Falling Out

I chewed on the end of my marker as I stared at the math problems that Altman had faxed over. I was good at teaching myself, I actually preferred it, but math was just so aggravating. I glanced up at the clock and saw that it was 15 minutes until lunch. I was tempted to call on the tutors they had here to help us if we needed it but it was no use if we only had 15 minutes left. I sighed and sat my marker down. I ran my hand through my hair. I hate algebra. I had until tomorrow to finish it and they were going to fax it right back to Altman. I was glad that I was able to get my assignments while I was here to help me graduate on time.

I remember when I first got the list of assignments from all my teachers. Each one had a special note attached to them. To sum them up, they all were thinking about me and some said they were praying for me. The only exception was Altman. He wrote a freaking paragraph. He wrote that he was sorry for pressuring me so hard and he felt guilty because he thinks me being suspended pushed me over the edge and made me want to kill myself and that he should have paid attention and see the signs, blah, blah, blah. I crumbled it up and threw it away. It didn’t mean anything to me. He only said it to appease his mind.

I looked around and saw that everyone was working hard on their assignments except for Janet. She was drawing on her hand. I guess she figured since she was going to get a big trust she didn’t need school. I looked back at the math problems and quickly finished them. Might as well just finish it. Even though I know I got some wrong Altman would write down that I got an A because he felt guilty. I knew that because when he sent my graded assignments back I would have tons of red marks but still have an A. I probably could get away with not doing anything but I needed to learn this crap.

“Everyone, it is time to pack up,” Mrs. Lily, one of the tutors, announced. I packed up everything in the bag that they give us and put it in my cubby. When everyone was done putting their work away Mrs. Lily escorted us to the cafeteria. I got my food, hamburger steak, mixed vegetables, and poppy seed cake, and sat at my usual table. As I stabbed a carrot with my fork, Janet sat down beside me. She never sat by me so it was odd seeing her. She was probably here to blackmail more.

“This group you have to confess.” Nailed that one. I tried to look at her with no expression but I could feel the muscles in my face contorting to anger. She smiled her deviant smile.

“We let it slide yesterday because we watched a movie about the harms of drugs but this group you have to talk. You have to tell everyone why you are here or we all will tell everyone that Billie Joe Armstrong’s daughter had a stent in good ol’ Crystal Falls. I’m pretty sure the media will speculate why you were here.” I glared at her. She smiled, showing her pearly whites, and got up. I pushed my tray away from me, suddenly losing my appetite. I don’t know what her deal is. So what if I don’t talk, what’s it to her? It’s not harming her progress. If anything it’s harming mine and I know she isn’t doing it out of concern for me. She’s doing it because she is nosy bitch and bored.

I sat there and stared at my food for the next 24 minutes. Before I knew it, it was time to go to group. The chairs were formed in a cliché circle. It was to help up “remain open and not hide”. I hated circles. As I sat down in my usual seat my stomach began to churn and my heart began to beat fast. At this moment, I would be taking six, slicing, and calming down. But obviously that can’t happen. Janet was directly across from me and she gave this look that basically said, “speak or else.” I’m trying not to think of the word “hate” so much. So, I disliked her very, very strongly.

The good thing about group was that they were only 12 people, which was how many people at Crystal Falls at the moment. Dr. Jenn told Billie and Adrienne that they liked to keep under 15 girls here so they don’t have a high caseload and can devote equal time to help each person.

The bad thing about group was that Dr. Silva didn’t play. She was a hard ass. She was always on me for not talking and she said that if I didn’t participate that I would spend free time in my room. I’ve actually spent free time in my room numerous times and it didn’t bother me.

Dr. Silva smiled at everyone as we settled in. She took out her notebook and wrote something down. She took steady notes.

“Okay, today we are going to talk about your childhood’s. I know that we have delved into them before but I wanted to take it to a step forward. Last time we just skimmed the surface but this time I want to dig deep. I want you to tell me and everyone one memory that sticks out to you. It can be good or bad. Once you have told us that memory I want other people to give their thoughts about it, okay? Who wants to go first?” Silence. I didn’t look at Janet but I felt her eyes burning through me.

“I’ll go first,” Dorothy said. Dr. Silva smiled at her. “It’s a good memory. When I was 12 my mom took me and my sister bowling. It was one of the first time’s Mom didn’t get recognized as being a musician. She was just Mom. It was the best time of my life. Plus, I beat her by 50 points.” Dorothy was smiling as she reminisced.

“Wow, that’s really exciting,” Janet said sarcastically. Everyone chuckled at her comment which made Dorothy shrink in her seat.

“Janet, that was really mean. Because of that, you can go next,” Dr. Silva chastised. Janet smiled.

“Well, I would but Amber was telling me this morning that she had plenty of memories to reveal. Right, Amber?” I stayed silent. Janet groaned in frustration.

“Really, you have nothing to say? It’s probably not even that bad. Suck it up, stop feeling sorry for yourself, and tell us. More than likely someone has it worse off than you do.” I glared at Janet. I know I shouldn’t give her what she wanted but her telling me to suck it up pissed me off so much.

“You know what Janet? Everyone says that someone always has it worse and I just want to tell you I am somebody’s worse.” Eyes faced me, ears were perked. My stomach felt like it was on fire. “I had it worse than you, than Dorothy, than everyone in this fucking room. You want to know why I am here? You want to know everything about me?”

“Amber, you don’t ha-” Dr. Silva started.

“Everyone wants me to talk. I’m either getting blackmailed or threatened to do it so here it is,” I turned my gaze from Dr. Silva to Janet. “When I was seven my mom died of breast cancer and because of that I got sent to live with my aunt and uncle. The second I walked into that house my aunt hated me. She hated my guts for no fucking reason. She hated me so much that she beat me every single day. One time she beat me so bad that I couldn’t even walk and had to miss school for three days.” I ran my hair through my hair, trying to hold back the tears. Why was I giving into this bitch’s rider? I started to calm myself because I had gotten so angry. The next things I disclosed were said a little more calmly.

“When I turned ten my uncle started to rape me almost every night. But he got bored so when I turned 15 he decided to give me oral just because he could. That was when I started to cut myself. Right before I moved into my Billie’s house my aunt found out what my uncle was doing to me. She didn’t take my side. I was the slut that seduced her fat husband. After she threw me around my room she grabbed me by my hair and dragged me into the bathroom where she tried to kill me by drowning me. The next thing I knew I was waking up in the hospital with the father that I didn’t know existed staring at me. I had broken ribs, fractures, and bruises all over my body. A few weeks later I found out that I was pregnant and that’s why I was at that abortion clinic. That along with so many other factors made me feel like the worse person ever so I started taking pills, which I got addicted to. Fast. I was so bad off on them that I stole from Billie, Adie, and my boyfriend. I stooped to what I thought was my all time low when I had sex with my drug dealer to get more, all the while I broke the heart of my boyfriend. Everything started piling up and piling up and it drove me to want to kill myself. To attempt to kill myself.” I ran my hand through my hair.

“So, to sum it all up, my mother died, I was raped almost every night by my uncle and nearly killed by my aunt. I got addicted to pills and cutting and tried to kill myself. I have a right to feel sorry for myself. I have been through more hell than you or anyone in this fucking room has been through! Don’t tell me that I need to suck it up, you bitch.” I had angry hot tears running down my face when I finished. Everyone was so shocked by my outburst, even Dr. Silva. I never took my eyes off of Janet as I yelled at her. Her eyes were wide the whole time.

I felt Amy’s hand on my back. I turned to look at her. She was crying because out of everyone here, she understood the most. She was molested by a family relative.

“I’m so sorry that happened to you,” she said. Out of nowhere she gave me a hug. Usually I didn’t like semi-strangers giving me a hug but I let her. I started to feel guilty because I basically said my problems were worse than hers and everyone else. I shouldn’t have done that because even though mine might be I shouldn’t have diminished their problems like that. Worse is hard to scale.

Amy pulled away and wiped her face. I looked at Dr. Silva who gave me a sympathetic smile.

“Thank you for sharing, Amber. I know how hard it was for you to reveal your problems and if you continue to participate in group you will get better. Does anyone else have anything that they want to say to Amber for her courage?” No one did which I was fine with. For the rest of group I was silent and listened. When it was over I was glad that Art and Music therapy was next. I walked into the music room and grabbed the acoustic guitar. I was usually the only one who chose to go to the music room instead of the art room. When I was in Alabama Billie had taught me the acoustic version of ‘She’ which was what I played every time I came in here. This time as I played it, I started to tear up. I guess it was because I was still emotionally tender from confessing in group. Plus, this song always reminded me of Mom.

After I finished the song Becky came in and told me that Dr. Jenn was ready for me. Today was individual therapy day and I had a feeling I was going to be expected to talk because I did at family session and group today. I sat down on the comfortable couch and brought my feet up under me. Dr. Jenn had Dr. Silva’s notes that she took during group today.

“I am so proud of you, Amber.”

“Why? I was basically blackmailed by Janet to talk today at group.” Dr. Jenn nodded.

“But you didn’t have to get that detailed about it. You chose what to reveal. You could have put what you said in group simply but you decided to reveal everything. You are brave for doing so. Reliving a violent event can be just as traumatic as if you were experiencing it for the first time.” I didn’t say anything, just shrugged it off. Dr. Jenn put the group notes away and changed to a clean sheet in her notebook.

“I want to talk about your cutting and your addiction to pills. Let’s start with your cutting. When did you start doing it?” This is usually when I didn’t say anything and just played with my shirt or fingers but since I threw that out the window by talking during group and family session I was expected to talk now. No excuse. So I sighed and gave an answer.

“15.” I was just going to answer everything vaguely.

“What made you start?” I sighed through my nose. I didn’t want to answer this. I was practically exhausted from group and lack of sleep and I didn’t want to answer this question. But I will because I had a hankering for some peanut m&ms.

“My uncle took raping me to a whole different level. He performed oral sex on me and it made me orgasm and I hated myself for it. That was actually one of the first times I had wanted to kill myself.” She wrote it down.

“Does Billie know the extent of the rape?” I shook my head.

“He only thinks it was the one time.”

“Why haven’t you told him that it was more?” I shrugged. He didn’t need to know. I didn’t want him to know. I didn’t want him to see me more broken than I already am.

“I think you should tell him only to help you heal. If you keep things bottled in and secretive it will continue to eat at you. Have you told your boyfriend about what happened to you?”

“Oh, no. He will never know.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want him to know what happened to me. I don’t want him to see me as someone who let her uncle rape her and she came while he did it. That’s disgusting. I’m disgusting.” I had no clue where that came from. I didn’t want to tell her that. Too late.

“You can’t let someone rape you-”

“I didn’t do anything to stop it. I didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t tell anyone about what my aunt was doing to me. I chose to stay there.” She shook her head.

“You were afraid to tell someone, Amber. You might not have felt it but deep, deep down you were afraid to tell someone. You were trying to survive.” I didn’t say anything.

“Again, I think you should tell your boyfriend about what happened to you. Not only to help you heal but to help you down the line when you two decide to be intimate.” I didn’t look at her. I’m surprised she knew I wasn’t intimate with Donovan.

“Let’s go back to what we were talking about earlier. How many times did you cut yourself at a time?”

“Six. Sometimes more. But I started with six.” More writing. I started playing with the hem of my shirt. This line of questioning made me want to cut myself.

“How did it feel to cut yourself?” What a question. How did it feel to cut myself? It felt amazing. It felt like the world was off my shoulders for a few seconds. Feeling the cool metal against my skin and watching the blood bubble up with so much freedom made my skin ache for it just by thinking of it. My mind became clear. My heart slowed down for a few seconds.

But I didn’t say any of that to her.

“Good.” That made Dr. Jenn frown a little.

“Just good?” I nodded.

“I can see that you don’t like talking about it. Why not?” I didn’t say anything, just played with the hem of my shirt.

“Does talking about it make you want to cut yourself?” I nodded.

“We’ll change the subject for now but we will talk about it next session, okay?” I nodded. Flipped to another page in her notebook.

“Let’s talk about your prescription drug abuse. How many were you taking before you came here?”

“Maybe...eighteen a day. Possibly less.” She didn’t overreact like I thought she would. Maybe she’s heard worse.

“Why would you use pills instead of cut?” I sighed.

“Because cutting wasn’t strong enough anymore. Pills were. It helped me to not feel dead inside. Plus, I really only took the pills to get a certain type of high, one that lasted more than a few seconds. I liked the high, though.”

“No, you didn’t.” I gave her an odd look.

“Excuse me?”

“You didn’t need the pills to get high, you needed them to stop feeling low. Cutting wasn’t doing that anymore. So you turned to pills. You needed them to take away all the feelings that flooded you all at once. You needed them to feel numb, to be numb because being numb was better than feeling. You can say all you want that you’ve always felt dead inside, which you might have a couple of times, but you have felt alive more. And it wasn’t the good alive either. It was the bad alive that you wish you didn’t feel. And because of that, you wanted to be dead but you could never bring yourself to do it. Even when you cut yourself this last time, you didn’t want to die-”

“I wanted to die.”

“No you didn’t. Deep down inside you wanted someone to find you so you can be helped. You wanted to be saved.”

“No, I didn’t.” I got up and walked to her window. I didn’t want to talk to look at her.

“Yes, you did. If you truly wanted to die, Amber, you would have left that house and tried to kill yourself where no one was around to find you. And that’s okay, Amber. It’s okay to feel like that. You have every right to feel like that.” I didn’t say anything. Maybe she was right. Maybe I didn’t want to die. Maybe I wanted everyone to know what I was doing. Maybe I wanted to secretly stop. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.

There is no maybe. I wanted to stop, deep down. I know I did. I was tired of coping with everything the way I was. I wanted someone to notice me and tell me that it was okay to feel these feelings. It was all okay and I wasn’t out of line for doing all the things that I’ve been doing. I turned around and looked at Dr. Jenn. I wiped my face of the tears.

“It’s okay?” She nodded.

“It’s okay.” I sat back down on the couch and tucked my legs underneath me.

“I’ve been through so much, y’know? And I wanted it to stop. I wanted Jim and Carol to stop.”

“I know you did.”

“Why did they do that to me? What was wrong with me for them to do that to me? I was only a little girl.” I inhaled and then exhaled. I needed to calm myself down. I was starting to get worked up.

“Only Jim and Carol know why they did that to you. I can’t speak for them. It’s time for you to start thinking about yourself and working on yourself to heal. In order for you to be someone you can stand looking at in the mirror, you need throw Jim and Carol out of your life and concentrate on you. Okay?” I nodded. She gave me a smile.

“That’s all the time we have today. We will talk more about this next time.” I got up and walked out. Becky smiled at me. She escorted me back to the music room and she went to get the next person for individual therapy. I sat in one of the chairs and stared at the guitar that was across the room. I didn’t want to play right now. I didn’t want to do anything but just sit here and stare.

When supper came around I didn’t eat. I wasn’t hungry. I just sat there with Dorothy and played with my food. After supper we all went to our rooms and waited to be called to use the phone.

“Amber?” I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to talk to Janet. She pissed me off. I hated how she blackmailed me. I hated her.

“Amber, I’m sorry, okay?” Silence. I heard her sigh dramatically. Mrs. Virginia came to the door.

“Do either of you want to use the phone?” I got up which shocked both of them. I followed Mrs. Virginia to the computer room where the phones were. She sat next to me.

“Who would you like to call?”

“Billie.” She looked up his phone number on my call list and dialed the number for me. When it started ringing she handed me the phone. After a couple of rings he answered.

“Hello?” I was relieved to hear his voice, as corny as that sounded. After the day I had I needed to hear someone familiar, even if it is Billie.

“Hey,” I said.

“Amber? Why are you calling? Is something wrong?” I guess he didn’t know that I could call people. Why would he, though? I hadn’t tried to call him before today.

“No, nothing is wrong. We are allowed to call people around this time and I decided to call you.”

“Oh, that’s cool.” We were silent for a few seconds. This will be the longest ten minutes of my life.

“So, uh, what are you doing?” I asked, not knowing what else to say. He chuckled a little.

“Nothing much. Just hanging out with Tre and Mike, writing music.” I played with the coiled chord that attached the phone to its base. It was rather comforting.

“Oh, that sounds fun.” Tre. I haven’t seen or heard from him since that day I threatened him. Of course, how would I? That particular week was pretty eventful in my own downfall. I really wanted to talk to him and apologize to him.

My throat started to feel clogged with the upcoming tears that were about to spill from my eyes. I felt so guilty for what I did to Tre. He only wanted to help me and make sure I was okay but I didn’t let him. Instead I probably ruined our friendship.

“Amber, what’s wrong?” I heard Billie ask. I guess he heard me cry.

“Is Tre mad at me?” I asked.

“No, why would he be?”

“Because he found out that I was doing pills and he wanted to tell you so bad but I told him that I would tell you that he raped me and you would believe me. I hurt him so bad, Billie.” There was silence on the other end and it started to make me worry. What if I made Billie mad at Tre now for knowing this whole time? What if he’s beating him up right now?

“Amber?” My heart literally jumped.

“Tre?”

“I’m not mad at you, sweetheart. I was never mad at you. I was hurt, I’m not gonna lie, but not mad. I was there at the hospital when they brought you in and everyday that you stayed there. All of us were. They would only let family in to see you, well more like only Billie. I wanted to see you so bad and apologize to you for not telling Billie what I knew. But Donovan looked like he was going to jump off a bridge if he didn’t see you so Billie pulled some strings and got him in there for you. Don’t think for a second that I was mad at you.”

“Is Billie mad at you?”

“He was when I told him at the hospital but he’s not now.”

“One minute left, Amber,” Mrs. Virginia warned. I nodded at her.

“I have to go soon.”

“Okay. Amber, I don’t want you to worry about me while you are there. I want you to worry about you and try to get better, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Alright, Billie wants to talk back to you.”

“Hey,” Billie said a second later.

“I’m about to get off. Can I call you tomorrow?”

“Of course you can. Call me every day.”

“Okay. Bye, Billie.”

“Bye, Amber.” I hung up the phone. Mrs. Virginia handed me a pack of Kleenex. I opened them and wiped my face dry. As I left the room I threw them away. I walked back into my bedroom and lied down again. Janet wasn’t in here. She was probably in the main room where they had board games, a TV, and other things to keep us occupied during free time.

About an hour into lying there I sat up. I could lie here and feel sorry for myself or I can try and talk to the other patients that were here and make an effort to “healing”. I got up and started down the hallway. I stopped at the entryway of the main room. Amy, Dorothy, and Maude, who was here because she suffers from an eating disorder, were sitting at a table with UNO cards in their hands. I turned my head and saw other girls playing games and some eating snacks. I walked over to where Amy was at and sat down. All three girls looked at me. I smiled at them.

“Can I play next game?” Amy smiled.

“Of course you can.” I smiled at her. I can do this.

I can try to get better.