom, climb under my own blue wool blanket, and wait for the waves to come to me again.

Day Two

Brandy is on thefloor, rooting through her suitcase. Dental floss, underwear, and very lacy bras fly through the air in clouds of pink, purple, mint green. She’s pissed. Her voice tumbles out in a rush.

“They took everything.Everything.Makeup, toothbrush, toothpaste…Heathens.”

I get up from the bed sleepily and walk over to my own suitcase, pushed against the wall under the window. Outside, I can see it’s still early. There’s a grayness to the sky; the sun is just beginning to rise.

I unlatch my suitcase. It’s not really mine; it was Laurel’s. It’s old-fashioned and hard as bricks and she decorated it when she was a teenager, Mod Podging funny stickers, old postcards,and photographs of bands cut out from magazines. “My parents were so mad,” she told me. “It was quite expensive. But I had to make everything mine. Put my own stamp on things.”

I don’t care about makeup. I only have one good eye anyway.

T-shirts, jeans, a hoodie, underwear, my copy ofWild,like that’s any use to me now.

The door opens.

It’s Tracy, fresh-faced and smiling, blond hair pulled behind her ears.

“Breakfast,” she announces.

On each bunk, she places a stack of brand-new toothbrush, toothpaste, shampoo, hairbrush.

“Why would you take my makeup?” Brandy asks angrily. “That’s something that makes me feel betternaturally.”

I study Brandy. She looks a lot different than she did yesterday. She must have taken off her makeup at some point last night while I was sleeping. She looks so much younger with a naked face.

Tracy shrugs. “You could hide drugs in it. But also, we don’t wantyouto hide, if you know what I mean.”

“I don’thidebehind my makeup,” Brandy mutters, sweeping her hair into a scrunchie. She stands up, grabs the things Tracy gave us, and stomps into the bathroom. She slams the door. Tracy smiles at me and leaves.

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