Free Come Back To Me by Julia Barrett Page B

father called out. “Wait. Please. Wait.”
    Cara stopped walking, but she didn’t turn around.
    “It’s time for you to come home.”
    Her father’s words didn’t quite register. “Home?”
    “Yes, it’s time for you to come home. Dr. Bowman is releasing you.”
    “Why?”
    “What do you mean why?”
    “Why would I go home? Why now?”
    Her father walked up to her. He seemed cautious, like he was approaching a wild animal.
    “School starts next week. You need to go back to school. You need to come home. Your mom and I want you to come home, Cara.”
    “I think you’re ready to be discharged,” said Dr. Bowman. “You’re feeling better, aren’t you, Cara?”
    Better than what? Better than the night I was dragged in here? She turned to her father. She looked into his face for the first time in nearly three months. He looked older, weary. “I don’t want to come home,” she said at last. “I want to go to boarding school.”
    “But why . . . ?” Her father seemed genuinely confused.
    “Because everybody knows, everybody at my school knows what happened. I’ll have to see it in their eyes every single day.”
    “It won’t be that bad. I’m sure you’ll still have your friends. This is nothing a girl like you can’t handle.”
    Cara stared at him. Friends? What friends? A girl like me? Do you know anything about me at all?
    She was careful to keep her face expressionless. It was a lesson that first night in the inpatient unit had taught her. Don’t let anyone know what I really feel. Don’t let him know how much he’s hurt me. How much he can hurt me. If I let someone in, if I allow myself to love someone, if I allow myself to care, I will have to pay a heavy price.
    “I don’t want to come home,” Cara repeated.
    “Honey, please, I’m begging you, please come home with me. I’ve missed you. I’ve missed you something awful.”
    This was the first time her father had ever called her ‘honey’. Cara felt her façade crack. The crack was infinitesimally small, but it was just large enough to admit his words. With trepidation, she agreed. He had no idea how hard it would be for her to face the kids at school. They would all know what had happened with Rick. They would know she’d been in a mental hospital. She’d be dubbed the crazy girl.
    Cara turned to Dr. Bowman. “I’ll go home on one condition. I want a note from you, or I want you to call the school. Tell them I have permission leave class whenever I want. I won’t leave school and I’ll keep up my grades up. I’ll go to the library or something, but give me permission to leave class if I need to, if it’s too much for me. If you do that, I’ll go home.”
    Dr. Bowman agreed to do as she asked, so Cara said goodbye to Debbie and Miss Mandy. She tossed her few possessions into a paper bag and left the ward. On her way out the door, she and her father ran into James Mackie. Her father stopped to chat with the young doctor.
    James said, “I’m leaving too, heading back to medical school at the University of Iowa. Good luck, Cara.”
    She said, “Thank you.” She accompanied her father to the parking lot without a backward glance.
    ∗    ∗    ∗
    Cara returned to school. She picked up right where she’d left off. She attended to her work and received excellent grades, but her classmates went out of their way to avoid her. John was her only friend. His family had moved to the Midwest from California and he sought out Cara, claiming she was the only person at this provincial high school who was weird enough for him.
    Feeling something akin to desperation, Cara hung out with him. He was eager to introduce her to marijuana, LSD and psilocybin mushrooms. Cara wasn’t much into hallucinogens, but the marijuana numbed her, making it easier to function at home. She managed to be courteous to her mother and reasonably friendly to her father.
    John also introduced her to Randy and his girlfriend, Jackie, both drug