Harmony House by Nic Sheff Page A

stopped looking at me and turned to stare at something far-off. She added, dully, with a half smile, “Until you don’t.”
    And I didn’t know what she meant, but I shivered—maybe just from the ice-cream cold in my chest. And I reached out my hand and touched hers. And she laughed and hugged me tight against her and I could smell that smell of her again and feel the warmth in her embrace.
    I was happy.
    Maybe we both were.
    Until we weren’t.
    In the morning I feel sick as hell again and I want to stay in bed, but my dad is pounding on the door, telling me to get up.
    I try to do what he says, but the pain in my head is really unbearable.
    I turn and lie back down again.
    The door opens and my dad comes in—like he does every goddamn morning—so we can pray together.
    â€œDad,” I say. “Please, I’m not feeling good.”
    He tells me prayer will heal whatever is wrong with me.
    I want to tell him to fuck off, but, of course, I don’t, because that would just make everything worse. So I follow him downstairs to his dank room. The musty smell of it is overwhelming—like some kind of mold rotting beneath the floorboards.
    â€œCan I at least go to the bathroom first?” I ask him.
    He says for me to wait.
    Against one wall of his bedroom he’s erected a kind of altar with a giant cross showing, in exact detail, the nails driven in and the crown of thorns and the blood dripping down.
    My dad gets on his knees and gestures for me to do the same.
    It’s a ritual I’m used to at this point.
    He prays out loud, asking for God’s forgiveness and saying we’re not worthy and blah, blah, blah. Pretty boring stuff. But my dad is all emotional about it and I think he might even cry—I can hear a tremor in his voice.
    â€œAnd please, Lord,” he says. “Save my daughter. Show her the path to salvation that she may not spend eternity burning in the fires of hell.”
    I keep my head down.
    My dad drones on and on.
    Then another voice whispers in my ear.
    â€œSinner,” it hisses.
    I close my eyes and shake my head to clear it.
    Finally, though, my dad finishes talking. He says, “Amen,” and I say it, too.
    I go back upstairs to the bathroom and try to wash my face, but the pain in my head is so bad now I can barely open my eyes. It’s not the easiest thing in the goddamn world, but I manage to get back to my room and I sort of stumble over to the closet. There’s a bag of pills that Steph and I stole from her dad’s medicine cabinet in the lining of my navy blue peacoat.
    Staring at the pills now, they’re all kinds of pastel multicolors—Vicodin, Percocet, Xanax, some opiate—Ican’t remember what it’s called.
    I reach into the plastic bag and take one of the thick, round Percocet and dry-swallow it before going back to the bathroom to drink water from the faucet.
    Looking up into the mirror, I see my reflection in the mirror is kind of a train wreck. I’m strangely thin—my face pale and sunken around the eyes and jawline. Plus there’s a purplish-yellow bruise forming above my collarbone.
    I’m not sure where the hell that coulda come from.
    I walk down the stairs and go into the kitchen, where my dad is drinking coffee. Sunlight streams in through the open window.
    â€œHey, what happened there?” my dad asks, noticing the bruise on my neck.
    My hand goes to it reflexively. I pull my collar together to cover it. “I don’t know,” I say. “It’s weird. I just—I woke up like this.”
    I pour myself coffee.
    â€œYou need to eat more iron,” my dad says, handing me, somewhat incongruously, a box with some chocolate donuts in it.
    I take one and do my best to smile.
    â€œNot a lot of iron in these things.”
    â€œI’ll get some steaks for dinner and . . . uh . . . maybe some broccoli?”
    â€œThat’d be nice,” I say.