“You look so sad,” Etta says, putting the bowl in my lap.
“Not at all,” I say.
She climbs under the blanket with me.
“You’re a little hard to read,” she says. “I thought you liked me but I really couldn’t tell for sure sometimes.”
She probably doesn’t mean it as an insult, but I take it as one. Hard to read. Probably because if I showed her who I really was, this whole movie we’re making would be ruined. And in that one second, all the sweet guts and gush of our kissing is erased.
I smile. It’s forced. I can tell she can tell it’s forced.
Hello, shadows. Missed me, didn’t you?
There’s a sudden tension in the air. It’s all my fault. My moods come in and turn a bright day black. It’s happening right now and I have no control over it. The most exquisite girl is in front of me—she kissed me, she likes me, I should be overjoyed. But instead I hollow out.
“I haven’t kissed anyone in a while,” I say. “I was with this guy who broke up with me and . . . I’ve had a hard time putting myself together again.”
“I haven’t kissed anyone since my ex in Oregon,” Etta says.
“Seriously?”
“That girl mind-fucked me good,” she says.
I feel a little better hearing this, like we have something in common. I take a bite of ice cream. Rocky road. So good, except for the nuts.
“She threatened to kill herself if I broke up with her,” Etta says. “So . . . I had that fun sword dangling over my head. Honestly, she’s half the reason I up and moved so quick. I needed a fresh start away from her.”
That better feeling I said I had? Gone now, thanks.
“Did she . . . try to kill herself?” I ask.
“Thank God no. She wasn’t that crazy.”
“That’s good,” I say, dying inside. Oh, not that crazy. Not like me.
I can’t ever tell her what I did.
We finish the musical, holding hands under the blanket. I’m some kind of fraud. She’s going to find out what a mess I am at some point and she’ll be gone, just like Jonah.
I’m always too much. There is no such thing as unconditional love.
My mom and Levi are set to get married in less than a month: the first Saturday in June. They’re doing it at Stow House, this historic Victorian tucked around the other side of the lake where I tried to off myself. The ceremony is small and a fake Elvis is officiating.
This is what compromise will look like in this household, because my mom was hoping for a traditional ceremony and Levi wanted to elope in Vegas. I consider inviting Etta, but haven’t yet. Today Ruby, Stevie, and I are getting fitted at a tailor’s. Since none of us could agree on bridesmaid dresses (I wanted violet, Ruby wanted to wear black, Stevie wanted floral print) Mom chose the fabric, which I like to refer to as “velvet vomit,” as it’s a somewhat atrocious coral pink.
“Good God, you’re thin,” Mom says as the tailor writes down my measurements. “I thought your clothes looked loose. Are you eating?”
“Isn’t she fun?” I ask the tailor, Jean, who (somewhat appropriately) is dressed in a long denim dress with a thousand pockets on it. She has frizzy gray hair and pins in her mouth.
“Mmm,” she offers in response.
“What do you weigh?” Mom asks me.
“That’s a personal question,” I tell her. “How old are you again? How much money’s in your bank account?”
She gives me a look that could wither a sunflower.
Honestly, I have lost a couple pounds. Not intentionally. I’m not that hungry lately and forget to eat breakfast sometimes. But Mom is being so obnoxious about it and blowing it into some Thing right now, and I can tell it’s because she’s anxious about her wedding. She’s been biting her lip nonstop for the entire last month.
“You know what’s interesting about tapeworms?” Ruby asks, looking up from her phone.
Stevie, my mom, and I all groan in response, because this is not the first nor will it be the last time Ruby offers this prompt.
“They don’t even have mouths. They don’t eat at all. Technically, they absorb your nutrients through their skin,” Ruby says.
“Gross,” says Stevie.
“It’s not gross, it’s smart,” Ruby says. “Then they can dedicate most of their energy to creating more eggs.”
“Gross,” Mom and I say in response.
After the fitting, Mom takes us to In-N-Out and I get a Double-Double and fries and eat the whole thing, just to prove to Mom I’m not starving myself. She checks the trash before throwing it away, like she thought I’d hidden something or tried to trick her.
“Your dad says you stayed up all night the other night,” she says to me as she drives us home.
“Finals,” I mutter.
I go on my phone and check my email to busy myself. Glory, glory, hallelujah—a landlord wrote me back about seeing an apartment next week. Couldn’t have better timing.
“Everyone needs sleep,” Mom tells me, as if this is some revelation.
“Technically, bullfrogs don’t need sleep,” Ruby says, chiming in from the back. “They remain alert when they shut their eyes, and only truly sleep for hibernation purposes—”
“Ruby, enough,” Mom shouts. “I don’t care about bullfrogs.”
“You should,” Ruby says. “Because they play a vital role in terrestrial and aquatic nutrient cycling and are key to the ecosystem—”
“Can everyone just shut up?” Stevie says, annoyed. “Mom, stop picking on Journey. Ruby, shut up about science, nobody cares.”
I look back at Stevie, surprised. She’s usually the sweet one. And if there was a way to hurt Ruby’s feelings, attacking science would be it. Ruby crosses her arms and puts in her earbuds. Mom turns up the classic rock station and drives a little extra hard. Stevie gazes out the cracked window, her hair blowing back from the breeze coming in. She appears older with her hair down like that. It makes me sad for a second, the sight of my youngest sister looking like a teenager. As I obsess about my life and plot my getaway, here my dear little sisters are, growing up. And I’ve hardly noticed.
When Mom pulls into Dad’s driveway, she asks me to stay and talk with her a minute and the girls go inside without me. Goody. Swell. This’ll be fun.
“Do you think Ruby’s been doing okay?” she asks.
I’d braced myself for a “you’re crazy so take your crazy pills” lecture, so I’m a bit shocked by this turn.
“She’s the same bitter nerd I know and love,” I say.
“I don’t know. Something seems off lately. I’ve been trying to get it out of her. She stopped going to Cindy’s and said they’re not friends anymore.”
Cindy has been Ruby’s bestie since grade school. They used wander around our backyard with magnifying glasses and worked on a comic book together for years about a heroic shape-shifting vapor named Misty. I haven’t seen her in a long while, now that I think about it.
“Mona said she eats lunch by herself in the library,” she says.
Mona is Mom’s bestie, who happens to be a math teacher at our junior high, which is rather annoying because she is the nosiest and she tells Mom everything.
“I’ll keep an eye out,” I say.
I reach for the door.
“And Journey . . . are you really okay?”
“Mom,” I say, my door on the handle of the car, just in case I need to flee, because I can feel her anxiety in the air right now, choking as carbon monoxide. “I am doing fine.”
“But are you? Your meds—”
I pinch the bridge of my nose between my fingers and sigh. Bipolar I, bipolar II, rate your sadness and happiness on a scale of one to ten, take this many milligrams for your pain. I truly hate the way the world looks at people sometimes, like something entirely inhuman, a problem with an answer, an equation to be solved.
“I just pulled off straight Bs my first semester at college, I’m due to walk with my class at graduation,
and my boss said I’m ready for a promotion because of my most excellent pizza dancing skills,” I say. “I wish you were proud of me instead of nitpicking. Instead of looking for a black hole for me to fall into.”
“You’re right,” she says. “I’m sorry. I worry.”
I’ve sprung into a state of defensiveness during this conversation, every muscle tense, my heart ready to fly. It takes a moment of silence for her words to sink in. I relax. She’s been looking at me the whole time. I finally let myself look back.
“Thank you,” I say.
I hug her.
“I am proud of you,” she says, squeezing tight.
How long, I wonder, does it take to win back trust? How long until the suicide attempt is a thing so far in my past nobody ever thinks it will happen again? How long until it’s no longer a part of me?
In late May the fog burns off in the mornings; the days are long and golden and sunny. The eucalyptuses and the oaks and the palm trees glow a particularly shocking shade of green. Santa Barbara is rich with open, pretty space, with long stretches of driving with nothing but nature to interrupt the mess of Spanish-style houses, beach bungalows, and mid-century homes. I’ve lived here so long I’m blind to it. I ride through it, my mind elsewhere, a buzzing like brown noise playing underneath the gorgeousness.
Why do I hurt? Is hurting just a part of me? Is it my Journey-ness, or my humanity?
Earlier today I washed Jonah’s sweatshirt—disgusting to admit, but for the first time since he gave it to me—and the fabric felt stiff and different when I took it out of the dryer. It smelled of detergent. I panicked, wanting to undo it, like I’d killed something dear. And I burst into tears in the laundry room.
I still don’t understand why Jonah asked for space when really he wanted infinity. I’ve been waiting for months for him to call me and for that chance to happen. Remember? He said there was a chance. I’ve waited here. I’ve been denying I’m waiting. Feeling guilty and immature, sleeping in Jonah’s sweatshirt.
Tonight is prom. Not that I care, I tell myself as I look at my phone and scroll through dim-lit pictures of people all dressed up and sparkling on social media. Marisol sends me a selfie as she gets ready and tells me she misses me. I try to think of a reply, but what to say? I’m a terrible friend. I can’t drum up a response. I’m still angry and embarrassed she told the world what a basket case I am. It seems simpler to say nothing for now.
Scroll, scroll, scroll.
I know what I’m looking for, and I hate myself for it: pictures of Jonah. What do I care about prom and the “Night of a Thousand Stars” decorated with tinfoil planets and twinkling lights at the ballroom of a local hotel? I mean, really. I’m in college now. None of this matters to me. Please explain to me why, then, my throat burns as I sit alone in a quiet house with nothing but the sound of the dishwasher running. I would have been miserable had I gone. I don’t care about this. I don’t care so much I want to scream.
I put on my sneakers, grab Jonah’s sweatshirt, and leave the house, biting the inside of my cheek. I concentrate on my breath even though I want to leap out of my skin. Tonight is prom and I don’t care.
It’s dark outside. My dad is barbecuing tofu outside because that’s what Gary has done to our household: she has inflicted tofu upon us. I fold up the sweatshirt and head out the door before I think too hard and chicken out. I jog to Jonah’s in two minutes. It’s going to be simple, me opening his mailbox and depositing this article of clothing inside, a transaction.
I know Jonah’s house like I know my own. I have played here since I was a child. I know what his parents’ cars look like, and know they park them in the driveway unless they’re both teaching late that night, which is how I know that now, they’re not home.
I know what Jonah’s car looks like, and am surprised to see it there, and a little satisfied, even, knowing he might have skipped prom, too. I know how to open the gate on the side of his house from the outside, with a reach and pop over and a click. I know where Jonah’s room is, in the back near the fig tree, and that he keeps his window propped open with a mildewed copy of Shakespeare’s complete works. I know this is probably all kinds of crazy and illegal, but I used to do this all the time when we were together. Late at night, sometimes, I would come and sneak into his room and lie in his bed with him. Or I’d leave him notes or little gifts on his desk to greet him when he woke up. Looking into the sliver I can see between his curtains, everything’s the same as it ever was. Same posters in the same places on the walls, same row of cacti on his desk, even the same copy of Infinite Jest on his desk with the bookmark, swear to God, in the same place. He’s such a poseur, I think through tears. Infinite Jest. He never even liked reading all that much, unless you count biographies on bands.
The only difference is the other girl lying with him on the bed.
They’re watching something on his laptop, the flickering light illuminating them blue. Her head rests on his chest and they are under a blanket, eyes transfixed on the screen. The girl? It’s Madison James. I want to scream a series of swear words but realize that I’ve already crossed enough of a line here that I should probably just leave and keep my shame-tainted rage to myself. And I do. But not before picking up a palm-sized rock and throwing it at his window. By the time he is probably able to get up and investigate, I’ve slipped out the side gate quietly, the latch clicking into place. Before I even realize it I’m up the street back home, sputtering tears all over the place, with nowhere to bury my face but this stupid sweatshirt that smells inhumanely clean.
Fuck. It’s fine; I knew this would happen. In fact, I knew this was happening, months ago. I’ve already kissed another girl, so why does it feel like someone is stepping on my heart with a cleat?
I do not go into my house. I walk back along Calle Real, a main drag that runs along the fenced-off freeway on one side and the lake I live near on the other. I walk up the overpass and look down at the cars, full of people who all know where they’re going at full speed. The sky is so endless and star-scattered—real stars, not tinfoil ones—and all I can think is, my astronomy professor was right: knowing how immense the universe is, how most of it is unexplained dark matter, it does threaten my sense of self-importance. On a night like this, though, when my brain sits ready to eat me alive, a threat to my self-importance is not only deserved, it is welcomed. I am not that important. Whether I go to prom or I don’t, we are just stardust in a sea of so much black.
For a second, my feet itch to jump. It would take one second, one tiny second.
There’s a French phrase l’appel du vide, “the call of the void”—the instinctive desire to leap from tall places. I press my body against the railing and look down at the headlights zooming by, the sucking noise of each passing car. The sight holds a violent allure.
In an impulsive moment—all feeling, no thought—I throw the sweatshirt over the side and watch it fall near the median. Goodbye, Jonah. For real. Heart racing, I turn my back to the void and head home.
When I do slip into the house, I’m surprised to see the light of my room is on. Dad sits there, on my bed, head in his hands. And why, hello, feeling of violation. Not because I have anything to hide, but because no one needs to be sitting among my dirty underwear and chip bags and dead cacti buried under a pile of wigs I never wear. I’ve tried to be better, I’ve rid myself of some stuff, but come on, I’m still me. I’m still mostly a mess.
“Dad?” I ask.
“Oh, Journey,” he says, getting up. He looks so tired, like he fell asleep there with his head in his hands and just startled at my entrance. “Where the hell have you been? I’ve been calling your phone—”
“It’s dead.”
“I had no idea where you went—”
“On a walk. Dad, I’ve been gone less than an hour.”
“I was imagining—I thought, I don’t know,” he says.
He shudders with a small sob.
“You didn’t really think I was going to
kill myself.”
“I didn’t know, Journey.”
“Have I been acting suicidal?” I ask, offended that he would think this.
“I know it’s your prom night, and I don’t know—am I supposed to believe you would have told me?” he asks, raising his voice, which makes him near unrecognizable. My dad doesn’t raise his voice. He gets quieter so you have to lean in. If my mother is fire, my father is water.
“Yes I would tell you!” I yell.
“Like you told me you went off medication?” he yells back. “Like that?”
I burn with this comment, then wither, like a paper ball turned to ash. Because I see in his crazy eyes and hear in his raised voice not meanness, but something shaken off its center. A bloodcurdling fear. A resentment and a sorrow miles deep and months old. My nose gets stuffy, my eyes wet, in one second.
I’m ready to scream “Get out of my fucking room!” when I instead hold my breath in for a moment and then let it out. I hate that he’s right. Part right. I haven’t been honest with him and Mom. And this new, painful paranoia of theirs—that’s the price. Dad watches me, waiting, maybe, for an explosion. But I just breathe in and out again.
“Can I be alone, please?” I ask.
“Sure,” he says, backing out with a bewildered look on his face.
He shuts the door, and I let loose.
I sink onto my bed and cry into my pillow.
After all the work I’ve done. Counting breaths. Taking walks. Dancing like an idiot in a pizza costume. Getting through a semester of big girl school.
Do they really think I’m the same as I was eight months ago?
Dear future self,
Please tell me it’s over at some point. At some point, your mistake is erased. Your sin is forgiven. You don’t have to feel guilty for what you did, or feel scared you’ll do it again, and no one who knows you will associate you with that dumb thing that belongs to you and you only. You’ll be able to pass Tylenol in a drugstore and not get a sick, bitter taste in your mouth. You’ll be able to see the lake for what it is, a lake, and associate it only with the joy of childhood bike rides and your mom’s wedding. Dear future self, I thought time was an eraser. It is, isn’t it?
Girl on the Line Page 18
