Cut by Patricia McCormick Read Free Book Online

not too early, not too late, so that you can slip into Group right on schedule without anyone even noticing that you were gone.
    As I’m leaving Study Hall for dinner, Tara’s coming toward me carrying a bouquet of tulips. The flowers, which are gigantic in her thin, little-girl arms, are dripping, even though she’s cupped her hand under the stems.
    I consider turning back, pretending I left something in Study Hall, but Tara calls out to me. “Can you believe it?” she says. “They took the vase away at the front desk. Glass.”
    Here at Sick Minds we guests are not allowed to have any “sharps”—glass or thumbtacks or CDs or ballpoint pens or razors. Sydney keeps making a joke about how there’s only one difference between the employees here and the guests; the guests, she says, are the ones with hairy legs.
    Tara stops a few feet in front of me. My feet drag to a stop, too. “Here,” she says. She disentangles one flower from the bunch and holds it out toward me, the way Sam did when he gave me the “Hop your feeling beter” card. Then, before I can take it or not take it, she places the flower on top of my geometry book.
    She breezes past, humming. It takes an enormous effort for me to start walking again.
    Sydney and I are sitting on our beds after dinner studying when the new girl knocks on our doorless door frame. She’s wearing a tank top, cutoffs, and flip-flops; I feel cold just looking at her. “It’s for you,” she says, cocking her chin in my direction.
    I don’t understand. Is her outfit for me? To make me look at her? To make me feel cold?
    “The phone,” she says. “It’s for you.” She turns to go, then pauses. “Hey, how do you give someone the silent treatment over the phone? I mean, how do they know if you’re even there?”
    My cheeks flame. I put down my geometry book, get up from my bed, and follow her down the hall, counting the number of times her yellow flip-flops thwack against the glossy green linoleum.
    She pauses a moment before turning in to her room, which is right next to the phone booth. “Don’t worry,” she says. “I won’t listen to you not talking.”
    I sit down on the little curved seat in the phone booth and reach up to close the door. But there is no door. I forget sometimes that there are no doors here. I pick up the receiver, still warm from the grip of the last person, and stare at the concentric circles of tiny holes in the mouthpiece.
    My mother’s voice comes out of the other end, puny and hopeful. “Callie? Is that you?”
    I hold my breath. There are kitchen sounds in the background, the thrum of the dishwasher, the closing of a drawer.
    “Oh, dear,” she says, the volume in her voice slipping down a notch, as if she were talking to herself. “How do I know if you’re even there?”
    My back stiffens; those were the same words the new girl used. I shift around on the little seat, then cough.
    “Well, I hope you’re there, Callie, because I have something to tell you.” She waits a minute, then sighs. “OK. They say you’re resisting treatment.”
    I switch the receiver to my other hand and wipe my palm on my pants leg.
    “Oppositional something or other, they’re calling it. Oppositional behavior.”
    Oppositional behavior. It sounds so premeditated, so on purpose.
    “Are you listening?”
    I forget not to nod—and forget my mom can’t see me nodding.
    “They say they might send you home.”
    The door frame of the tiny booth quivers. It narrows, then expands.
    My mom is saying something about how the people at Sick Minds might want to give my bed to someone else. Someone who’s willing to work. Someone who wants to get better.
    The floor of the phone booth pitches up, then swims away.
    Now she’s saying something about school. “They won’t let you back in school either,” she says. “Not until you’ve had treatment.”
    I hold the receiver away from my ear. My mother’s voice grows small, long-distance—costing us good