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Chapter Thirty-Four
Nala
Liza is at group, and even though she barely says anything, she looks lighter. She’s still wearing leggings and a sweatshirt, but the front of her hair is pinned back from her face, like maybe she’s ready to let us see some of her.
We don’t paddle, because it’s windy and the girls seem content to snuggle into sweatshirts and stay on the shore. Instead, we sit for a bit, watching the diehard groups out in their yoga lines or circles, the sprinkling of individuals who are alone on their boards, floating, paddling, taking pictures or doing their own morning stretches.
My body hums with the urge to be out there, and I decide I’ll have to surf this afternoon, in-between Isa’s dress fitting and hanging with Jordan. Maybe I’ll even see if Jordan’s ready to try more than paddling.
“Check-in time. Nora, why don’t you start.” The girl hesitates, still quiet after all these weeks together. “How would you rate your week on a scale of one to ten?”
She looks down, shifting her wrap, covering her slender legs, tugging at the cuffs of her sleeves until her hands are covered. “Five.” She pauses, and I wonder if she’s going to try and stay silent like she has all of the other weeks. Right as I prepare to move on, making a mental note that I will come back and ask her why the middle rating, she speaks again. All the girls lean in a little, because Nora’s voice is low, and weak, and she hardly ever talks. “I cut again—Sunday night.”
My eyes widen and I look at her covered arms, then to her thighs that are also covered by her wrap. “But I didn’t keep going,” she continues. When I look up, her eyes are lifted from the ground, and she’s slowly glancing at every one of us. “I cut, but the minute it happened, I—I stopped. And I went downstairs and sat on the steps until my brother got home. He got rid of the razor, and we called my dad.”
She wipes at the tears, her blue eyes so wide in her narrow face they make her look like a Disney Princess, like she belongs behind glass, only to be looked at with her miles of blonde hair, and her beautiful skin, and haunted blue pools. But life isn’t meant to be lived behind a glass case, and looking at this beautiful girl who met the dark side and pushed it back, I’m glad I understand that.
“Shit, you’re stronger than me.” I look at Lena, who picks up a chunk of sand and tosses it to the middle of the circle.
“Why do you say that, Lena?”
Pierced eyebrows pulled low, she throws a rock this time, and then blows out another breath. “I, ah, I got mad at my mom on Friday. Walked in and found her you know—on her knees for some guy—and I flipped. Hit her, hit him, ran out before either got their shit together enough to chase me or retaliate. Got high, stayed with my boyfriend.”
“Broke parole,” I add silently. I make a mental note to ask Mac if I have to turn her in, or if the fact that she came to group and told us during our time together makes it privileged information. Still, I need to get ahold of someone to make sure they check on her, to make sure she’s in an environment that’s stable.
“Where are you staying now?” I ask her.
“With my grandma. She’s my legal guardian, but sometimes her rules…” Lena’s shrug is a little resigned. “They’re a lot, you know? I have to check in all of the time, and it’s always ‘go to school and come home, do chores, eat dinner’ with her, no seeing my mom or my boyfriend.”
I wait, because I know she sees it. When she won’t say it, Mya pipes up. “Well, yeah, but that’s because that shit’s toxic, and your grandma’s just trying to keep you from being a strung-out ho like your mom.”
“Mya, language.”
“Sorry,” she mumbles. But she isn’t wrong, so I smile at her to soften it, and then I look back to Lena.
“Do you think your grandma is trying to protect you from certain things? From events that cause that reaction? From people who don’t understand you can’t get high and forget about life? Not only because it’s against your parole,” I remind her, and she shrinks. “But because it’s not healthy for you.”
Lena nods, and then we go through the rest of the group. Mya sharing that she, too, had a relapse, and called her ex-girlfriend to meet her at a party. But like Nora, she told someone, and she spent the rest of the weekend working on starting over. That’s when I see it—the healing that’s already begun. We can’t always keep our weaknesses at bay, but we can fight them back when they surface, seek out help, ask someone to trust us and believe in us
When it gets to Liza, the natural line-ender in our check-in, she says five, and then adds, “but I think it’s going to be a six or seven next week. I can—I finally feel like I have a choice.”
The rest of the girls are thoughtful after Liza finishes, all a little lost in their own battles to survive and move on. “Homework,” I say, and they groan with the word. I smile. “Relax, it’s not math.”
“Thank Christ for that,” Lena mumbles, and everyone else laughs.
“Do three positive things for yourself this week. Be ready to share them next time.”
The girls all leave, and before I head to my classes at the Y, I take out my phone and text Mal. Then I text Brooks because I know he’s who Mal turned to last night.
I’m good. Just finished with my group.
His response is immediate, and I feel a little guilty for waiting so long to text him.
Do I need to beat Malcolm’s ass?
I smile.
Thought about it. He’s good to me, Brooks. And now…now I feel good enough for him.
