Tied (All Torn Up 2)

My mother purses her lips together, and her hand grips her wine glass tighter.

“All right, if that’s what you would like,” Mom says. “We only wanted Holly to have time to reintegrate into society first, and recover mentally and physically. She was quite a mess when she first came back. It would have upset you, and that’s not good for your heart.”

“I was a mess?” I ask, surprised by this news. I don’t remember being a mess exactly.

“You weren’t yourself. It would have upset Grandma immensely to see you that way.”

“That’s bullshit.” Grandma once again holds my hand, and I try not to laugh at her swearing right to my mother’s face. “It upset me not to see her. Now let us talk. Go stir something in the kitchen.”

“I never should have let her keep me away from you,” Grandma says when my mother is out of earshot.

“It’s all right,” I assure her, feeling terrible that my mother wouldn’t let her visit me if she wanted to. “I can see you whenever I want to. I’m at residential status at Merryfield now. That means I can have visitors any time, and I’m allowed to come and go as long as I sign in and out.”

My grandmother looks both happy and a bit sad to hear this news, which I don’t quite understand. “Well, I don’t live far away at all, so we will definitely be visiting each other from now on. Would you like that?” she asks.

I nod enthusiastically. “Yes. I would like that very much.”

By the middle of my grandmother’s visit, I’ve decided she’s one of my favorite people, right up there with Zac, Anna, and Feather. Later, when she’s getting ready for my father to drive her back home, I promise her I’m going to visit her as soon as I’m able to. I don’t have a driver’s license or my own car yet, but it’s something I plan on working on right away.

Dr. Reynolds has told me to make a list of goals since I transitioned to residential status last month, and right now my goals are to get a part-time job, learn to drive, get a car, visit my grandmother, get my hair highlighted, and wait for the prince.

Lizzie and I stand next to each other at the front door and wave to Grandma as our father drives her away, and that momentary feeling of dizzying panic I often get suddenly strikes me. Placing my hand on the doorframe for balance, I slowly do my breathing exercise and count to ten.

One, two, three, four…

Thinking of the goals has overwhelmed me. One minute I feel so normal, and the next—bam! Everything closes in around me, and I want to hide. The what-ifs penetrate my thoughts, taunting me. What if I can’t get a job? What if I never learn to drive? What if I can’t get a car? What if my parents never relax and just learn to love me? What if I never see the prince again? What if I never feel…real again? What if I never stop feeling lost—and never really feel found?

I take a gulp of air. One, two, three…

“Holly, are you okay?” Lizzie asks from beside me, concern all over her young face. “You’re not dying again, are you? I’ll go get Mommy…”

Grabbing her hand to stop her, I smile through my shallow breaths. “I’m fine. Just a little tired.” She nods, content with my canned answer, and leaves me there at the door while she goes to help Mom fill the dishwasher. I am still continually surprised at how people out here accept words as truth. Even though I said I was fine, I’m not. Inside I’m scared, and screaming, and crying. Inside, I’m still in that dark, lonely room, waiting for the bad man to show up again, not knowing if it’ll be a good day, where he just talks to me, or a bad day, where he will touch me and say nasty things. Why can no one see, from the outside, that I’m not fine?

And how have I slipped into the habit of lying about how I really feel, constantly covering up my feelings?

It’s not until later that night, after watching a movie with my parents and Lizzie, when I’m lying in bed in Zac’s converted room, that I realize Lizzie asked me if I was dying again. I have no idea why she would ask such an odd question. I drift off to sleep wondering, and I jolt awake some time later, drenched in sweat, after having a nightmare. I was in a dark hole, being buried alive with dirt and worms being shoveled over me. I tried to scream, but no one heard me—no one came. I’m alive, I screamed silently in the dream. I’m not dead. And then I saw it was my mother with the shovel. You’re not yourself, she kept saying, as she shoveled more dirt over me.