“Why are you even talking to me?” I finally look at him as he stares at me in confusion. “Forget it.”

  “I don’t want to forget it,” he says. “What’s going on?”

  Nervously, I continue to mutilate the defenseless muffin with my fingers.

  “You know I’m not going to leave you alone until you talk to me.”

  Dropping my hand down to my lap with a heavy sigh, I ask, “Are we even friends?”

  He appears dumbfounded as he shakes his head. “I thought we were, but if I’ve misunderstood something . . .” His words dissolve as timidity forms in his expression. “What is this all about?”

  Leaning forward, my shoulders sink. “I don’t know. I guess I’m just unsure of what to expect when we . . .”

  I feel stupid talking to him like this, as if he owes me anything when we leave here. But the truth is, he’s become a source of comfort for me—someone I can talk to and be open with, someone from my past who knew me before I fell into the depths of this depression that’s taken over my life. In a weird way, he feels like a safety blanket.

  “When we what?”

  “When we go back to school,” I finish. “I mean . . . everyone you hang out with hates me. The whole school—”

  “Screw them,” he says. “I’m not going to stop being your friend.” Shifting in his seat, he faces me. “You’re the only real one I have.”

  “You have a ton.”

  “But it’s all lies. You’re the only person I don’t have to pretend with, and I don’t want to lose that,” he says, smoothing the frayed edges of my uncertainty. Placing his casted hand over my wrist, which has finally healed, he asks, “What about you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Where do I stand with you when we get out of here?”

  Turning my hand over, my palm meets his, but I don’t hold it. It isn’t until he tightens his fingers around mine that I tell him, “I don’t want to stop being friends either.”

  We stay locked on each other for a moment before his lips crack a subtle smile.

  “What?”

  “You still got that turtle in your bra?” he jokes.

  Snatching my hand away, I slug him in the arm, and he busts out laughing. “You know I’ll lose privileges if I get caught with it, right?”

  “You don’t use any of the privileges here anyway.”

  He’s right. I never watch television nor go to the workout room. They’d be hard-pressed to find something of importance to take away from me, unlike Max. She’s restricted from television for the next few days. It seems like a light punishment, but with her OCD, her not being able to watch her nightly shows wreaks havoc on her need for routine.

  After we finish breakfast, Sebastian and I join Jeremy and Max in line to get our meds, but I don’t tag along with them for art class afterward because Dr. Amberg has me scheduled for a family therapy session.

  “Good luck,” Sebastian says when Marcus comes to get me.

  My parents are already in Amberg’s office when I enter. It’s been a couple of weeks since we’ve had a session all together, but I’m hopeful this one will be better than the last.

  “Hi, sweetheart,” my father says before giving me a hug that lasts longer than the one I give my mother.

  When we take our seats, I’m next to my dad on the couch while my mother sits adjacent in one of the chairs next to Dr. Amberg.

  “I know it’s been a while since you were able to join us,” Dr. Amberg says, addressing my dad. “I wanted to let you know that there has been much progress with Harlow and her participation here.” My father smiles at me. “She’s been more motivated in group with Dr. Benson and has been very open during her one-on-ones with me.”

  “That’s so good to hear,” he responds, taking my hand in his. “I’m really proud of you.”

  I nod, feeling a sense of pride, but it isn’t for anything I’ve done. It’s more focused on the hopes that they might just let me out of here soon.

  “With that being said, Harlow, your parents wanted to talk to you about something and felt it best that it be done in this setting because your progress is what’s most important to us.”

  Unsettling anxiety twists in my gut when I look over to my mother. She’s tense, wringing her hands and keeping her focus on Dr. Amberg. Turning to my father, his head hangs as he looks down at his feet.

  “What’s going on?”

  My dad’s palm is hot and damp against mine, and I slip my hand out of his.

  Dr. Amberg acknowledges my mother. “Jamie?” he says, encouraging her to talk as he motions in my direction.

  She reaches over to the small table next to her chair and pulls a tissue from the box before dabbing her eyes.

  “Your father and I . . .” She begins before stalling.

  “Dad?” I turn to him with apprehension as my stomach twists.

  He finally looks at me with pitiful eyes as he takes my hand again, but mine remains limp as I feel my family ripping at the seams. My gut is telling me that their marriage is over, but I don’t want to believe it, and neither one of them are saying anything, which is only making this worse.

  “Just tell me.”

  He grips my hand a little tighter before crushing me. “Your mother and I have decided to get a divorce.”

  A dagger spears through the center of my world, inflicting more than just pain, but a torrential avalanche of anger. My body burns with it, and the sounds of my mother weeping only dumps more gasoline onto the flames as I turn to her.

  “I hate you,” I seethe. “This is all your fault.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Harlow, please. This was both of us.”

  I snap my head at my dad when he says this and rip my hand away. “Are you kidding me?”

  “Marriage can be really tough.”

  “Especially when you have a wife who’s screwing around on you.”

  “Harlow!” he scolds.

  “If we could all just take a moment,” Dr. Amberg interjects. “This is never an easy thing, and it is completely understandable that you’re upset, Harlow.”

  Crossing my arms over my chest, I sit back with a jaw locked so tightly that my teeth just might crack as I breathe heavily in and out of my nose.

  Dr. Amberg continues talking to me, yet every word is drowned out by my mom’s crying. It’s all I can hear, but her soulless tears mean nothing to me because this is all her fault, and when I can’t stand it any longer, I snap, “Shut up! Just stop crying because it means nothing! No one feels bad for you.”

  “I’m not asking for you to feel bad for me. I feel enough of it for myself.”

  “Good.”

  My dad shifts toward me. “This was my choice, honey.”

  “A choice you made because of what she did,” I tell him. “Why are trying to defend her? She cheated on you.”

  “I’m not defending her, but she is still your mother, and we are still a family.”

  “Yeah right.” Pressing my lips together, I stare down at the floor.

  “I never meant for any of this to happen.”

  “Stop talking, Mom.”

  My throat thickens with sadness, and it’s taking everything in me to keep my tears back. I’m mad—I don’t want to cry on top of that, but my heart is breaking. Like, literally, breaking into razor-sharp pieces that slice me open as they crack off.

  “Your mother and I love you very much.”

  I shake my head, not because I don’t believe in his love but because I don’t believe in hers.

  “And we are always going to be here for you. Nothing changes.”

  “Everything changes.” I’m forced to grasp on to courage just to look at him, and when I do, I see his tears, which actually mean something to me. “Are you moving out?”

  Slowly, he nods. “Eventually, yes.”

  Another shard snaps off, and my voice exposes my agony when I whimper, “I want to come with you.”

  My father hangs his head. “I wish you could.”

  Tears flood my eyes before spilling over and he gathers me in his arms. “This isn’t fair.”

  “I know.”

  “Just for one year until I graduate,” I beg while clinging my arms around him. He squeezes me, and I cry harder, “Please, Dad.”

  “I’m not home enough to take care of you.”

  “I’m almost eighteen; I can take care of myself.”

  He doesn’t respond, no one does as my father continues to hold me. I want to do so much more than cry, though. I want to ball my fists and scream so loudly that it shatters the windows and causes my mother’s heart to bleed worse than mine is.

  I want to be thunder and lightning, but more than that, I want to be free. Free from this place, free from my mother, free from everything. I want the clouds to part so I can feel what it’s like to run through the heat of the sun, to fly without anyone throwing stones at me.

  Can’t I just breathe? For once, just for a moment, actually breathe?

  When I begin to quiet, and my father loosens his arms from around me, Dr. Amberg hands me a tissue, explaining, “Because of your father’s travel schedule, your parents feel it’s best that you stay with your mother as you continue moving forward in your treatment.”

  “Harlow?” Her voice is weak, but I don’t care.

  I don’t even acknowledge her when I ask my father, “What about Tyler? Does he know?”

  “Yes, we told him.”

  “When?”

  “Before he flew back to North Carolina.”

  My mouth gapes. “So, you knew when you were here for family day and you lied to me.”

  “We wanted to wait for the right time. And with . . .” He drops his eyes to my wrist, and I hate that he does. “We wanted you to focus on getting better instead of worrying about us.”

  “I’m not some broken doll,” I defend, even though I know it’s a lie.

  “No one said that you were.”

  “Then why do you treat me like I am?”

  Letting go of a deep breath, his shoulders slacken. “This is tough, and we’re trying to make the best decisions, but there’s no instruction manual for how to handle all this.” He takes my face in his hands and looks me in the eyes. “You are my daughter, and I love you. God, I love you so much. Just because things didn’t work out with your mother, nothing will ever come between you and me, do you hear me?”

  I nod, but I can’t do this. I swear, the emotions piling onto my shoulders have me teetering on a cliff’s edge.

  Turning my head out of his hold, I look over to Dr. Amberg with a defeated, “I don’t want to do this anymore.”

  As soon as he nods, I walk over to the door and wait as he calls for someone to come get me. My skin grows itchy, and I can’t stand still. I need space.

  “Harlow, I’m so sorry,” my mother says, but I don’t want to hear it.

  Ducking my head, I shift my feet as I wait impatiently. An eternity passes before Marcus opens the door and takes me out of the room.

  “Everything okay?”

  No. Everything is all wrong.

  I nod, but it’s a little too frantic, and he sees it—the anxiety rattling me.

  “Do you need a breather?”

  I nod again, and he takes me to one of the small therapy rooms. As I pace the floor, my breathing grows shallow and frantic. No matter how many steps I take, it doesn’t stop the utter devastation from boiling beneath my fragile surface.

  My hands turn cold and jittery as Marcus calls for someone to come, and when I hear Sebastian’s voice, I turn to see him step into the room right before Marcus closes the door, leaving Sebastian and me alone.

  Our eyes lock, he walks straight over to me, and the moment he has me in his arms, I cry.

  Thunder and lightning—I cry.

  HARLOW

  “You have to do it like this,” Max snaps while she sorts the puzzle pieces by color. Her fingers skitter anxiously through the pile as she organizes them meticulously into piles.

  Sitting back, I let her do her thing because testing her OCD is something I refuse to do. I did it once and she turned into a rabid beast. So while Max continues to sort, my eyes drift around the room as I watch the other groups.

  Coping skills class has been replaced with this stupid activity: learning to work and problem solve with our peers. Instead of giving us something that relates to the real world, they gave us puzzles. I mean, puzzles? Really? What teenager is sitting around doing puzzles? Old people in nursing homes do this crap because their lives have wasted away and they have nothing better to do than to spend hours putting together tiny pieces of cardboard only to break them apart and shove them back into the box.

  It’s a pointless activity.

  “Max, are you letting Harlow help you?” Shanice asks as she strolls past our table. Max twitches a few times, not liking the idea. “Maybe let her sort some as well.”

  To appease Shanice, I pick up a piece before she walks away.

  “What pile do you put the ones with multiple colors in?”

  She plucks it out of my fingers and huffs. “In the multiple color pile,” she says as if I’m an idiot.

  “Why the hell is everyone doing puzzles?” Sebastian asks when he joins us at our table.

  “Cooperative learning, I guess.”

  “Cool.” He scoops up a bunch of pieces, and Max loses it, swatting his hand and sending the pieces to the floor. “Dude, chill.”

  “Max, count to ten,” Shanice says when she walks back over.

  After Sebastian gathers the pieces and Max is able to calm down, we sit back while Max returns to the puzzle.

  “So, how was your session with Dr. Amberg?” I ask.

  It should be an easy response, but he hesitates as caution softens his eyes.

  “What happened?”

  “I’m going home,” he says, and my body stills.

  Common sense tells me to smile and congratulate him, to be happy that he’s getting out of here and going home, but I do none of those things. Instead, I’m sad and jealous. More than anything, I’m consumed by loneliness even though he’s still here.

  My smile is pathetic and doesn’t reach my eyes when I nod. “When do you leave?”

  “In three days.”

  Reaching under the table, he rests his hand on my knee. “You’re going to be fine. Just keep working hard and you’ll be out of here soon.”

  “What are you two whispering about?” Max questions.

  “I don’t know if I want to tell you. Are you going to hit me again?”

  She cocks her head. “I barely tapped your hand.”

  “He’s going home on Monday.”

  Her face lights up the way mine should have. “Wow, you’re so lucky.”

  “Thanks,” he mutters before turning to me and lowering his voice again. “You okay?”

  So many people have come and gone since I’ve been here that I don’t bother getting to know them or being their friend because, what’s the point? Friendships made here only live within these walls. And although Sebastian has assured me that ours will survive beyond this place, I still have my doubts.

  He squeezes my knee, and I tell him, “I don’t want to be here alone.”

  “If I could take you with me, I would.”

  From the corner of my eye, I see Max watching us, puzzle forgotten.

  “I want you to call me as soon as you get out,” he says.

  “I don’t even have your number.”

  “I’ll write it down for you and you can hide it in your bra next to the turtle.”

  On a breath of a laugh, I shake my head. “You think I’ve kept that turtle in my bra this whole time?”

  “You haven’t?”

  I shake my head.

  “Well, where are you hiding it then?”

  “Inside the cushion on the couch by the games in the rec room.”

  “Inside of it?”

  “In the back of the far-left cushion, there’s a small rip.”

  He chuckles at how ludicrous it is, and I do too. I swear this place is more locked down than jail.

  “I’ll try to get a pencil today and write my cell number down.”

  I nod, and when I turn back to Max, she already has all the edge pieces connected.

  “Can I get a pile to work on?”

  She hands over one of the sorting trays without looking up at me. I know my friendship with Sebastian makes her uncomfortable, and I feel bad about that, but I won’t ignore him.

  “So, what are you going to do for the rest of the summer?” Max asks him while keeping her head down.

  “Heck if I know. I have to figure out what I’m going to tell people when they ask where I’ve been for the past month.”

  As I secure a piece in place, I murmur, “Too bad you can’t tell them you were pregnant.” When I peek over at him and see the frown on his face, I smirk to let him know I was kidding.

  “Why would he tell people he was pregnant? That makes no sense.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I dismiss and then ask her, “Have you thought about what you’re going to tell people when you go back home?”

  Max sets down the tray of blue pieces and starts working on the green ones. “I doubt anyone has even noticed I’m gone.”

  “Why?”

  She lifts her eyes to Sebastian. “Because I don’t have any friends.”

  And now he’s the one who’s uncomfortable.

  “Harlow,” Greg calls from the doorway, “you have a phone call.”

  “Your brother?” Sebastian asks.

  “Probably.”

  They normally don’t allow us to take calls whenever, but I’ve been trying to get ahold of Tyler since my parents told me about the divorce, and the staff agreed to let me talk to him when he called me back.

  Greg leads me to the desk and then hands me the phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, Low.” Hearing my brother’s voice is a comfort. “How’s it going?”

  “Still locked up.”

  “How much longer until you get to go home?”

  “Hopefully not too much longer.” I situate myself in one of the chairs against the wall. “So, Mom and Dad told me they’re splitting up.”

  “They did?” His voice pitches in surprise.

  “How come you didn’t tell me?”