by Zac Brewer
“Medical.” I’d practiced the word in my head all morning. While brushing my teeth. While taking small bites of my ham-and-cheese omelet. While swallowing the pills that Dr. Canton had prescribed to me at Kingsdale.
The look in her eyes said she knew very well what the reason was for my absence. The question of how that could be entered my thoughts, but was replaced with relief when she took the paper back and sighed. “You’ll need to see your guidance counselor before I can let you return to class.”
Of course. Because bureaucracy was way more important than devoting time to one’s education. Fine. Whatever. They could say it was school policy for a student to meet with the school counselor before returning to class, that they wanted to make certain the student was prepared and informed about what had transpired in their absence. But I had my own suspicions as to why Mr. Clemons wanted to see me. Simply put, he was nosy and wanted as much dirt on what had happened as he could dig up. Something interesting to chat about over bad coffee in the teachers’ lounge.
Nodding, I said, “Okay. When can I do that?”
“Have a seat. I’ll let him know you’re here.” She flicked a glare at Duckie. “Ronald, you should get to class.”
“I just wanted to wait for Brooke.”
“Class. Now. Or I’ll write you up.”
Duckie turned toward the door, but not before engaging me in silent conversation with our eyes. He said, What a bitch.
I said, Mega bitch. Wait for me outside?
He said, You know I will. I-L-Y.
I said, I-L-Y too.
While I waited, I pulled some paper out of my backpack and folded several origami cranes. They didn’t make me feel any better or impose upon me this amazing will to live or anything. But they gave me something to do while I thought about my plan. It was just a matter of deciding on a method and an instrument, picking a time when I was certain I’d be alone, and doing it. I placed the paper cranes inside my bag. They looked up at me in approval.
Random teachers and students wandered in and out of the office for several minutes. The first bell rang through the halls, and the shuffle of feet followed. Was anyone ever on time to the first class of the day? I doubted it.
Across from me sat Sarah Emberson, a pretty girl with freckles, big blue eyes, and rainbow-dyed hair. She was doing her best not to meet my eyes. I had a feeling she was still embarrassed about asking me out during the first week of school. I was totally flattered and thanked her before informing her that I just wasn’t into girls. I thought I’d handled it okay, but she’d run into the girls’ room crying and wouldn’t talk to me after that.
When she finally dared a glance at me, I said, “Hey, Sarah.”
She ripped her gaze away, and I had a feeling that would be the extent of our interaction while we sat in the office waiting area. After a while, my phone buzzed inside my sweater pocket, breaking the tension a bit. It was Duckie. I knew it was him before I even looked at the screen. Because it always was. He texted me more than anyone, and at any time, day or night. It was just his way. I pulled it out and read the text. Just got yelled at by Miller, so I can’t wait for you. See you in class, k?
Miller was our school resource officer. Not that our school really had any need for a security guard. But with so many school shootings in the news, the PTA had insisted and the school board had agreed, and now we were stuck with an overly enthusiastic mall cop in charge of our safety. He carried a Taser on his hip and looked like he used steroids and spent way too much time at the gym. We were still trying to figure out why he chose to work at a high school, considering how much he seemed to loathe teenagers. Duckie’s theory was that he was probably some psycho who tortured puppies in his spare time. Mine centered more around the idea that maybe he had been made to feel powerless by someone when he was in high school, so this was his way of getting back at them and righting the wrongs of his past. But either way you swung it, Miller was a dick.
“Brooke Danvers?” Mr. Clemons came out of his office. The top of his head was bald, but the rest of his head was clinging to the wisps of graying hair around the sides. He was shorter than me, and I’d only spoken to him three times throughout my entire high school existence—at the end of each year, when I was finalizing my class schedule for the following school year. I was hoping our little powwow wouldn’t take long. I wanted to just begin the school day already so that it could end and I could go home.
I stepped inside his office, and he closed the door behind us before taking a seat at his desk and shuffling some papers around. As I sat in one of the round chairs in front of him, I realized that his office smelled a bit like cinnamon rolls. My stomach rumbled. Maybe I should have eaten more at breakfast. I was mostly just feeling nauseous at the idea of coming back to school. But I’d taken my meds. Mom might let me get out the door without downing a huge breakfast, but she was damn sure going to make me swallow those pills.
Mr. Clemons leaned over his desk on his forearms, folding his fingers together neatly. He tilted his head and opened his eyes just a bit wider. This was what I called the how-are-you pose. It was inevitably followed by “How are you, Brooke? I mean, since your little accident.”
I bristled. A. It hadn’t been an accident. B. Clearly my mother had told the school about my suicide attempt, which was just awesome. And 3. I was fairly sure that Mr. Clemons didn’t really give a crap about how I was. I didn’t take well to gossips like him, and I sure as hell wasn’t about to update my high school counselor on the reality of my mental health situation. So I opened my mouth and lied. I was getting good at it. Not that he was deserving of anything intricate. Just a simple lie. Just enough to let him know that I was done with this line of conversation and that it was none of his business. “I’m fine.”
He nodded slowly, disappointment filling his expression. I guess he’d have to chitchat about local news and sports in the lounge this afternoon. “I see. Well, I’m glad to hear it. Are you on any medications that I should be aware of?”
“As I don’t take any medication during school hours . . . No. None that you should be aware of.”
The corner of his mouth twitched and he nodded slowly, formulating the words in his mind before unleashing the Dr. Phil–ness into the world. “Your parents have sent along a letter stating that you should be kept from sharp objects and the like. I thought you should be made aware that we here at Eleos High have nothing but your best interests and safety in mind, so we’ll make certain that such . . . such . . . uhh . . . temptations . . . remain out of reach as best as we are able to.”
Great. Just what I needed. Twenty-four-hour surveillance.
The paper cranes shifted around uncomfortably. Pills were out. Sharp objects were out. We were being watched and needed a new plan. Fast.
Mr. Clemons lowered his voice, despite the fact that the door was closed and no one else could hear. “I just wanted to let you know that I’m available to talk. About anything that might be troubling you. I wanted to reach out and tell you that I care, and I’m here for you if you need me.”
Angry breath caught in my throat, burning its way down into my chest. He had a lot of nerve saying so, when we both knew he was full of it. “Really?”
He nodded again, leaning forward and looking at me with doe eyes. This was his chance. Get all the dirty details and be the popular guy at the gossip table. My guess was that Mr. Clemons had certainly not been the popular guy in his high school days. The eagerness emanating from him was making me even more nauseous. “Absolutely.”
I clenched my jaw and glanced at the poster that was hanging on the wall behind his desk. It featured an enormous image of a rainbow and the phrase “Minds are like parachutes—they work best when open.” When I looked back at Mr. Clemons, my left eye twitched. I said, “If you cared so much about me, then where were you when things were falling apart? Why didn’t you notice? Why didn’t you help me?”
Not that I’d wanted his help, but if he was going to sit here now and pretend to
give a single fuck about me, I was going to lay it on thick and call him out on his bullshit. Not today, Dr. Phil. Not today.
His doe eyes suddenly widened as my accusing headlights reached him. “I . . .”
His words trailed off, and I stood and slung my backpack over my shoulder. “You don’t care. You don’t even know me, apart from what classes I’m taking. You’re just nosy. So if you don’t mind, I’m going to class now.”
Mr. Clemons took his time pulling the small pad of yellow paper closer to him. As he scribbled his signature on the hall pass for me, he said, “You’re wrong, Brooke. I do care. Everyone who knows you cares.”
“That explains all the cards and flowers I received at the hospital.” I snatched the paper from his outstretched hand. “FYI, I got one card and one bouquet of flowers. The flowers were from my parents. And the card was from Duckie. So the rest of you can kiss my—”
“Brooke.”
It was stupid, this discussion. Stupid and utterly pointless. What I’d done wasn’t about getting attention or making people notice me. It wasn’t a plea for help or an exclamation of my inner pain. It was about erasing myself from existence. It was about ending my pain altogether. I was sick of myself, sick of my life, sick of everything and everyone around me. I was tired. Tired of trying to fit in. Tired of living. Only I couldn’t even get suicide right. And nobody cared that I was still alive. Oh, they would have wept at my funeral, I’m sure. People like Claire, the head cheerleader, would have hugged people like David, president of the anime club, and cried together over my open casket. For a few hours, there would be no divisions between the kids with money and the kids without. For a few hours, popularity wouldn’t matter and people would say things like “She was so young” and “I just don’t understand.” For a few hours, the world would seem to change in the light of such a tragedy. But it would be back to business the following school day. Because death changes nothing—it just makes people scared of their own eventuality.
I knew, because I’d been to two funerals for kids I went to school with. And each experience was an exact replica of the other. Those kids lived and died, and all they had to show for it was a page in the yearbook. But at least they didn’t have to put up with the bullshit anymore.
As I walked out of the office with that yellow slip of paper in my hand, the cranes flipped Mr. Clemons off, and when we passed the front desk, they flipped Mrs. Kellog off too for good measure.
I moved down the empty hall, past the green-gray lockers to room 131. As I reached out to open the door, I felt my breath lock inside my lungs. There was no turning back now.
Suddenly I was standing on the edge of the stone bridge in the middle of the night. The water below rushed under the bridge, beckoning to me. I leaned forward past my tipping point, and right before my feet left the ground, I thought, There’s no turning back now.
I opened the door. Ms. Naples stopped midsentence as she looked up at me. All eyes were on me as I moved forward and gave her the hall pass in my hand. Someone in the back of the class cleared their throat, but that was the only sound besides the increased beating of my heart. Ms. Naples flashed me that concerned look that I’d been expecting to find on her face. I was sure I’d see it at least once a class today. Seven classes. Seven teachers. Seven concerned expressions. It was enough to make me long for that quick escape that Duckie had mentioned earlier. She took my hall pass and whispered, “Welcome back, Brooke.”
As usual, Duckie was sitting in the back of the room. There was an empty desk right beside his, and I was grateful he’d saved me a seat. At least he wouldn’t push me to talk about the river or why I’d done it or ask me ridiculous questions about how I was feeling. Not yet, anyway. I moved to the back of the class and Ms. Naples picked up where she’d left off, rambling on about the importance of economics or some such crap. As I took my seat, I dropped my backpack on the floor beside me.
Quentin was sitting to my left. I gave him a little wave, but he squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. I wondered how long it took for gossip to flow from the head office, all the way through the halls, permeating an entire school. Did Quentin know about my attempt? Did everyone?
Duckie leaned over and whispered, “I sure hope you plan on taking notes, because I am so over this crap, it’s ridiculous.”
Ever his hero in economics, I pulled out a notebook and scribbled down what sounded like test-worthy information. It was cool, though. I’d always saved him in any class that was even close to being math related, and he rescued me in all the sciences. We both had a strong grasp of all things word related, so we never really worried about that.
About midway through class, Ms. Naples started helping a few students with questions they had. Duckie had fallen asleep at his desk, a thin line of drool connecting his face to the books he was lying on. I made paper cranes and stared at the clock, willing it to move faster. When the bell rang at the end of class, I nudged Duckie awake and stuffed the new cranes in with the ones I’d made in the office. I imagined them nodding to one another in greeting, maybe shaking the tips of their wings together like tiny hands. They didn’t have names. They didn’t need names. The cranes were me, and I was them.
Once in the hall, Duckie and I pushed our way through the crowd like salmon swimming upstream, all the way to our lockers, which were somehow, blissfully, right next to each other this year. On the door of my locker, someone had written “RIP” in big, black letters with a Sharpie.
At first I didn’t really get why it was there—maybe someone had heard about my attempt and thought that I’d succeeded. Maybe I had died after all and high school was my eternal hell—if there was such a thing.
After a few moments of contemplation, I realized what the vandal had meant. They hadn’t meant “Rest in Peace.” They’d meant “We know, Brooke. We know you tried to kill yourself, and rather than give you reasons not to, we’re punishing you for having failed. Maybe we thought you were normal before, but now we all know what a freak you are, and we will never, ever let you forget it.”
It should have hurt, I suppose. But really, I was numb to it. It didn’t matter. I was just a ghost to them now. Despite breathing, walking, and talking—despite my heart beating in my chest—I was already dead.
Duckie’s face flushed red with anger. He muttered, “Don’t worry about it. I’ll tell the janitor and he’ll have it scrubbed away or painted over before the day is out.”
For some reason, he was good friends with all the janitors at Eleos High. Just as he’d been friends with the janitors in our middle school, and in elementary. I’d asked him once why he went out of his way to get to know them and he’d told me that they were some of the nicest people he’d ever met. He hated the way some of the kids looked down on them just because their job involved a mop and broom. Duckie was the kindest person I knew.
I stared at the thick, black letters on my locker, which had been very carefully written. Whoever wrote them took their time doing so. They wanted to drive that message home, for sure. Across the hall, Sarah Emberson and her girlfriend, Kristah Neil, were standing there exchanging whispers and gesturing to my locker. They weren’t alone. Several students had noticed the graffiti, and so had one of the office ladies who only filled in whenever somebody was sick. Maybe whoever did it was also watching now, waiting for tears to well up in my eyes and for me to run down the hall in pain. But I was beyond that sort of pain now. “It doesn’t matter, Duckie. They’ll just do it again anyway.”
Duckie leaned against the lockers and brushed a pink strand from my eyes. “It does matter. Because you’re a person, not a headline . . . or a punch line.”
I met his eyes, and for a moment, I wanted to apologize for what I’d put him through, what I was about to put him through. But then I looked away. For some things there were no words. Besides, no one could know that suicidal plans were still brewing inside of me. Because if someone had even a hint of an idea that I was going to try again, my plan would fail. And I wanted to get i
t right this time.
I just had to figure out how.
Turning the dial on my locker, I was somewhat surprised that I remembered how to open it after a month and a half away. It felt like I hadn’t been to school in a million years, in another lifetime, on another plane of existence. But there it was, my combination, as if it had been engraved on my brainstem: 24-6-12.
I opened the door and exchanged my economics book for government and a copy of Twelfth Night. I wouldn’t see Duckie again until lunch after third period, and I was dreading facing two classes without him. Duckie must have been feeling the same way, because as he opened his locker to get his books, he sighed. “Maybe we should just volunteer with Ms. Quinn the rest of the day. I’m sure she’ll give us a pass, and she is in the middle of reorganizing the entire library.”
From inside my backpack, the paper cranes gave me a collective, reassuring nod. I shook my head at Duckie and said, “I’ll keep it in mind, but let’s not seek asylum there just yet. Maybe later.”
He hooked his right pinkie with mine and shook it, just like we used to do in middle school whenever we made promises to each other. “See you at lunch. Don’t take any crap.”
I moved down the hall to Mr. Rober’s government class. The chairs were all in a semicircle, because Mr. Rober said it was an equalizer. Ironic that a man who frequently talked down to women would think his students needed equalization. But whatever. I took the seat nearest the door, just in case I needed a quick escape. For a moment, I lost myself in a fantasy in which I bolted from the room, impossibly backflipped all the way down the hall, and ran out the door to the Beast, where Duckie was waiting. We peeled out in a haze of exhaust and burnt tires and left the school behind forever. In my head, Alice Cooper’s “School’s Out” played as we made our dramatic exit.
Students filed in, including Penny Curtis and Steve Hillard. I looked at them as they entered, but rather than sit near me, they moved quickly across the room and took their seats there. My heart sank a little. Apparently word had traveled fast.
