Sisters In Sanity Part 1

Sisters in Sanity.

Gayle Forman.

Dedicated to misunderstood girls everywhere.

Chapter 1.

It was supposed to be a trip to the Grand Canyon, a trip I didn't want to take. In the middle of summer it was like five thousand degrees in the desert-there's no way I could survive that and two days in the car with my dad and the Stepmonster. All the Stepmonster ever wants to do is rag on me about everything. My hair-magenta with black streaks or black with magenta streaks, depending on your perspective. My tattoos-a Celtic armband, a daisy chain on my ankle, and a heart somewhere the Stepmonster will never see. And what a bad influence I am on Billy, my half brother-who's only a baby for Chrissakes, and who probably thinks my tattoos are cartoons if he even notices them.

On top of it all, it was Labor Day weekend, the last days of freedom before junior year. It was gonna be a big hurrah. I play guitar in this band, Clod, and we were supposed to be in this Indian Summer music festival in Olympia with a bunch of really serious bands, the kind with record contracts. It was the best gig we'd ever gotten and a giant step up from the house parties and cafes we usually played. Of course, Stepmonster wouldn't get that. She thinks punk rock is some kind of devil wors.h.i.+p and made me stop practicing in the bas.e.m.e.nt once Billy was born, lest I derange his baby soul. Now I can only practice in Jed's bas.e.m.e.nt, which Stepmonster also doesn't like because Jed is nineteen and lives-gasp-with a bunch of people, none of whom are his parents.

So, I politely declined. Okay, maybe not so politely. Maybe my precise words were "I'd rather eat gla.s.s," which only caused her to flounce off to Dad, who asked me in that weary way of his why I'd been so rude. I told him about the show. Once upon a time he had cared about things like music, but he just took off his gla.s.ses and pinched the bridge of his nose and said it wasn't up for discussion. We were going as a family. I wasn't about to give up that easily. I tried all my tricks: crying, silent treatment, plate throwing. None of it worked. Stepmonster refused to discuss it, so it was just me vs. Dad, and I've never been good at giving him grief, so I had to give in.

I broke the news to my band. Erik, our stoner of a drummer, was just like, "Dude, b.u.mmer," but Denise and Jed were really upset. "We've worked so hard-you've worked so hard," Jed said, totally breaking my heart with his disappointment. It was true. Three years ago I didn't know a C chord from an F, and now I was booked for a major gig, or should have been. Clod would be playing the Indian Summer Festival as a trio. I was completely crushed I'd be missing it-although it was kind of nice that Jed seemed sad about it.

I should've figured something was fishy when that Friday morning it was just Dad packing up the t.u.r.d-mobile, the hideous brown minivan Stepmonster insisted they buy when Billy was born. Meanwhile, Stepmonster and Billy were nowhere to be found.

"G.o.d, she's always late. You know it's a form of control?"

"Thank you for the psychoa.n.a.lysis, Brit, but your mom's not driving with us."

"She's not my mom, and what's the deal? You said it was a family vacation, which is why I had to go, had to miss Indian Summer. If they got out of it, I'm not going."

"It is a family vacation," Dad told me, shoving my suitcase into the back. "But two days in a car is too much for Billy. They're going to fly down and meet us."

I really should've known something was way fishy when we approached Las Vegas and Dad suggested we stop. Back when Mom was around, this was precisely the kind of thing we'd do. Jump in the car at a moment's notice and drive to Vegas or San Francisco. I remember one night during a heat wave when none of us could sleep; at one in the morning we threw our sleeping bags into the car and drove into the mountains, where there was a perfect breeze. It had been ages since Dad had been cool like that. The Stepmonster had him convinced that spontaneity equaled irresponsibility.

Dad bought me lunch at the fake ca.n.a.ls of the Bellagio and even smiled a little when I made fun of some of the f.a.n.n.y-packed tourists. Then we went to a cheesy casino downtown. He said no one would care that I was only sixteen and he gave me twenty bucks to plug into the slot machines. Our little trip was shaping up to be not so bad after all. But when I spied Dad watching me play the slots I couldn't help thinking that he looked, well, empty, like someone had taken a vacuum cleaner and sucked out his soul or something. He didn't even get excited when I won thirty-five bucks, and he insisted on pocketing the money to keep it safe for me. Again, a red flag I didn't notice. Idiot-moron me, for the first time in ages, was just having fun with the Dad I'd been missing for years.

When we left Vegas, he turned quiet and broody, just like he was after everything happened with Mom. I could tell he was squeezing the steering wheel hard, and the whole thing was just so weird and perplexing. I got a little preoccupied with trying to figure out what was up with him, so I didn't notice that we were no longer driving east toward the Grand Canyon, but had turned north into Utah. All I saw out the window was rust-colored clay cliffs, and they seemed Grand Canyon-y enough to me. When we pulled off at some small town just as the sun was going down, I figured we were stopping for the night at another motel, and at first glance Red Rock Academy looked like some c.r.a.ppy value inn: a squat, T-shaped, two-story beige stucco building. Except Red Rock was surrounded by a barbed-wire fence, there was no pool, and the yard was filled with piles of dusty cinder blocks instead of trees. To top it off, there were two freakishly muscular Neanderthals patrolling the grounds.

"What is this?" I asked Dad, smelling the rat strong now.

"It's just a school I want us to take a look at."

"What, like a college? Aren't we jumping the gun a little? I'm only starting junior year."

"No, it's not a college, more like a boarding school."

"For who?"

"For you."

"You want to send me to boarding school?"

"No one's sending you anywhere. We'll just have a look."

"What for? I'm starting school next week, my school, back home."

"That's part of it, sweetheart, you haven't been doing so well back at your school."

"A couple of C's. Big deal, Dad. It's not the apocalypse."

Dad rubbed his temples. "It's worse than a couple of C's, and it's not just that. Brit, I've been feeling like you aren't a part of our family anymore. You're not you anymore, and I want to get you some help before..." he trailed off.

"Whoa. You mean you want me to go to this place? Like when?"

"We're just going to take a look," he repeated.

Dad's always been a c.r.a.ppy liar. He blushes and quivers, and I could tell he was full of it. His hands were shaking. The hairs on my arms stood on end. Something was really wrong.

"What in the h.e.l.l is going on, Dad?" I yelled, and pushed open my car door. My heart was beating fast and hard now, the echo of it pounding in my ears. Then the two muscled freaks were on both sides of me, pinning my arms behind my back and pulling me away from the car.

"Dad! Daddy, what's happening? What are they doing?"

"Please, please be gentle with her," Dad was practically begging the goons. Then he looked at me. "Sweetie, it's for your own good, Brit. Sweetie."

"What are you doing, Dad?" I screamed. "Where are they taking me?"

"It's for your own good, Brit," he said again, and I could tell he was crying, which scared me even more.

I was shoved into a small, stuffy room, and the door was locked behind me. Hiccupping sobs, I waited for my dad to realize he'd made a terrible mistake and come get me. But he didn't. I heard him talking to some woman. I heard our car start and then the sound of the motor faded. I started bellowing all over again, my face streaming with tears and snot and spit. I cried, but no one came for me. I cried until I could do nothing else but fall asleep. When I woke up, maybe an hour later, I'd forgotten where I was. I remembered with a start and with a clear understanding of why I was locked up. Stepmonster. She did this to me. My fear and sadness were nothing compared with my fury at her. And then there was something else. A sinking feeling of disappointment. In spite of it all, I'd actually been looking forward to seeing the Grand Canyon.

Chapter 2.

"Oppositional defiance disorder." Red Rock had a.s.signed me a shrink, and ODD is what she insisted I had. We were sitting in her dark office decorated with weird posters that I guess were supposed to be inspirational. One had a bunch of geese flying in formation and a caption that read, "With a plan in place, you can go miles." Funny. I couldn't go miles because they'd taken away my clothes and my shoes so I wouldn't run away. I was wearing pajamas and slippers in the middle of the afternoon.

My shrink droned on, reading from a big, fat book that apparently contained all the secrets of the mind. "'Often loses temper, often argues with adults, actively defies or refuses to comply with adults' requests or rules, deliberately annoys people, blames others for his or her mistakes or misbehavior, is often angry and resentful, is often spiteful and vindictive...'"

"Does that sound familiar?" she asked. She looked like a pilgrim. She was skinny and had a bowl haircut and was dressed in this high-necked ruffled blouse even though it was broiling in her office.

I was pretty out of it, as you can imagine. I'd been up all night, stuck in my little room until the goons came to deliver me to some equally burly nurse. I'd immediately christened her Helga. Helga confiscated my iPod and all of my jewelry, even my belly-b.u.t.ton ring, ignoring my protests that the hole would close up, forcing me to get it re-pierced. After she'd put my jewelry in an envelope, she ordered me to strip and stayed there while I did. She put on gloves and started feeling me up under my armpits and in my mouth. Then she made me bend over while she looked down there-front and back. I'd never even had a gyno exam so this freaked me out beyond words and I started to cry. Helga didn't even give me a tissue. She just kept on pawing around down there, looking for drugs I figured, even though that's so not my scene. Pot makes me tired and alcohol makes me puke. No thanks.

Anyhow, by the time the shrink woman-Dr. Clayton-had started telling me about my disorder that morning, I was too out of it to point out that her ODD description summed up just about every teenager I knew. All I could say was, "I take it you heard all this from my Stepmonster," at which she smiled and wrote more stuff down on her clipboard.

"Let me put it to you in terms you understand. Your grades at school have dropped. You are hardly present. You stay out all night. And when you do show your face, you're as pleasant as a dark cloud."

"I am not. And when I stay out late it's because of shows. When you're low on the totem pole, you get the two-A.M. slot. By the time we pack up our gear and get home it's five A.M., but it's not like I'm out partying all night."

Dr. Clayton didn't say anything, just shot me a Stepmonster-like disapproving look and wrote some more stuff down before continuing her list of my so-called offenses.

"You treat your body like a wall to graffiti on. You are rude to your stepmother, sullen to your teachers, unkind to your brother, and you seem to have some unresolved feelings about your mother."

"Don't you dare talk about my mother," I said, surprised by how much like a growl my voice sounded. At the mere mention of Mom, I felt a chill grip me, and tears sprang to my eyes. I immediately blinked them back. "You don't get to talk about her."

"I see," Dr. Clayton said, adding to her scribbles. "Well then, shall we go over the ground rules?" she asked, all sing-songy, like she was explaining a fun game. "We work on a rewards and levels system here. As a new student, you will start out in Level One. Level One is mostly an evaluatory stage, so the staff can get a sense of who you are and what your difficulties are. It's also a chance for you to start proving yourself. There are very few privileges in Level One. You will remain indoors in an isolated room. You will do schoolwork in your room and have your meals there. You will leave only for individual therapy and to use the bathroom. To ensure you do no harm to yourself, you will be supervised at all times.

"You will graduate to Level Two when we have ascertained that you are not a runaway risk and that you are ready to start working on your issues. At Level Two, you will get your shoes back. You will leave your room for meals and for group therapy sessions. You may also receive mail from family at the staff's discretion.

"Things improve once you arrive at Level Three. You will be moved into a shared room, allowed to attend school in a cla.s.sroom, and permitted to send and receive mail, corresponding with family members only. You will also partic.i.p.ate in many more activities. In Level Four you may wear makeup and receive phone calls from persons preapproved by our staff. When you reach Level Five you may have family visits and partic.i.p.ate in organized town outings, like movie nights and bowling.

"Level Six is the highest level. Earning Level Six status would enable you to lead therapy groups, even supervise new students, and go off campus. Once you complete Level Six, you'll return home, but that's a long way off. It can take months to reach Level Six, or years. That part's up to you. Any time you misbehave, break rules, or refuse to fully partic.i.p.ate in your therapy, you will be demoted a level or two. If the situation warrants it, you could even get yourself demoted to Level One."

She smiled when she said the last bit, and you could tell she got off on the thought of it.

Chapter 3.

After four days in isolation, I started sprouting under-arm hair. Red Rock Academy policy did not allow anyone under Level Five to use a razor. The logic behind this is unclear. I have never heard of a girl doing harm to herself or others with a Ladyshaver. But when I went into the empty bathroom to take my first shower-supervised by a staff member who watched me the whole time-I was given a bottle of baby shampoo and that was it. No combs. No razors. Level Three permitted electric razors-I guess they weren't worried about us electrocuting ourselves to death-but until then, I had to go native.

Among the other indignities of Level One was the constant supervision, even when I used the toilet. At night the guards watched me, but during the day it was a steady stream of Level Sixers. Some of them were b.i.t.c.hy and condescending, lording their mighty status over me. I hated them. Others were nice and condescending, full of pep talks about keeping with the program. I hated them even more.

So I spent my early days at Red Rock empathizing with how zoo animals must feel. The only thing I had to do was read the lame-a.s.s school primers they gave me, filled with stuff like geometry. I did geometry in ninth grade! I was literally bored to tears, but there was no way I was going to let anyone see me cry.

Instead of Dr. Clayton, I'd been having sessions with the director of the place, a kind of tough-love guru named Bud Austin. "But you can call me Sheriff. Everyone does," he told me. "I used to be a cop, but now I take care of the real hardened cases: you girls." He laughed. It was my first day of solitary and he'd come for a visit, dragging in a metal folding chair. He was tall with black hair and a bushy mustache. He wore too-tight jeans with a ton of keys hanging from one belt loop, and lizard cowboy boots poked out beneath the cuffed bottoms.

"Now let me tell you a secret," he continued with his pat, one-size-fits-all speech. "You're probably gonna hate me at first. All the girls do. But let me tell you, one day you're gonna grow up some and realize that Red Rock is the best thing that ever happened to you, and I'm one of the most important people you'll meet here. h.e.l.l, you might even invite me to your wedding." All I could think was, Wedding? I'm only sixteen! But he just went on. "Your parents have gone soft, is my guess. That's why so many girls get out of control-that, and for attention. You're gonna get plenty of that here. Because, girlie," (that's what he called you, either that or your last name, never by your first name) "we're gonna refocus your misdirected life. We're gonna challenge your att.i.tude, and we're gonna replace your inappropriate behaviors with productive ones. In other words, we're gonna straighten you out. It might not seem like it, but we love you."

The next day Sheriff came into my little room again, dragging his little chair. "Girlie, you ready to face yourself?" This struck me as the dumbest question in the world. Face what exactly? It was as if he'd already decided I was a delusional moron. So I just said, "I'd need a mirror for that. But I guess breakable reflective gla.s.s would be too dangerous for a psycho like me." Sheriff stood up, folded his chair and left the room, clicking the bolt on the door behind him. The next afternoon, it was the same spiel: "Hemphill, ready to face yourself?" "Oh, go to h.e.l.l," I said. The third day, when he showed up with his chair and his question, I wanted to tell him to face my middle finger, but something kept me from saying anything at all. So he gave me a little lecture about doing things the hard way or the easy way. I seriously wanted to laugh because he was so full of it, except that I also wanted to cry because this idiot was in charge of me.

I kept up as brave a face as I could, refusing to give any of them-Sheriff, Helga, Stepmonster, the b.i.t.c.hy Sixers-the satisfaction of seeing me down. But at night, when the last light went out and my door was locked from the outside, I cried until my pillow was soaked through.

Finally, after the Sheriff's fifth visit, when my armpit hairs were nearly braidable, one of the Level Sixers opened my door. She was tall, with a striking angular face framed by dirty blond hair. It was cut in a funky choppy style that seemed too high maintenance for our prison. Maybe Sixers got salon privileges.

"Look, Brit. That is your name, right?" she asked me with the kind of exasperated impatience teachers reserve for their slowest pupils. "Well, Brit, maybe you enjoy wearing your pj's in solitary confinement, but if you don't, cut the Rebel-Without-a-Cause c.r.a.p. No one here is impressed by it."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Spare me. Just tell Sheriff you're ready to face yourself. That's all it takes to get to Level Two."

"Seriously?"

She arched an eyebrow at me, letting me know what a dunce she thought I was. "I've got better things to do than sit here guarding your door. Just say you're ready to face yourself. It doesn't matter if it's true. Do us all a favor and check your pride at your cell door."

This turned out to be one of the most valuable lessons I would learn at Red Rock.

Chapter 4.

"You're a drunk."

"You're a s.l.u.t."

"Wh.o.r.e. Wh.o.r.e. Wh.o.r.e."

It was my third week at Red Rock, and along with about twenty other girls, I was in one of two therapy centers: giant empty rooms with dirty windows, blue gymnastics pads on the floor, and more fading inspirational posters. (My personal fave: a cat hanging on to a tree. "He can because he thinks he can." Um, no, he can because he's got claws.) There was no furniture. Guess they didn't want us to go all Jerry Springer and start hurling it around.

Like the rest of the inmates, I was wearing the required uniform: khaki shorts and a Red Rock polo s.h.i.+rt-an outfit that I'm convinced was designed as a form of fas.h.i.+on punishment. We were all standing in a circle, looking like a suburban high-school phys-ed cla.s.s. At the center of the circle a girl named Sharon was giving us a deer-in-the-headlights look as she turned to catch insult after insult. A counselor named Deirdre and a Level Sixer named Lisa egged us on. "Tell her what you think. Ask her why she sleeps around. Ask her why she doesn't respect herself."

Welcome to "confrontational therapy." It's supposed to make you face your issues, but it mostly makes you cry-which seems to be the point because it was only after you'd cried that you were allowed to leave the circle and "process" what just happened. CT, as it's called, was a big crowd-pleaser at Red Rock, very gladiator-like, and those who'd been inside the circle were even more vicious once they found themselves safely outside it. For example, the girl chanting "wh.o.r.e" was Shana, who only a week ago had been berated for her eating disorder-until she broke down sobbing and was promptly rewarded with a group hug.

I'd pretty quickly figured out that CT was typical of the Red Rock philosophy: Treat ODD teenagers like c.r.a.p until they break. Now that I was in Level Two, my days were spent in CT, in strange lecturey one-on-ones with Sheriff or another one of the counselors, and-once a week-with Dr. Clayton, who'd already suggested putting me on antidepressants. I was depressed now, but only because I was at Red Rock. The rest of my days were spent back in my cell, doing "self-directed" study, which was the academic equivalent of Mad Libs, even though back at school I would've been in AP English. I still wasn't able to write to my dad or get any letters from him. That wouldn't happen until Level Three, when I'd be sprung from my room and allowed to attend school.

"Brit, right?"

Beside me in the confrontation circle stood the Sixer who'd taught me the key to escaping Level One. She was scarily tall, towering over me, and giving me that same you're-an-idiot face she had before. I was really starting to hate the Level Sixers, who generally seemed like a bunch of do-goodery, kiss-a.s.s sn.o.bs.

"I believe we've established that's my name," I told her.

She arched her eyebrows again. "Well, Brit. Mouth it."

"Huh?"

"Mouth it. Pretend you're saying something."

"What?"

"Do you not understand English or are you just slow? You're not 'partic.i.p.ating in the process.'" She was whispering, but she made it sound like a barked order.