Girl in Pieces

Barbero and Nurse Ava found Jen S. in the emergency stairwell. Her stomach wasn’t bothering her, and she wasn’t doing laps. She was, Louisa informs me later that night, doing Doc Dooley.

I’m under my sheet. When I blink, my eyelashes brush against the fabric. I grunt at Louisa.

“They’ve been fucking for a loooong time,” Louisa whispers. “I’m surprised they didn’t get caught sooner.”

Down the hall, there’s a flurry of activity: phone calls being made, Jen S. crying at the nurses’ station. Louisa says, “Too bad, really. They’ll kick her out now and fire him. Or maybe he won’t get fired, just reprimanded. He’s only a resident. They fuck up all the time.” She pauses. “I hope Jen doesn’t think they’ll get together on the outside, because that is not going to happen.”

She peels the sheet from my face. “You’re young, so you don’t really understand.” She hasn’t taken off her makeup yet. Her mascara is smudged beneath her eyes.

“He chose her because she’s easy. We’re so easy, aren’t we? Hell, I thought I found the one, too, once.”

Tentatively, I say, “Maybe…he really liked her, though.” He could, couldn’t he? Doc Dooley is a dreamboat, he doesn’t need to troll on damaged girls. He could get anyone he wanted.

Louisa’s eyes flicker. “Guys are weird, little one. You never know what floats their boat.” She places the sheet back over my face and climbs into her bed. Her voice is muffled now, like she’s under her own sheet. “I let this guy—I thought he was so beautiful, and kind—I let him take pictures of me. Then he turned around and sold them to some freak site on the Web.”

Is she crying? I hesitate. Jen S. is really sobbing out there now and I can hear Sasha starting up in her room, a low, mewing sound.

This whole place is a world of sobbing girls.

Louisa is crying. The whole fucking hallway is crying, except me, because I am all cried out. I kick off my sheet and climb out of bed. Mikey was so close and I lost him. I lost him.

Louisa mumbles, “They should tell you, right when you get here, that that part of wishing is over. What we’ve done, no one will love us. Not in a normal way.”

Her hand snakes from beneath the sheet, groping in the air. I step into the cradle of her fingers. Her nails are painted a glossy blue, with tiny flecks of red. A sob catches in her throat.

“You need to understand, little one. Do you understand what it’s going to be like?”

I do what people say you should do, when someone is hurt and needs help, so they know they are loved. I sit on the edge of Louisa’s bed, on top of her Hello Kitty bedspread. She’s the only one of us who has her own bedspread and pillowcases and a selection of fuzzy slippers peeking from beneath the bed. I peel the pink-and-white sheet off her face slowly, just enough so that I can pet that hair, that wonderful riot of hair.