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Summary
Part One, from “Like a baby harp seal...” to “Ellis, Ellis.”
Content Warning: The below contains references to self-harm.
Charlie (Charlotte Davis) wakes up in a hospital with her arms and legs heavily bandaged. She remembers being dumped on the hospital lawn and compares herself to an orphan, wrapped in a sheet and left bleeding outside. She lays there until a security guard finds her admiring the stars. Soon she is in a rehab center, where the other girls have stories they are eager to share, and they gently tease Charlie in an effort to get her to speak. Her roommate, Louisa, is a redheaded beauty with scars like Charlie’s. Louisa is comforting and warm and soothes Charlie when she has panic attacks. Louisa has been at the rehab center since it opened. Unlike the other girls, she doesn’t attend group meetings, and she has bags of nice clothes and expensive makeup. Louisa writes almost nonstop in her composition books.
The girls follow a strict schedule and are monitored at all times to ensure they don’t hurt themselves. Charlie finds the routine comforting, and after her recent homelessness, she is grateful to have food and a bed. Among the other girls, Jen, Blue, and Linda stand out. Jen is tall, pretty, lean, and athletic. Blue acts like she doesn’t care about anything and has the most stories to tell. Linda has no visible scars but has different personalities living in her mind. Their group therapist, Doctor Bethany Stinson (“Casper”), tries to stop Blue from harassing Charlie for not speaking, but Blue keeps it up in the dining hall and during craft time, calling Charlie “Silent Sue.”
Casper is gentle and reassuring, in contrast to the other workers at the rehab, who are cold and impersonal. Casper is kind to all the girls in different ways, trying to meet their individual needs, and Charlie wishes Casper could be her mom, but even in private sessions with her, Charlie cannot speak. She just sits and watches Casper’s turtle in its tank. At night she wanders the halls and worries that the staff will put her on medication to treat her insomnia.
One night, wondering how long she’s been at the rehab center, Charlie writes the question on a piece of paper, which she gives to Barbero, the night nurse. He won’t answer her unless she speaks. Enraged, she grabs a chair and throws it at the nurse’s station, then kicks the wall until she breaks her toe. While Barbero tries to calm her down, he calls in Doc Dooley, a residential doctor at the center, who sedates Charlie. The next day, Casper tells Charlie she’s been there six days, and that she was in the hospital for seven days before that. In a surge of loneliness, Charlie misses her friends, particularly a girl named Ellis.
Analysis
In her early days at the hospital, Charlie sees herself as a baby: not only is she unable to speak, but she was dumped on the hospital lawn like an unwanted infant. She is wrapped in a bloody sheet, but unlike a newborn, the blood is not from her mother’s womb; it’s her own blood. This might suggest a rebirth, but the fact that the blood originated from her self-harming behaviors suggests she was trying to end her life instead of restarting it. Looking at her bandages, she describes herself as a baby seal, the epitome of helplessness and vulnerability. Baby seals are often victims of brutality as they are frequently clubbed to death for their skins, suggesting Charlie is in danger. Despite this unwanted rebirth, Charlie appreciates the small kindnesses of Nurse Ava, and, when she gazes up at the stars, she still finds beauty in the world.
Charlie describes life at the rehab in stark and depressing terms, but she finds great comfort in having food, a bed, and shelter. The girls are held to a strict schedule since free time gives them too many opportunities to revisit their past traumas and find ways to self-harm. The bland food and the center’s shoddy condition hint at limited material resources. Some of its unpleasant preventive measures, such as monitored showers and no glass in the mirrors, are simply necessary in a home for girls who self-harm. Despite the other girls’ constant complaining, Charlie is grateful to have what she needs to survive, which is a welcome change from the snippets she reveals about her past life.
During her individual sessions with Casper, Charlie contemplates a turtle Casper keeps in a tank, feeling a kinship with the determined, confined animal. Like the turtle, Charlie is unable to communicate. They both wander aimlessly around their containers, the turtle feeling the sides of his tank with his fins in much the same way that Charlie traces the corridors of the rehab center with her fingers. Charlie recognizes that both she and the turtle are confined for an indeterminate amount of time and that they keep themselves busy with efforts that might ultimately prove futile. But she also seems to understand that their natures demand they continue doing so, because this is what it means to survive. Even when efforts seem futile, living creatures continue to remain active, striving to live. Charlie initially empathizes with the turtle’s solitude, believing that she will always be as alone as she is now. But even in this short space of time, she realizes that solitude is not for her. She mourns the company of those she has lost, especially her friend Ellis, and her struggle will include finding a way to cope with that loss.
Charlie’s inability or refusal to speak in these early chapters belies the emotions swirling inside her. She has a tremendous facility as a narrator, describing herself as a baby seal and likening her struggle to that of the turtle in Casper’s tank. She finds beauty in her small world and has a deep capacity for feeling and self-reflection, which likely contributes to her inability to speak. Despite her outward silence, Charlie describes her memories of the hospital vividly and she uses compelling figurative language to describe the center and her own emotions. While the other girls talk endlessly, Charlie seems uncertain whether their uncontrollable storytelling is helpful or harmful. She wonders if they are getting rid of thoughts that would otherwise consume them, or whether they are reliving dark times, unable to let them go. In any case, it is her silence that sets her apart.
