by Luanne Rice
For Diana Atwood Johnson, with love
CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE
DEDICATION
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
AUTHOR’S NOTE
HERE ARE SOME PLACES TO FIND HELP
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
SNEAK PEEK
ALSO BY LUANNE RICE
COPYRIGHT
The day everything changed, I shouldn’t have been at school. I had to institute The Plan, and I couldn’t do it here.
I sat in the third row of English. One Hundred Great American Short Stories lay open on my desk, and I was just waiting for the period to be over. It was second to last in the day. Maybe I could go to the nurse and get excused. Or I could just walk out the front door, down the school’s wide steps, and head toward my destiny.
In the meantime, Mr. Anderson’s voice droned on about “Chicxulub” by T. Coraghessan Boyle. It was May, we had an end-of-semester test coming up, and I’d liked the story. It was about sublime disaster in a family. I knew I should take notes for the exam, but I was distracted by several things.
My mind was stuck, like tires in snow, spinning and spinning. It scared me because this was how I always felt before IT—capital I, capital T—started. The classroom windows were open, and I tried to focus on the present, on the sound of spring leaves swishing in the wind, the way I’d learned at the hospital, but it wasn’t working.
Another distraction: the back of Billy’s head. His brown hair was cut short and badly, as if someone had used nail scissors on it. He had freckles on the backs of his ears. All winter long he had worn the same sweater, navy blue with a hole in the cuff of his right sleeve. He lived in a group home, where I imagined everyone relying on hand-me-downs. But now, in spring, he seemed to have a few different shirts. Today’s was dark green, short sleeved with a frayed collar, and I could see his arms. Pale, because Connecticut in May was just slightly removed from winter and we hadn’t had much strong sun yet, and freckled, of course.
As if he could feel my intense gaze, he turned around. Our eyes met with a jolt and I looked down. But that didn’t last long. I looked back up and blinked at him, focused on his serious expression, his wide mouth, the way his hair fell across his eyes, and then the bell rang.
Clarissa and Gen, my best friends, stopped at my desk. I loved them but was slightly jarred, because I’d felt Billy getting ready to say something. I leaned toward him, choked up with the fact that this would be my last time speaking to him, ever, ever. But with Clarissa and Gen standing there, he stood up and backed away.
“We’re going downtown after school,” Clarissa said.
She had short wavy brown hair, big round brown eyes, and she was a little heavy, one of those rare girls who didn’t seem to care, who ate what she wanted and called herself “just right with a little left over.”
“A little late lunch action at the Burritt?” she asked.
“You skipped lunch?” I asked, and I had, too. School food was basically swill.
“Of course,” Gen said. Gen was Korean American, slim with straight black hair. She had taken ballet lessons since she was four and had danced in The Nutcracker at the Garde theater in New London. Right now, she stood on her toes and twirled around. Her mind was always on dance.
“I’m craving the Fresco,” Clarissa said, licking her lips.
It was our favorite sandwich: tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and basil on panini bread. We didn’t do it often, but we loved going to the oldest hotel in town, sitting beneath the chandelier in the big dining room, eating Frescos, and having tea afterward. Then we’d go to the library for homework or Walnut Hill Park to hang out with our other friends.
“I can’t today,” I said, thinking of The Plan.
“My father told me it won’t be the Burritt much longer,” Clarissa said. “They’re turning it into condos.”
“I still can’t,” I said, but the news drove tears into my throat. Something else that mattered to me, that was part of my life, about to be gone.
“Okay,” Gen said, raising her eyebrows. They worried about me. I smiled to let them know I was fine. I’d gotten good at reassuring people so they wouldn’t stress that I’d do something rash, and so they wouldn’t bother me—even my best friends. I pretended to look for a book so they’d leave the room without me. I knew, but they didn’t, that this was good-bye. I couldn’t look them in the eyes much longer.
Clarissa leaned down, giving me a quick hug, squishing me into her body. “We love you anyway, even if you’re ditching us. Jusqu’à la prochaine classe!”
Until the next class. Which was French, my favorite subject, and the one I did best in. I sometimes wondered why I thrived in foreign languages—French and the language of depression. I excelled in both.
“See you,” I said.
I stood up, grabbed my books to run out. But the weird dizziness—a combination of my dark mood and excitement/fear about The Plan—made me drop the books on the floor.
I bent down to pick them up, and so did Billy. I hadn’t realized he was still there. I practically jumped. Our heads bumped slightly as we grabbed the books, and I felt a lightning-bolt spark down my spine.
“Sorry,” he said.
“It’s okay,” I said, watching him gather my books. The sight of him helping me, crouched at my feet, made my heart beat so fast, and for just a few seconds the tide of approaching depression stopped.
Billy picked my books up one at a time—English, math, biology, French—placing each in my hands, his fingers brushing mine each time. It was accidental, I was sure, but every touch felt more intense.
We were the last two kids in the room.
“Um, why did you …” I wanted to finish the sentence with come back? But I just couldn’t; I suddenly had a major attack of shyness.
“What was that?” he asked.
“That?” I asked.
“Yeah. At the end of class. When I turned around. It looked like you wanted to say something.” He looked as cool as ever, completely detached.
“Ha,” I said, panicking. He was so totally correct it was scary. “I was just exerting my magical powers. I can’t help it. My eyes bore into people’s hair and, well, I bend them to my will. You just happened to be there. Right place, right time. Ha-ha.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“Yep.” I felt like an idiot.
“So, you’re okay?”
Why would he ask that? How did he know I wasn’t?
“Oh,” I said, trying to sound normal. “I’m fine.”
“Gorman, Collins, get moving, you’re going to be late for last period,” Mr. Anderson said, barking our last names as kids for his next class filed in.
I straightened up, arms full of books. But I was totally rattled because, whether Billy knew it or not, we’d had a psychic interlude. Such was the power of my crush. It wasn’t magic at all—just the magnitude of my emotions for him that had made him turn around.
Would he even notice when I was gone?
We walked out of the classroom, and there was an awkward moment in the hall when we had to decide whether we were going to walk to French class together or separately. Things like that mattered. Ever
yone would notice. He wouldn’t want that.
The group home where Billy lived crested a distant hill visible from my bedroom window. At night, when I was alone, I had a consoling ritual that involved kneeling and binoculars. That seemed like a magical bond. The problem was at school, seeing him in real life and sensing his indifference to me, my crush seemed absurd and futile.
This year he’d been new to school, and rumors swirled about his life before, what had happened to him. He was distant, seemingly unknowable, and everyone wanted to solve the mystery of Billy. Why would he like me anyway? There were lots of girls who were normal, who hadn’t been to a mental hospital. And they all wanted him to take them to the prom. Sit with them at lunch. Text them all night long.
Two of them passed now: Elise Bouchard, with her cheerleader’s bounce, always wearing short skirts and a smile that made her turquoise eyes crinkle. Life for Elise was a perpetual football field filled with applause—for her. She was walking with her best friend, Leslie Brooks, who had transferred from a boarding school in Massachusetts, spoke in an almost-English accent, and wore preppy everything—French sailors’ striped shirts, pink alligator dresses, cashmere sweaters around her neck—in a way that hugged her perfect body and made everyone, or at least me, feel like a low-class blob in comparison.
I saw Billy glance at Elise and Leslie. They walked straight over to him, and he fell into step beside them. I heard the girls’ flirty voices and Billy’s low chuckle as they walked him into French class.
Instead of following them and going inside, I passed the classroom door and ran out of school, heading toward home.
My house was about five miles from school. I had daggers in my stomach. I could have waited till the end of next period for the bus—but I was too charged up.
I had a mission. The Plan was clear in my mind. But the pull of depression: It wanted to thwart me. It felt like an opposing force, something that should be taught in physics. It was the opposite of rising, an internal gravity pulling me down. I tasted it in my throat, felt it all through my body. My bones wanted to dissolve and turn me into a puddle. I forced myself to walk fast, to counteract the force.
But every step made me feel I was stepping into a hole or sliding off the earth. The thing about depression: It collides with even the best plans.
I could have called my father, and he’d have picked me up in a heartbeat, but I wouldn’t do that: It could mean another trip to Turner.
My grand plan involved not leaning on him, not anymore. I could have called Astrid, my stepmother, but only in another universe and if I was a completely other person or if she was.
The air smelled like spring. There were tulips in the gardens, wilted blossoms falling from the magnolia and apple trees, twinkly new-green leaves on the spreading maples and massive oaks. It had rained the day before, and a warm fragrance rose from the still-soaked ground.
My street didn’t have sidewalks. We lived in the smallest house in the fancy part of our old factory town, where all the rich industrialists had built mansions around the turn of the last century. That meant no paved walkways, because they preferred their gracious sloping lawns, unsullied by a concrete path, to childhood safety. I was sixteen now, and had been walking home on this street since first grade. I’d learned to tread just enough on the moneyed people’s yards to avoid being mowed down by passing traffic. But right now I felt the ground giving way beneath my feet.
I had to hurry. My mission would cure everything—I was sure of it. Once I really got started, over the worst hurdle (i.e., Astrid), I would feel better. My actions would stab depression right in its withered, nasty heart.
I got to my house, a small Cape Cod in a sea of rambling estates, and sure enough, Astrid’s car, a white Mercedes, was in the driveway. I straightened my spine. This was do-or-die.
I let myself in through the side door to the weathered barn my parents had turned into a garage. My mother’s old green Volvo was just sitting there; I should say my Volvo. Mom had left it for me to drive once I got my license, which I had, no problem, but as my father put it in his serious, worried-about-Maia voice, my driving would have to wait until I could prove I was completely stable.
Step One of my plan was to sit in my mother’s car—it comforted me to call it her car, it reminded me of all the rides we’d taken together—until after school got out, when I could saunter into the house as if everything was fine, as if I were completely stable.
I reached into my backpack for the key they didn’t know I had and unlocked the car door. They assumed they’d taken the only copy from me, but long ago I’d found the one my mother had kept in the little magnetic box in the left rear wheel well. I climbed into the driver’s seat.
“Mom,” I said out loud. “I’m here. The letters aren’t enough … I need you, Mom.”
But my words were like an incantation gone horribly wrong. The door to the breezeway between the garage and the house flew open, and there stood Astrid.
“Maia,” she said, aghast to see me sitting in the car in the closed-up garage. “Who are you talking to? Get out of that car—now.”
“Not yet. I just … need to stay here for a while,” I said, mortified that she had heard me talking.
“The school called to say you missed your last class.”
“My stomach hurts a little,” I said, hoping to mollify her and nip her annoying faux concern in the bud.
“You mean you’re depressed,” she said—a statement, not a question. “Do I need to phone Dr. Bouley?” My psychiatrist.
“It’s nothing, please drop it,” I said.
“Why didn’t you call me? I’d have come to get you! Why didn’t you tell the office instead of just leaving? You know we worry so terribly, Maia. I see you in this car, the garage sealed up like a tomb, talking to your mother …”
“It’s not like I think she’s here,” I said. “I was just mulling out loud!”
Astrid raised her perfectly shaped eyebrows. She didn’t believe me for a second, and it made me furious that she’d intruded on anything to do with my mother, that I had to justify myself to her.
“Get out of that car. Your father would feel the same way—don’t you remember last spring?”
Attempted suicide, that’s what she meant. No matter how often I’d told them I’d never kill myself, I’d just been starting up the car—it was mine, after all, they hadn’t taken it from me yet—to listen to the radio for a few minutes, the exhaust had given them the wrong idea. It was a month before their wedding.
They put me on perpetual, never-ending suicide watch. Don’t ever start a car in a sealed garage and then, if you wind up being held in a locked psychiatric facility for a major depressive episode, happen to mention you just wished things would end, just wanted the lights to go out. Especially if your father’s about to get married to someone you don’t exactly like. Okay, can’t stand.
“It’s cramps,” I said, getting out of the car and walking into the breezeway. “Or something I ate. I just need to lie down, okay?”
She reached out, as if to touch my forehead and feel if I had a fever, but I jumped back. My mother used to do that.
Astrid pursed her lips, hands on her hips. She had short highlighted hair and wore camel-colored wool pants and a white sweater. I knew it was cashmere because Astrid always wore cashmere. She had a thick gold necklace around her neck, with a single square emerald in a heavy setting hanging from it. My dad had given it to her on their wedding day.
“I’m calling your father,” she said.
“Don’t bother him,” I said. “I’ll be fine. I’m just tired.”
She let me go, up the stairs to my room, and although I walked slowly, appearing to be calm, I clutched the car key in my hand.
Astrid was an accountant and worked from home. Our home, my dad’s, my mom’s, and mine. I passed “her” office—actually my mother’s whale room, as I had always called it because it had been lined with bookshelves filled with material about marine mammals,
the Arctic, whale communication, textbooks from her days as a grad student in Woods Hole, where she’d studied to become a marine biologist, and from Mystic Seaport, where she’d been the whale-song expert in residence. Her walls had been covered with photographs of humpback, minke, gray, fin, blue, and beluga whales taken on research cruises, and a few framed photos of my dad and me.
Everything of my mother’s, except those family photos, had been torn down, thrown out, or stuck in the garage next to the old Volvo wagon—other than the few posters and books I’d rescued—and replaced by Astrid’s modern desk, computer, calculator, tax codes, all the things accountants needed. She’d left up my mother’s old photos of my dad and me, a fact that dug into my soul. Those pictures had been my mom’s—they had been taken during our family times together—and Astrid had no business keeping them.
When I got into my room, I rushed around, packing, ready to bolt. But when I glanced out the window and saw the big brick mansion on a distant hill, I stopped dead.
Billy.
Could I really leave? My father and Astrid—yes, because I was going somewhere better. But Billy. Some would say it was only a crush, but it felt like love.
That hulking estate had once belonged to one of the richest factory owners. When he’d died, he’d left it to the state of Connecticut to be a home for foster children. It was named after him, the benevolent industrialist, the Lytton Stansfield Home. I thought of it as “Billy’s Home.”
Outside my door, I overheard Astrid on the phone. Obviously she had called my father. Words and phrases like “somatic,” “depressed,” “talking to Gillian,” “the garage,” “that damned car,” and—naturally—“suicidal” burned my ears.
“Of course it’s psychosomatic, Andrew,” she said. “It’s just like the last time. She had the stomachache, and she started up that car, and that night she was in the hospital. Let me call Dr. Bouley right now and get her admitted. Walking out of school with just one period left to go, Andrew. That’s another sign.”
She talked on and on, her voice clipped and efficient, as if she knew better than my father what was best for me.
Hesitating could be my downfall, but I knew I couldn’t leave town, not yet. School was out by now; the buses would be dropping everyone off. I lay the car key on my bureau and reached into the top drawer for my binoculars.
