Free Harmony House by Nic Sheff Page A

asshole.”
    â€œSeriously.”
    Candace drives me up the twisting driveway to Harmony House. She stops the car, stares up at the house a moment, her eyes wary.
    â€œDon’t worry,” she tells me, her gaze fixed on the dark face of Harmony House. “Everything’s gonna be okay.”
    I thank her for the ride.
    And I hope to God she’s right.

CHAPTER 5
    W hen I tell my dad about the girls at the diner and our plans for a sleepover, he agrees to let them come over so long as I do all my work and pray and am a good girl. Of course, I agree. I’ll tell him anything he wants to hear so long as I don’t have to be trapped here with him by myself all the time.
    After he eats dinner, he makes me pray again with him up in his room. He kneels with me on the floor and grasps his long, bony hands together.
    I submit to this for as long as I have to.
    And then I go back downstairs to watch the super-weird Donald Sutherland, Nicolas Roeg dwarf lady serial killer movie.
    When it’s over I go upstairs and brush my teeth and then go back to my ugly-ass pink room.
    On the floor, where I left it, that book of Bible verses is open to that same page with the Prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi on it. Only now, I mean, unless I really am going fucking crazy, it looks like there are even more words crossed out. I can’t understand it. I pick the book up off the floor and read the prayer again.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  Where there is hatred, let me sow love
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  Where there is injury, pardon
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  Where there is discord, harmony
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  Where there is error, truth
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  Where there is doubt, faith
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  Where there is despair, hope
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  Where there is darkness, light
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  And where there is sadness, joy.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  To be consoled as to console
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  To be understood as to understand
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  To be loved as to love .
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  For it is in giving that we receive
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  It is in pardoning that we are pardoned
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life .
    Jesus Christ, I think, I’m really fucking losing it.
    I go to the closet and get out another one of the pills from the baggie in my jacket lining. This one, I think, is a Xanax. I dry-swallow it and then take some deep breaths and try to relax.
    Somehow the window has been left open. The night air is cold and smells strongly of pine needles and the distant ocean. Leaning my body halfway out, I can see the stars clearly now—bright and complicated, glittering in the dark, like a child’s drawing of what the night sky looks like. The wind has died, so there is only the cold and the sounds of crickets and rustling of raccoons or maybe deer in the forest below. I hear what I think might be a horse whinnying not far away. I wonder, then, if that gray cat has found a home for the night, though I’m sure it must belong to one ofthe neighboring houses.
    I decide to bring it in the house and give it some milk if I see it again tomorrow.
    Then I turn off the light and go climb into the