What If?

by Anna Russell

  crazy

  We go back to school the next day. (Great.) It’s not so bad: Mr. Maxwell brings us sour gummies. The insides of my cheeks feel like they’re pinched together for the rest of the period. But he tells me after class that I’m falling behind. I haven’t told anybody that when I do homework, my thoughts tell me to: 1. rip up the page (because it won’t ever be good enough); 2. erase and rewrite over and over again (because what if my teacher can’t read my answers, and I get an F?); and 3. don’t turn in anything (because I’m not smart enough to get a good grade, anyway). The quarter will be ending in two days, and it’s too late for me to fix these problems.

  losing my cool

  In English, Mage and I use free time to gather quotes for our project. We’re writing about Hamlet and Romeo, comparing the ways they lost their cool— lost their minds. “Did Hamlet really see ghosts?” our teacher asks. “Was he hallucinating? Was this mental illness?” Mage thinks the topic is fascinating. But I feel jittery inside, maybe from the candy, but something else, too. “So what do you think?” Mage asks. “About what?” I ask. “Do you think Hamlet went insane?” “I don’t know,” I say. “C’mon, Josh,” she says. “Was he crazy?” I remember, back in Dr. Sprout’s office, confessing that, sometimes, I felt crazy. Out of control. Irrational. I don’t see ghosts, but I use rituals to make worries go away. Am I as bad as Hamlet? Am I as bad as Romeo, who let love, his worries, drive him mad? I feel a sort of pang, like lightning, go through my spine. I slam my book shut. “Does it matter?” I snap. “Uh,” Mage says. I wish I could take it back. I wish I could hit rewind. I wish, I wish— but it’s over. I yelled at Mage. That urge to r u n becomes so strong, I don’t think I can fight it. But then, Mage places her hand on my shoulder. “Tell me,” she says. She knows something is wrong with me.

  undone

  Mage’s house is cozy, which is the word Mom tells me to say because it sounds better than small. But it’s just the two of them: Mage and her dad. She starts to lead me upstairs. “Uh,” I say. “Does your dad let… boys in your room?” She laughs. “Pop trusts me, and respects my space.” I rub my hand on the back of my neck. “He’ll be home soon,” she says. Until then, it’s just us, and, even though I am fully clothed, I feel exposed, like I’m out naked in a snowstorm. “So, uh,” I say. Mage motions with her hand for me to continue. She sits cross-legged on the floor, like she does in my room. “It’s okay,” she says. “I have this thing,” I blurt out. It’s all coming out: obsessive-compulsive disorder, the thoughts, all the what-ifs. As I’m telling her about it, it happens right on cue. What if Mage won’t understand? What if she won’t want to be friends, partners, anymore? What if I sound crazy, like the characters in Shakespeare? What if I am crazy? These worries make my brain think it needs to count to 100, backwards, at least 3 times. If I do that, maybe everything will turn out okay. I close my eyes, my secrets hanging in the air between us. Here, in Mage’s bedroom, her purple walls, polka-dot comforter, drawings everywhere, I come undone. All of me for her to see. After a moment, I open my eyes again. (I only counted backwards from 100 once.) She looks at me, her head tilted to the right just slightly, her lips pressed together, eyebrows pinched toward one another. Say something, I think. “Wow,” she says. “Yeah,” I say. “You have those thoughts all the time?” she asks. I shrug. “Not always, but, like, a lot at school, and when I do something new, and…” I hesitate. “The first time we met,” she says. It’s not a question. I can tell she’s remembering me by her locker. Me, sprinting away. “Sometimes,” I say, “the thoughts are all I can hear.” “What do they sound like?” she asks. I think for a second. “Like a million chords in minor are being played all at once,” I say. “And they only go away—” “If I do what they want.” We sit quietly for a long time. Suddenly, I need to tell her one more thing: “I’m the same person you first met,” I say. “I’m even better about the thoughts now. But I get it if you don’t want to be my partner anymore.” She blinks at me, and then her mouth tilts up. Smiling, as bright as the sun. “Dude,” she says. “I’m your partner no matter what.

  side a

  Only minutes later, Mage’s dad comes through the front door. “Up here, Pop!” Mage calls. I stand up, brush my hands down my jeans, smoothing invisible wrinkles. It’s not that I like Mage like that. (I think.) But I think she might be my best friend, and I want Mr. Robinson to approve of me. Once he enters the room, I stick my hand out. “It’s nice to finally meet you,” he says. Finally—like Mage has been talking to him about me. I learn that Mr. Robinson doesn’t play any instruments. Mage got her interest and talent from her mom. Mr. Robinson puts on a record (real vinyl, an old record player) and we listen while we eat French toast and pancakes. Mage is just like him: always smiling, laughs at anything, pure joy. Maybe I expected lines around his eyes, or his face to be stuck in a frown, still mourning Mage’s mom. Instead, he replays side A of the record. He leaves it on, playing to an empty room when he drives me home. It makes me imagine that this was Mage’s mom’s favorite. That even when bad things happen, even when the room is empty, there can be happiness left over in the grooves of music.

  intermission

  In the car with them, I get a good feeling, comfortable. Warm. And I wonder if this is what some people feel like all the time. Here, I am in a snow globe. Everything drifting softly, slowly. I hug Mage goodbye. I shake Mr. Robinson’s hand. Then, when I step inside my home, I see my father standing, back to the living room window, a paper clutched in his fist, and my world shatters.

  once before

  When I was eight and Julia was eleven, she had her first big piano recital. She was jumping with excitement for weeks, had a sparkly dress picked out and everything. She was so focused on practicing that she forgot to finish a book report. Dad found out, and Julia wasn’t allowed to play for a whole month.

  ear worm

  It’s not a bug— it’s when a song, or a phrase, just gets stuck in between the folds of your brain and you can’t shake it out. In my head, on repeat, is: It’s over. It’s over. It’s over.

  side b

  “Can you explain this?” my father asks, turning to face me. I’ve never seen him this red. Scrunched-up nose, A big, blue vein pressing against the skin of his forehead. I can’t speak. All I’ve done is stare at that paper, wondering what it could possibly say. “This, Joshua,” Dad says. “Your progress report.” Oh, I think. My dad is sort of like Mr. Robinson’s records: there’s two sides to him. The first: kind, goofy, Beatles-loving, musician (the kind who understands the need to play). The second: this version, wanting us to always be better. “This is unacceptable,” he says to me. He shows me the sheet. Math: C Science: D Social Studies: F English: D I think about the nights I don’t talk about, sitting awake, head pounding, because I c a n ’ t be perfect, and that makes everything harder. “Dad,” I say, not sure what else I can do. “You put all your energy into those drums, and now into the band and that girl,” he says. “What did I tell you about school? It needs to be your priority, Joshua.” “It is,” I squeak out. “This doesn’t show that,” Dad says. “Dad, it—it’s OCD.” He scoffs, a harsh sound in the back of his throat. “Not an excuse.” I feel as though I’ve swallowed a handful of heavy stones. He folds the paper back into a square, and puts it in his shirt pocket. “You’re grounded,” he says. “Until these grades all say A or B.” “Grounded?” I say. “No drums,” he says. “Except for school.” “The band—” I start to say. He shakes his head. “No band. No talent show. No Mage. Got it?” he says. I think about having to move again, or worse— some sort of boarding school for troubled kids. I think he’d do it. He is ready to take away everything. For once, the worries were completely right: it’s all over now.

  awake

  I don’t sleep that night. I count. I hum. I repeat Beatles albums over and over again in my mind. What am I going to tell Julia? What am I going to tell Mage?

  how to lie

  I almost don’t show up to English. It woul
d be so much easier to give up, to run away. But if I ever want to be friends with Mage, and have a band, I have to get an A. “Josh?” Mage says. It’s just my name, but I feel like I could turn into nothing but tears. “You asked to have a different partner?” she asks. I think I’m drowning, or sinking, or being sucked up into a hole. “Yeah,” I say. I can’t look at her. “Why?” For a moment, I think about what it would feel like if I told her the truth. But I’d have to admit to the grades and being yelled at by my dad. I don’t want her to look at me like I’m crazy and stupid. So, I make up a story. “I decided it’s better if I work by myself,” I say. “We’re too different,” I say. “We can’t help each other,” I say. They’re all lies, and she believes each one of them. “What about the band?” she asks. I take a deep breath, hold it in my lungs, and tell the biggest lie yet: “There’s no point. We’re not good enough.” Mage stays quiet. She turns her head away from me. “You’re a very different person than I thought.” I watch as Mage walks to the other end of the classroom. All I can do is stare and wait for her to hate me.

  julia, the seer

  I’ve been quiet, no sound, for two whole days. On the bus going home by the end of the week, I rest my head against the window. Julia sits by me, doesn’t say much, just leans back and closes her eyes. I do the same, and eventually she opens her lips: “I saw Mage today.” I concentrate on my breath: one to five, breathe in, hold for seven seconds, release for five seconds. “Joshua,” Julia says. “I think you should talk to Mom.” What good would that do? I want to ask. Instead, I just b r e a t h e. It’s always been Julia and me, like we were twins— the same heart, the same soul. “Trust me,” Julia says.

  Sunday secrets

  I don’t sleep anymore. I read for school. I study. I write. I erase. I redo. I try— but something else happens in the hours when the sounds of Julia’s piano practice grow quiet and I stop tapping drumbeats with my pencil on paper. In these moments, I can hear my parents. Sunday night, they talk about me. “I had to, Mary,” Dad says. From the other room, their voices sound as though they’re traveling through a tunnel made of copper. “He’s miserable,” Mom says. “How is that going to help?” I hear a creaking noise and I can picture Dad pacing across the floor. “He needs to try,” he says. There’s a pause. “I think that’s where you’re wrong,” Mom says. “Josh is already trying.”

  tune-up

  Maybe I should be nervous to tell Dr. Sprout that I’m failing. And that Dad grounded me from doing what I love most. But when I walk into his office on Wednesday, I feel as though my lips have been unlocked. I tell Dr. Sprout about Dad and Mage and the band. I tell him what it’ll take to be able to stay in this city. I can’t get shipped away. At the end, I tell him what Julia said about Mom. He listens, posing with hand under chin, his “I see” look, full-force. When I’m finished, he writes something down on a notepad. Rips off the sheet, hands it to me. “That is for an increase in the medicine you take,” he says. “Sometimes it’s about finding the right dose.” Then, he sighs, squints his eyes at me, and nods his head. “There’s something else, Josh. What you said last time, that you thought you needed to be fixed— the medicine will help you to manage those worries, the thoughts. But it won’t make them go away forever. OCD is like a rusty, old car, and the medicine is just a routine tune-up. But, Josh, you are in control of the car. Some days, it will sputter and maybe lose power. But if you work at it, it’ll get you wherever you want to go. With enough love, it could grow wings, take you beyond the moon. You have to be honest with the people around you. You have to tell them when you need a ride. Because that rusty, old car is just too tired to move on its own. You have to tell them so they can help you to push it uphill. You don’t have to do it alone. Do you understand what I’m saying?” Dr. Sprout leans forward in his chair, examining me so close, I think he can hear my every thought. I nod back to him, stand, let his words sink in. “Talk to your father,” Dr. Sprout tells me before I leave. “Let him see the work you’ve put in.” He’s right: I have to talk to Dad. I have to make him understand the parts of my brain that get stuck. No matter what he thinks. No matter what he’ll say.

  come clean

  Just like last time, Mom lets the car run in the parking lot. And we sit together. She says, “I want to tell you something.” And when her lips part, everything changes.

  mom's story

  “I knew I was different when I was five,” she says. “We were making stained-glass hearts as presents to give for Mother’s Day. I needed it to be perfect. You see, my mother was pregnant with your Uncle Jordan, and on bed rest. At night, I had to rub her feet to help the swelling. They would hurt her so bad she couldn’t walk. After massaging them, I’d wash my hands until they were raw. Thinking that if I didn’t, my feet would swell up, too. I wanted to do something nice for her. I wanted to make her feel better. I remember in class, everybody else was laughing, smiling, swirling paint together. But I didn’t understand. Because my whole body was shaking with effort to color in the lines. To have it look neat. My heart felt as though it was going to burst through my chest. All I kept thinking was, If this isn’t perfect, Mommy won’t feel better. That thought repeated on a long loop in my mind. I took one look at the little glass figure. To anybody else, it looked fine. But to me, it wasn’t good enough. I picked it up. It felt so fragile between my fingers. I imagined my mother opening this imperfect heart. And I couldn’t take it. I lifted my arm and threw it on the ground. It shattered into tiny, glittering pieces. My heart, my worries, turned to sharp glass at my feet… what I’m trying to say, Joshua, is this: I think I understand.”

  imperfect heart

  As soon as we pull into our driveway, I’m gone: into the house, up the stairs, to the music room. I have the drumsticks in my hands before I even know what I’m doing. I think about Julia, always watching her grades so that she would never have to sacrifice music. I think about Mage, and how the rough guitar strings beneath her fingers let her visit her mother’s memory. With music, she can make it through. I think about the band, and how happy I was. How everything seemed to be falling into place and falling apart all at once. I think about Mom, how her worry warts are invisible, and how she can’t be perfect, even when she tries her best to be. I think about Dad, and I know he’ll understand, eventually. Then, I play.

  crescendo

  Everything builds: the thoughts (taptap taptaptap taptap) the what-ifs (raptaprap boomtaptap) the rituals (one-y and a two-y and a one-y) the fear of failing (tssh tssh crash). Right here tucked between drumbeats is me: rule breaker, OCD mind, math whiz, band member. I am… just who I’m supposed to be.

  hear me

  Dad calls my name, loud, from downstairs. He heard the drums, but can he hear what I’m trying to tell him? “Before you say anything,” I say to him once I walk down the steps. “I need you to hear me.” It takes a long time, minutes, or hours, or years, to really explain it all. To capture that not right feeling, and get him to understand. I wonder if Mom told him her story because he stays quiet. Doesn’t interrupt. Just listens. “I know that it doesn’t seem like I have good grades, or that I pay attention and do my best, but, Dad,” I say, closing my eyes, squeezing them shut like I’m making a wish. “Please understand that I’m trying harder than I ever have. I don’t want my brain to get stuck like this. I don’t want to disappoint you.” I wasn’t sure what to expect after revealing everything. I thought my father might send me off to a different school or raise his voice, louder than thunder, or (worse) say that he would never understand my OCD. I never would’ve guessed that Dad would sit down and pat the seat next to him. That he’d exhale softly, finally looking at me, and whisper, “I’m sorry.”

  dad's song

  Once, when I was small, five years old, Dad took me to a record shop way out in Ohio, where he grew up. It took four hours to get there, and on the way, we listened to the pop-twang of the Beatles. A road trip with just Dad— to me, it meant everything. The faint sound of drums and electric
guitar greeted us. The store smelled old, like dust and wet books. “My dad took me here when I was your age,” my father said, kneeling to my height, “and I picked out my very first record,” he said. “I want you to get whatever you want.” He looked so proud, stood there tall, shoulders back, looking around at the old shop. And I knew it was my job to make this moment for him. I didn’t quite get why this moldy, run-down shop made him so happy. Or why we drove so long just for this. But I did know that it was my turn to listen to him. He was telling me about himself that day. He wanted me to understand him. Now, almost 10 years later, it’s him that makes the choice to understand, even if he doesn’t quite get it. He sits there, and he hears my song.

  no longer a solo act

  The four of us, me, Mom, Dad, and Julia, squish together on the couch, forearms touching, no space to hide. I tell them that Dr. Sprout wants to talk to my teachers to explain why it’s extra hard for me to do the things that my classmates can do. Julia says she’ll help me with science homework, and Mom says she’ll check over my essays. Dad says, “We’ll make a schedule for schoolwork.” Julia squeezes his arm. “Band practice?” she asks. He nods, then looks at us, and a smile lifts his cheeks. “I guess that makes me band manager,” he says. We groan, shove at his shoulders, pretend we don’t want him to get involved. But deep down, all I can think is, At least I’m not alone.