June 19, 2003. It was teen rehab day, and I was sober enough to recognize that I wasn’t interested in getting better. 

I called my best friend Diana as I got ready. “I can’t believe I have to go,” I said.

“I think it’ll be good for you. For both of us,” she said. “Besides, we’re going together.”

In the past few months, our cocaine usage had skyrocketed to the moon, leading to my probation and her driving into a stop sign, so now our parents had had enough: they were sending us away. And while me and Diana were leaving at the same time, she was being taken to Utah for who knew how long. All I could picture were white walls, locked doors, a detention center where no one was allowed to talk, claustrophobic shrinking. I hoped she’d be gone less time than my friend Gina—when I ran into her a month ago, she was visiting from Utah and seemed different, quiet and watchful. I couldn’t remember her laughing. At least I was only going to Reno, and just for 30 days. No one could disappear in 30 days.

Rehab was called Willow Springs, and I didn’t know what it would be like—I imagined it like the psych ward, all metal mirrors and yellow light bulbs, washing everyone out in some kind of jaundice—but I was sure misery was imminent. I needed to draw out my comfort at home while I could, and there was no place I felt safer than my bedroom. I chain-smoked and practiced the soothing ritual of hair and makeup. In natural sunlight, I relined my blue eyes with black pencil, smoothed the ends of my straightened dirty blonde hair in my fingertips.

            “We have to get going!” my mother yelled up the stairs.

            She was getting anxious. She got like this whenever we had to be somewhere, whether it was dinner or carting off her youngest to out of state to rehab. I ignored her. She was in a hurry to get me gone, but I wasn’t. I stepped farther from the mirror to look at the length of me, at the low waist of my black pinstripe pants, how they fell off my hips and emphasized the shadow of bone. I’d done so many drugs to look this good. What a waste to be going to rehab.

“Come on!” My mother shouted again.

“Fine!”

            I dragged my giant duffle bag down the stairs to rock bottom.

Mom and her boyfriend Harry were escorting me on the four-hour drive away from California sunshine and into the Nevada desert. They’d been together for four years and he was an uncomplicated figure in my life. Even if we weren’t close, Harry was there whenever my mom needed him, showed up for family meals and celebrations, was dependable in ways my father wasn’t, so I didn’t fight about him taking me.

            I stood in front of the house for the last time, lit my final Parliament Light at home.

            “We need to go,” my mom pleaded, waving second-hand smoke from her face.

“You’re sending me away, let me have a cigarette,” I snapped.

She gave up, maybe because she was used to giving up, or maybe because soon I wouldn’t be her problem.

I stood beside the white picket fence, looking up at my home in Burlingame for the last time in thirty days. Thirty days. I’d be back home a whole month before my junior year of high school even started. Junior year at my continuation high school where maybe I could still graduate.

I crushed my cigarette onto the sidewalk, then my mom’s boyfriend drove us onto the freeway heading east toward exile.

 

After trying to laugh and talk and letting me be in charge of the music to pretend everything was normal when really steady tension was baking itself into the car, after stopping at In n Out for lunch where Mom and Harry waited for me to finish my cigarette at the curb, after crossing the Sierras and Donner Pass where families ate each other to survive, after hours of rehab-induced anxiety made me want to tear off my skin even though there was an easy fix, Harry pulled off the freeway, turning down desert streets lined with industrial shops and into the tiny parking lot of Willow Springs.

            Outside the car, my skin warmed in the Nevada heat and the sidewalks and building were desert beige. A brown wooden fence at the back stood so high no one could ever escape.

I lit another cigarette.

            “We have to go, Rachel.” Annoyance simmered in my mother’s voice. It had been four hours of this, of me. The entrance was right there.

            “I don’t think they’ll let me smoke,” I said. Part of me hoped it’d be like a prison movie, where the only kindness we got was the cigarettes the warden let us smoke, but I was only 16 and they probably weren’t supposed to break the law.

            She frowned but acquiesced.

            I closed my eyes and savored my last Parliament Light—the taste, the smell, the way my lungs expanded with smoke. I didn’t know how I was going to survive thirty days without relief.

When I’d stamped out my cigarette, Harry hauled my bag out of the car and wished me luck. I followed my mom to the entrance, dragging my bag on the sidewalk to the glass entry. Willow Springs was plastered on the door in bright childish colors, a rainbow of happiness pouring out of its letters like this was some special children’s school. The waiting room was gray and air-conditioned, an artificially neutral space removed from the harshness of desert and detox. My mom checked in with the woman at the desk. We were told to sit in the corner.

            Eventually, a woman with a clipboard came through heavy locked doors and smiled at us. “You must be Rachel,” she said.

            “She is,” my mother said, no longer frowning, now smiling. A performance for rehab.

“I’m one of the nurses. We’ve got some paperwork for Mom to fill out, then we’ll take you back.”

My mother worked diligently on signing me away, pausing to hand me the clipboard to fill out the phone list: who I’d be allowed to call besides family. I added Diana in case she got out of rehab while I was gone, Em in case she got out of juvie while I was gone, Maddy, Alex, Jess, Vanessa, Steph, Tim, Grady, Becca, Dave, Liam. I started to write my 21-year-old on-and-off-boyfriend Mike’s number, hesitated, then added it just in case. I needed to show him I was changing, that he should want me back, even though I was exactly who he asked for. When we first started dating six months ago, we sat on my porch steps smoking. He sat above me, his arms wrapped around me in the dark January cold. With his face nuzzled in my neck, I asked, “Why do you like me?”

“Lots of reasons,” he said, and I could feel his cheeks turn into a smile, his lips on my neck. “You’re beautiful, and smart, and funny.” He took a quick drag off his cigarette, exhaling out into the street before adding, “And I like that you don’t give a fuck about authority.”

I frowned but tried to hide it. I hadn’t yet been arrested, but I was a problem at school and home, sometimes even at Hebrew school. I wanted to be someone he wanted, but I didn’t want my badness to be central to who I was. Mike once liked that I was wild and out of control; now he hated me for it.

My mother saw his name and frowned, tapped her acrylic nails on the armrest. I handed back the clipboard.

The nurse gave another show-smile. “This is the end of the parent’s part. I’ll give you a minute to say goodbye.”

My body tensed with panic. I could still make a run for it, leave everything here and sprint out the door. I didn’t have to go without the only thing that made life tolerable, without the hope of that white-rocked euphoria. I could maybe find my way back home.

My mother wrapped her arms around me tightly, hugging me goodbye. I kept my arms at my side, not wanting to participate in this betrayal.

“This is for the best,” she said. “You need to dry out.”

“I’m not an alcoholic.”

“You know what I mean.” When she let go, she squeezed my hand. “I love you. I’m going to miss you.”

The nurse opened the locked doors and told me to follow her. I dragged my duffle behind me, stopping to wave reflexively at my mom—she was really leaving me. Just a few months ago, she promised never to send me away, that we’d work through this together. I’d trusted her.

Now, she walked out of Willow Springs without me. I stood watching as the heavy door slammed shut, beeping locked behind me. I was alone with no way out.

The nurse led me down a long white hallway, past many closed doors with wire-filled windows. At the end of the hallway, she unlocked another set of doors. “The girl’s ward is this way,” she said.

“What’s that way?” I asked, pointing to another long corridor.

“The boy’s ward.” So there were boys. “You’ll have nothing to do with them other than group therapy.”

She led me down a hallway lined with shared bedrooms. We walked in front of an Activity Room with soft green chairs, a small television, bookshelves. Like living in a pediatrician’s waiting room.

She stopped at a shared bedroom, then pointed to the bed opposite the bathroom. “This’ll be yours,” she said. It looked like my room at the psych ward, with a desk too heavy to throw, everything washed in unwelcoming browns and grays. The windows tinted the whole room dark and bleak. My view was of a giant circle of dry dirt with a few rusty picnic tables, and this circle was surrounded by that enormous brown fence I saw on the outside, blocking out part of the sky. “We’ll need to search your belongings for contraband.”

So it began.

A staff member named Kathy, stout with a buzz cut, sifted through my clothes and makeup bag, confiscating my hair straightener (“this is a weapon”), hand sanitizer, mouthwash, and hair spray. “They have alcohol in them.”

“Does anyone actually drink hand sanitizer?” I’d never considered drinking hand sanitizer a day in my life, but maybe I could’ve gotten drunk.

“Sometimes kids get desperate.”

Kathy took my tweezers and nail clippers and razor. She confiscated any and all black pens from my bag. “Only staff are allowed black pens.” Then Kathy looked at me like I was contraband. “You need to change out of your tank top. It’s inappropriate.”

 

I was taken to another locked part of the facility to meet with Dr. O’Connor, a young man with a clean-shaven face and a full head of hair, unlike my doctors at home, who were all wrinkled and balding.

            Dr. O’Connor weighed me, took my blood pressure, listened to my heart, looked in my eyes and ears and throat. He examined my abdomen and arms and legs, noting scars from cutting, bruises from things I didn’t remember.

            “Do you feel like harming yourself now?” he asked, palpating the scabs along my forearms and wrists.

            “No.” I just felt like dying.   

            “Have you ever attempted suicide?” he asked.

            “No.” Even though I wanted to die sometimes, I’d never been brave enough to try.

            “I see you’re type 1 diabetic,” he said. “What’s your insulin regimen?”

            I told him the doses I was supposed to take, when I was supposed to take them, and he entered all this into the computer. “Physically you’re doing just fine,” he said.

            I was escorted back to the ward.

 

That evening, the ward gathered in the seafoam Activity Room for what they called a town meeting. Weirdest fucking town I’d ever seen. I sat by the door, looking at the bookshelf filled with Baby-Sitter’s Club and Nancy Drew and board games like Trouble and Mouse Trap. Taped on the walls were sheets of paper with marker-drawn images. Enormous letters spelled out FOMP: FOCUS ON MY PROGRAM, a crossed-out stick figure in a spotlight saying NO ATTENTION-SEEKING, two people disco dancing with giant red crosses over them saying NO SEXUALLY ACTING OUT.

Kathy started the town hall by asking the girl seated next to her, “Did you meet your goal today? What’s your goal for tomorrow?” There were thirty of us, everyone in varying states of caring about their appearance. Some girls wore sweatpants, some did their hair and makeup, one was in a nightgown, some looked like they hadn’t showered in days. Some girls met their goals, some didn’t, and Kathy awarded points based on achievement or not, then they all chose a goal for tomorrow that was illustrated on the walls. When Kathy got to me, she said, “You’ll choose your goals once you get your pointcard, which you’ll get after you’ve met the psychiatrist.”

            When Kathy adjourned the meeting, the girls swarmed a table in the hallway, where staff sat poised with their precious black pens. Kathy took the now vacant chair beside me to explain what was happening. “The girls get their pointcards signed off at the end of every day to earn their privileges.”

“Privileges?” I asked.
            “Like socializing in the Activity Room, participating in Free Time, that kind of thing,” Kathy said. I later learned it sometimes meant talking altogether or being allowed to eat in the cafeteria or calling your mom.

“When you meet the psychiatrist, you’ll get to level 1 and get your pointcard. Each activity earns positive or negative points based on how you behave in each of those activities.”

I nodded, but all this commodified good behavior was still so foreign I couldn’t yet wrap my detoxing brain around it.

            When it was time to stand in line for bedtime meds, a tall, thin girl who looked 17 introduced herself. Her blonde hair was gelled into a ponytail and her front teeth overlapped.  “What are you here for?” she asked.

            “Drugs. You?”

            “Drugs.” Maybe she was cool.

“What meds do you get?” I asked.

            “Right now I get Trazadone.”

            “I used to take that,” I said. “It knocked me unconscious. Do you take anything else?”

            “I get Adderall in the morning.”

            My skin burned with need. I fucking loved Adderall. Were girls willing to cheek their meds here? I remembered watching Girl, Interrupted, how they cheeked their meds and traded. If I offered something good enough, would she do it?

            The nurse motioned me over. “See ya,” I said to Adderall Girl, and went to the counter where the nurse handed me a pre-drawn syringe of my long-acting insulin. I injected the Lantus into my stomach while she set up the glucose monitor. I then pricked my finger and filled the strip with blood. “187,” she said. “A little high.”

            “Yep. Can I get some Humalog?”

            The nurse checked my chart. “Looks like I’m supposed to up your Lantus instead.”

            “That doesn’t make sense.” Lantus was supposed to keep my blood sugar at a normal baseline, while Humalog was the only thing that could correct it when it went high.

            “It’s what the doctor prescribed,” she said, then filled another syringe with the wrong kind of insulin and sent me on my way.

 

Then the ward was quiet with sleep. I couldn’t stop shifting, turning. I was starving, anxious. What was Diana doing? What about Mike? I was imagining him with a new girl, someone he wasn’t afraid to kiss in public because she wasn’t still in high school, who he could introduce to his family and take to bars. I wasn’t even his girlfriend anymore but I was in agony thinking about him wrapping his arms around someone else. I hated how he could make me feel so fucking crazy, even all the way in Reno. I had to journal just to get my thoughts out of my head.

            “You’re being so loud,” my roommate Talia snapped.

            “I can’t sleep.”

            “I can’t sleep with you being so freaking noisy.” 

            “What am I supposed to do, stare at the ceiling? This is my room too.”

            Talia glared before going out to the hallway. I heard her whine that I was keeping her up on purpose, and when Kathy told me to step out into the hall, Talia looked all pleased with herself. I wanted to jam my middle finger right in her stupid face.

            “Can’t sleep?” Kathy asked.

            “No.”

            “That’s pretty normal the first night. Want an apple?”

            Without coke, I was relentlessly hungry. And my blood sugar wasn’t so high that I couldn’t eat this apple. Besides, it wasn’t like I was so great at monitoring it back home. “Sure,” I said.

            Kathy reached under her chair where she had a few snacks and handed me a red apple. “First day’s always the hardest. You’ll get used to it.”

            Getting used to Willow Springs was the last thing I wanted.

            “If you have a book, you can read in the Quiet Room,” she said.

            I grabbed my book and followed her to one of two rooms beside the nurse’s station, and when she unlocked the door, it was floor-to-ceiling padded white. The door had a heavy lock, and the second-to-last thing I wanted was to be trapped here for who knew how long. “Do I have to be locked inside?”

            She laughed; it was not unkind. “I’ll keep it unlocked, and when you get tired, you can go back to your room. But be warned, I can see if you’re up to something.”

            I stepped into the small Quiet Room, afraid she’d lock me inside anyway. I checked the door several times before settling against the cushioned walls and floor. It was hard and soft at the same time, more comfortable than I wanted it to be. I didn’t know who’d used this room before or why.

I brought my copy of Elizabeth Wurtzel’s More, Now, Again, which Diana gave me a few days ago. Inside, she tucked a letter she’d written when the writing on the wall started spelling out banishment. I unfolded it, read the same sentence over and over like it was some incantation to get me out of here. Even if I am away, I will help you and if you need to get away or even disappear, call or write and I will make it happen. I only had her information for another few days, and then I wouldn’t even know where to reach her. We’d be lost to each other. I wondered what it was like in Utah where she was going, if there were padded white rooms, if the doors all locked behind her. All the troubled kids knew about Utah for a reason. Was it worse than here? 

I tried to read my book, but it was impossible to look away from these white walls and the door that locked from the outside, from the enclosure that would become my life for the next two years.