Freedom of Sketch

Open Wounds

Following lunch, Lizzie writes in her food journal. Her ballpoint pen has a purple pompom on top. We sit with each other at a table in The Lounge, under scrutiny of the techs because a ballpoint pen could easily find its way into someone's artery.

Lizzie leans forward. Her ribs make a staircase up to her collarbones, prominent as bicycle handles over her low-cut top. She recently lost seven pounds as the result of a nasty stomach flu. She slips her arms into her Caberwood High hoodie, wearing it backwards. "So what's the deal with your new roommate? Does she even talk?"

I tear a piece of notebook paper in half. "She talks."

"Do you know what's wrong with her? It looks like she doesn't wash her hair." She wrinkles her nose. "Ugh, I ate 759 calories at lunch, plus my supplement. I can't keep doing this." She slams her journal shut.

I think only of Molly, her rubber band, and her glass eyes. The way her affect completely changed, a flash flood of emotion she felt obligated to suppress. Molly can't allow herself to feel anything, so she turns into a mannequin - no brain, no heart, no soul that can be broken - just a senseless assembly of plastic parts. What is she hiding beneath her bloodstained sleeves? "Maybe it's too hard."

"What?"

I rip the halves of the paper into four quarters. "Maybe it's too hard for her to wash her hair."

"Huh." Lizzie twists around to make sure Molly is still on the other side of the room, snoozing in a beanbag below the television. "You know, I heard she was kicked out of school," she says, voice low.

I continue to shred the notebook paper into tinier and tinier pieces, much like the way Lizzie cuts her food with the side of her plastic spork. "Really? For what?"

"Cutting," she whispers.

"That explains it," I muse.

"Explains what?"

"The bloodstains."

"Bloodstains?"

I point to my arm. "Here. I saw her unpack; over half her shirts have faded stains on the sleeves. They look like old bloodstains."

"That's gross."

I crumple the shredded paper in my fist. "Wow, way to be harsh, Liz. You do it, too."

She runs her painted nails down the cover of her journal. It is plastered with reward stickers, happy pictures, and uplifting words cut out from magazines. "Did," she corrects.

"So wouldn't you be more understanding?"

Lizzie: "Look, I'm just in a really bad mood, okay? I'm stuffed with high-fat, high-carb refined food and it's making me sick. Literally. I feel like my stomach bug is coming back, but I'm already up a whole kilogram. Do you know how many pounds that is!?"

I shake my head.

Lizzie: "Two point two!"

I tear out another sheet of notebook paper and try to fold it into an airplane. "That's not a whole lot. Besides, I thought they didn't tell you your weight."

"They tell me now. It's part of my treatment, to cope with the numbers. Total bullshit, that's what it is. I'll eat my way out of here, then lose the weight again."

"Lizard... your mood swings are making me dizzy."

My best friend clenches her jaw. "Stop. I'm not talking about this anymore. I'm done." She lowers her head into her arms and weeps, rocking back and forth.

I sweep up my clutter, tell Lizzie I love her, tell the staff I'm feeling nauseous, and take the rest of the day off. I spend it in bed, sleeping, dreaming of having razor blades instead of hands, of blood flowing in rivers around my ankles. I wander through dreamland, following a distant wail that at first I think is a siren. I then decide it's a girl crying. It isn't Lizzie. I tread upstream, blood splashing up to my knees, searching until I find the source of the sound. She is stranded, alone on a rock way out in the middle of a red sea. Her crimson tears fall from gray eyes.

 Her name is Molly.