Learning Seventeen Page 4

In the dark place there is no light. I am not afraid of the space around me. It is not like deep water. It is not cold. From the infinite a voice speaks to me, but it has no sound. It only talks to me in feelings, and for the first time ever those feelings don’t hurt. It says everything will be all right. It says, I forgive you. It says, I love you. I wonder if it is God, but then I realize that is impossible. I want to stay in the deep darkness. But someone keeps shaking me.

  In the room the wallpaper is a forest. Trees tower over me and cover the ceiling with a green canopy. I try to imagine the smell of bark and stump and rot and rain, but all I smell is antiseptic. I see cartoon animals on the walls. I’m in a bed. I am holding my breath and then coughing. A long tube comes from my throat.

  Then a woman with short blond hair is standing over me. She wants to talk to me. It really is not a good time to talk. She says that if she were in my place, she would cry.

  “But I’m not you,” I say. So I don’t cry.

  What comes next are fragments. Shoes squeaking, white pills, yellow pills, charts, frowns. A cardboard meal, a plastic fork, paper pyjamas, daytime television.

  Being an expert-level screw-up has fringe benefits, apparently. I kind of tried to kill myself but failed at that too. Now they’ll all think it was a cry for help. That’s the worst part. I don’t really want to die. I just want them to leave me be.

  What’s my prize for surviving an evil Gravol trip? My shattered dad in my crappy hospital room. The best worst thing I’ve ever won. When he comes in he looks like a shadow, so gaunt and scared and dark around the eyes. But he’s here. He doesn’t talk. He just holds my hand. Sheila comes, and she stands by my bed and watches me. She does not hold my hand.

  Once the drugs are finally clear of my system and I am deemed “out of the woods,” it looks like I’ll be taking another long vacation at No Hope. I bet they’ve missed me. I sort of miss them in a sick way. That’s the thing about not being a kid anymore. You still need a home, but no one thinks you’re cute enough to give you one. There are no sweet puppies at this pound. Just ugly, kicked-around ones that bite.

  Chapter Ten

  When you almost kill yourself and then end up back at Baptist reform school, they have a tendency to go extra heavy on the reform. The overall rule is that until I’m deemed less of a “danger” I can’t leave my room except for class or meals or to use the bathroom. To be honest, that is fine by me. I don’t want to socialize. I just want to lie in bed and sleep.

  The other thing that’s different is that I’ve been assigned a new counselor, a psychologist named Dr. Lamp. Apparently, counselor Terry was just barely adequate and took a leave of absence. The new counselor is supposedly the bee’s knees, as Nicky would say, and has a much higher success rate with curing kids of their various evils. He’ll have his work cut out with me. I’m meeting with him later today. But until then I’m staying in bed.

  Mouse has been scurrying around me, casting anxious glances my way as if I’m going to jump up and infect her with suicidal tendencies at any moment.

  “Mouse,” I croak, my throat still sore from having a tube stuck down it. “What did I miss while I was gone?”

  “Her,” Mouse squeaks.

  “Her? Who?” I ask.

  “You haven’t seen her? She’s across the hall. She’s enormous.”

  “What? Mouse, are you saying a giant moved into No Hope while I was, um, indisposed?”

  Mouse shakes her head. “Not a giant. A star. Like, someone who could be an actual celebrity one day.”

  I laugh. Mouse is a tabloid junkie, and her contraband is forbidden at No Hope. “Really? A celebrity?”

  “You’ll see,” says Mouse. “She’s cinematic.”

  “What are you, in love? Joining my team, Mousie?”

  Mouse frowns. “No, I just wish I was like her,” she says sadly.

  “Come on, Mouse. God made you perfect, don’t you know?”

  She shrugs.

  “Well,” I say, “let’s see this ‘star’ of yours.”

  Curiosity has always been my downfall. I drag myself out of bed and open our dorm-room door. The door across the hall is ajar, and so far I see nothing amiss. I listen and can hear the faint sound of someone whispering. But then a blur of red curly hair comes barreling out and nearly knocks me down.

  “Whoa!” I yell, and then, because yelling hurts my throat so much, I start coughing. Then, because coughing hurts so much, I have to go sit back down on my bunk. I feel so weak.

  “You. Are. A. Legend,” says a honey-slick voice. I finally look up, and I swear my heart stops for a moment.

  Standing over me is the most magnificent redheaded specimen I have ever seen. She is tall, broad-shouldered, curvy as hell and practically vibrating with kinetic energy. Mouse was right. Cinematic.

  “Um,” I start, not normally at a loss for words. “What?”

  “You’re Jane, right?” asks the red goddess.

  “Y-yeah. And you are?”

  “Oh. I’m Hannah.” She plops down next to me on the bed, and her scent wafts over me. It is a refreshing mixture of green apple, vanilla, body heat and the sweetly seductive scent of girl. I take a deep breath, and my head spins.

  “Whoa, you okay?” Hannah asks.

  I nod and then lie back on my bunk. I don’t want to pass out. My whole body is buzzing.

  “I heard you had a little brush with death.”

  I look at her, angry for a minute, and out of the corner of my eye I can see Mouse shrinking back like she knows I’m going to blow. Who does this Hannah chick think she is anyway?

  “Whoa, don’t get mad,” Hannah says, reading my mood. “I just…I’ve been there, you know?”

  I look at her, into her impossibly huge brown eyes that are so dark and deep I can hardly see the pupils, and I can see that she is sorry. She does know. I decide to change the subject.

  “What’s this legend business?” I ask, trying to regain my composure and some semblance of an upper hand.

  Hannah smiles. “Rumor has it you’re the naughtiest girl at Hopeless,” she says.

  “Hopeless.” I chuckle. “That’s even better than No Hope.”

  Hannah shrugs. “I have a way with words.”

  I nod, impressed. “Mouse here,” I say, “does not.”

  Hannah throws her head back and laughs. The sound fills the room.

  “I know,” she says. “I’ve been trying to engage Marcie in conversation ever since I transferred in a few weeks back. No dice.”

  “Transfer?” I ask. “That’s a thing?”

  “Oh yeah,” says Hannah, leaning in closer. “I got sent here because they couldn’t get me to play along at the last school. I’m afraid I’m a terminal case.”

  “Terminal?” I ask. “What’s your sin of choice?”

  Hannah chuckles. “No sin, Green Eyes.” She gets up and walks to the door, and I can’t help but watch her hips sway. She turns back to look at me and flashes me another smile. “I just love girls is all. I love them, they love me, and that is never going to change. I especially have a thing for girls with green eyes.”

  She walks out, leaving behind her fresh scent and several long red hairs on my bed. As she travels down the hall, I can hear her softly singing a folksy tune. “Beautiful, beautiful green eyes…beautiful, beautiful gree-en eyes…I’ll never love blue eyes again…”

  And just like that, Jane Learning is in love. Hopelessly, dangerously in love.

  Chapter Eleven

  I’m still riding on a Hannah high when it’s time for me to meet with Dr. Lamp. I pump Mouse for information as I hurriedly change clothes and smooth my hair. That’s one of the RULES here—you have to “maintain an appearance of tidiness at all times”—and even though the last thing I want to do is meet another Jesus-thumping counselor, I am too tired to put up much resistance.

  Mouse has a surprising amount of intel on Hannah Henriks—that’s her name, and I think I will start calling her Double-H, at least in my own mi
nd. Or maybe Double-Hot…I don’t know. It seems Mouse is quiet but cunning. She is an expert-level eavesdropper, and once I get her to open up her tiny mouth, a veritable flood of gossip comes out.

  Apparently, Hannah has been to several reform schools, and her family tried No Hope in a last-ditch attempt to cure her of her horrible case of the “gays”—as if that would even be possible. She’s hooked up with girls at every institution and openly breaks the rules and resists the Bible teachings.

  “Wow,” I say to Mouse. “Hannah’s kind of my hero.”

  “There’s more,” says Mouse in her squeaky way.

  “Do tell,” I say as I grab my journal and walk to the door.

  “There are rumors that she’s totally insane.” Mouse’s eyes widen.

  “Crazier than me?” I ask and crack a smile.

  “You’re not crazy, Jane,” says Mouse. “You’re just sad.”

  I look at her for a minute, like I’m seeing her for the first time. She’s right, but I don’t tell her that. I just nod and walk out the door.

  This day is getting kind of intense, and I haven’t even started my PSYCHO-therapy session yet. As I walk up to the counseling offices, I see that Terry’s name placard has been scraped off and a new one rests on the floor beside the door, just waiting to be placed. It reads Dr. Jacob Lamp, PhD.

  I walk up to the door and lightly rap.

  The door swings open, and I come face-to-face with a tiny little man with white hair and a full white beard. He looks like a miniature Santa. For a strange second I am kind of scared that this is God in disguise.

  The tiny man clears his throat and pulls a roll of breath mints from his pants pocket. He pops one in his mouth and offers one to me.

  “Uh, I’m cool,” I say. “I don’t normally eat things that strangers offer me.”

  The tiny man cocks one eyebrow. “I’m Dr. Lamp, but you can call me Jake, so I’m not a stranger.” He grins. “And anyway, I thought you had a real habit of taking things strangers give you. That’s why you’re back here, isn’t it?”

  I haven’t even set foot in his office and already he’s analyzing me and calling me on my shit. It’s both infuriating and refreshing. This guy doesn’t mess around.

  “You don’t waste any time, huh?” I say.

  Jake smiles and steps aside, motioning for me to enter.

  “I’m not much for small talk,” he says. “Occupational hazard.”

  I walk in and sit down, then place my journal on his desk.

  “What are you doing?” he asks.

  “Um, turning in my journal for review.”

  Jake looks stunned for a minute. “Why?” he asks finally.

  “Don’t you…don’t you want to read it? Terry always read it.”

  Jake shakes his head. “I would never do that,” he says. “That’s your journal. No one is going to read it unless you want them to.”

  I reach over and take it back. “Okay,” I say.

  We sit looking at each other.

  “You have a question?” Jake asks.

  “If you don’t read my journal, how will you know if I’ve been cured?”

  Jake chuckles. “Well, I’m pretty sure I can predict the future on that point. You will not be cured. Not now, not ever.”

  I stare at him in stunned silence. Who is this guy?

  “Jane, this is a Christian academy, so we do have certain beliefs here. And a lot of those beliefs conflict with what is best for my patients. To me—and, frankly, to the head pastors here—what is most important is that the youth staying with us feel loved and safe. We’ve made some changes around here since you’ve been gone.”

  I nod, taking this in. “But what about the parents?” I ask. “What about my dad and Sheila? They’re paying a bunch of money to keep me from being gay.”

  “Is that right?” asks Jake. “Do you think that’s what both your parents want? Your dad? Maybe he just wants you to be safe and doesn’t know any other way. Is that possible?”

  I think about it. “Yeah,” I say. “I guess. But Sheila, she’s more worried about how she’ll look than about my future.”

  Jake nods. “Maybe. And maybe she just hasn’t figured out how to be a mom yet. Why not give her a chance?”

  I shrug. “Why can’t she give me a chance? I still don’t understand why she thinks being a lesbian is a choice. I mean, things have been really hard for me. Doesn’t she think I would have chosen to be straight if I could have? If you had asked me a few years ago, I would have jumped at the chance to be ‘normal’ for a change.”

  “And now?” he asks.

  “Now I’m not so sure. Being gay or queer or whatever you want to call it just kind of works for me. It fits, you know? I mean, it’s lonely a lot of the time. But also, it just feels right. Especially when I meet someone…” I trail off.

  “Someone?” Jake asks.

  I blush. And then I spill. For some reason, I trust this guy. “There’s a girl here,” I say. “Hannah. She’s…beautiful and…different. I don’t know how to describe it. She just has this energy.”

  Jake nods. “I get it. She’s a firecracker, that one. I felt like that when I met my wife,” he says.

  “Am I in trouble?” I ask.

  Jake shakes his head. “How can loving someone be wrong, Jane? It’s your behavior that matters. I know you think this God stuff is baloney. I don’t care about that right now. I care about you. I want you to keep your head straight so that when you get out of here in a couple of months, you’ll be in a good position to lead a happy life. And, hopefully, you’ll have a decent relationship with your parents. Sometimes playing along gets you farther than resisting.”

  I consider this. “Okay,” I say. “I think I could try.”

  “What are your goals, Jane?” Jake asks.

  I shrug. “I just want to be free, be happy. I want to be in love.”

  Jake smiles. “Those are good things.” He takes a breath. “But you need to be careful with Hannah.”

  I look at him. “You don’t want me to be with her.”

  “No, that’s not it. Hannah is not well.”

  “What do you mean? She’s sick?”

  “I can’t say much more,” says Jake. “Just…be careful.”

  “Okay,” I say.

  “Good,” says Jake. “Now, hurry out of here and go to class. You need to buckle down if you have a hope in hell of graduating.”

  I stare at him.

  “Yeah, I know,” he says. “I said hell—get used to it.”

  I walk out with my head spinning. This Jake guy is kind of nuts—in a good way. But what did he mean about Hannah? You know what? I don’t care. Love can’t be bad, right?

  I feel a renewed energy as I walk down the hall to my English class. I hope Hannah is in my classroom right now, waiting for me. I hope I get to sit beside her. I’m going to get my work done and get decent grades and try to follow the stupid rules so that when I get out of here, I can do whatever the hell I want with whoever I want.

  Chapter Twelve

  It turns out that Hannah is in my English class. And my science class. And gym class, and study period, and youth group. She isn’t in group therapy with the rest of us, which I think is weird. She has her own private counseling sessions with Jake, and afterward she’s usually happy and light, like she’s filled with extra air. Sometimes she seems really down, and I find myself dreading those days. Every so often when I stare into her black-brown eyes, I swear I can see them trembling just a little, like her eyeballs are about to become unhinged in their sockets and start rolling around. That scares me, and I can’t help but think about what Jake said. Does she have some kind of disease? A brain tumor? Whatever it is, Hannah doesn’t say, and I don’t ask. It doesn’t matter anyway. We are inseparable.

  We have a routine. Every morning she bounces into my room and wakes me and Mouse up, and we all go to breakfast together and then to our classes. We always sit beside each other. Hannah doodles on my books, and we gigg
le until our teachers can’t stand it anymore and we get separated. Then we write notes to each other and charm Mouse into passing them back and forth.

  Hannah is so intense. When we find a minute to make out, I feel like the whole world disappears. She doesn’t play games, like telling me she likes me and then acting aloof. No, there is none of that. She’s an open book. She told me she loved me right away, and her notes are always romantic. An example:

  Dear J,

  I love your eyes. I love your lips.

  I love your mind.

  I want to be with you forever.

  —H

  I find myself looking forward to every new day at No Hope. I no longer wish to break free. I stop having trouble in class, and my therapy sessions with Jake are getting more productive.

  Everything is going so great that when it suddenly stops, it comes as a real surprise. One morning I wake up and my redheaded alarm bell isn’t in my room shaking me awake. It’s quiet. I look over and see that Mouse is still asleep.

  I dress and go across the hall to find Hannah. But she’s not in her room, and her roommate—an ultrareligious girl named Susie—says she went to see the nurse.

  I run down the hall to the medical office where we get our medicines and ice packs and band-aids and lice treatments. I see Jake coming out of the exam room. I run over to him. He puts his hands up.

  “Jane,” he says in his soothing voice. “Wait.”

  “Is Hannah in there?” I ask, peeking around him. Through the crack in the door I catch sight of her red hair, and she turns to look at me. Her face is blank, as if she doesn’t recognize me, and her eyes are dead.

  “Jane,” says Jake. “Let’s go.”

  “I-I don’t understand,” I say. “What’s wrong? What happened to her?”

  “It’s okay,” he says. “People with Hannah’s condition sometimes have days like this. She will be fine soon, you’ll see.”

  He leads me down the hall to the cafeteria and pushes me through the doors. “Jane,” he says. “No matter what, you have to keep moving forward. I know you love Hannah, but you need to take care of yourself first. Got it?”