Chapter Twenty-Nine
Twenty-Nine
Eighteen years ago
The attendant escorted ten-year-old Natalie Shea into her new room, hand on her back, applying force as needed.
The girl clung to her bag, resisting him, her heels skidding across the tiles.
Natalie was supposed to be in a room alone.
She’d overheard that instruction plenty of times.
This one shouldn’t share a room. Make sure you keep an eye on her.
She’s a lot stronger than she looks when she gets into one of her fits.
But Natalie wasn’t going to be alone anymore.
Another child, about her size, sat under the glow of her bedside table lamp. Propped up on a stack of pillows, she was reading a chapter book as thick as the mattress she was sitting on.
“Gwen,” the attendant said, addressing the girl, “this is Natalie. She’s going to be your roommate.”
Gwen lowered the book but remained silent.
The attendant gave Natalie a light shove, enough to get her weight off him.
“You girls play nice,” he said as he closed the door and left the two children to sort things out among themselves.
Natalie shuffled toward her bed.
“How old are you?” Gwen asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Almost eleven,” Natalie answered before placing her bag on the bed and crawling up to sit next to it. She was nervous. People made her nervous.
Gwen had still eyes that wouldn’t move off her. When she finally spoke, it was penetrating. “Why are you here?” she asked—a question that felt like an accusation.
Natalie wasn’t sure how to answer. “I get in a lot of trouble,” she disclosed, fixating on her hands perched in her lap.
Gwen smirked. “Like what?”
Natalie shrugged. “I get angry and…I kind of black out.”
Gwen considered that for a second. “Do you hurt people?”
“Sometimes.”
“What kind of people?”
Natalie rubbed her fingertips together. She was ashamed. She wasn’t a tough guy. She would give anything to not be like this.
Gwen gave up waiting for an answer. “Well, don’t try anything with me.”
“I won’t,” Natalie said, hoping it was true.
She unzipped her bag, but Gwen continued to pry. “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”
“None of your business.” Natalie sulked, pulling her pajamas from the bag.
“Good answer!” Gwen smiled. “Don’t tell anyone here anything. They’ll use it against you.”
Natalie yanked her scratchy sweater off over her head and threw on a softer sleep shirt. “Why are you here?” she asked.
“My parents died in a fire.”
“Did you set the fire?” Natalie knew better than to assume anything but the worst.
“No.” Gwen laughed.
Natalie went to take off her jeans and Gwen covered her eyes to extend a sense of privacy. “You’re my first roommate.”
“I’m not supposed to have a roommate,” Natalie admitted, pulling her pajama pants up and sitting back on the bed.
Gwen uncovered her eyes at the sound of the springs. “Why not?”
“I don’t know.” Natalie glanced down at her hands. “Something’s wrong with me.”
“Who told you that?” Again, Gwen didn’t wait for an answer. “My dad says most people have no idea what they’re talking about. They think they’re right about everything. He could tell when someone was full of crap right away. He was really good at it and I am too. And you seem pretty fine to me.”
The sentiment was pleasing to Natalie, but she knew better than to hope Gwen’s words were genuine, that this girl would see her differently.
“Why do you stare at your hands so much?” Gwen probed.
Natalie lifted her head, not realizing it was something she was doing or something to be noticed. Gwen’s face was gentle. She didn’t appear to be making fun of her. Natalie separated her hands. “Sorry.”
“Doesn’t bother me. Do you do it when you’re nervous or what?”
Natalie wasn’t sure what she was talking about. Then she found herself looking down again, rubbing her fingertips together, barely making contact, chasing the slightest friction between them.
“See?!” Gwen yelled. “You’re doing it again.”
Natalie picked her head up.
“No, don’t stop,” said Gwen. “Look at them again.”
Natalie was skeptical.
“Just do it. Come on, please.”
Natalie sighed and did as Gwen wanted.
“What do you feel doing that? Don’t lie.”
“I don’t know,” Natalie said to her hands. Then she was grazing her fingertips together again.
“And that?” Gwen asked. “That rubbing thing?”
“I don’t know!” Natalie shouted, frustrated. What was the point of this? She separated her fingertips and lay down on the hard mattress, flipping away from Gwen and tucking her hands under her face. She stared at the wall. It was too much.
The bed springs across the room creaked. Gwen’s feet made the subtlest scuff as they hit the floor. She had gotten out of her bed. What was she doing? Where was she going? Please, please, leave me alone, Natalie thought.
She rotated her head enough to see Gwen was standing next to her now, leaning over her bed. Natalie began to tense up. What was this girl going to do to her? What would Natalie do in return?
Gwen placed one of her pillows down next to Natalie’s head. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “We can talk about it later.”
Natalie’s tension subsided.
“I thought it could be your thing,” Gwen explained. “It helps me to have a thing. You can’t freak out in here. They’ll make you take drugs and turn you into a zombie. You’ll drool and everything.”
Natalie pulled the pillow under her head. She was fully aware of the lengths people would go to to keep her calm. There was nothing Gwen could do to stop them.
“Okay, good night, then.” Gwen’s footsteps pitter-pattered back to her own side, then there was a beat before the bed bounced under the weight of her jumping onto it.
The table lamp clicked off.
“Good night,” Natalie whispered toward the wall, into the darkness.
Eventually her eyes adjusted to the dulled light from the hallway sneaking through the observation window in the door, the safety glass laced with thin crisscrossed wire—enough to remind her that even without a lock, she was still in a cage.
She could hear when Gwen fell asleep, her breathing becoming audible and rhythmic, a faint snore at the end of each inhale. Natalie was used to sleeping in solitary silence. One girl inhaling, snoring, exhaling over and over—it was too distracting for Natalie to relax.
She stared at the painted concrete wall, finding places the drips hadn’t been caught before they’d dried. It was the first night Natalie didn’t sleep because of Gwen, but it wasn’t the last.