The Chaos of Standing Still

by Jessica Brody

  We never spoke of it again.

  I try to breathe but my lungs don’t seem to want to function. I’m choking on air. My heart is fluttering in my chest. Sweat begins to bead on my legs and back. Darkness seeps into my vision.

  I stumble over to a nearby bench next to a window and collapse, bending over to stick my head between my knees like I’ve seen people do in movies.

  What does an anxiety attack feel like?

  What does a heart attack feel like?

  What happens to your brain when you pass out?

  I reach for my phone but of course, it’s not there, and I am not going back to the party to get it. I don’t care how desperate I am.

  I glance around the deserted terminal. The sterile white floors. The high, mountainous ceilings. There’s a security checkpoint across from me, but there’s no one there apart from a few bored-looking TSA agents.

  It’s so quiet in here. So empty. Yet, the mayhem in my head makes it feel like I’m back inside that crowded, stuffy hotel room. I can almost feel the storm beating against the window behind me, trying to get in. Trying to reach me.

  This is all his fault. Why did he have to suggest we play that stupid game? Why did I have to go along with it? Why couldn’t I have just lied? About everything.

  87. I blame Siri for stealing my phone and dragging me to that horrible party.

  88. I blame the person who left a deck of cards in an airport for not looking after their things more carefully.

  89. I blame Lottie for teaching me how to play poker.

  “Hey,” she growls. “This has nothing to do with me.”

  Are you kidding? I scream into my head. This has everything to do with you. If it weren’t for you, I would be normal. If it weren’t for you, I would be happy. If it weren’t for you—

  “If it weren’t for me,” she interrupts, sounding insulted, “you would be boring.”

  I laugh aloud. She’s right. Of course, she’s right. She’s always right. If it weren’t for her, I would be nothing. I feel like nothing.

  I am nothing.

  I let out a low whimper and try again to suck in a lungful of air. Why did you come back?

  “Why?” she asks as though it’s obvious. “Because you clearly needed me. You were about to make a huge mistake with that guy.”

  You were the one who told me to go after him!

  “Yeah,” she says, “But not to fall in love with him. Not to live happily ever after with him in a two story house with a white picket fence and a golden fucking retriever.”

  I’m not falling in love with him. I barely know him.

  “You can’t lie to me, Ryn,” Lottie says, sounding amused by my efforts. “I live in your head. I know everything you’re thinking. And feeling. You should thank me. I saved you. From pain. And disappointment. And devastating heartache.”

  I inhale deeply. My lungs finally decide to cooperate, and the beautiful oxygen spreads through my body, chasing the dizziness away, easing the rhythm of my pulse.

  You can’t save me, Lottie, I say with a sad, emptying realization that hollows out my chest.

  And for the first time, I know it’s the truth. A truth I’ve been trying to avoid. A truth that’s been following me ever since I was carried away from that intersection. Always two steps behind. Never quite managing to catch up. Until now.

  You can’t save me, Lottie.

  She’s quiet for a long moment. And to my surprise I feel a glimmer of relief. That she’s gone. That I’ve outsmarted her. That I’ve finally managed to win one of these arguments.

  But then, true to form, Lottie swoops back in with the grand comeback. The zinger. The final knockout punch.

  “I think I just did.”

  Red-Eyed Demon Horse

  After Dead Lottie spoke to me for the first time, I tried desperately to get her to speak again. I didn’t know exactly what I’d heard that day of the funeral—a ghost, a figment of my imagination, a sign of my imminent psychotic break—but I knew I wanted it back. Whatever had happened to me, I wanted it to happen to me again.

  I craved Lottie’s words, Lottie’s presence, Lottie’s comfort. Even if it meant I was crazy, I didn’t care. I vowed I would be crazy if that’s what it took to have her with me.

  I tried everything. Talking to her aloud, talking to her in my head, complimenting her, insulting her, playing her favorite music, reading her favorite books. I even watched Doctor Who.

  I was beginning to think that it was just a fluke. A onetime occurrence. That I would never hear my best friend’s voice again.

  But I also knew that there was one thing I still hadn’t tried. Because I just couldn’t physically bring myself to do it.

  I hadn’t yet visited the tree house.

  The idea of stepping foot in there, of climbing that ladder, crouching through that child-size door, and sitting on those wooden planks, it was too much. There were too many memories trapped in that place. Nine years of friendship seeped into the wood. I knew it would smell of her.

  But I was desperate.

  And I couldn’t shake the feeling that if there were one place Lottie would be hiding, it would be there. It would be within those walls. It was where she hid in life, so why wouldn’t she hide there in death, too?

  I waited until nightfall. When my mother had gone to bed and the porch lights on our street had all been extinguished. I had barely slept since the phone call from Lord Voldemort, so I was used to being awake while the rest of the world was sleeping.

  I put on my raincoat and boots, walked the three blocks to Lottie’s house, punched in the gate code, and let myself in. Lottie’s house was dark.

  I could tell the moment I crawled inside the treehouse that no one had been there. It was exactly as she had left it. Those tiny empty bottles that Lottie had drained on that night she drunk-dialed me were still scattered around the floor. Her stash of unopened, stolen merchandise was still overflowing from a crate in the corner. Her collection of X-rated DVDs was still stacked next to the small TV.

  In the blackness of the night I was surrounded by Lottie’s dark side.

  I crawled to the center of the room and sat cross-legged on the oval shaped rug. Then I closed my eyes and waited.

  For a voice. For a creak in the wood. For a hint of breath against my ear.

  But Lottie didn’t show.

  After what felt like hours of frustratingly stubborn silence, I opened my eyes, and my gaze immediately landed on my sketch pad. The one I always kept in here. For those early mornings when I woke up hours before Lottie.

  Angrily, I reached for it, removed the black pen I kept stuffed inside the spiral binding, and flipped to the first blank page.

  If Lottie wouldn’t come to me in death, then I would have to bring her back to life. I would have to create her the way I remembered her. With those beautiful flawless features and untamed hair and fierce eyes overflowing with life. I would do what I always did.

  I would draw exactly what I saw.

  Except this time it would have to be from memory.

  I propped my phone up against the wall so the flashlight shined on the blank page. Then I lay on my stomach, with my pen clutched in my hand, and I started to draw.

  It wasn’t hard to remember Lottie’s face. I knew it better than my own. Every slope and every curve. Every freckle on her skin and every twinkle in her eye.

  I could see it in my memory. I could hold it in my mind. It was so clear.

  And yet my hand just couldn’t replicate it on the page. No matter what I did, no matter how hard I tried, how many times I started over on a blank page, everything was wrong.

  Her chin was misshapen.

  Her jaw was off-center.

  Her nose was crooked.

  Her hair didn’t flow.

  Her eyes didn’t sparkle.

  And instead of getting better with each attempt, it only got worse.

  Until Lottie was a warped, grotesque monster. A destroyed work of art. A stunning canva
s left out in the rain.

  I jumped to my knees and scrambled away from the sketch pad, like I was running away from a demon. I was out of breath. My heart was pumping so hard.

  That gruesome, twisted face stared at me from across the tree house.

  It watched me.

  It judged me.

  It screamed at me.

  And then I heard it. A real scream. From a real voice. Or as real as that voice would become to me over the next eleven months.

  “Ryn!” it screeched, completely horrified. “What is the matter with you? Why would you do that to my face? That doesn’t look anything like me!”

  I collapsed onto my back and closed my eyes, my chest rising and falling in sporadic spasms. I waited for the silence to be broken again.

  It didn’t take long.

  “What happened?” Lottie asked. She sounded far away. Like she was on the other side of the room. I pictured her hovering over that hideous drawing, her pink lips tugged in a disapproving scowl. “You used to be so talented. Your drawings used to look so real.”

  “I’m sorry, Lottie,” I said aloud. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t ever do that to me again,” she scolded, and I released a sigh of profound relief. It sounded just like her. It was exactly what she would say. It was exactly how she would react to something so revolting.

  It was her. She was back.

  “I won’t, Lottie,” I swore into the darkness. “I promise.”

  Three hours later, after dawn had broken, Lottie’s mother found me asleep in the tree house. She gasped at the chaotic state of the tiny room. The empty liquor bottles. The shoplifted merchandise. Years and years of evidence of Lottie’s rebellious spirit.

  And my crumpled up, failed attempts to capture it on paper.

  “Ryn,” Mrs. Valentine said, her voice shaking. “What is all of this?”

  I could see it in her eyes. I could see her beautiful, perfect daughter being warped and twisted in her memory until she was just as ugly and misshapen and inaccurate as the faces on those discarded pieces of paper.

  I couldn’t let it happen. No one was allowed to see her like that. I had made a promise.

  “It’s mine,” I vowed in a clear, unwavering voice. “It’s all mine.”

  It’s not Xander who ends up following me out of the party, it’s Troy. He has that dreamy, just kissed daze in his eyes and he’s walking kind of crooked, like he’s drunk, even though I know he hasn’t consumed a single drop of alcohol.

  He finds me on my bench and staggers over, plopping down beside me. His presence immediately lightens my mood. It’s almost as though I feel like I have to put on a show for him. Protect him from my ugly truths.

  “Have a good time?” I ask. It feels good to tease someone. To pretend to be normal for someone else’s sake. I’ve been doing it for so long, the disguise slips back on easily. Like a worn-in shoe.

  A blush creeps over his cheeks. He clears his throat. “Actually, no. I’m pretty sure I have to get all sorts of vaccinations now. I have no idea where that girl’s tongue has been.”

  “First kiss?” I venture.

  He slouches into the bench. “Yeah.”

  I nod. “I remember mine.”

  He looks genuinely interested. “When was it?”

  “When I was fifteen. My best friend set it up. To this day I have no idea if the guy really wanted to kiss me or not.”

  He looks like he wants to say something, but I can tell this topic is making him uncomfortable.

  “So,” I say, changing the subject, “what’s it like to be a genius?”

  He shoots me a look.

  “Sorry,” I correct myself. “Prodigy.”

  He leans back on his hands and lets out an overdramatic sigh, like he’s about to tell me the sob story of the century. “I’m not gonna lie. It’s pretty awesome.”

  I almost laugh. And it almost feels good. “I can imagine. Being smarter than everyone. Having it all figured out. That’s gotta be nice.”

  He thinks about that for a moment. “Do you know who Albert Einstein is?”

  I roll my eyes. “I may not be a prodigy but I’m not stupid.”

  “I don’t know,” Troy teases. “You didn’t know the second law of thermodynamics.”

  “That’s not general knowledge.”

  “It is to me.”

  “You’re not among the general population.”

  He nods. “That’s true. Well, anyway, Albert Einstein once said, ‘Do not worry about your difficulties in mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater.’ ”

  I squint. “What does that mean?”

  “It means everyone’s problems are relative. Even mine.”

  I eye the doors to the plaza between the airport and the hotel. There’s still no sign of Xander. I wonder if he decided I wasn’t worth the effort after all and found someone else to hang out with.

  “What are your problems?” I ask Troy.

  “Right now my biggest problem is coming to a decisive conclusion about the accuracy of this alleged Denver airport conspiracy.”

  I grunt. “That must be nice.”

  “But as soon as I get home,” Troy goes on, leaning forward to stare at his shoes again, “my biggest problem will go back to convincing my dad that having a physicist as a son is just as good as having a football player.”

  “He’d rather have a football player?”

  “Have you ever met a child prodigy named Troy Benson?”

  “You’re the first child prodigy I’ve met.”

  Troy sighs. “My dad was an all-star at Texas A&M. His father was an all-star at Texas A&M. His grandfather. And so on and so forth. I’m the disappointment who screwed up a legacy.”

  “But that’s ridiculous. Doesn’t he realize how smart you are? What a gift that is?”

  “He doesn’t understand me. And he can’t appreciate anything he doesn’t understand.”

  I bow my head, feeling extremely guilty for belittling him earlier. “I’m sorry.”

  He shrugs. “Why? You didn’t do it.”

  “I know,” I say quietly. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not sorry.”

  “Yeah, well, the feeling is mutual. I don’t understand him either. I can’t comprehend how he can sit around all day and watch grown men chase around a leather ball. It’s one step above Roman gladiators in an arena. And a small step at that. My high school had to shut down the library because there wasn’t enough funding, and yet just last year the county got a brand-new three-million-dollar football stadium. It’s completely illogical.”

  I’m not sure what to say to that. So I just agree with him.

  “What about you?” he asks. “What’s your big problem?”

  I glance toward the doors to the hotel plaza again, trying to decide how much to tell him. What to tell him. I have so many problems, I can literally pick and choose.

  I ball my hands into fists. “I’m obsessed with my phone.”

  Troy scoffs. “That’s not a problem. That’s the general state of our society.”

  “I mean, I constantly ask it questions.”

  He tilts his head, looking intrigued. “Like what?”

  I blow out a breath. “I don’t know. Anything that pops in my mind. Like how do revolving doors work and can you get food poisoning from eating stale granola and is it safe to land a plane in a snowstorm?”

  “It’s not the plane you have to worry about,” Troy replies automatically. “It’s the ice on the ground.”

  I snort. That’s exactly what Google said.

  “But why did you leave the party?” Troy asks.

  I think about Xander’s lips. So close to mine. I think about his words. “I thought I was helping.” Then I shake my head. “You probably wouldn’t understand.”

  For a long moment I feel Troy’s inquisitive eyes on me. Like he’s studying me. Analyzing me the way he would a complex physics theorem. I don’t know why, but for some reason I expect him to say something clever or
insightful or extremely enlightening. But instead he just rises to his feet and stretches his arms above his head. “Maybe you should focus on my problem for a while.”

  I flash a weak smile. “Which one?”

  “Well, since I don’t think my father is going to change his mind about football anytime soon, I’ll say the first one.” He gestures grandly toward the quiet airport. “Care to join me on my crusade to disprove a conspiracy? I could use a research assistant.”

  “Assistant?” I repeat dubiously.

  “Can you describe the fundamental postulate of statistical mechanics?”

  “Assistant,” I agree glumly.

  I glance at the doors one last time. What if Xander comes looking for me? Should I at least tell him where I’m going?

  Why? I don’t owe him anything. He’s not my boyfriend. He’s just a stranger I met in an airport, who, after this snowstorm lifts, I’ll never see again.

  He’s nothing to me.

  “Okay,” I say, standing up and hoisting my backpack onto my back. “Let’s go.”

  The months following Lottie’s death had no shape or structure. They were infinitely long and, at the same time, astoundingly short. Days would pass that felt like hours. Hours would pass that felt like weeks. I often forgot what day it was. Weekends lost their sparkle. Morning, afternoon, and night were all dark.

  I tried to draw other things, harmless things like fruit and animals and park benches. I hoped it would take me away from my pain for a few hours, but it only exemplified it. My warped, crooked lines only reminded me of how straight they used to be. My worthless, shaking hand only reminded me of the steadiness that I had lost.

  When we moved to San Francisco and I started a new school, despite what I told Dr. Judy, I didn’t bother to make friends. I didn’t see the point. No one would ever live up to Lottie. Anyone I hung out with would just seem like a bland, lackluster replacement to Lottie’s sheen.

  It would be like driving around on a spare tire. Sure, it can get you from place to place, but it will always feel a little bit off. A little bit flat. Like it was never quite meant to be there long-term.

  When my birthday rolled around at the end of October, my mom wanted to do something big. “You only turn eighteen once!” she trilled. “We should celebrate.”