bed was a mountain of newspapers, and her arms were working at something I could not make out.
âAlyssa,â I said quietly, but she didnât hear. âAlyssa.â
She stopped and twisted around to look at me. Her eyes were bloodshot and her face both gaunt and flush from what seemed like a marathon of crying. I saw that she had been ripping up the newspapers.
âIt hurts,â she whimpered.
âWhat the heck are you doing?â I walked in closer.
She shook her head and cried some more.
âI canât. It hurts too much. But they say I gotta get stuff out.â
I shook my head. âI donât understand.â
âI have twenty-two left,â she said, weakly continuing to tear thepapers.
I noticed that her fingers were black from ink and bloated like mini-sausage rolls.
âItâs supposed to help me with my urges.â She raised one bandaged arm and looked at me, rolling her eyes. Her arm dropped again like falling timber.
âI can think of a million other things they could make you do, other than this stupid thing!â I said, outraged on her behalf. There was a photo on her bedside table showing a young girl with rosy cheeks and thick, shiny hair, wearing shorts and hiking boots and standing on a cliff.
âThat you?â I asked.
âYeah,â she said, stopping in mid-tear and looking at the photo. âI was thirteen. I scaled Mount Washington with my dad.â She turned to me. âI was so different back then. I didnât have these ⦠urges.â But one day, she said, she just snapped.
âSo here I am. And I have to tear fifty newspapers a day.â She kept ripping.
âAnd what if you donât?â
âWhat do you think? Iâll have fifty more.â
I dragged my feeding pole over to the bed and sat down next to her. I began to rip one paper at a time, which, I figured, might burn a few calories.
âThanks,â she said, looking directly into my eyes.
âSo why are you here?â
Her eyes darted away. âThey said I was a danger to myself.â
âSo am I.â
âYeah, I know,â she said without missing a beat.
The question I was dying to ask herâhow she knew I was jumping in my roomânow seemed stupid. She told me that when she turned fourteen, her personality changed like a light switch had been thrown. She became severely depressed and attempted suicide twice before grade nine. Her diagnosis? It changed as frequently as the dress size of a pre-teen girl. During each hospitalization, the specialists came up with different diagnoses, and neither she nor her family knew what in the world was the matter with her.
âHow long have you been in this place?â she asked.
âToo long.â
We sat there companionably for the rest of the evening, like factory workers shredding papers. I hadnât realized how lonely I was for a friend until I had her company. It gave me time off from my own maddening thoughts. It was strange to hear my own voice as I spoke to herâI rarely spoke to anyone except the nurse. That evening, I felt a meagre sense of sanity and humanity, but beyond that I felt like I knew Alyssa, like I had always known her.
At bedtime, I helped her stuff the torn papers into a garbage bag. We took it to the nursing station where it was inspected by her nurse. I asked Alyssa how they knew that she had ripped exactly fifty papers.
âI donât cheat,â she said.
I watched her walk back to her room. She stopped at the door. âYou wanna hang out tomorrow after breakfast?â she asked.
âSure.â
She raised her bandaged arm with a wave and a smile, and disappeared into her room. Over the following weeks, Alyssaand I became almost inseparable. We shared secrets. She pointed to places within me that had meaning, and I did the same for her. The qualities of our light and dark made us who we were. She was my sad, true soul sister.
16 .
Cyndi Friberg
Linda Mooney
Roben Ryberg
Barbara Delinsky
Mackenzie Morgan
Håkan Nesser
Roy Vickers
Charles Dickens
Will Weaver
Chris Barker