Chapter Thirty-Two
Thirty-Two
Eighteen years ago
The Gwen and Natalie roommate experiment had proven thus far to be a success.
The first few nights, the staff had held their breath, waiting for Gwen to start screaming and for them to have to run in and tear Natalie off her, but the screams never came.
It was time to acclimate Natalie into other areas.
Gwen accompanied her to her first therapy group. “Remember,” Gwen instructed her, “try not to say anything. It’s easy. The little kids will talk the whole time.”
Natalie agreed, not looking to say anything anyway.
Gwen was right. There was one little girl in particular who wouldn’t stop talking.
She didn’t even have real feelings. She thought hunger was an emotion.
A boy named Declan, seated on the other side of Natalie, told that girl to shut her fat ugly face and got in trouble.
He was lanky and a couple years older than Natalie.
She felt uncomfortable around him and he picked up on it immediately, almost like he had a sixth sense.
“Look who they let out of the pen,” he whispered.
Natalie tried to ignore him, but he reached over and flicked her arm.
“Declan!” the group leader yelled. “No side talking.”
“Make her talk, then,” he said, posturing.
“We don’t make anyone talk until they’re ready. You know that,” she said.
He slid into an exaggerated reclined position in his chair. “Whatever.”
The lady moved on, but Declan didn’t. A minute later he sat back up. “Hey,” he hissed toward Natalie. “You must have done something real bad if you won’t say.”
Natalie kept her eyes on her fingertips.
“Hellooo?” He leaned into her space. She could see his blackheads; she could feel his breath.
“Stop it!” Gwen scolded, reaching over and using her full palm to shove his head away from Natalie.
“What the hell?!” he squawked, jumping to his feet, ready to fight.
“Declan!” the lady shouted.
He moved to Gwen, towering over her, but she stayed in her chair.
“Don’t fucking touch me ever again,” he spat down at her.
She stared up at him, those still eyes.
“Declan!” the woman repeated. “Back in your seat!”
“Make her say she’s sorry,” he demanded.
“Gwen, apologize to Declan.”
Declan glared down at the girl, waiting for a forced apology. Gwen cracked a devious smile then jolted toward him. It was enough to make him flinch.
Oozing with embarrassment, Declan took a step back around Natalie and kicked his chair, skidding it across the tile until it crashed down onto its side.
“Declan!” the woman screamed. “That’s it, three strikes. Back to your room.”
He recoiled, turning to her. “What? I didn’t do anything.”
“Out!” she insisted.
A bulky male attendant waiting by the door—idle meat, necessary in any group setting—uncrossed his arms and took two communicative steps toward the boy. Declan stomped off toward him.
Natalie looked to Gwen and smiled in thanks for the intervention. Gwen offered a thumbs-up, which made Natalie chuckle.
“Enough, girls,” the woman muttered, exhausted with the session and probably her life. The attention only fueled the girls’ snickers. It was infectious. Then more kids were laughing. It was all a chain reaction, but to Natalie, in that moment, it felt like acceptance.
- - - - -
Three weeks later and Natalie had still not said a word during group.
It drove Declan to corner her in art class, another of her newly earned rewards.
Art was just a time during the day when kids sat in a room that had paper and markers.
There was no teacher, only an attendant who sat in the front to make sure nothing went horribly wrong.
Declan slid into the empty seat next to her. “Nice picture, Natalie,” he teased as he scooted his chair closer to hers.
She looked down at her drawing—a red dragon, peacefully asleep on a cloud. She wasn’t much of an artist, but she liked drawing; she liked the idea of fantasy. Her hands gravitated toward each other, the one closest to him empty, the other holding an off-brand marker.
“Where’s your pit bull?” he asked, referring to Gwen, as if the pet name would disguise his apprehension.
Natalie rubbed at the knuckle on her pointer finger, bent above the marker as it remained ready to return to coloring.
“Are you mute?” he asked. “Can you even talk?”
She continued to ignore him, staring down, maneuvering her full fist around the marker.
Declan reached over and grabbed her paper, shattering her focus.
“What are you doing?” she said.
“Ah.” He revealed his teeth. “She does speak.”
Natalie tried to take her paper back, but he yanked it away.
“Relax,” he said. “You’re going to like this.
” Declan picked up a black marker and took it to Natalie’s picture.
Just beyond the face of the sleeping dragon, he added an oversized cartoon penis.
“Wakey-wakey,” he pretended to say to the dragon before using the marker to shoot black lines from the tip of the penis into the dragon’s face—over and over, until you could barely see any of the red drawing underneath.
Natalie tightened her grip on the marker she was holding. She knew this feeling so well. Her whole body tingled. She was angry, helpless, and starting to tune out. Then everything went quiet.
Natalie swung her arm around and jammed the marker into Declan’s ear. Tears welled in her vacant, bloodshot eyes as she pounced, clawing at the boy’s face. He tried to fight her off, but he was no match for her like this.
The attendant ran to pull Natalie away. His arm snaked around her neck, tearing her back with a choke hold until she was down on the ground.
Another attendant ran into the room and the two grown men lifted Natalie to her feet.
She was dragged into the hall, kicking and screaming, down to the infirmary, where she was restrained and drugged until she drooled, just as Gwen had warned.
- - - - -
They kept Natalie in isolation for two days after she stabbed Declan in the ear before bringing her back to her room to sleep off the remaining sedatives in her system. She barely remembered coming back when she woke up the next morning.
Gwen sat on the edge of her bed, staring as Natalie rubbed her eyes until they could stay open.
“Welcome back,” said Gwen. “What happened?”
“Nothing.” Natalie sighed.
Gwen raised her eyebrows. “I can’t help if you don’t tell me.”
“I stabbed Declan with a marker.”
“That’s it?” Gwen said. “I saw his face.”
If she knew, then why did she ask? Natalie didn’t want to talk about it, but Gwen didn’t care.
“Why’d you do it?” Gwen asked.
Natalie shrugged. “He was bothering me.”
“You can’t go berserk whenever someone makes you mad,” said Gwen. “Everyone here is going to make you mad. You have to stop. No more freak-outs. Do you want to be a zombie all the time? Do you want to be alone again?”
“It’s not like I can help it,” Natalie insisted.
“You need a thing.”
“I tried that, looking at my hands like you said. It didn’t work.”
“Well, then, you have to try something else. You know what I do? I count. I count everything. You should try it. When you get mad, check out—not like you normally do, but find something and count it.”
“That’s not going to work,” said Natalie. “I can’t even think when I get like that. You don’t understand.”
Gwen lay back on her bed, fingers interlaced behind her head.
“What are you doing?” Natalie asked.
“Shh, I’m thinking.”
Natalie inhaled and followed it up with an exaggerated exhale. Gwen had pelted her with questions before she was even fully awake and now she wanted quiet time?
Gwen stared at the ceiling. “Tell me what happens. Like, you’re totally normal and then you’re stabbing someone…What happens in between?”
Natalie said nothing at first, only dropped her head.
Gwen looked over, awaiting an answer. “Don’t be embarrassed or anything. I don’t even care that you attack people. You just have to be smarter about it. I don’t want them to take you away all the time.”
Gwen wanted Natalie around. It wasn’t something her birth mother or any of the foster homes she’d ever been in wanted, but Gwen did. Natalie’s fingertips drifted together and she rubbed them as she contemplated the question.
“I guess, I don’t know…I go really numb?”
“Don’t ask me.” Gwen laughed.
“Sorry.” Natalie smiled before resetting. “I don’t want to hurt anyone. I really don’t.”
“I know.”
“But the harder I try…the madder I get and then I lose it. Sometimes I don’t even realize what I’m doing until I snap out of it.”
“Hmm…” Gwen went quiet again and Natalie wasn’t sure if she was supposed to say more. Then Gwen popped up, back to sitting on the edge of the bed. “I have an idea.”
Natalie’s eyes widened and her fingertips separated. She was open to anything.
“What if instead of trying not to freak out, you react immediately?” Gwen smacked her hands together for effect.
“What do you mean?”
“Okay, so Declan was bothering you, right?” Gwen scooted farther off the edge of her bed, jittery, excited. “He was being a jerk before you attacked him. What was the very first thing he did?”
Natalie tried to remember. He had ruined her picture, but if she was being honest, she had started to tingle the moment he sat down. “He wanted me to talk. He didn’t like me ignoring him.”
“Okay, what if the second he said something to you, you reacted? Like, you had to know he was there to bother you. Declan doesn’t do anything but bother people.
So the second he even looked at you, what if you had called him an asshole?
Screamed it out. Or kicked him in the shin?
I’m not talking about going lights-out and trying to kill him; I’m talking about a little kick on purpose. ”
Well, that was an idea that no one had ever presented to Natalie before. No social worker, therapist, or teacher had ever encouraged reacting. It had always been about new techniques to prevent a reaction, as if Natalie had never before considered deep breathing or walking away.
“Won’t I still get in trouble?” she asked.
“Yeah, but, like, going to your room early or missing some dumb activity. They’re not going to restrain you in the infirmary because you called someone a name or threw something. I bet right now there are three or four kids getting in trouble for those exact things.”
“Yeah…” agreed Natalie.
“The second you feel uncomfortable, if I’m not with you, do something about it,” said Gwen. “Don’t fight it. It’s not about pretending you don’t have these feelings. It’s about controlling them.”
“Okay,” said Natalie. “I’ll give it a try.”