Page 59 of The Locked Ward

It’s group activity time, and today it’s taking place outside. The sun is warming the back of your head and shoulders, a gentle breeze stirs the air, and music plays from a tiny speaker a nurse holds. The song is upbeat; it’s supposed to make you feel good.

But all you can think about is hatred.

You’ve been the subject of hot bursts of hatred a couple of times before—once after you clipped a guy’s new Mercedes in traffic, another time when a girl in college lost it on you after her ex-boyfriend asked you to a formal.

But you’ve come to the realization that quiet loathing can be even worse because it’s harder to identify or have validated.

It rides in under the camouflage of politeness, or hides inside hollow words, while its invisible animosity tears you apart like acid.

Honey was an expert in loathing you.

When you were eight and had your tonsils taken out over your school’s winter break, Honey and Stephen and Annabelle flew to Australia for Christmas.

You stayed home with a babysitter, eating popsicles and taking Children’s Motrin, while Annabelle petted baby koalas and snorkeled with dolphins.

“It’s too bad you had to rest and heal!” your mother lamented for the benefit of the babysitter.

“We’ll do an extra special trip next time! ” They did—without you again.

After you were sent to boarding school, you were always a holiday holdover because your spring breaks didn’t align with Annabelle’s.

Your family flew to St. Barts or went skiing in Vail while you ate Easter dinner with the quiet, vaguely creepy family of the English teacher who had long, spindly fingers and liked to recite Shakespeare.

Those were just a few of the unspoken messages pressed into you like a bruise upon a bruise: We don’t want you. You’re not one of us.

Sometimes the slights felt deliberate. Other times they were careless.

Take the last family Christmas photo you ever posed for: You were sixteen, and home for Thanksgiving, one of the few times you’d left school for a holiday.

You slept in that morning, then went for a long run, finding solace in the snap of twigs under your feet and the cold air drawing into your lungs.

Six miles later, you’d completed your loop and were walking toward the front door when it burst open. Honey and Annabelle stood there in sleek red dresses, their hair and makeup flawless.

“I thought you were the photographer!” Honey said. “Hurry, put on something red. We’re doing our holiday photo.”

You barely had time to rinse the sweat off your body and swipe on some mascara.

Annabelle and Honey looked gorgeous in the picture sent out to hundreds of your parents’ closest friends. You were squinting, and your face was almost the same beet color as your dress.

A scuttling noise makes you look down. A dry leaf is blowing across the concrete floor of the outdoor space. It’ll be trapped here, bandied about by the wind, until someone’s foot crushes it.

“Someone’s got a visitor coming.” Opal’s voice jars you. “Better wipe that expression off your ugly face. No one likes a disagreeable woman.”

A visitor is coming to see you? Your lawyer already came today. Mandy always calls first.

You’re desperate to know who it could be. Opal seems to sense this.

“You’ll just have to wait and see,” she gloats. “Come inside now.”

You follow her to the meeting room with two chairs and take the one farthest from the door, as always.

You hear the heavy tread of footsteps as your visitor approaches.

Then he appears in the doorway.

It takes everything you have not to gasp.