Page 95 of The Sun Sister

She nodded.

‘It’s tough, but you’ll get through it,’ I said, feeling like an old pro after my three weeks here.

She shrugged in response.

‘Have they got you on the benzos? That sure helped me,’ I added. This girl looked so frail and now her hair wasn’t covering her eyes, I could see the fear in them. ‘Was it coke?’

‘No, junk.’

As my eyes sought out the telltale track marks on the inside of her thin arms, her hands automatically covered them from view.

‘I’ve heard that’s the toughest,’ I said.

‘Yeah.’

I watched the girl as she put her arms around herself and curled up onto the bed in a foetal position, her back towards me. I could see she was shivering, so I took the blanket from the end of her bed and draped it over her.

‘You can do it,’ I said, patting her on the shoulder. ‘I’m Electra, by the way.’

There was no reaction, which was surprising, because there usuallywaswhen I said my name.

‘Okay, I’m going to head to lunch. See you later.’

I left her curled up under the blanket, marvelling at the fact that I’d just found myself caring for her. Seeing her in the same state as I’d been in when they’d taken me out of clinical detox had obviously given me ‘empathy’.

The canteen was busy, with many of the inmates chatting quietly at the circular tables, light pouring in through the tall windows that gave a great view of the Serenity Garden beyond. The buffet spanned the whole length of the canteen, with hatted chefs serving up surprisingly delicious food. I collected my daily intake of carbs – a piping hot beef enchilada with golden cheese melted over it and a side of fries. I reckoned I would have to go on a crash diet when I left, but eating seemed to ease the craving for vodka. As I ate, I thought about the word ‘empathy’. It was one that was used a lot at The Ranch; apparently alcohol and drug abuse made you lose any of it that you had for others, cutting off the good parts of you as well as dulling the bad things you wanted to block out, which was the reason you’d taken the booze and pills in the first place. Tomorrow, I thought, I’d tell Fi that I might just have shown some empathy to the new girl in my dorm. She’d like that.

‘Hi.’

I looked up as Lizzie, my roommate whose bed was next to mine, came and sat down with her soup and plate of green stuff. Her hair was as sleek as always, blonde, perfectly highlighted and styled into a bob. She reminded me of a china doll – except that she’d had so much work done, her face looked like it was made by a psychopathic sculptor who’d studied under Picasso. She was in here for food addiction and I was amazed she came to the canteen at all; for me it would be like being in a bar with lines of coke spread across the counter.

‘How are you today?’ she asked me in her British accent.

‘I’m doing okay, thanks, Lizzie,’ I responded, wondering if she remembered me rolling her onto her side last night when she was snoring fit to wake every coyote in the neighbourhood.

‘You look a lot better. Your eyes are brighter. Not that they were ever dull,’ she added quickly. ‘You have beautiful eyes, Electra.’

‘Thanks,’ I said, feeling guilty as I munched on my enchilada, which she stared at in a way that told me she’d kill just for a taste of it. ‘How about you?’

‘Oh, I’m doing well,’ she replied. ‘I’ve lost twelve pounds since I came in – only another three weeks and Christopher will hardly recognise me!’

Christopher was Lizzie’s husband. An LA producer who, so Lizzie had confided to me at length, was the usual cliché of the married man who played around. Lizzie was convinced that if she lost twenty pounds, his shenanigans would stop. The fact was, she wasn’t even fat in the first place, and I wasn’t sure how much of her was actually real either. She’d been nipped and tucked and lifted so much that it looked like a pair of invisible hands were dragging the skin on her face upwards. Personally, I didn’t hold out much hope for Christopher’s return to fidelity. In my humble opinion, Lizzie wasn’t addicted to food, she was addicted to pleasing her husband.

‘How much longer have you got now?’ she asked.

‘A week, and then I’m out of here.’

‘You’ve done so well, Electra. I’ve seen so many who have come in here who don’t, you know. And you’re far too beautiful and bright to need all that stuff,’ she added as she forked up a leaf of rocket salad and chewed it purposefully as if it was a chunky piece of rib-eye steak. ‘I’m proud of you.’

‘Hey, thanks,’ I smiled, feeling that this was my first proper ‘good’ day and it felt great to get compliments like that. ‘There’s a new girl in our dorm, by the way,’ I added, wondering if it was okay for me to bring a slice of chocolate cheesecake back to the table in front of her.

‘Oh, yes, Vanessa.’ Lizzie raised her eyebrows – she was always the first to know anything in here and I soaked up her gossip. ‘Poor love. She’s so young – only just eighteen apparently. One of the detox nurses told me she was picked out of a gutter in New York by some wealthy person, who has sponsored the cost of getting her properly clean here. State-funded programme for juveniles do exist, but a kid gets in and by the time they’ve detoxed and are technically clean, they’re out and back to their old life. And using again within weeks,’ Lizzie sighed. ‘And if you’re legally an adult, like Vanessa is now, then forget it.’

It had only dawned on me in the past few days, as my brain had started to function properly, that we in here were the privileged few. I hadn’t had to even think about what it would cost to come in and get clean, just whether I wanted to or not. There were thousands of young American kids who were addicts like me, with no hope of getting the kind of proper treatment they needed.

‘The nurse said Vanessa’s one of the worst cases she’s had in here. She was in the detox clinic for four days. Poor little thing.’ Lizzie, despite her desperation to be beautiful and the carnage she had wreaked on her once pretty face, had a definite motherly quality to her. ‘We’ll look after her, won’t we, Electra?’

‘We’ll try, Lizzie, yes.’