by Lia Riley
Tanner used to come to our apartment during that long-ago summer. His mom, Lydia, would waltz in carrying a pack of wine coolers. He’d trail behind, clutching Chips Ahoy! or Lucky Charms. Mom dropped all her normal rules about no processed sugar during those visits, so he and I would sprawl on a couch, watch cable, and gorge ourselves into diabetic comas while our mothers hung in the back bedroom with the door locked.
“What do you do with Tanner’s mom?” I asked her once. They’d already worked all day together, cleaning motel rooms near the boardwalk.
Delilah opened the sliding-glass door and stepped outside, lighting one of her skinny menthol cigarettes. “Talk.”
“You must really like talking,” I said. “You guys do it a lot.”
“Lydia’s a good talker.” Delilah managed to keep a straight face. I remember feeling relieved that she was happy, and also how Tanner used to save the shamrocks in his Lucky Charms because he knew they were my favorite.
Gah. I punch the pillow and roll over, pressing myself into child’s pose. A trip down memory lane never leads anywhere good.
Eventually Lydia did what everyone does—got sick of Delilah’s bullshit, the dysfunction that follows her like a little gray rain cloud. The day Lydia broke things off, Mom smashed our shitty dishes while Tanner and I huddled in the kitchen doorway. When I tried to stop her, she backslapped me across the face. Not the first time she ever struck me, but the hardest. Tanner tried to help me to my feet and didn’t get why I shoved him away. My cheek stung far less than the dawning realization in his expression, that he’d glimpsed the worst parts of my life, the things I kept hidden. That fact is what set my teeth on edge and caused hot tears to well in my eyes.
On sudden impulse, I scooch to the edge of the bed, reach under and rummage through a shoe box, pulling out the diary I kept as a kid. I used to record stupid stuff like which girls I got into fights with on the playground or the boy bands I crushed on.
I stopped writing in it after that night with Tanner.
The cheap lock never worked, so it’s easy to open. I wipe my eyes and turn to the last entry.
Tonight was bad. Delilah went into the bathroom with a big glass of vodka and cranberry. I didn’t call Mimsy. She seems stressed by Delilah’s drama lately. Instead I stole ten bucks from her purse and snuck out to the boardwalk. I was supposed to meet Tanner there later. God, I hate that he saw her hit me. Not even my closest friends have a clue how bad it is around here with all her drinking. But now Tanner does, and I don’t think I can handle that.
I got to the boardwalk and bought cotton candy. A few older guys started staring at me and one walked over and flirted a little. I liked it, the way he watched me, as if I could give him something he wanted. That’s how I got my first kiss, under the log ride of all places. It went faster than I expected. His hand slipped up my shirt, then down my pants, while water sloshed over our heads. The way he shook when I touched him back gave me a feeling of control like I’ve never had.
Tonight I’d planned on Tanner being my first kiss, but that dream isn’t ever going to happen. It doesn’t matter. All he’ll ever see in me now is the girl with the crazy mom, someone who needs saving. I think he caught me making out with that guy. I heard a skateboard behind us. It came close, stopped, and then finally went away.
Everything is ruined.
That was the last time I ever wrote in my diary.
That was the night I decided it was better to have Tanner’s hate than his pity.
I sit up in my bed, toss my old diary on the nightstand, and run my hands through my hair until it falls wild around my shoulders. Although I never saw Tanner that night, I’m sure he saw me, and as good as the sugar rush and that stranger’s kiss felt, settling tonight’s score was even better.
But in hurting Tanner, I hurt myself more. Funny how that works.
I climb off my mattress and step around my half-packed suitcase. I’m going to Comic-Con tomorrow, saved for months to afford a ticket and spent the last few weeks putting together the perfect Maleficent costume, right down to the spiral-horn headpiece. I pad to the kitchen, turning on the electric teakettle. While I wait for the water to boil, I grab a pen and start sketching on the back of my phone bill. The lines come together and look suspiciously like a tall, well-built guy facing in the opposite direction.
I cross it out with a big X and glare out the window. At least it’s quiet outside. Tanner’s long since left the skate park.
After that night at the boardwalk, I didn’t see him again until the school year started. By then he was going steady with Pippa, the perfect Disney caricature, all wide-eyed with spun-gold hair. She had this breathy voice that sounded like you’d interrupted her in the middle of something indecent, but she looked so innocent, you felt dirty for thinking it. And then there was the Pippa smile, a hint of melancholy, a vague sadness that made you want to give her a hug, promise everything would be better.
Tanner got a princess who needed rescuing.
I couldn’t resent her, so I resented him instead.
The Maleficent costume is folded in the suitcase. Despite my name and outwardly bright demeanor, I know I’m not good enough for any golden boy. I attract darkness.
But just because shadows haunt me doesn’t mean I need to keep my thoughts black. Not when distraction is only one click away. I grab my laptop and crawl into bed, burrowing under the covers before flicking to an online movie site. A stark image stands out among the thumbnails, an evocative shot of the Golden Gate Bridge disappearing into fog. I click, and the synopsis slams me in the guts. A documentary about people jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge? It gets high critical reviews and I find myself pushing play. For the next hour and a half I’m riveted, goose bumps prickling every exposed inch of my body.
The film doesn’t help me sleep. If anything, the line from one of the few jumpers who survived the fall into San Francisco Bay loops in my mind.
“I instantly realized that everything in my life that I’d thought was unfixable was solvable—except for having just jumped.”
Sleep is the last thing on my mind, but at least I have an idea for where to take my graphic novel.
* * *
“Blair won’t poop. It’s been three days.” The woman at the coffee shop table beside me stares at her friends, who all share matching sympathetic frowns.
“Jacob used to go only once a week,” one woman says.
“Phoebe is the opposite,” pipes another. “I changed her three times this morning.”
Ugh, kill me now.
I made a grave tactical error. It’s a nice day, so I chose a spot to write outside and ended up next to a mommy brigade. In addition to poop, I’m now well versed on their spawns’ sleep schedules, or more specifically, lack thereof, not to mention the minutiae of chapped nipples and incontinence. Yep, I’m officially happy to avoid breeding forever and ever amen.
Don’t get me wrong—I love kids. One of the varmints faces me from his oversized jogging stroller, digging for gold in his tiny nostril. I chuckle because no one ever accused me of being a good influence. My search engine’s open. I’ve scrolled through a few pages about depression signs and symptoms. It’s not that I’ve never been down—I’m no emotional robot—but real depression is a whole other monster. This is a way to try to better understand the condition so it’s easier to write about. At least that’s what I tell myself. But another whisper is louder.
You are procrastinating again. There’s no need to research the same facts for hours. You don’t need a PhD in psychology, you’re just looking for an easier option than writing.
Well, I can think of one easy, not to mention delicious, alternative to negative self-talk—a third soy cappuccino. Time to go full-blown caffeine spaz and wrecking ball my writer’s block. I stand up, shoving my chair into someone’s foot.
“Oh, no! Sorry…” My apology is cut off by Tanner Green’s direct gaze. Shit the bed. What’s he doing creeping behind me? And why does he look like he
expects something? Nowadays his line of friends stretches around the block. People love to be close to success, like it’s going to rub off or something. “So…we meet again,” I say. Ugh. Way to sound like the star of a bad movie, in a scene where the villain is confronted.
Or maybe I’m the villain.
“What are you working on?” He glances over my shoulder, frowning at the National Depression Foundation website displayed on my screen. What am I supposed to say? Just doing a little research for a fictitious suicide note when my character toys with the idea of jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge? She’s not going to. In the end she’s going to quit her destructive behavior, but even still, not exactly a conversational icebreaker.
While inwardly I’m cringing that he’s caught me trying to write, I keep my gaze steady, don’t allow a single extra blink. He can’t know the effect he has on me. “About yesterday—”
“Jacob!” One of the mommy brigade ladies gives an alarmed shriek.
I turn and my nose-picking buddy in the jogging stroller is rolling backward. The sidewalk’s on a slight angle, and he’s going faster than I’d like, toward the busy street. His mom tries to stand, but she’s got an infant strapped in a sling, so she moves awkwardly. A utility truck makes a turn, and I don’t think—it’s go time. Within a few paces, my hand closes on the stroller handle and I set the break.
I exhale a relieved sigh as an alarmed voice shrieks, “Hey! Look out! On your left—”
I’m not sure if the moment lasts one second or five, but my gaze locks with a pudgy middle-aged woman wearing a terrified expression, leading a Segway tour, one of those two-wheeled public nuisances that roll around Santa Cruz on the weekends. My ribs take the brunt of the collision, the pain so sharp it’s almost sweet. I’m off my feet, soaring long enough to wonder if this is how the jumpers feel, going airborne off the Golden Gate. The back of my head meets sudden resistance. There’s no time for shock because the world goes black.
* * *
“Sunny? Sunny? Come on, open your eyes, darlin’.”
Wait. Have I died and heaven is Mississippi? Because that accent is peanut-butter thick. I take a deep breath and unlock my lids. Hurts. The light is bright, but that’s not what makes me wince. It’s the face, nearly nose to nose with mine.
The nurse straightens and adjusts the IV on my arm. “How are you feeling? You look as if you’ve been rode hard and put up wet.”
It’s like someone’s driving a railway spike into the back of my head with a mallet.
“Can you remember what happened?” she continues.
“I was typing. Not much after…Something happened, followed by other somethings.” A siren. People moving me. Was Tanner there? Weird, I really feel like Tanner was there. My head pounds way too hard to go there. “Can you please call my grandma? I don’t want her to worry.”
“She’s been notified. She’s on her way.”
“Why are my ears ringing?”
“Eyewitness reports say you struck a parking meter. Went and gave yourself a grade-three concussion.”
Is that good or bad? Is three better than four or worse than two? Ugh, it hurts to think, and how much is all of this costing anyway? I don’t have the kind of money that can cover a hospital stay. “I need to go.” My body is jittery, restless. “My health insurance is so crappy that I’ll probably owe this place my firstborn. Anyway, I have to finish packing. Comic-Con is tomorrow. I already paid the registration. It’s—”
Her smile increases, though it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Sorry, sugar. I’ll tell the doctor you’re awake and talking. In the meantime, Janice will sit with you.”
A gray-haired woman in blue scrubs perches in a plastic chair across the room. She gives me a wave more cheerful than the situation dictates.
This doesn’t feel right. The aide is too upbeat, the nurse overly chipper. It’s not that I expect her to be Nurse Ratched, pursed mouth and dour attitude, but let’s face it, this is a job, and jobs don’t make people act like they’re about to tap-dance unless they are Dick Van Dyke playing that chimney sweep in Mary Poppins.
The memories after my accident are full of holes, like a puzzle that has only half the pieces, and I have to fill in the gaps with my imagination. I’m barely hanging on to consciousness. I don’t remember the ambulance ride or being in the ER per se, but I’m aware they happened.
Nausea rolls through me. “I’m going to be sick,” I gasp. A bedpan is fetched, and my breakfast dispatches in a violent bitter wave.
“Sit tight with Janice and the doctor will be in to see you shortly.” The nurse is going to strain a muscle with that smile.
I haven’t been a patient in the hospital before, but this doesn’t make sense. “No one needs to sit with me. I don’t want to make trouble.”
“Part of routine hospital protocol.”
“To have people sit and observe patients?”
“If you’re a 5150.”
“A what?”
Her smile fades as she moves toward the door. “That’s a code we use around here.”
“Code?” But she’s gone. “Code for what?” I ask Smiley Janice.
She nods like I speak a foreign language. I can raise my voice, but that will just make me an ugly tourist. Better to hold tight. Apparently the doctor will—
“Sunny Letman.” A doctor swoops in, tall, thin, angular. She’s smiling, too, but in a less intense manner, more “I’m here to help, but we aren’t trading BFF lockets.”
She asks me a few questions and then I ask mine.
“What’s a 5150?”
“A code we use at the hospital.”
“So I gathered.”
She cocks her head and studies me a moment, assessing me for what? No idea, but it’s definitely something.
“A 5150 is the code for suicide watch. Sunny, a letter was found on your computer at the coffee shop indicating a wish to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge. Are you having thoughts about self-harm?”
My head falls back against the thin hospital pillow.
Fuck. My. Life.
Chapter Five
Tanner
This is the third time I’ve driven past Sunny’s street in as many minutes. Instead of turning left to her place, I keep the wheel straight and end at West Cliff Drive, the winding road that hugs the coastline. The drizzle is more mist than rain. I get out, tug my hoodie over my head, and stride onto a narrow sandstone peninsula. Below, the earth gives way to the Pacific Ocean. A sea lion emerges from a kelp bed, looks around to get its bearings, and we make eye contact. He sizes me up, decides there’s not much to see, and ducks back under the waves.
After Sunny’s accident, I packed her stuff at the coffee shop, and yeah, fine, glanced at her writing before shutting down her MacBook. Maybe it was spying. I never know what the girl thinks, but finding that half-written letter is one thing I never expected.
A suicide note?
I’ve never known anyone more alive than Sunny Letman. If life’s a crazy journey, she’s in the driver’s seat, top down, wind in her hair, making you wonder what it would be like to go along for the ride.
I didn’t want to hand over her computer to the cops, but what the hell was I supposed to do? If she’d considered jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge and I said nothing, then I’d be a bigger piece of shit than I already am. Risking her wrath is better than inviting more death into my life.
A wave thumps into the rocks below with a boom, and spray shoots over my head. Who knows how far it traveled before arriving here only to break into a million drops?
I turn, trudge back to the car, and once inside, reach for the bag on the passenger seat. The cops took the laptop, but I have her purse. The rain arrives at last, beating a hard rhythm on the windshield. I unzip the bag and peer inside. The contents haven’t changed from the last time, or the time before that. I pull out the white feather and twirl it between my fingers, then hold the amber bead. There’s a scarf in here, too, a strange silky swirl of red, orange
, and blue, soft to the touch. The last two days I’ve held it more times than I care to admit.
Last night, when the feeling started, the bad one, like an invisible boulder crushes my chest, I reached for the scarf. Her scent clung to the fabric, a spicy sweetness—sandalwood and fresh-cut grass. I held it against my face and breathed deep until sleep came. Woke this morning hugging the damn thing.
That’s when I knew I needed to go to her. All she sees is the guy who hurt her best friend, did a shitty thing he can’t ever undo. My life is fractured, but maybe I need to see if my relationship with Sunny is something I can repair, not leave it too late like what happened with Pippa.
I have to get back up one more time.
Chapter Six
Sunny
I grimace into the mirror, my features slathered in a green-tea mask. The Swamp Monster from the Deep effect is pretty damn near perfect. Let my outside reflect my inside.
Today is sponsored by the letters, F, U, C, and K.
Trapped in the fucking hospital for three fucking days. Coded as a fucking 5150, on fucking suicide watch. Missed fucking Comic-Con and can’t get my fucking money back. Subjected to fucking psych evaluations. Mimsy drove me home and fixed me a cup of fucking tea before catching the tail end of the protests in Sacra-fucking-mento.
“The boy wanted to help,” she said before leaving.
Funny. Tanner Green’s help feels a lot like hurt.
Turns out he gathered my stuff after the accident and read my stupid mock suicide note. Mr. Boy Scout turned it over to the authorities. No one would listen to me or believe the misunderstanding.
I repeated myself like a broken record for seventy-two hours.
No. I’m not planning to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge.
No. I don’t want to die.
No. I am not depressed.
