Lakewood - Megan Giddings Page 0,34
her admiration for Lena having a work-study job, going home to help her mom and grandma almost every week, and still holding her GPA high enough to keep her scholarship. “You deserve to be the one taken care of, sometimes.” Lena couldn’t imagine how far Tanya would go over a wrist injury, plus living in a place with no friends.
Instead, Lena texted the selfie to Stacy. He immediately texted back: Ouch. Then: You look very pretty today. It was the first time in weeks he had used words, not a picture. She smiled, happy no one was looking at her face and noticing how dumb she probably looked. He probably didn’t mean anything by it. Lena knew if she texted back right away it might be opening another door. More flirting, conversations. She put her phone down.
“You okay?” Charlie asked.
She started. This was the first she had seen him all day. Lena shook her head. His eyes went to her wrist. She looked away from the kindness in them. Then to the observer who was heating up what smelled like chicken curry in the microwave. “I’m in outer space.”
“What?”
“Painkillers. I’m high. Sorry, I feel like I’m being really weird right now.”
Near the end of the workday, Lena received another text from Tanya: Are you mad at me? Why don’t you want me to visit?
Lena started typing. My life is already completely different, she began. Lena described the cabin, the scrutiny, her wrist, Dr. Lisa mentioning Deziree. How much depended on keeping secrets. And she had already gotten hurt. Already she was pushing away the thought that she had made a huge mistake. But what else could she do? And if Tanya came to Lakewood, it would be too hard. I have to make space between my old life, Lena typed. She saw the echo of Dr. Lisa’s orientation speech. She looked at the long text and deleted it.
“Sorry,” Tanya texted the next morning.
The key to surviving Lakewood, Lena decided, was making some real friends she could talk to. She started eating lunch with Mariah and Charlie and made plans to go see a movie with them. She accepted an invitation to have dinner at Tom’s house with Ian and Bethany after work on Day 11. The most awkward part of that night was when Tom’s teenage son approached Lena in the kitchen. “You’re not that much older than me,” he said. “I’m a senior. We can be friends.” She tilted her head, reached past him, and opened the refrigerator. Lena took a can of pop, closed the refrigerator, and went out to dinner. She was not lonely enough to start hanging out with high-schoolers. Tom gave them each a bag of zucchinis, large and curved, that he had grown in his basement garden.
That night, no longer on a heavy dose of painkillers, Lena couldn’t fall asleep. In the dark, every shadow was a man she didn’t know. She would drift toward sleep, only to feel fingers wrapped around her throat, pain in her face. She turned the lights on. Still, sleep only arrived in short bursts. She kept waking up stroking the silk pillowcase, turning to look at the lamp on her nightstand. When she bought the owl lamp it looked cute, but now its stern white face was less than reassuring.
Lena wanted to text Tanya.
She was up late every night; Tanya would be thrilled if Lena called and asked if she wanted to watch a movie at the same time. Tanya coped with her insomnia by making things—art, desserts—and would have been happy to send Lena pictures of whatever project she was working on.
The next morning, Lena woke up at 9:30. She threw on a pair of leggings, started to pull on a dress, and got her bad wrist stuck in an arm hole. Tears welled up. She had to yank her arm hard to get it out. When Lena looked in the mirror, she hated how she looked but didn’t have time to change.
On the way to work, Lena fantasized about all the bad behavior she wanted to indulge in. Childish ideas like taking scissors off Dr. Lisa’s desk and cutting some of the doctor’s hair when her back was turned. Or stealing something small off her desk like a nice pen or a photo or the large geode, and then throwing it into the woods behind Great Lakes Shipping Company. Or she could tell the observers all the terrible nicknames she had for them: Crooked Nose, Haircut,