Girl in Pieces

“I cut because I can’t deal. It’s as simple as that. The word becomes an ocean, the ocean washes over me, the sound of water is deafening, the water drowns my heart, my panic becomes as large as planets. I need release, I need to hurt myself more than the world can hurt me, and then I can comfort myself.” 

Here, Charlie describes the impulse that leads her to cut and the release it provides for her. When emotional pain from without becomes so intense, inflicting physical pain on herself gives her a sense of control, physical release, and tangible pain that she can focus on: cleaning and bandaging her cuts. However, creating more scars amplifies her shame, which causes her more pain, creating a harmful cycle that Charlie struggles to escape.

“The boys I found smelled like burned glass and anger. Dirt streaked their skin, and tattoos, and acne. They lived in garages or cars. I knew those boys would never stick. They were oily; they would slither away after what we did in a dirty back room at a show or in the bathroom of someone’s basement at a party.” 

Charlie’s narrative often creates word paintings, consistent with her gift as an artist. She describes characters and experiences through multiple senses, tying the physical with the emotional. Here, she describes the boys through scent (“burned glass”), visual (“[d]irt,” “tattoos,” and “acne”), and texture (“oily”), all of which are associated with anger and abandonment. Her simultaneously painful and comforting cutting ritual similarly engages all the senses—physical pain, visual scarring, the comforting scent of gauze and ointment.  

“I fold my hands in my lap. These are my hands. They have taken food from Dumpsters. They have fought over sleeping spaces and dirty blankets. They have had a whole other life than this one here, playing games in a warm room, as the night keeps moving far from me, outside the window.”

One of Charlie’s unhealthy coping mechanisms is disassociation, demonstrated in this passage. Charlie describes her hands as if they have a life of their own that is separate from the moment, her hands’ experiences as if they are separate from Charlie’s. Part of her recovery involves learning to create a comprehensive whole from the disparate experiences that make up her life. Felix in Part 3 will give her a language for doing so.

“I look at the postcards, the images, the messy handwriting. A little story unfolding beneath my fingers.” 

Here, Charlie describes the kitchen counter in Mikey’s Tucson apartment that belongs to an artist, Ariel. The counter is “plywood overlaid with Mod Podge” (110) under which a collage of postcards have been sealed. Some of the postcards feature the picture sides while others are turned over to reveal notes and messages. Charlie sees a larger story in the combination of images and words, foreshadowing events in Part 3. Felix will suggest that healing involves assembling parts into wholes, and Charlie will combine words and images to tell her and Louisa’s stories in a comic.

“She has the kind of lined face that people call etched. The kind that looks beautiful and intimidating and slightly creepy. I always wonder what these women looked like as children.” 

In this passage, Charlie describes Ariel at their first meeting. The words Charlie uses combine elements that are not typically equated—“beautiful,” “intimidating,” and “creepy” (115). That Charlie can put these seemingly disparate elements together reflects her ability to see beyond standard notions of beauty. Her healing journey moves forward when she applies that complex view to herself.

“He was smoke and despair. He had dark almond eyes that were kind. But when I looked closer, I saw something else, something quivering in the background.

Riley at the coffeehouse has those eyes, too. Just the thought of him makes my body flood with scary warmth.” 

In the first three sentences above, Charlie describes her father’s eyes. As when describing the boys she had sexual experiences with, Charlie pairs sensory with emotional, here “smoke and despair” (125). Drawing her father’s eyes reminds Charlie of the love she felt from him, but she also recognized something in him that was troubled and tragic. Her first red flag about Riley is that his eyes remind her both of her father’s warmth and his danger. 

“Ariel’s cream-colored living room walls are slathered with large, blackish paintings. Some of them have slanted strips of light cutting through the darkness, like light from beneath closed doors or up through the branches of tall, old trees. Some of them are just different shades of darkness. Some of the paint is so thickly applied, it rises off the canvas like minuscule mountains.” 

Charlie’s first experience of Ariel’s paintings alert her to the sadness in Ariel’s past. The interplay of light and darkness evokes the duality that Charlie must herself reconcile. Ariel invites her to touch the canvas, and Charlie discovers that the raised parts of the canvas feel “cool to the touch” and “almost like a healed, raised scar” (133). Later, Charlie learns that Ariel painted them after her son’s suicide. Like Ariel, Charlie will tell her story with art, and it will be part of her healing.  

“When I get overwhelmed and I can’t focus on just one thing, when all of my horrible hits me at once, it’s like I’m one of those giant tornados in a cartoon, the furry gray kind that suctions up everything in its path: the unsuspecting mailman, a cow, a dog, a fire hydrant. Tornado Me picks up every bad thing I’ve ever done, every person I’ve fucked and fucked over, every cut I’ve made, everything, everything. Tornado Me whirls and whirls, growing more immense and crowded.” 

At dinner with Charlie, Ariel calls her “just a baby” and “[s]o young” (136). This reminds Charlie of the vulnerability she felt while homeless, which triggers feelings of powerlessness and overwhelm. In this passage, Charlie describes what overwhelm feels like for her. She begins with a grounding visual image (a tornado) that she uses to understand her thought process. Accounting for this thought process is part of how Charlie intercepts it with healthy coping mechanisms. In this instance, she uses repetitive motion (rocking back and forth) to regain a sense of control and soothe her nerves.

“That sway, it’s what creeps over a person when they’ve begun to empty out and don’t care enough to put anything back, to replace what has been lost.

I feel like I walk like that, too, sometimes.” 

After Mikey gently plays off Charlie’s slightly romantic overture, she turns to her sketchpad, pencils, and charcoals, allowing images to “form under my fingers” (181). Scrutinizing what her fingers have drawn, she sees Riley, as he walked away from her in the alley, the “sway” she describes in the above passage (181). Through drawing Riley, she sees him more clearly, and she realizes that she is drawn to him because she relates to the part of him that is troubled.

“[D]rawing is my words, it’s the thing I can’t say, and I let loose in the pages with a story about a girl who thought a boy liked her, and maybe could save her from herself, but in the end she was just stupid, stupid, because she’s a fucking freak, but if she could just make it through the night, there was going to be another chance, another day.

Maybe, maybe maybe.” 

This passage takes place shortly after Charlie discovers that Mikey has a girlfriend. Hoping to kindle some spark between them, Charlie kissed him, and he gently turned her down. His rejection triggers her desire to cut, but she begins drawing instead. The images she creates tell the story of her heartbreak and her fear that Louisa was right when she said that no one will love them “in a normal way” (56) because of their scars.

“I’ve been on the outside ever since I was little, getting angry in school and picked on. Once all that happened, I was damaged goods. There wasn’t going to be any way back in, not until Ellis, and we kept to ourselves. I say the wrong thing, if I can bring myself to say anything at all. I’ve always felt like an intrusion, a giant blob of wrong.” 

Here, Charlie reflects on the difficulty she has relating to people and finding words to express herself. In this scene, she is making an effort to converse with her coworkers at True Grit. It is a struggle for her, something that she forces herself to do, unlike drawing. Images flow from her fingertips in the way words never have. Because words are the standard medium of communication, her struggle with them has made it difficult to relate to people. 

“I like this house, and I like thinking about it, and that strange woman, the tidy wildness of her garden, and I want to know how to get there, to get a tiny spot on the earth, a little house to plan inside and out, a backyard to fill up and shape, how to feel comfortable in the very air around me.” 

Riding her bicycle is one of the healthy coping mechanisms Charlie employs in moments of temptation to self-harm. She especially enjoys riding by a house whose garden features a trellis crafted from a bedspring, a pond, and a colorful mural that spans the home’s exterior. Charlie sometimes sees an older woman “touching up the paint” (231). Charlie is curious about the woman and drawn to the house for its quirky, unexpected features. The house represents her aspirations to find her place in the world.

“And just like that, all the numbness I had drops away and my heart starts beating like a crazy caged bird. Doing that for Riley, it felt good. It was wrong, but I did it, and it made me feel like I sometimes felt with Evan and Dump and what we would do: like, yes, it was bad, yes, it was wrong, but there was also an element of danger that was appealing. Like: how far could you take something before it snapped? Would you recognize the moment that something was about to go terribly, terribly wrong?

But I also realize that I’m getting really far down the ladder of Casper’s rules and all of a sudden I’m flooded with despair.” 

Charlie has just bought drugs for Riley for the first time. The adrenaline rush she gets from doing something dangerous reminds her of a scam she used to pull with Dump and Evan. She would lure an unsuspecting man into a deserted area with the promise of a sexual encounter, and the boys would beat and rob the man. In both cases, Charlie knows that she is doing something wrong, but the danger of not knowing what will happen makes her feel alive. It becomes a cycle that fuels itself, leading to more shame and pain. 

“I feel kind of good for telling someone, for telling him. Out of everyone I’ve met so far here, I feel like he’d understand fucking up and being lost.”

Early in her relationship with Riley, she confides in him that she was once homeless. It is a significant moment for Charlie because she does not easily relate to or disclose information that makes her feel vulnerable. However, her comfort with him is a red flag: She relates to him because she sees him as equally lost as she is, which foreshadows that he will not be a stable, healing influence in her life.

“Louisa said no one would love us in a normal way, but I’m still a person, and I’m aching to be touched.

‘You must have a million stories inside you,’ he says softly.” 

Louisa’s warning to Charlie when they were at Creeley, that their scars will prevent them from being loved “in a normal way,” haunts Charlie. Fear of being unlovable prompts her to accept Riley’s alternately exploitative, neglectful, or abusive treatment. In this passage, he comes to her apartment and seduces her with gentle words that fulfill her longing to be loved and touched, but his behavior is not consistent or dependable.

“The thing I like about you, Strange Girl, is you don’t ask for much. You don’t ask for more than you need. You know what a tremendous relief that is, that you just let me be?” 

Here, Riley praises Charlie for not addressing her own wants and making do with as little as possible. It is a reflection of how dysfunctional their relationship is. Rather than recognizing that he is taking advantage of a vulnerable young girl, Riley turns his exploitation into Charlie’s virtue. On one level, Charlie can see this, but she does not yet believe that she is worthy of more in a relationship.

“And sometimes, once, maybe twice, she starts to say that she’s thinking of taking a class with this lady artist, and she stops, because a little mouse taps her brain and heart and whispers, But then you won’t get to spend so much time with Riley, and the words, they turn to stone again, fat in her throat, and she can feel little bits of herself disappearing in the large thing of Riley and me and and and …

The slippery slope, it will never, ever end.”

Ariel offers Charlie a space in one of her art classes at no cost, an opportunity that Mikey urges her to take because Ariel is a respected artist and university art teacher. Ariel’s offer stems from genuine concern and empathy for Charlie because Ariel too has lost a family member to suicide: her son. Charlie never acts on Ariel’s offer because she is scared of not being available for Riley and of losing him as a result. Both Ariel and Riley have something in common with Charlie, but Charlie is, at this point, still drawn to the dangerous, unhealthy pattern.

“On the sloppy stage in the dim light she looks exuberantly defiant, and her words have rough, girlish hope. The crowd is rapt. Some people have their eyes closed. I look back at her, flooded with envy. She’s my age and so confident. She doesn’t seem to care what anyone thinks. Her voice is threatening and silky, floating over everyone in the cafe.” 

Here, Charlie watches Regan perform. Regan seems to be about Charlie’s age, yet she is confident and self-assured on stage. She embodies the qualities that Charlie aspires to have but that she has been traveling further and further away from during her time in Tucson. Seeing her perform, and Riley’s obvious admiration of her, prompts Charlie to submit her art to a gallery exhibit.

“When Holly saw me with my sleeves pushed up, she said angrily and earnestly, ‘You need to understand and examine your transgressions against societal norms.’ She gripped my wrist. ‘Do you understand the act you’ve committed against yourself is fucking revolutionary? I’m going to make you a reading list tonight. You have so much to learn.’” 

Accepted for the art show, Charlie meets some of the other exhibiting artists when she helps at the gallery, including Holly. When she sees Charlie’s scars, Holly treats them as a public statement, never bothering to ask Charlie her feelings. Holly’s response is no less disturbing to Charlie than people who are visibly upset by her scars. Both are objectifying responses that fail to account for Charlie’s experiences, and neither supports Charlie in accepting her scars and seeing herself as beautiful.

“Who was Temple in high school? Was she a hisser or a retreater? Did Linus ever push a girl’s head into the toilet, or did she keep her own down, just trying to make it to three o’clock? People have so many secrets. They are never exactly what they seem.” 

Watching Blue banter with her coworkers, Charlie wonders how they will react to her scars, which Blue does not try to hide. Charlie recalls one of her high school classmates catching her changing for gym and seeing her scars. The classmate “covered her mouth with her hands” and “inched away” when she saw Charlie’s body (315). After that, other classmates would hiss at Charlie. Charlie wonders what kind of people her coworkers truly are under their friendly facades. Her traumatic experiences have made it difficult for her to believe that people can have true intentions and that the face they show reflects who they truly are.

“I’m so tired of drunk and desperate. I’m tired and angry at me. For letting myself get smaller and smaller in the hopes that he would notice me more. But how can someone notice you if you keep getting smaller?” 

Prior to this passage, Blue suggested that she and Charlie could become long-term roommates. Riley disapproves because he does not want to “lose my girl” (326). She is the only thing that is “keeping me upright,” he says, adding “I call dibs,” as if Charlie is a possession that can be passed from one hand to another. Charlie sees the cycle in which she is trapped: Catering to Riley at the expense of her own needs and wants makes Charlie “smaller and smaller,” which makes her needs and wants increasingly impossible for Riley, or anyone else, to see (328). She is reaching her breaking point but does not yet know how to break out of this harmful pattern.

“I don’t know who you thought I was, but this is it. He mashes the girl’s cheek into the wall. Get out of my house, he whispers hoarsely to her. Go back to where you came from.” 

Charlie has walked in on Riley and Wendy having sex while on a drug bender and begun pounding him with her fists. Riley’s reaction—smashing Charlie’s face into the wall and telling her to leave—is the final straw for Charlie. Here, her description of herself in the third person mirrors the way she spoke about her hands in Part 1, as if they are separate from her. She has disassociated from herself to cope with her pain. Her thoughts become as fragmented as at the beginning of the book. 

“Everyone has that moment, I think, the moment when something so…momentous happens that it rips your very being into small pieces. And then you have to stop. For a long time, you gather your pieces. And it takes such a very long time, not to fit them back together, but to assemble them in a new way, not necessarily a better way. More, a way you can live with until you know for certain that this piece should go there, and that one there.” 

Here, Felix discusses the process of creating a life that an individual can live with, no matter the trauma that person has been through. He is addressing the very question Charlie asked as she was standing outside the mural-decorated house with the bedspring trellis: How does one find one’s place in the world and feel comfortable in one’s own skin? Felix’s choice of the word “momentous” gives Charlie a language for recognizing significant events in her life as having the power to be either positive or negative, depending on how she meets them. Her losses have changed her life, but they do not have to destroy her.