Letter Twenty #4
Michael grabbed his phone and tapped at the screen.
Rapid fire, they arrived. All these old photos of you, this chubby-cheeked baby with big blue eyes, long dark eyelashes, and the fullest pink lips I’d ever seen.
Seeing you as a baby filled me with this warm, syrupy, golden cascade of emotions that made my heart feel too full. Like it might burst.
“Oh. My. God,” I squealed. “I literally cannot stand how adorable you were, Casey. I might die from the cuteness. I am dead.”
Michael shook his head. “Told you, dude.”
A couple of things stood out about those pictures. For one, you were blonde as a baby and toddler, which surprised me. And for another: “How weird. Casey looks…a lot like you did as a baby, Michael.”
Michael looked at you again. “I said that, too, didn’t I? Kind of freaked me out.”
You shot me a hard look of warning through the phone.
Two days later, I’d come in from the beach to an empty kitchen, looking for a snack.
I grabbed an apple out of the fruit bowl, cut it up, ate half, then pulled out the trash drawer in the island to throw the remnants of the apple away.
Not thinking, I yanked my Harvard sweatshirt over my head, causing my earbuds to spring loose and fall into the trash.
I quickly reached inside to retrieve them, but my fingers sent one of the tiny earpieces skittering down further. I panicked, plunging my hand in deeper.
Then: sharp, hot pain. Blinding, nerve-tingling pain. Stole-my-breath-away pain. Pain I didn’t expect.
I snatched my hand back, gasping at the large gash that sliced through one whole side of my palm.
A huge gouge, already bleeding. I lifted my hand over the counter—blood running down my arm, dripping everywhere, all over the sink and counter, the floor—and grabbed a dish towel.
Feeling lightheaded, I placed the towel to my wound.
It turned red almost instantly.
Slowly breathing through my nose, I leaned against the counter and closed my eyes. Let the pain wash over me. Claim me.
But then I heard footsteps.
When I opened my eyes, my dad stood there, scanning the bloody scene before him. He grabbed my arm, peeled back the dishcloth, and flinched at the gouge in my palm. “Jesus. What did you do?”
“I cut it on something in the trash.”
“There’s a knife right behind you, Elliot.”
I glanced over my shoulder at the discarded knife. I’d gotten blood all over it when I’d held my hand over the counter. “What? I didn’t—Dad, I didn’t cut myself on purpose.”
“We need to get you to the ER,” Nic said, voice hollow and detached as he secured a new dish towel even tighter around my hand. “Let’s go.”
I followed him out to the Range Rover, and he helped me into the passenger seat. He wouldn’t look at me. “Dad, I didn’t do this on purpose. I reached inside the trash for my earbuds, and something in there sliced my hand open.”
Unconvinced, Nic slammed the car door in my face.
He wouldn’t talk to me on the way to the ER, or while we sat in the waiting room, or while a doctor sewed up my hand.
On the car ride back to the estate, he completely ignored my pleas for him to speak to me.
By the time we arrived home, the sun hung low and orange in the sky, my blood had disappeared from the kitchen, and everyone had gathered in the dining room, waiting on us to join them for dinner.
As I took a seat at the table next to my dad, I clutched my bandaged hand, self-conscious.
“How many stitches?” Libby asked Nic.
“Seven,” he said, roughly chopping up his chicken. When he noticed me struggling to chop mine, he jerked my plate over and cut my food into small bites. Like I was a kid.
Neither John nor Libby would meet my gaze. Bree and Amber wouldn’t, either. No one would.
“I cut my hand on something in the trash,” I said to them. “Broken glass or something. I don’t know. Something cut me.”
“Elliot, honey,” Libby said. “We saw the knife on the counter.”
“No. I only used that to cut up an apple.”
“So you did use the knife.”
“Yes, but not on myself.”
“Sweetie, don’t lie.”
“I’m not lying. Something in the trash sliced through me when I tried to dig my earbuds out of there.”
“Okay.” Libby nodded, glancing around the table. “Did anyone break a glass or something and throw it in the kitchen trash recently?”
“Not me,” John said.
“Not me,” said Amber.
“Nope. Not me,” said my dad.
Bree shook her head.
“Well, there you go,” Libby said. “Because I haven’t thrown away any broken glass, either.”
“Well, what about the housekeeping?”
“They haven’t been by in days, Elliot.”
“I didn’t do it on purpose! This is bullshit. I’ll go through the trash right now and prove it.”
With my good hand, I pushed myself up from the table. But Nic grabbed my elbow and jerked me back down to my seat. “No one’s falling for the lie, Elliot. Enough.”
You see, this was the problem with hurting myself every year close to my birthday, with using cutlery to hurt myself in general, with telling so many lies over the years: no one believed me.
Plus, during my argument with John and Nic a couple of weeks prior, I’d said: I want to take something sharp and drive it through my hand right now.
To them, it likely appeared as if I’d done just that.
For once, I was telling the truth, and no one cared to hear it. My dad especially. My dad’s refusal to listen stung the most.
I’d lost my appetite. But I didn’t want to make my dad angrier, so I forced myself to choke down the food, swallowing past the giant lump in my throat.
Before breakfast the next morning, I received a FaceTime call from Michael—and he was furious. “What the hell, Elliot?”
“It was an accident.”
“Yeah, right. Your birthday’s in a few weeks, and you always do this.”
“No—”
“You promised me last year. You promised you wouldn’t do this anymore. Slicing your hand open? Seven stitches? I’m so pissed at you right now. You lied to me.”
“I did keep my promise to you. This was an accident, Michael. You have to believe me.”
“There was never anything in the trash. Your dad described the way he found you standing there, with blood everywhere, and that’s how I know you’re lying—”
“You talked to my dad about this?”
“—because you were enjoying it. So stop with the bullshit, Elliot. Admit it.”
My eyes stung. “I’m not going to admit to something that isn’t true.”
“Oh my God,” Michael said, wiping a hand down his face. “Here, you talk to her. I can’t anymore. I’m done.”
The phone jostled around until your face filled my screen, deep lines of concern forming between your eyebrows. “Elliot,” you said gently. “Tell the truth.”
“I am telling the truth.”
“Come on,” you said. “This summer hasn’t been easy, has it?
Bree’s there with her girlfriend, and you’re on your own a lot.
You’re missing me and Michael, and your birthday’s coming up.
Maybe hurting yourself was your way of coping.
Maybe you never intended to cut yourself that badly, and that’s where the accident lies—in that you went too far this time. ”
“What? I didn’t cut myself at all, Casey. Screw you.”
“Okay,” you said. “I can see you aren’t willing to be honest about this, so I’ll just—”
“No. Why don’t you and Michael both go fuck yourselves?” I ended the call, then tossed my phone on the bed.
Downstairs, I tried talking to my dad again, but he swiped his coffee mug off the kitchen table, told me he wasn’t ready to discuss it yet, and escaped to the sunroom.
For the next few days, everyone avoided me. At meals, they talked amongst themselves as if I wasn’t even there. But I still showed up, hoping to show them all, hoping to somehow appease my dad. See! I wanted to protest. I’m here. I’m acting completely normal.
And then, one cloudy morning, I came downstairs to find all three adults sitting quietly at the kitchen table.
Something about them seemed off. I sensed it immediately.
But the biggest red flag? For the first time in days, they looked directly at me, their expressions gravely serious as I approached the table.
“Elliot,” Nic said. “Sit down. We need to talk.”
Dread ricocheted through me, but I sat down, anyway.
Nic took my hand. “While I’m extremely proud of how well you’ve coped under the circumstances this past year, you can’t keep hurting yourself like this. I can’t allow it anymore. You need to go to a place where people are better equipped to help you.”
“What? No,” I whispered, trying to stand, but he put his hands on my arms to stop me—to hold me down.
“There’s a treatment center in Arizona, and you need to go there for a while. They can give you the help you need.”
The papers in his desk. They weren’t for a treatment center. They were for a psychiatric hospital—in the middle of nowhere. It resembled a fancy prison.
“No,” I said, head shaking. “No.”
“You have to stop hurting yourself, Elliot. We have to do something to make you better.”
“No!” I cried, the tears coming fast.I shoved my bandaged hand in the air. “I didn’t do this, I swear. It wasn’t on purpose, Dad. You have to believe me.”
“Elliot—”
“I haven’t hurt myself since”—I scrambled to think—“since I can’t remember when. I didn’t mean to claw myself during the panic attack. I didn’t know I was doing it. I didn’t know.”
“I know you didn’t,” Nic said. “This has nothing to do with the panic attack—that wasn’t your fault. This is about what you did to your hand. This is about the many times you’ve self-harmed over the years.”
I clutched his hand, crying and shaking, not caring how humiliating it was to beg him to reconsider or how pathetic I probably sounded. “Don’t send me away. Please. I didn’t cut myself on purpose. I swear I didn’t. I’m telling the truth this time.”
“Elliot, stop.”
“Dad,” I cried, squeezing his hand so hard he winced. “You said you didn’t want to send me to a place like that.”
“And I don’t, honey, but I have to. You’ve left me no choice. You need help.”