Body of Stars Laura Walter (chrome ebook reader .txt) 📖

I shook my head, disappointed that my brother had missed the point. But then I looked at the drawing again and felt sick, like I’d done something unholy. I had brought to life in the physical world what was meant to stay concealed in murky memory.

Miles reached for the drawing but stopped before touching it, like it might burn him. I wanted my brother to keep going, to tear the drawing to pieces and swallow them whole. To obliterate this man’s face and what had been done to me.

But I knew he would not. What I held in my hands was my weight alone to bear.

“Promise me you’ll get rid of that,” Miles said.

I left my brother and floated toward my room. The drawing was mine. I had birthed it, and I would be the one to destroy it.

Strategies for Reintegration: A 7-Stage Guide for Recovery and Rehabilitation

Stage 6: Bargaining and Denial. By this point in your recovery, your physical injuries have healed and your mental and emotional states grow stronger by the day. Once you have fully regained your strength and have faced reality, you may engage in the fantasy of returning to your former life as though nothing has changed. Perhaps you’re convinced that if you say or do just the right thing, you can return to school, rekindle old friendships, or resume your role as the favorite daughter at home. Do not fall victim to this line of thinking.

As in the other stages, you may return to bargaining and denial many times throughout your recovery, but you must be vigilant against it now. Repeat to yourself: Nothing is the same, and everything has changed, and I am incapable of altering the tide of fate.

This is the first step toward acceptance.

19

My mother took me to school on Monday morning and joined me in the principal’s office, where we sat before a stack of paperwork. As a returned girl, I had to complete admission forms as though I’d never attended this school in the first place.

Mr. Radshaw stood facing the window while I worked. From time to time I glanced at his back, so straight and stiff and unpleasant. I thought I sensed discomfort emanating from him. I thought he didn’t want me there.

I filled out the final form and passed it to my mother to sign. She held her pen poised over the signature line.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” she asked.

I didn’t hesitate. “I want my diploma.”

She signed the form. The ink of her signature looked a bit shaky, but it was there.

“Thanks, Mom.” I looked at her expectantly. “You can go now.”

She worried her fingers along the strap of her purse. “I don’t know about this.”

“I’ll be fine. Just go, please. I have class.”

She stood, and Mr. Radshaw came over and shook her hand. I braced myself for the adult conspiracy, a whispered conference about me, but it didn’t happen. My mother just asked Mr. Radshaw to look after me, and then she left.

“Am I free to go to class?” I asked.

Mr. Radshaw lowered himself into his chair. He placed his elbows on the desk and leaned forward, showing me more of his balding head. Instinctively, I shifted my weight back in my chair.

“It takes courage to come back,” he said. “Most girls don’t.”

“Like I said, I want my diploma.”

He nodded, but his mind seemed elsewhere. “Let me know if you have any trouble out there. You can come to this office at any time. Understand?”

I agreed. I was ready to burst out of that office, to succumb to the relief of crowded halls and gossiping students. I was in such a hurry to leave Mr. Radshaw that I didn’t dwell on how he described the school. Out there, he’d said. A wild landscape, vicious and raw.

That was exactly what I found. In the hallway, where I stood before my open locker, a boy ran by and slammed the locker door shut so suddenly he nearly caught my fingers inside. He was a brown-haired blur, a rush of rage.

“Slut,” he said. He hovered there for a moment, full of righteous energy, before he banged a fist against the row of lockers and took off again down the hall.

I stood with my mouth agape. The girl next to me—Trish, that was her name, an alto in chorus—had watched this scene with a disapproving look.

“Can you believe that?” I said.

“Sure I can believe it,” Trish said. She leaned in close. Her tone was hard, and although some prehistoric part of my brain was sending out warning signals, I couldn’t make myself move.

“You disgust me,” she added. And then she spat in my face.

*   *   *

After a solid twenty minutes in the bathroom—five of those minutes spent washing and rewashing my face, then another fifteen hiding in the far stall to cry—I wiped my eyes and stepped back into the hallway. As much as I wanted to run home, I had to stick it out. A little spit was nothing compared to what I’d lived through.

I proceeded to history class, which was already half over. No one looked at me when I came in and took a seat in the back, not even the teacher. I didn’t bother to open my textbook or take notes. When the bell rang, I walked heavily down the hall toward my science class. This was what I’d been dreading all day: Cassandra and Marie were in this class. I was afraid to see them, afraid I’d ruined everything between us forever.

Like a coward, I entered the room and immediately ducked into a seat. I stared down again, not looking up even when I heard whispers rising around me.

“I can’t believe she came back,” someone said.

“It’s revolting,” someone else responded. “Can you imagine where she’s been?”

Another student, a boy, laughed.

I took out a pen and pressed it hard into the desktop. I didn’t draw anything, just kept forcing the pen down into that