The Scattering

by Kimberly McCreight

  My legs feel wiry and taut as I turn down Juniper toward Sullivan. Soon my feet go numb against the sharp, hot pavement as I race past the bigger, more beautiful houses. The only sounds are the rough heaving of my breath, and the slapping of my bare feet against the concrete. Don’t do it, Jasper. Don’t do it. Because I am thinking that he has gone there to jump. And I pray that I am wrong.

  Finally, I reach the place where the road curves and ends in a cluster of trees. After that, there is the bridge.

  I am running so fast now. I can barely feel the ground.

  Jasper.

  A bridge.

  And all that emptiness below.

  But I will be in time. I have to be. And somehow I will say exactly the right thing. And he will realize that he’s not thinking clearly. Because he may not care about what happens to him right now. At this moment. But he will—tomorrow, the next day. And I care now. So much more than I realized.

  I am almost at the bridge now, the span in clear view. My eyes scan the length of it, searching up and down. But there is nothing. There is no one to convince. No one to save. Maybe I was wrong. Wrong, and not late.

  I have to be.

  But then I spot something on the ground about halfway down, along the railing. A small, dark pile. I race ahead to see what it is.

  I am shaking when I finally stop in front of it. It isn’t until I crouch down that I realize it’s a sweatshirt. Blue and green. Any other colors would be better. Because blue and green are the ones worn by all the Newton Regional High School sports teams. I have to put a hand on the railing to steady myself as I pick it up. Before it’s even in the air I can see the arc of the words on the back: NRHS Hockey Team.

  No. No. No.

  This is not the way it ends. It can’t be. I should have—no. It’s not. Jasper is okay. He has to be. I press myself hard against the railing and over the water below, scanning for any sign of him.

  I need to calm down. Focus. Even if he jumped, there’s still time to get him out. It couldn’t have happened that long ago. My hips press against the railing like a gymnast propped up on uneven bars. Looking for signs of life. Praying I find something.

  There’s a loud sound behind me then. Wheels screeching to a stop, doors opening. Footsteps. I am afraid to peel my eyes from the water. Afraid I will miss some glimpse of Jasper.

  “Stop!” a man shouts behind me. Not quite angry. But very, very firm. “Come away from the railing.”

  The police? Jasper’s mom must have called them. Thank God.

  But I do not turn. I do not take my eyes off that water. I will spot Jasper if he surfaces—no matter what anyone says. “He’s down there!” I shout back instead.

  “Come away from the edge!” Even louder now. But a woman this time. “Miss, get off the railing now!”

  “But my friend Jasper—”

  “We aren’t listening until you come away from there!”

  I glance over my shoulder and see the two police officers coming slowly closer from either side of a stopped police car.

  “Someone has to go after him. Do you have a boat or scuba people or something?”

  “We can talk about that after you step over here, miss.” When I look quickly again, I see the female officer has curly hair pulled back in a ponytail. And she’s waving me toward her. “Take a step or two away from the edge, hon. Toward me.”

  The way she says “hon” has a warm ring to it, but she’s nervous. I can feel it. I see her look down at my shoeless, possibly bloody feet. I get it: I look unhinged. But she is trying to be patient, to give me the benefit of the doubt. Her partner, on the other hand—young and jumpy and overmuscular—seems like he is going to pounce. They are focused only on me, too. They don’t understand what’s going on. They’ve been misinformed.

  “You’re wasting time! It’s not me, it’s my friend! He jumped!” I shout back at them as I turn again to the water. “He is going to die down there if you don’t hurry!”

  “We want to help you,” the female officer says. She is calmer now, like she’s hit her stride. “But we can’t until you step away from the railing.”

  Help you. They are still not listening. I am just going to have to make them.

  “If you want me away from the railing, then send somebody down there!” I scream, jabbing a finger toward the water.

  I whip around and lean way back on purpose over the railing. The female officer stops, but her partner is still inching toward me, off to the side. His right hand is at his hip, reaching for something. I don’t think they would actually shoot me, but there are other options. She raises a hand again, telling him to hold. He does, but he’s pissed about it.

  “We’ll see about your friend,” she says, forcing her voice higher. “As soon as—”

  When I press even farther back over the railing, she stops talking.

  “Now! Go look for him now!”

  God, why didn’t I go over to Jasper’s house last night? Because I had believed him, that’s why. Maybe he’d even been telling the truth last night when he said he’d be okay.

  “Wylie, hon?” The female officer knows my name? Jasper’s mom might have told them. So why does her using it seem so off? “Are you listening to me?”

  No, I am not. What I am listening to is this terrible feeling I am having. I am listening to the way she feels, which is completely and totally focused on me and not listening to a word I am saying, the worst combination imaginable.

  “They didn’t send you for me. They sent you for my friend Jasper.” I push up and actually sit on the railing. I feel queasy when I glance down toward the water and see nothing—no boat, no search party, no flashing lights on shore. No Jasper. And being suspended so far over the water is totally terrifying. “Get people to look for him. Now!”

  She holds up a hand. “Okay, okay.” Now she is pissed. Worried, too, but in a mostly pissed-off way. She hates that this situation has gotten away from her. Her nostrils flare as she dials her phone. A second later she is asking for a marine unit. “Possible male teenage victim in water. Fall from Bernham Bridge.” She pauses, gives some more details. It is like she is actually talking to someone, and not pretending. “They’re on their way,” she says when she’s done. “Now, Wylie, we had a deal. Come down.”

  I still have the most awful feeling. Different now, though. Like I am missing an essential detail. The most important one.

  “What’s going on here?” I ask.

  “You’ve got yourself leaning over the side of a bridge, which is extremely dangerous. And you’re scaring the hell out of us.”

  The girl with the knife has become the girl sitting on top of a bridge railing. Threatening to jump. A danger to myself, no doubt. Shit. How did that happen? How did I become exactly who I didn’t want to be?

  “Everyone wants to help you,” she goes on. “We want you to be okay.”

  “But it’s not me,” I whisper. I do want to come down, though. It’s scary hanging over that railing. And she has done what I wanted—sent people looking for Jasper. “Okay, okay.”

  I grip the metal tighter as I push myself back to the ground. As soon as my feet touch down, something knocks me hard from the side, throwing me off balance and also away from the water. I’m yanked up by my arms right before I hit the concrete.

  “Let go!”

  “Calm down.” A man’s voice. A new one, behind me. “Or we’ll have to restrain you.”

  Here it is, at long last. People coming to take me away. But I hadn’t pictured it like this. Being so obviously unjust. No. I won’t let it happen. I won’t go quietly. I won’t behave, not the way they want me to. They are wrong about me.

  And so I nod, like I have heard them. Like I am listening. “Okay,” I say quietly. “But you’re hurting my arms. Please, let me go.”

  They loosen their grip, a little and then a little more. It’s my chance. Maybe the last one. I lunge forward. Run. Run. Run. One step, two steps.

  “Stop!” Loud. Right in my ear
. That same man, the one who was holding me. And now he is furious.

  Run. Run. Run. But he is so close. Like I haven’t gone a single step. And there are more voices. Lots of shouting. The sounds of stomping feet. I am knocked down again, much harder this time.

  “Careful! Don’t hurt her!” the woman shouts.

  My hands burn against the pavement. And there are so many hands on me. I try to slap them away. But there are too many. There are way too—

  “AND THEN WHAT happened?” Dr. Shepard asked.

  I’d gotten to that part of the dream: the important part. That was why I’d stopped talking. I was a good patient that way: not easy to fix, but so obviously broken.

  “I pushed her,” I said finally, after the silence grew too awkward to bear. “Into the fire.”

  I’d been having the dream nightly since Jasper and I had gotten back from the camp. But it was the first time I’d told Dr. Shepard. The dream was so transparent it was almost embarrassing: I felt guilty about what had happened to Cassie so I was having dreams that I had literally caused her death.

  “I see,” Dr. Shepard said, in that totally annoying therapist way that I thought we’d evolved past.

  “Seriously?” I asked. “You’re not going to say anything about what the dream really means. Me feeling guilty and all that?”

  “I don’t know.” She shrugged. “It seems like it’s about you pushing Cassie into the fire.” She shifted a little in her big red chair. “I mean, did you?”

  It was a real question.

  “Of course not!” I snapped back.

  “Well, don’t blame me. It was your dream,” Dr. Shepard said, and in the taunting voice of a five-year-old. It didn’t seem very professional.

  Also, couldn’t she at least try to make me feel better, after everything I had been through? I jumped to my feet and started to pace the room.

  “I tried to stop her, you know. I did everything I could.” I pointed hard at my own chest.

  Dr. Shepard blinked her pretty brown eyes at me, repositioned her small body once again.

  “I don’t know why, Wylie, but you did do it. It’s been decided. There is no doubt.”

  “I did not!” I shouted, charging closer. I wanted to hit her. I was afraid I might even do it.

  But then there was a noise behind me. A cough? Someone clearing their throat. There was someone else in Dr. Shepard’s office with us? But how could that be? That’s when I notice the room has turned orange, and Dr. Shepard’s red chair is blue. I go to tell Dr. Shepard, but she has disappeared.

  “Are you going to do it?” A voice from behind me.

  I try to turn, but I can’t move my feet. The floor has turned to tar. Instead, I twist to look over my shoulder.

  My mother is sitting in Dr. Shepard’s big, red-again chair. She is wearing the outfit she had on the night she died. Her left foot is bare. On her right is a single blue clog. Her skin is smudged and black like it is covered in ash.

  “Mom?” I whisper.

  “So are you going to?” she demands.

  “Am I going to do what?” I ask.

  “Come on, Wylie. First me, then Cassie—are you going to kill Dr. Shepard, too?”

  I GASP AWAKE like I’m breaking through the surface of water. I squint my swollen eyes open. A bright, white room. Fluorescent lights hum overhead. Like an office building.

  I try to take a breath but can hardly suck in any air.

  It comes back then. Like the bangs of a hammer. The bridge. Jasper. The police. I tried to get away.

  A mistake.

  Oh, Jasper. My chest clenches.

  I try to push myself up, but I cannot. My head is too large and weighed down like it’s encased in plaster. I try again and this time, my head lifts. But I am still stuck. It’s not my head that’s pinned down. It’s my arms.

  Strapped down. To a hospital bed.

  8

  STAY CALM. KEEP IT TOGETHER. FOCUS. BUT THAT IS SO MUCH EASIER SAID THAN done. My head is so foggy, too. It must be from whatever they used to knock me out. That was always part of the nightmare: being kept so doped up on the wrong drugs that I never got better. And then I died sad and alone in a mental hospital—exactly like my grandmother. I pull again against the straps around my arms, but it is no use.

  And Jasper? Did they find him? Did he actually go off that bridge? Oh God, I did everything wrong. I was supposed to save him, and instead I got myself locked up here. I start to cry. Hard. I can’t help it. Soon my sobbing has made my stomach hurt and my face is covered in tears and goo.

  The door opens then, and a woman with long, very straight brown hair and a white doctor coat steps inside. She is young and pretty but in an aggressively earthy way—no makeup, no jewelry, square bangs. Like she was once told that she was quite beautiful and has worked hard to hide it ever since. I try to stop crying. But that only makes it worse.

  “Jeez, are you okay?” She rushes over to grab some tissues off a nearby table. And then there’s the awkward moment when she realizes I cannot wipe my own face because I am restrained—she looks so surprised. Like she’s new to this. She hesitates for a second, then starts to undo my wrists. “Here, I’m sorry about these . . .” Her voice drifts like she doesn’t even want to say out loud what they are.

  Once my hands are free, I take the tissues and dry my face.

  “Did you find my friend?” I ask. “His name is Jasper. I was on the bridge looking for him. I wasn’t going to jump or anything. But the police came, and I think maybe they thought I was him—or I don’t know. But they were definitely confused.” I close my mouth tight, hope that when I speak again my words will slow. “They said they would look for Jasper. I need to know that he’s okay.”

  Because he has to be.

  “That’s awful.” She looks confused, then sympathetic—maybe even a little appalled on my behalf. “I’m sorry, I’m Dr. Alvarez. I’m afraid I don’t know anything about your friend. But I will try to find out. Let me quickly take your vitals first.”

  I nod. Cooperative, that’s the way to go, at least for now. I am glad for the tranquilizers that are still in my system because they’re keeping my pulse in check even though I am terrified. And staying calm will make it easier to prove there is nothing wrong with me. This Dr. Alvarez does genuinely want to help. I can feel it. She is easy to read with my own anxiety sidelined—even if it is only by medication. And there is no deception, no hesitation. It would be good to keep her on my side. Because this is a mistake, a mix-up, a totally messed up and terrible one—not to mention ironic. But—as Dr. Shepard has reminded me time and again over the years—coincidence is not the same as causation. And the saner I can act, the faster all of this is going to get sorted out.

  Dr. Alvarez lifts my wrist to take my pulse, clips a small device to my finger, and sticks a thermometer in my mouth. It’s all finished and recorded on her clipboard within a minute, maybe two. Then she puts a hand on my arm. Kindness and concern, and again that hint of outrage on my behalf, that’s all I feel. I cannot be sure yet whether or not I can completely trust Dr. Alvarez, but God knows I want to.

  “Your vitals are good,” she says with a reserved smile. “Now let me try to find out about your friend. My supervisor, Dr. Haddox, will be in to explain things to you.”

  “I just—I want to go home. I wasn’t going to jump. I’m okay, truly. I swear.” I sound desperate. Like I am lying. Maybe I should keep my mouth shut.

  I feel sorrow rise in her chest as she looks at me. “I want to help if I can.” She nods, but she has her doubts. I’m not sure if they are about me or her own ability. “What’s your friend’s full name?”

  “Jasper Salt.”

  “Okay,” she says as she steps toward the door. “Let me see what I can do.”

  I WAIT UNTIL Dr. Alvarez is gone before I get out of bed. I spot my flip-flops lined up against the far wall; the only personal belonging of mine anywhere in sight. My phone is what I really want. I need to call my dad. At a minimu
m, he can get Dr. Shepard to call and vouch for me. I have no idea what time it is, but hopefully he’s not on that plane to DC yet.

  I don’t see my phone anywhere. I get out of bed, hoping it might be stashed somewhere in a drawer. It isn’t until my feet are on the floor that I look down and notice that I have a gray sweat suit on. I feel embarrassed and exposed thinking of my clothes being changed while I was passed out. Worse yet is the sense that they’ve already readied me for a longer stay.

  Now, my heart is wide awake, pumping faster than it should be.

  I make my way around the room, opening and closing the smooth, brand-new drawers, checking the closet, too. All empty. All immaculately clean. There’s nothing in the gleaming, white tile bathroom either except a little set of travel-sized toiletries. Not a set of manicure scissors or tweezers in sight. Nothing sharp. And definitely no phone.

  I step over and press my ear to the door, listening. That’s always been the thing I have dreaded most about an imagined commitment: the sounds of a psychiatric unit. But I can’t hear anything. Either the hallway is silent or the door is too thick. And it doesn’t seem wise to open it. I can’t afford to look like I am trying to escape again.

  Instead, I head to the window and push open the heavy curtains. It’s light still, the same day. Hopefully. Maybe only a couple of hours gone. Maybe. I force myself to take a breath.

  Across the way is a shiny glass-and-steel building, modern and brand-new. Its polished front reflects the building we are in. Much the same: tall and polished, windowpane after windowpane. Nice, as hospitals go, which I am glad about. But also maybe a little too nice. From the window, I can see a parking lot. At the far end is an old, white stone building with a set of steps leading up to a grand but crumbling entryway, a small dome perched on top. A haunted-looking leftover from what the hospital used to be.