Sara and the Search for Normal Read online

  Clearly, he had never read a thing about mental health. But this wasn’t the time for a lesson, even if I could talk to him. I just wanted to go home. We were close now. A block or two.

  “What do you guys talk about in your group therapy? Sorry, you can just nod. Does she talk much? About home and school and stuff like that?”

  His voice was lower now. I risked a brief glance and saw he was looking at me.

  I shook my head.

  He smiled. “I find that hard to believe, knowing Erin. Well, she must talk to you a lot.” He shifted gears as we turned onto another street. “Does she talk about how it all got started?”

  I shook my head again. Please let me get home.

  “Tough to get a nod out of you,” he said dryly. “I was just curious. One day she just seemed to be pulling out hair. Found a clump in the shower. Then the lashes. Horrible stuff.”

  He pulled onto my street.

  “I’m sure you all have stories at the group sessions,” he said. “Issues at school. At home. Maybe parents are behind a lot of it. I’ll have to try to talk to her again. She can be stubborn.”

  I pointed at my house, trying to keep my hand from shaking, and he pulled in.

  “There we are. I’ll wait until you get inside.”

  He turned to face me fully. His face was half in shadow.

  “I hope you and Erin are good for each other,” he said. “Maybe you can help each other.”

  I nodded. There you go, Mr. Stewart. I could nod for that.

  I opened the door and swung a leg out.

  “We’ll have to be honest about the friendship if not,” he continued. “We also need positive examples. Behavior to model ourselves after. I’m sure your parents would agree. We’ll have to be honest.”

  I paused for a moment. I knew what he meant. Normal girls. Normal friends. What I had been trying so hard to be. Of course he wanted normal girls. Ones who didn’t ask any questions.

  Well, bad luck, Mr. Stewart. You got Sara Malvern.

  I gave him a smile, closed the door, and hurried inside, not looking back. Then I went right to the couch, sat next to my dad, and slipped under his arm. The Game didn’t come.

  “I love you, Daddy,” I said, resting my head on his shoulder.

  “I love you too, Princess,” he replied, his voice a little slurred.

  I didn’t care. He was here. I was safe. I was lucky.

  I waited there for an hour or so, and then I went to my room to see what I’d found.

  CHAPTER 26 STAR CHILD

  I plugged the USB cable from the GoPro to my laptop and sat back, chewing on my nail as the video uploaded. It was long, and a minute or two crawled by, staring at nothing but the loading bar in the darkness.

  The recorders were playing beside me. They had little speakers, but they were quiet, so I had both going at once. It probably wasn’t proper sleuthing, but I couldn’t wait a moment longer. I needed to know if I’d recorded something.

  The bathroom recorder was muffled. I had put it too far back in the cabinet. Water ran loudly, and that was about it. The one from Erin’s room was better, but I heard only footsteps so far. Shuffling around the bedroom. Beds creaking. Then a familiar voice.

  “Not tonight,” Erin was saying. “One day at a time. Reassert control. Stay mindful.”

  I could feel my stomach twisting. She was quoting Dr. Ring, obviously trying not to pull. It felt deeply personal, and I almost wanted to turn it off. Then the video started playing too.

  Now my eyes were locked on the screen, the recorders playing on either side.

  I stared, absorbed.

  I had gotten ten hours and forty-seven minutes. Most were at night when everyone was asleep. I sped up the footage to one and a half speed. A few people walked by. Her brother. Her mother going to bed.

  Him.

  The sounds didn’t match, of course. They were running on different timelines. I watched as the foyer lights blinked out. Just darkness. I sped up the footage to two times. Then three. The hours counted along through the night. It was well past midnight right now too. I kept watching.

  “Good night, Erin,” Erin’s mother said in the bedroom recorder.

  Those were running at normal speed—everything was eerily out of order.

  “Good night,” Erin said.

  Water running again. Muffled voices. Was that Erin in the bathroom? I leaned closer.

  “—not supposed to do that. Stay mindful. What is wrong with me?”

  The last part sounded like a prayer. I had said it so many times.

  “I’m sorry, bestie,” I whispered. “I’m sorry for spying. But I promised to help you.”

  The camera was recording darkness. I fast-forwarded to four times. Shuffling from the bedroom recorder again. A bed creaking. My skin was prickling, from anticipation or maybe guilt. The minutes crawled by. Silence and darkness and it seemed all of this was for nothing.

  Then a voice.

  “How was your night with your friend?”

  His voice. I heard the bed groan under new weight. I picked up that recorder and held it close to my ear, the other one forgotten now. The scene began to lighten on the video. Morning was coming there. From the recorder, her father had come to say good night to Erin.

  “Good,” she said.

  “I heard you in the bathroom.”

  There was silence for a moment.

  “I—” she started.

  “You did it again.”

  It wasn’t a question. His voice was hard and low. I cringed for her. Morning came.

  “I didn’t—ow, I didn’t—”

  Her voice was breaking up. Cracking. Was she crying?

  “Don’t lie to me,” he said. “I told you to let it grow back. I told you to stop—”

  “I’m trying—ow, that hurts—”

  “It should hurt,” he said. His voice was low. “I am trying to help you. This crackpot Dr. Ring obviously isn’t. And this girl. You really think hanging out with her is helping? Well?”

  “I don’t know—”

  She was definitely crying now. I could just barely hear the sniffling.

  “I don’t want to get angry,” he said, sounding calm now, even loving. His voice could change so fast. “Did you pull your hair tonight? Answer me honestly, Erin Ashley Stewart.”

  People started to move around in the video. I slowed it down to two times. Her father came down. Then her mom, then her brother. Erin too. They moved too quickly across the screen.

  “I did—” Erin said. She gasped. “I’m sorry.”

  “Lying doesn’t help you get better,” he said. “You know I want what is best for you.”

  “I’m sorry, Daddy—you’re hurting my arm—”

  His voice got even lower. “I will not have a daughter walking around like a freak because she can’t control herself,” he said. “Do you understand? I will keep you home. Don’t test me.”

  She gasped again. I could feel my heart breaking for her. Stop it. Please stop it.

  Erin came onto the screen. So did he. They were standing in the foyer. Normal speed.

  “I’ll stop,” she said. “I will, Daddy. I’m sorry.”

  In the video, he was facing her in the daylight now. I could see their lips moving. He leaned down, looking at her face. His hand was on her side. They were talking, but I could only hear the recording. Then his hand came up.

  It was all so fast. I had to rewind. A balled fist and a hard shot into the side. She looked like she might go down, but he had his hand on her arm, holding her, finger pointed at her face.

  My eyes filled with tears.

  “Get some sleep,” he said in the recording.

  The bed creaked. He must have stood up.

  “Tomorrow you will get better,” he said. There were footsteps, and muffled crying.

  The words hung there. He had said it just like me. Like my prayer.

  He left in the video as well, and she stood there alone, wiping her face, and then ran up
stairs.

  I sat there for a long time. There was nothing else on the video. Not that it mattered. I had gotten what I was looking for. She survived that daily. I could hardly imagine her strength. I realized I was crying, and I wiped my face with my sleeve. It was soaked. I must have been crying for hours. I hadn’t even noticed. The recorders were still playing, but I stopped them, uploaded the files to an unnamed folder on my mom’s laptop, and transferred all three onto my phone for a backup.

  Then I closed the laptop and lay in bed with my cell phone.

  I hadn’t showered or brushed my teeth, but I was too tired to care.

  Before I fell asleep, I wrote a text message:

  Want to come over tomorrow? I need to show you something.

  I thought back to the video, and the recordings, and wrote one more message:

  Sweet dreams, Star Child.

  CHAPTER 27 STARS UPON STARS

  I was restless in school the next day. Erin had agreed to come over. I had lain awake for most of the night, thinking about that voice, and even when I did sleep, it was all nightmares. I could feel the fuzziness in my brain today. The bursts of anxiety like firecrackers every few minutes.

  I couldn’t fold up, though. Not today. I had to help Erin.

  And first, I had to completely betray her trust. Even after everything I had seen and heard, I was hesitant. My notebooks were full of stars. I still couldn’t decide what to do about it.

  How could I lose my one and only friend?

  “I’ve noticed a lot of these lately,” Ms. Hugger said.

  I looked up and realized she was standing beside my desk. I forced a smile. I had mentioned the Star Child stuff to her, but she wasn’t a fan of “pseudoscience,” so I’d left it there.

  “Just fun to draw,” I said.

  “You look tired.”

  “Didn’t sleep well,” I admitted.

  She pulled up a chair and sat down across from me. “Want to talk about it?”

  I did. I had already thought about bringing it up with Mom and Dad, but I could never quite figure out how to keep it cryptic. Could I now? I looked at her, halfway through a star.

  “Have you ever lost a friend?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “Silly things mostly. Distance for some. Even worse … fights or boys for others.”

  “Did you ever lose one and get them back later?”

  “Of course,” she said. “What is this about?”

  “Would you ever do something bad to keep a friend? Tell a lie? Ignore something?”

  “Sara, what is this—”

  “Would you?” I asked quietly.

  She sighed and leaned back. “I have done that. Lied or ignored. But I shouldn’t have.”

  “Why?”

  “Friends are important. You spend a lot of time with them. But you spend way more time with yourself.” She smiled. “What is it that Dr. Ring told you about yourself? I liked that one.”

  “He said the most important relationship in your life is with yourself.”

  She tapped the desk and got up again, heading to the whiteboard. “So there you go. If keeping a friend means doing something that makes you not like yourself, then it’s a bad idea.”

  She stopped and looked back at me.

  “You seem different lately, Sara. I meant to say something last week. I mean, you looked tired today, but still … different.”

  “Different how?”

  “More sure of yourself, maybe. You aren’t walking around with your head down all day.”

  “Tired of looking at my shoes, I guess.”

  She smiled. “That must be it. Well, keep it up. I like seeing you like this.”

  She went back to her equations on the board, and I watched her, feeling a sudden pressure behind my eyes. She had no idea what that word meant to me, of course. I thought back to my nighttime prayer, the one I said a thousand times: Tomorrow you will be better.

  I had spent all that time wishing I could magically get better, when I just had to make things better for myself. I had to stop trying to be something I wasn’t. I had to stop hating myself and thinking about all the ways I was wrong. I had to stop calling myself Psycho Sara.

  My name was Sara Malvern, and I wasn’t very normal at all.

  I looked down at my notebook, smiling.

  Then I finished the star.

  * * *

  She came over at seven. I met her at the door. We hugged and hurried upstairs, and she told me about Kevin, who had most definitely smiled at her today. My laptop was sitting on my desk, and I kept glancing at it, waiting for the right time. But an hour went by, and it never seemed to come. I took three Sara breaks and nearly had a panic attack on the third. I just couldn’t face her.

  “Having a rough one, huh?” she said when I came back. She was lying on the floor, doodling in a notebook. Stars. Always stars with her. “I had one the other day. It was a doozy.”

  “What do you do on those days?” I asked hoarsely, trying to control my breathing.

  “More hair-pulling. Panic attacks. Or I just get all moody and make my family mad. Of course, in my brother’s case that doesn’t take much. He called me an idiot yesterday. The irony, Sara.”

  I smiled and sat down at my desk, fingers tracing across my chest. Another time, I decided. Today wasn’t a good day to tell her. She had already asked what I wanted to show her, and I said it wasn’t ready yet. It gave me time to think more. I didn’t want to lose my friend.

  But the computer was behind me. I could remember the voice. The crying.

  “You know,” Erin said, propping herself up on her elbows. “I was thinking about James.”

  I frowned. “Why?”

  “Oh, I think about how I want to punch him all the time. But this was different. I was thinking how sorry he is going to be. I mean, you’re going to grow up to be, like, some beautiful astrophysicist, and he’s going to be, like, take me back, and you’re going to be, like, too late, loser.”

  I laughed without thinking. “I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

  “Oh, it will. To me, too. Like, we’re both Star Kids. Older people respect intelligence.”

  “The eighth graders call me Psycho Sara too—”

  “No, you dipstick. I mean, like, adults. These middle schoolers don’t get us.” She got up and flung herself onto the bed. “Me, I’m going to be an actress. I decided it. I have the it factor.”

  “Yes, you do,” I agreed.

  “And we’ll be the dynamic duo. Scientist and celebrity. Beautiful, smart, rich—”

  She rolled over to look at the ceiling. Her shirt came up. Just a bit, but enough.

  There were bruises on her hip. Yellow and green like nebulous clouds blocking out all the stars. Her shirt was down again in an instant, but I clenched my teeth, mind spinning again.

  What if he hurt her again tonight? Tomorrow. The next day. What if he hurt her bad one of these times? Broke something inside or out? What if she lost her starlight and I could have prevented it?

  She was still talking. Stories about her career. About how we would be friends at ninety.

  I wanted that. And I also wanted to be a Star Child. I wanted to like Sara Malvern.

  And I knew it would be hard to like someone who was afraid of telling the truth.

  “Erin,” I said.

  She glanced at me. “What?”

  “I want to show you that thing.” I tried to swallow, but my throat was dry. “Come here.”

  She slowly got up. She could probably see the look on my face.

  But I had decided. I turned to my computer and opened the edited file. I edited it when I got home—edited so the image and the audio were both at the point that I wanted. They didn’t actually line up, but I wanted her to see it just like I had. I wanted her to know that there was no explaining it away.

  I took a deep breath that barely seemed to reach my lungs. Then I pressed play.

  The video and the voices
started at once.

  Erin said nothing as they played. She listened and watched. Her eyes watered. I wanted to hug her or say something, but I didn’t. I just sat there and waited, preparing myself.

  The encounter in the hallway stopped before the audio recording. Then it was just a black screen, and the voices finally stopping, a bedroom door closing, and a girl crying in the darkness.

  Then that was done too, and there was just Erin and me.

  “So that’s what you were doing,” she said. Her voice was so quiet. “I was wondering.”

  I turned to face her. Her eyes were still on the screen, her hands balled up at her sides.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “But I told you I was going to help.”

  “Delete it.”

  I shook my head. “I already made copies. I won’t.”

  She tightened her fists.

  “What are you going to do with it?” she asked. “Did you show it to anybody?”

  Her hands were shaking. I waited for the punch.

  “Not yet,” I said. “I will, but I wanted to show you first. Talk to your mom. You can tell her about the recording if you want. If you don’t tell her, or report it, then I’ll share it myself.”

  She stared at me for a moment. “I asked you to leave it alone.”

  “And you also told me I was a Star Child,” I replied. “You asked me to help. So I did.”

  She ran her hands over her face, and to my surprise, she laughed. It was a sad one, or resigned maybe, but she pulled her hands down across her mouth, eyes still on the screen.

  “I don’t believe this.”

  She sounded so betrayed that I stood up, reaching out to her. She stepped away.

  “I had to—” I said.

  “No, you didn’t,” she snapped. “You put cameras in our house. You can’t just do that. You’re going to get in trouble if you report us. That’s illegal. It won’t even work—”

  “Your mom doesn’t know, does she?” I asked. “She really thinks you wrestle.”

  Erin looked at me. I knew before she spoke. “She knows he gets mad.”

  “And the bruises?”

  She flushed. “She doesn’t always see them. I’m … more careful there, I guess. And when she does … I tell her they’re from wrestling. She believes me, I think. I thought I could trust you.”