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Summary
Part One, from “Barbero and Nurse Ava... ” to “...just limps away”
Content Warning: The below contains references to self-harm, abuse, sexual assualt, and suicide.
Louisa tells Charlie that Jen S. and Doc Dooley have been having sex for a long time, but that it’s likely Doc Dooley doesn’t really love Jen S. It reminds Louisa of a time she sent nude pictures to a guy she thought loved her, but he posted them on the internet. As she cries, Charlie tries to comfort her and thinks about how close she was to reconnecting with Mikey. The girls watch from the rec room as Jen S., who has been kicked out of the rehab center for her sexual relationship with Doc Dooley, leaves with her parents. They notice Barbero, in street clothes in the parking lot, with a tear in his eye.
Charlie gets a call from Evan, who pretends to be her mother so that he can get through. He and Dump once saved her from a man in an underpass, possibly killing him with a hard hit on the head from a glass bottle. Evan wants to know why she cut herself, and she recalls life in the Seed House, a drug den owned by a pimp called F****** Frank. Evan had taken her and Dump there to feed his drug habit, and Charlie lived with them in the attic. F****** Frank sold drugs and girls to hungry, ruthless men. He didn’t molest her, but the constant threat of assault was a significant part of the reason Charlie wanted to die. Evan half-apologizes for taking her money and her sketchpads before telling her to come join them in Portland.
When Charlies reveals in a one-on-one session that she feels ugly, Casper challenges her to consider whether she, personally, feels ugly or whether something outside of herself does. Casper encourages the girls to think about someone in their lives they might be able to rely on. Charlie remembers herself in high school, where she was poor and shunned. The first day Ellis showed up in the high school cafeteria, she dismissed the entire crowd and chose Charlie to be her best friend. The two spent hours together in Ellis’ bedroom, where she and Charlie exchanged things in confidence, and Ellis introduced Charlie to Mikey. Charlie liked him, but he was in love with Ellis, who was in turn consumed by the wolf boy, a boy with teeth like a wolf who got Ellis hooked on sex and drugs. Trying to imitate Charlie, Ellis cut herself, but she went too deep, lost too much blood, and starved her brain of oxygen. As a result of this mishap, Ellis ended up in a vegetative state, and Charlie can no longer reach her.
Miss Joni, the art teacher, gives Charlie some drawing materials, and Charlie makes sketches of herself and her old life until she starts to feel better. The next day, Charlie meets with Casper and Doc Helen, who tell her that her funding has run out and she will be released into her mother’s custody. Charlie’s mother is abusive, and Charlie knows that if she argues with her, she will kick Charlie out, leaving her homeless in the frigid Minnesota spring. She walks out on the two counselors and heads for the showers, where she beats her head against the wall repeatedly. Casper tries to get her to stop, but Charlie attacks, pulling out large clumps of Casper’s hair. Then she breaks down and tells Casper all about her father’s suicide, her mother’s beatings, and the dangers of living on the street before the orderlies take the bruised and bloodied Casper away.
Analysis
Despite the unhealthy relationships around her, Charlie clings to the hope that she and Mikey might be able to fall in love. When Jen S. and Doc Dooley, two of the best-looking people in her orbit, are caught having relations, the punishment falls hardest on Jen S. She is forced out of rehab and back into what appears to be a deeply unhealthy family dynamic, while the consequences to Doc Dooley are likely to be more lenient. Louisa’s casual response to the affair, and her knowledge of previous relationships, leaves her certain that nothing would ever continue between Doc Dooley and Jen S. after her discharge from the center. By contrast, Charlie thinks they may have really been in love. Louisa’s revelation that she was tricked into sharing intimate photos is another instance of a woman bearing painful consequences when a relationship falls apart. And Ellis nearly kills herself when the wolf boy dumps her after getting her hooked on drugs and using her for sex. Louisa tells Charlie that girls who are scarred like them, physically and psychologically, do not get to be loved.
Charlie’s friends Evan and Dump exemplify the type of practical utility that Charlie learned to rely on in the absence of human kindness. Trying to survive forces them to make decisions that can seem reckless and bring terrible consequences. When Charlie is attacked, Evan and Dump come to her rescue almost by reflex: their reaction is instinctive, born of a lifetime of exposure to violence. Evan and Dump offer Charlie the hospitality of their van, and the three pool their resources trying to survive, but they can’t fight the elements and Evan’s addiction simultaneously. With no reason to abstain from drugs or alcohol, they have every incentive to dive into a momentary respite of oblivion. Their desperation, and the bitterness of the Minnesotan winter, force them to seek shelter wherever they can, which turns out to be the Seed House. Despite their grim existence, Charlie makes time for her art, which brings her comfort and helps her feel a sense of connection to the people around her. When Evan reveals that he stole the sketchbook, he tells Charlie that it was comforting to see himself in the comics she created, because they served as a reminder that he had a self beyond his addiction.
Charlie’s limited time at the rehab exposes her to a few coping strategies that she feels she might be able to draw upon when she’s released. Before she started speaking and drawing again, Charlie had spent much of her time clawing her way back to a normal baseline. Once she is able to vocalize her perception of herself as ugly, she understands Casper’s challenge to distinguish between the ugliness of self-harm and the essential nature of her own skin, body, and self. Although Ellis is gone, Charlie begins to look to Louisa and Casper as people she can rely on and share secrets with. Charlie and Louisa hold and comfort one another through what they believed were unbearable moments, reminding Charlie of the value of human contact. And by reclaiming her artistic motivations, Charlie is able to sketch through her pain to bring her emotions under control, just as Louisa writes to channel and control her own emotions. These glimmers of hope might be enough to light Charlie’s path forward, but her discharge from the center also undermines the relationships she was just beginning to feel comfortable in.
