Color Me Pretty

my bed like she's the leader of this family or something, taking charge and making decisions. I want Emmett so bad it hurts. He understands me better than anyone.
    “Exactly. She needs round the clock supervision and care, expert counseling and psychiatric help. Bayview Hills is for eating disorders specifically. Claire is … ” Marlena trails off and sighs deeply. “Claire is very, very sick, Mom.” My mother starts to cry quietly. This is probably the toughest thing she's ever dealt with in her life. My mom's lived a charmed one, that's for sure. Hopefully this will toughen her up. Life isn't all roses. If it was, it would be a hell of a lot less interesting. “Crescent Hills can help with the … the cutting and the depression as well as the anorexia.”
    “And it gets her away from that fucking freak,” my father growls out, voice low and deep, like a grizzly who's just seen a hunter approaching his young. That's about all I can take.
    “Why not let me decide?” I scratch out, and there's this horrible silence that bursts open and twists into frantic movement and sound, people standing over me, staring at me, trying to touch my face. In that moment, I hate them all. I am a caged butterfly, wings tied back, trapped. Trapped. Trapped.
    “How are you feeling, Claire?” Marlena says, voice pitched high, like she's talking to a fucking preschooler. I let my eyes open fully, and I switch on my anger, let it beam out and burn her. She stares back at me, blue eyes innocent and wide. I wish I could slap her.
    “How do you think I'm feeling?” I croak as my mother presses a glass of water to my mouth. I try to reach up, snatch it away from her dramatically, but my hands shake, and I'm forced to drop them back to the bed. I purse my mouth and refuse to drink. “I want to get out of here,” I tell them. My mom cups the glass against her chest and exchanges a glance with my sister. She doesn't look to her husband nor he to her. When Big Bob finally does stand up, he, too, stares at Marlena for information. What. The. Hell. “Don't look at her,” I gargle, choking on sandy spit and struggling to sit up straighter, so I don't feel so small, so helpless. “I'm eighteen years old.”
    “And on my insurance,” Big Bob booms, but I notice he doesn't look at me. Why? He avoids me, staring at anything and everything else. I feel sick. “Besides, you're barely eighteen.”
    “Eighteen is eighteen. I can vote.” I cough and take a gasping breath. I feel weightless and heavy at the same time. It's not a good feeling. “I can make my own decisions. I want to get out of here.”
    “The state requires that you be evaluated by an assessment team and then held in a qualified facility for seventy-two hours.” I tremble, and I shake, but finally, finally, I get myself propped back against the pillows. I don't look down at my arms or legs. I can't handle the sight right now.
    “That's bullshit,” I say.
    “Claire!” my mother wails, breaking down. Tears stream down her chubby face, and she won't stop sniffling. I want to feel bad for her, but I don't. Does that make me a bad person? Am I broken? Has this monster, in her self-imposed starvation, eaten away my heart and soul to make up for the lack of food? “You tried to kill yourself! What did you expect to happen?”
    “I didn't try to kill myself.” I get indignant now. I didn't. It was an accident. I was just trying to feel again, to be happy. Emmett was getting me there, had me right on top of a hill, ready to start down the other side together, but Marlena, she dragged me back. Her words still sting my ears, sharp as wasps. “It was an accident. You just showed up and started spouting your be-all, know-all crap when you had no clue what you were talking about.”
    “Claire.” My father starts to get this tone in his voice while Marlena looks down at me like she feels sorry for me. I want to tell her to fuck off, that she has no right to feel bad for me. I'm in this position because I made bad decisions. I wasn't attacked, forced into this.
    Instead I say, “I want to see Emmett.” I'm going to keep repeating myself until someone hears me. I don't want to admit it to anyone, least of all myself, but I don't feel so good right now. Not physically, of course, but mentally, I'm also a wreck. I want to curl up in someone's arms and cry. No, not someone. Emmett Sinclair. My family might not like him, but I do, and I have every right to see him. He chose to