of shampoo, so I was using a bar of Irish Spring I’d found in the stall—but my hair was too greasy from the baby oil. I needed real shampoo. I needed hot water. I needed a shower that didn’t require shoes.
The soap slipped from my hand and landed on the filthy tile with a clack. I bent over to retrieve it, only to see that it had collected a nest of black hair. I gagged, stood up, covered my mouth. It was disgusting, living like this. I couldn’t take it.
I couldn’t take it.
My shoulders began to tremble, and I stuffed my washcloth in my mouth to muffle the oncoming sobs. I leaned against the stall door to brace myself for the fit, but it didn’t come. Instead, I had only a shallow, ragged cry; the kind that brought no relief and only mattered because it couldn’t be contained. When it had passed, I rinsed my face in the spray and turned off the water. I walked back to the RV, heavy and hollow and raw.
Dad closed his journal and looked up. “Ellie?”
Ella, ella, eh, eh, eh . . .
“You look awful. What’s the matter, really?”
Are you all right?
“I’m just tired.” My voice sounded flat.
“But you slept all day.”
“Teenagers need more sleep. It’s a medical fact.” I had tried to add some inflection, but it came out sounding dull.
“I don’t buy it,” Dad said. “And I’m concerned. You’re still taking your medication, aren’t you?”
Wow, I wanted to say. Do you really not know? Or are you just in denial? I supposed it didn’t matter. Either way, there was nothing he could do about it.
“Nope,” I said, giving him a flat look. “The doves looked manic. I’ve been feeding it to them.”
His frown wilted, and now he looked confused. A lost, sad old man. “I’m only trying to help. Please, tell me what’s really bothering you.”
“Really?” I said, raising my eyebrows. “What’s really bothering me?” I held up my threadbare towel. “I just took a cold shower in a filthy stall with a bar of soap I found on the floor.”
Dad opened his mouth, but I cut him off with a gesture toward the accordion door.
“The only privacy I get is a plastic screen.” My voice was rising, thinning out like a high note through a reed. “I’m flunking school because I only get internet every third day, and I haven’t bought new clothes since I was fifteen. Oh, and I live in a FUCKING RV!”
Dad bolted to his feet. “Watch your tongue, young lady.” His voice was acid. “I’m sorry you weren’t born to a family of accountants with a trust fund. But in this family, we are artists. And artists don’t always have the luxury of—”
“Artists?” I said, barely containing a laugh. “You think we’re artists? We make more money robbing gas stations than we do performing ‘art.’”
Dad’s face blanched.
I should have stopped. Apologized. I should have told him the truth, that I was out and low and standing on the edge.
Instead, I goaded him.
“What are you going to do now, send me to my room?” I gestured again at the flimsy partition. “Don’t bother. I’m already going.”
I took two short, exaggerated steps and slammed the plastic door with a weak click.
Dad made no further effort to talk to me that night; he must have been truly furious. Around eleven, I slid open the door to find him asleep on his couch. I tried to sleep, too, but my mind was still spinning from the fight, replaying every terrible thing I had said. We had never fought like that before—not ever—and a low, heavy dread settled on my heart. He’d been trying to help, and I had not only pushed him away, I had hurt him, deeply. I’d made him feel like a failure as a parent, and then I’d struck the death blow, belittling the thing he cared about most: being a magician. It was all he had left. What if he never forgave me? My eyes ached. My limbs were leaden. I felt like downed power lines.
I rolled over, opened my bedside drawer, and stared at the empty orange cylinder inside. I had taken my last pill four days ago—how long before the drug was completely out of my system? I retrieved my phone from the floor and Googled it. WebMD said three to five days.
Maybe that’s why everything seemed so impossible.
With Dad snoring on the couch, I slipped outside and walked across the gravel lot to the