Chapter 1 #2
I frown. Safe Harbor is for kids of divorce. What the hell is this?
I caption her sketch: Did Not Get the Memo???
Everyone leaves. I sigh and put down my charcoal pencil. Am I really going to spend the next eight hours of my life with this group of strangers?
Maybe I’ll just skip it and spend the rest of the day here, sketching by this very nice tree.
But I know I can’t. There’s an assessment at the end of today’s session.
Our therapist is going to decide who to recommend for further counseling.
If I don’t show, I’ll definitely be in that group.
I’ll have to come back here every Saturday morning for the next six weeks. No thank you.
It’s three minutes to go, and I’m just about to pack away my stuff when a Jeep roars up. Before it’s completely stopped, a boy slams out of the passenger’s side. He glares at the car like he’s wishing for the same pyrokinetic powers I had been wanting earlier.
I start sketching immediately. He’s kind of a paradox, built like a (very) muscular jock and dressed like one, but all in black—black baseball jersey, black sweatpants, and elaborate black sneakers.
He slings an obsidian electric guitar across his back.
His entire right forearm is tattooed. I caption his sketch Punk/Emo/Goth-Jock.
The dad bursts out of the car. “Don’t you slam my door,” he snarls.
“I didn’t,” the son says. His voice is defiant, but he still backs away from his dad.
“You damn well did.” The dad yells even louder now. He’s bigger and broader than his son. Angrier too.
The two of them glare at each other in a kind of standoff before the son mutters something I can’t hear. An apology?
The dad glowers for a second or two longer before he gets back into the Jeep and rockets away.
A wave of sympathy for the son floods me.
I can’t imagine what it’s like growing up with that kind of a dad.
Or maybe he wasn’t always like that. Maybe, like my parents, he just changed one day.
Maybe, like me, his son hadn’t seen it coming.
The boy holds himself very still. He stares up at the sky like he’s hoping to be smote (smitten?).
“Me too,” I whisper on a sigh. “Me too.”
He kicks a foot at the cone with its world’s saddest sign, tipping it over.
He walks with a limp. One of his sneakers is actually an orthopedic boot.
I’m guessing he either broke or sprained his foot.
Was his athletic career cut short in its prime?
Did he axe-kick a guitar onstage at a punk show?
Or was it something less interesting, like pulling a dumb stunt for the likes?
His slow walk lets me draw him with more detail than the rest of the kids. I get every little thing: his high cheekbones, soft but strong angles, and dramatic, watchful eyes. Also good hair. Really good hair.
He must feel me watching him because he flicks a glance my way. He clocks my sketchbook. Then his eyes meet mine. I look away. I have no interest in sitting around and staring at boys, not even cute ones like him.
I take a deliberately long time packing away my sketchbook. I wait for him to make his way all the way up the stairs before I finally stand. “Let’s therapy,” I say to no one.
Welcome Safe Harbor? Teen Attendees! reads the sign outside Room 334. Inside, everyone else is already sitting at desks that are arranged in a circle. I sigh. Who thinks it’s a good idea to force teenagers to stare into each other’s eyes while making us talk about our feelings or whatever?
Preethi springs from her seat and pumps my hand. “I’m Preethi,” she says, then points everyone else out, too. Joey (Screenager) nods at me and keeps scrolling on his phone. Lilliam (Diva) gives me a delicate duchess wave.
Punk/Emo/Goth-Jock, who is—unfortunately—even more striking up close, introduces himself before Preethi can. “Gray,” he says.
I almost tell him that gray is my favorite color, but I don’t since I’m not in kindergarten.
“You guys match!” Preethi says. I assume she means because we’re both wearing all black.
“I’m Isabel,” I say to everyone.
A chorus of Heys goes up.
“You gonna show us the drawings you were doing of us?” Gray asks as soon as I sit. “I’m sure they’re extremely flattering.”
I wasn’t expecting to have a nemesis immediately.
Everyone’s attention snaps to me.
“You drew us?!” yells Preethi. “Cool, let’s see!” She reaches for my bag. I snatch it up from the ground and hug it close.
“I was just sketching the scenery,” I say in a way that’s not even remotely convincing.
“Sure you were,” Gray says.
I glare at him, but he just smirks, like he’s daring me to respond. Should I scoff? Should I smirk back? My earlier sympathy for him dissipates.
I don’t know. I wind up waving my hands around at the classroom we’re in. “Aren’t we supposed to have a counselor or something?” I ask, mostly to distract everyone from my sketches.
Shrugs all around.
“My mom’s a therapist!” Preethi yells. “We can play Pass the Talking Stick.” She grabs a marker from the whiteboard.
“Why don’t we start with saying why our parents are getting divorced.
I’ll start!” She holds the marker as if it were a mic.
“My mom has been on a journey of self-discovery and figured out that she’s gay!
” She offers the marker for one of us to take. No one does.
Joey looks up from his phone. For a beat I think he’s going to take the “mic,” but he doesn’t. He just stares wide-eyed at Preethi like he finds her more interesting than his scrolling.
No one else takes Preethi up on her offer, either. A few seconds later, the door flings open. A woman, head down and fumbling with her phone, walks into the room. “One hundred dollars a plate,” she mutters. “Fucking have to be fucking kidding me.”
Preethi yelps.
The woman looks at us in horror. “Shit. It’s nine o’clock already?”
“It sure is!” says Preethi. “You’re late!”
Gray chuckles, not unlike a villain sizing up his next victim.
“I’m so sorry,” the woman says. She’s older—forty?—and dressed like a minor politician in a navy-blue pantsuit and a “fun” brooch. Her hair is pulled back so tight that my scalp aches. It’s all I can do not to pull out my sketchbook.
“Hi, everybody, I’m Claire Waters. From the emails.” She’s still flustered, and her voice wavers a bit.
“That’s your real name?” asks Gray. He obviously hasn’t been reading the emails.
Ms. Waters takes her time putting away her phone and setting her stuff down at the large desk at the front of the room. Then she unearths a clipboard from her bag and scans it.
“You must be Gray,” she says, pinning him with a look. “Your file says anger issues.” Her voice isn’t wavering anymore. Instead, there’s a drill sergeant quality to it.
We all sit up straighter, put on notice. Claire Waters will drown you if you get on her bad side.
To make sure we all know for certain that she is the boss, she goes around the room, calling everyone’s name and checking us against her list. “Lilliam, Preethi, Joey, and Isabel. Did I get everyone right?”
“You didn’t call out their shit,” Gray protests.
“I know,” says Ms. Waters. “I did not.”
She settles into the only empty chair in our circle. “Welcome to Safe Harbor,” she says. “Who wants to be brave and tell me what they’re thinking?”
For a few seconds, no one says anything.
“I’ll go,” says Gray, breaking our collective silence. “I’m trying to figure out how I’m going to convince you that I’ve been miraculously cured by the end of the day so I don’t have to do this crap again.”
I don’t know if the rest of us would put it like that, but from looking around the room, I’m pretty sure that’s what all of us are thinking. Well, except maybe for Preethi, who seems perfectly content right where she is.
Ms. Waters clears her throat. “You’d only have to convince me you’re cured if you thought there was something wrong with you in the first place,” she says. “Do you think there’s something wrong with you, Gray?”
He fidgets and pulls his booted foot under the desk. “No, I don’t.” His voice is defiant, but it’s obvious he doesn’t mean it. My sympathy for him tries to rise again, but I squelch it.
Ms. Waters turns her attention to me. “What about you, Isabel? Do you think there’s something wrong with you?”
I shrug. “I mean, our parents wouldn’t have sent us here if they didn’t think that, right?”
I can feel Gray watching me. I give him my best scowl. What?
“Thank you, Isabel,” Ms. Waters says, and turns her attention to the group. “How many of you think there’s something wrong with you?”
Lilliam’s nod is delicate and regal.
“I definitely do!” Preethi hollers.
“Me too,” says Joey. He glances up from his phone to see us staring at him. “What are we talking about?”
“No phones,” says Ms. Waters, and holds out her hand.
“One sec,” Joey says, thumbs stabbing at the screen. “My dad told me to tell Mom to tell him sorry for not doing the thing Dad told me to tell her to do.”
Ms. Waters looks at him for a few confused seconds. We all look at him for a few confused seconds.
Then Ms. Waters confiscates our phones and puts them away in one of the desk drawers.
That done, she addresses us again. “Actually, Gray has it right. There is absolutely nothing wrong with any of you. If you take only one thing away from today, let this be it. There is nothing at all wrong with any of you.”
“Great!” I blurt—at the same time that Gray yells, “Let’s go home!” We share a look of surprise. Then I remember he is my nemesis, and I look away again.
Ms. Waters gives us a smile that reminds us that she holds all the cards. “Keep up this attitude, and we’ll be spending the entire summer together.”
As far as threats go, it’s pretty effective. None of us want that.