by Spencer Hyde
I still felt hungry, though. My new medication was really working on my appetite. I looked over at Didi’s plate, and he kind of pulled it away like, Hey, this is my food.
Fitz must have already eaten because I didn’t see him anywhere. At one point, Didi yelled the name of a soap opera I’d never heard of and Junior threw his tray into the wall. Good times.
I looked at the time and realized I was pushing lateness for the morning Group Talk. I wasn’t all that worried about holding up Tabor, but I wanted to see Fitz. Still, I lingered over breakfast, taking my time before heading to group.
When I walked in, I overheard Didi talking to Junior. Didi was looking up into Junior’s face like he was super eager about whatever it was.
“I was Tolstoy’s editor. War and Peace, before my help, was entitled Gruesome Battles Followed by Living in Ostensible Serenity. Yes, long-winded is what I thought as well, Junior. Glad you asked! The Tolster never stopped thanking me for my help. I even wrote a dissertation on ‘thanking.’ You’re welcome,” said Didi. “Copernicus stole my worldview!”
“That’s enough, Didi,” said Junior, putting his massive hands on Didi’s face and turning it to face Tabor at the front of the room. “And I didn’t ask,” he said.
Didi still—always—had on that ridiculous fur hat with the catawampus earflaps.
Tabor started the meeting with only a few of the chairs filled. Leah gave me a small wave and shy smile, so I returned the wave and sat next to her.
“Feeling okay?” I asked her, unsure of what else to say.
“I guess,” she said, rubbing her hand over her buzzed hair.
“I dig the haircut,” I said. “It’s, like, way more in fashion than mine. And you totally pull it off.”
“Really? I guess a bird in the hand is worth greener grass on the other side.”
“You can’t see the wood for the bees. I get it. Seriously, Leah, you look like a total rock star,” I said.
Tabor cleared his throat in an obnoxious let’s-get-started type of way.
Leah mumbled a “Thanks” under her breath, and I saw, for the briefest moment, a genuine smile creep on to her face as she kept brushing her hand over her buzz. That made all of those moments worth it for me—all the moments I questioned what I would say to her and how I should act around her. Turns out, most people just want to feel loved and like they belong somewhere, like they have friends and a place to go and someone waiting for them. I don’t know why I was always thinking it had to be something grand.
Cancel that—love is grand.
Fitz walked in late, and I felt a tightness in my chest, a kind of excitement at seeing him again at the start of a new day, but also a worry about agreeing to his escape plan. I turned the note in my pocket and wiped the sweat off right after.
Did he really mean it?
Tabor was talking about some headline he’d read that morning—apparently, two siblings had been reunited after years of not knowing the other one even existed. It was like one of those boring stories you see on 60 Minutes where identical twins meet up after forever and realize they both used the same brand of toothpaste their entire lives without realizing they shared that intense, personal detail. Like, they also enjoyed drinking water after a long workout session because that’s so incredibly unique. Whatever. Tabor wanted us to talk about how those two would get along, and why that reunion might be difficult.
Fitz plopped down next to me. He was wearing another ridiculous yoga shirt. It said, I Have Nothing to Wear, All My Yoga Pants Are Dirty. He seriously didn’t run out of those things. I imagined his closet as something sponsored by a yoga store in Seattle. He still had on that ridiculous tie-dyed bandana as well.
“Were you waiting for me?” he said, smiling.
“Only existentially,” I said.
“Addie Foster, taking on existentialism before lunch. That might be more than I can stomach.”
“Can you tell us what you’d feel, perhaps, Addie?” said Tabor, obviously upset that we were talking instead of listening to him.
I hated that move, where the teacher calls on the person talking. I bet my conversation with Fitz was more interesting than Tabor going on about a lost sibling or whatever.
“I don’t think they’d get very far,” I said.
“Care to elaborate?”
“Not really,” I said. “But I will.”
I cleared my throat and slouched in my chair. The door to the Group Talk room was open, so there were these awesome rays of sun cutting through the dusty air, and I could see all the little particles swirling in the beams. I felt the warmth of one of those large beams on my leg; it felt nice.
“I don’t think we’re all that open with anybody, in the end. I mean, imagine meeting up at lunch with your parents, let alone some person you’ve never really known. Just because they share your DNA doesn’t mean they’re going to be all open and understanding all of the sudden. If you told me I had some sister I never met and you set us up, it would be incredibly awkward and not much would happen. What were they expecting?”
Tabor wrinkled his brow and adjusted his glasses—a gesture I found incredibly doctorish. I bet he met up with Dr. Riddle to discuss what doctor moves they’d incorporate into their repertoire for the day or something.
“Okay,” Riddle would say, “I’m gonna adjust my lab coat at one point while looking over my glasses,” and Tabor would be like, “Shoot, I was gonna adjust my glasses! We can’t both do that move today, Mark!”
Tabor’s white coat swept past his knees and cascaded over the cushioned chair. He glanced around at the others before turning back to me. “What do you mean by ‘in the end’?”
I adjusted my position in my seat. Fitz, in my periphery, held his hand next to his face so Tabor couldn’t see his expression, and he was giving me this annoyingly large smile, mocking me, while I was trying to stay serious. I smiled but controlled the laughter.
“I like to think of it as the walls of the heart, Tabor. I don’t care to get all sentimental though. Every day we talk about being vulnerable, and I’m kind of exhausted.”
I saw Fitz cringe when I said the V-word.
“That’s okay,” said Tabor. “That’s okay. I understand that dealing with these emotions at this level can be difficult. In fact, I’m impressed you all are so gracious about it all,” he said, opening his hands and motioning to the entire circle. That’s right, all six of us: Me. Fitz. Junior. Leah. Didi. Wolf.
I hadn’t talked to Wolf much. His real name was Ralph, but Fitz said every time he tried to say his name, it came out sounding like “Wolf,” so that’s what everybody called him. He was fifteen, maybe, and was short with these really dark eyes and long hair and a big stomach.
Nobody knew what Wolf was in for, or how long he’d been there. But every morning Wolf would go to the doors of the ward where the orderlies buzzed people in and he would just repeat, “I want my horse. Give me my horse,” just like he was saying the day I was admitted.
Fitz said he’d asked Riddle and Tabor about it, but the only thing they ever said was that Wolf had a promise to him broken years ago coupled with a lot of other mental issues and trauma. That’s all we ever heard about it, anyway. But Wolf said that phrase at the door every day until the orderlies took him back to therapy or group meetings or whatever. Then he’d keep repeating that phrase to anybody who would listen. Or not listen. He just talked. Like, always.
Anyway, I couldn’t just leave what I’d said on that note, though. I knew I could be a know-it-all. I tended to think my opinion was the correct one. All the time. Just a thing I did. You know the type, I’m sure. Me. That’s right. You know me.
“We build up these big walls around our heart,” I said. “Brick by brick. Layer by layer. We churn our own mortar and slap on giant chunks of it between bricks, and we reinforce those walls every chance we get because we’r
e all afraid someone might see through one of those cracks. So we remodel every day, and we add layers and retreat into ourselves.
“Nobody can penetrate walls that thick, layers that deep. It’s a lost cause. I wonder what groups like this are really achieving because nobody here is letting their walls down. They might tell you they are,” I said. I could tell Tabor was about to step in because he leaned forward in his chair, so I finished quickly.
“Shoot, they might even knock down an outer support to prove they’re trying, but you’re not really glimpsing the heart—just a sculpture in the form of the heart. A facsimile. The real thing is never on display. If it is, it’s dressed up to look like something else. It’s wearing a mask, just like we all do. The real thing is hidden deep behind those walls, boxed up tight in some impenetrable case and tucked away, buried beneath hundreds of layers of rock, the tectonic plates always in motion, the most intimate knowledge being removed to a place even deeper, even harder to get to.”
Tabor crossed his legs and started writing in a folder.
That ticked me off, and I was angry I’d said what I did. That was a way of chipping away at the mortar, and I realized I’d knocked at one of my own walls unintentionally, pieces of brick chipping and falling at my feet. I needed to put the comedy mask back on and stop being so serious.
“I don’t know if I agree,” said Fitz, leaning on his knees after nudging me in a way that told me he got it, or at least that he appreciated what I was after in my comment. “I like what Addie said, and I agree that we build up those walls, but I also think those walls can crumble in an instant.” Fitz looked at me and held my gaze. “Because it’s happened to me.”
I waited. We all waited.
“You just have to hear someone say they have something important to say, something like, ‘It’s about your brother’—or even just hearing the sound of screeching tires or an ambulance siren—and I think those walls disappear. The moment someone says the right thing, or you get a second glance from that girl, or someone calls early one morning with news, those masks come off, those walls come down. I think those walls are softer and more fragile than any of us let on.
“Dang it, Willy, not now! Yes, I think that’s pretty funny, but I don’t think I can share it. No. I can’t,” Fitz said, catching himself at the end and turning back to the group.
He looked upset when he finished. He gave a half smile, but his heart wasn’t in it—I could tell. He slouched back in his chair and didn’t talk for the rest of the meeting. He kept whispering in my direction, but I could tell it wasn’t meant for me.
He was in his own world, the world of the mind, and he wasn’t accepting visitors. I recognized myself in his defeated slouch, looking totally lost to everyone and everything around him. I recognized myself in that hopeless moment, that moment when my ticks and rituals won out over my own thinking, over my own desires and comments and attempts at meaning.
I wanted to talk to Fitz after the meeting, but he hurried away before I could get past Tabor and his incessant questions. I mean, Tabor was going to meet with me later that day anyway, so I wasn’t sure why he was so eager to discuss my comments right at that moment.
I headed to the Study Room to work on my homework because I didn’t have a therapist meeting for another few hours. Junior was walking the same way. I saw his giant head bob as he walked, his large body almost filling the hallway. He had a buzz cut and constantly rubbed at his head when he was thinking or bored. I wondered if Leah rubbed her head because she saw Junior do it. Maybe it was some impulse of short-haired people that just couldn’t be helped. I wasn’t sure. Junior didn’t smile much, but I could tell he was softer on the inside. Just my intuition.
Anyway, I had only been reading maybe thirty minutes before Fitz dropped in. I was happy to see him sidle up next to me and flip open a book.
“What are you reading?” he said.
“A play. You?”
“Ninja Assassin Protocol 4,” he said. “It just came out last month, and it’s way better than Ninja Assassin Protocol 3 because the characters finally figure out what the rebellion in Ninja Assassin Protocol 2 was all about. I’ve been waiting forever to figure that out. What play are you reading?”
Junior sat in a cushioned chair just behind the bar where Fitz and I sat on tall stools. I could tell Junior was bothered by our conversation because he breathed heavily through his nose as if to remind us we were in the Study Room.
“It’s called Waiting for Godot. It’s about two guys who sit around and wait for a couple days. Nothing really happens.”
“Sounds incredibly boring,” said Fitz.
“Nothing happens, but they discuss important things,” I said. “I’m reading it again.”
“I like more action.”
“I thought you said it doesn’t have to be uplifting to have meaning.”
“It doesn’t. But it does need action. Two very different things, Addie. The characters have to move. They have to want something. They have to accomplish something.”
“Dr. Morris would never assign something that didn’t have value. I mean, he’s the best teacher I’ve ever had. Although, he does always catch me mixing my metaphors in my essays.”
“I always pegged you as a mixing-the-metaphors type,” said Fitz.
Junior stood up and left the room with his book in hand, frowning at us. I felt bad that he was frustrated, but it’s not like I was too worried. I laughed at Fitz and set my book down.
“You’re a snob,” I said.
“I’m a blessing in the skies,” said Fitz, extending his arms like wings and moving like he was soaring. “So why are you so interested in this stuff? Why not pick up an easy read and relax? It’s not like you’re getting out soon, right?”
“Well, I have to write essays to get the grade, and I don’t want my grades to slip while I’m here. I’m struggling with the final question though, so I’m reading through the thing again. It’s really bothering me. I even asked Doc about it, but he didn’t have an answer. I don’t know, when I run into something that I can’t answer, I get super frustrated and my ticks and rituals kind of take off into some other realm of annoying and I obsess over it until I find the right answer.”
Fitz took his bandana off and started rolling it in his hands. “What’s the question?”
“Seems simple enough,” I said. “Morris just wants to know what the play is about. That’s the last question: ‘What are the characters waiting for, and why is it significant that it/he/she never shows up?’ I can’t just say it’s about two guys sitting around and waiting for something to show up that never shows up. Or like, detail their conversations or something. That isn’t the answer—that’s just what happens, not what it’s about.”
He rolled his bandana back and forth and then rested his head on his Ninja Assassin Protocol 4 book that looked quite well-worn after only a month’s use.
“I read about this guy in Vermont who deals with the same thing I do. He called the police about domestic violence. The cops showed up, but it was just him, sitting in an old recliner, shouting. Apparently two nonexistent people in his head had married without telling him, and they started fighting. That’s what happened, but it’s not what that guy’s life was really about. I get it.”
“What I really like is that this author wrote about damaged individuals. He wrote of the travails of these characters who were trying to make sense of a world that would not accommodate them. I love that,” I said.
He lifted his head to look from his book to me. He was listening to me, for sure, so I went on.
“I mean, look at us—we’re not really being accommodated, are we? But that’s not the answer for the final essay question, either. Just something I found pretty awesome about the writer. His stuff really seems to emphasize repetition as the engine of silliness.”
“So the play is about damaged people being silly?
Still doesn’t sound very interesting. And they just sit around the whole time?”
“They’re waiting for Godot to show up,” I said, realizing that my answer didn’t offer any new evidence.
“I’m sick of waiting!” said Fitz.
“And yet, we wait.”
He dropped his head back onto his book and hit his fists on the wood table a couple times before sitting up and sighing. He looked at me closely, fully, and I could tell he was sincere because there was this softness I’d never seen before in his gray eyes. Or at least I’d never noticed it before.
“I can’t wait any longer, Addie. I need to take action. I need to go out and find that thing—Godot, whatever it is, whoever it is—and I need to do it soon. I’m gonna lose it if I stay here any longer. I have to keep my promise.”
“A promise? Like, you want your horse?”
I could tell Fitz was trying not to laugh. But even mentioning Wolf’s dilemma made me feel sad for him, though I respected that he wasn’t going to give up until he got that horse. Then I got sidetracked by thinking of the characters in the play as if they were in the present day: Godot texting them and saying he’s on his way, but never actually showing, and the two guys waiting, sending him multiple pins from the maps app and wondering why he was taking so long.
“I need to go to San Juan Island,” Fitz said. “It means a lot to me. And I’m running out of time.” He balled up the bandana and moved to the cushioned seat where Junior had been sitting. “We need money. I’ve already got the plan pretty much figured out. I mean, there are a few wrinkles I still need to iron out or whatever, but I need your help. I can’t do this without you.”
“You’re being serious?”
“I gave you that note, didn’t I?”
“This isn’t Toby’s idea or something? He’s not setting us up with a lie?”
“It’s the real thing, Addie,” he said.
I didn’t know what to say. I mean, I wanted to help him because I felt like he was really yearning for that thing, whatever it was. Whoever it was, as he said. But I also was aware that things were going well for me. Sure, I was gaining a little weight, and I didn’t feel awesome all the time, but my ticks and rituals and the intensity behind my obsessions had decreased little by little, and only after a few weeks. It was some kind of miracle, and I didn’t want to mess with that.
