The Lies That Bind

24: Psych Ward

The week passed in a blur of ice and the promise of snow that never fell.

When Calla tired of inspecting the dust that had gathered in her childhood bedroom-turned-storage-space, she whiled away the hours on memory lane with Cooper, cruising around town in Vincent's obnoxious truck and marveling at how small and quiet it all seemed now that they'd left it behind.

This was once my entire world, she thought, enthralled and disgusted.

The highschool. The Diner. The overlook and the movie theater and the cemetery. This was her history. Her birthright. A darkness had been born in this town, had bred and festered and multiplied and infected everything and everyone it touched.

The holidays are for happy thoughts, Cooper reminded her more than once. And so she tried, for his sake—if only so she wouldn't have to hear any more of his grand speeches—to ignore Michaels and the bad memories the town dredged up. The effort involved quite a bit of ice cream, which she enjoyed from the comfort of Cooper's couch while her mother was away at work.

"I think she's seeing someone," Calla confessed to him one afternoon, a spoon balanced between her fingers.

"Would that be such a bad thing?" Cooper asked, staring longingly at the ice cream in her lap.

Calla considered the spoon, the way the light reflected off its edges. "No," she said after a beat of silence. "I don't think it would be."

At least she won't be alone, after.

Such thoughts were better left unsaid, and so she swallowed them down, down—down with the bottle of wine her mother gifted her for her twenty-first birthday, which came and went without fanfare, per her request. And it didn't stop there. Rosalind, only too pleased she no longer had to sneak schnapps into her cocoa come Christmas morning, added a splash to Calla's cup, too. By the time the Daniels joined them for Christmas dinner—at Rosalind's insistence—they were well and truly tipsy.

Calla fancied that day as a scene from a tacky holiday film: their mothers laughing over a bottle of pinot in the kitchen while she and Cooper exchanged gifts on the sofa, Calla's fingers clumsy with drink, laboring to unwrap the minuscule box Cooper had handed her, mumbling something about impossible to shop for.

Frustrated, she gave up on the intricate golden ribbon knotted at the top and rattled the box. "What is it?"

"Stop that," he chided, pulling one edge of the ribbon. It unraveled at his touch.

She scowled. "I could have done that."

"Sure."

Miffed, she slid open the box's top. Jewelry, was her first thought. And she was surprised to find she'd been right. A plain, silver little bracelet lay within, nestled on a bed of baby blue paper.

Cooper lifted the bracelet from the box. "Don't laugh," he warned her, clasping it around her wrist. He tapped the circular centerpiece, no larger in diameter than the tip of her thumb. "It's for...peace of mind."

She blinked to clear the buzz of wine that blanketed her thoughts. "Peace of mind."

He pushed back the sleeve of his pullover, revealing an identical bracelet on his left wrist. When he tapped the centerpiece, her own bracelet buzzed in response. She stared at it, aghast.

"Do it again," she demanded.

So he did.

"As long as that thing keeps buzzing," he said quietly, "I'll know you're..."

I'll know you're okay. I'll know you're alive and well and that Michaels hasn't buried you in a deep, dark hole somewhere.

He couldn't seem to finish the thought, so he kissed her instead while she filled in the blanks, the words unsaid between them.