Where All Things Will Grow

by N. K. Smith

  “Are you doing all of this just to get another shot with him? Is it tit for tat? He’s getting help, so you are?”

  It took me a moment to formulate what I wanted to say, but when I did, it all came tumbling out. “I don’t want to be a person who hits when I’m upset. I don’t want to fuck everyone just to feel some bizarre sense of control and happiness and I don’t want to do drugs. I mean, drugs and sex and, hell, even violence feel good. I love being high, but no one else likes me like that. I... Elliott liked me both ways, but being high upset him, so yeah, I’m kind of doing it for him, but even if I’m never with him again, I want...”

  When I trailed off and didn’t continue, she prompted, “What do you want?”

  “I want to be worthy of someone. Being alone sucks.” My skin itched and I wished I had lotion here. My lips were chapped, which really sucked in the summertime, so I smeared them with balm while I waited for Robin to speak. When she did, she shifted topics.

  “How have your meetings been going?”

  “Okay.” Robin expected honesty and I knew that the only way I could actually get better was by giving it to her. “They kind of make me want to use though.”

  “Why?”

  “All those people telling all those horrible stories, talking about all those drugs that used to make me feel fantastic.”

  “So what stops you from using? Elliott?”

  I nodded, but then shrugged. “Tom. You. I don’t know. Me.” I felt my body tense. “Helen’s boyfriend, too.”

  “How so?”

  “He got me high the first time. It feels like if I get high that I let him... I don’t know.” I was tired of thinking about everything all the time. While I sat there with Robin, I had a brief fantasy of running away to some place where no one knew me and I could start over, but then I thought about Elliott and living in a town where he’d never been.

  “Can I go see Elliott?”

  Robin pressed her lips together. Never a good sign. “It’s probably better that you don’t.”

  “Is he that fucked up?” I asked, imagining him sedated and restrained, imagining him nothing more than a lump of a boy.

  “No. He’s not that bad, but Dr. Emmanuel and I have discussed the treatment plans for the both of you and we feel that it’s not the right time for either of you to visit.”

  “But—”

  “You want him to get better, right?” I nodded. “You want to get better, too, right?” Again, I nodded. “Then trust me, okay? I’ve told you before that the two of you need to gain strength on your own before combining your lives again, if that’s the direction you both want to go in.”

  I hated that she said it, but I knew she was right and I knew I had to trust her.

  “What if I just wrote him a letter?”

  She shook her head. “You can write him, but I don’t think giving it to him right now is in his best interest.”

  “But he broke up with me.”

  “His treatment has nothing to do with you, Sophie, and if you love him like you tell me you do, you’ll want him to get the most out of his time away. We can deal with everything else when he comes home. He’ll be ready to conquer other issues.”

  Sophie was gone from my life. She was gone and there was nothing to say about it. In time, the others would leave. David, Becca, and Trent would be gone soon enough, and Jane was already slipping away from me. Gone were the days when we lay on the floor together, staring up at the ceiling in quiet comfortableness. It would only be a matter of time before Stephen and Robin gave up on me, too. I was beating everyone to the punch. I protected myself from the pain being left would cause by distancing myself.

  I grew numb as I sat in my room.

  I ended up not sleeping for days. I didn’t know how many; everything bled together.

  The days bled like my hands.

  Finally, after suppressing my need to communicate all of the swirling, dark emotions within me, I emerged from my room and went straight to the piano. There were people in the house, but I didn’t know if it was just my family or others. I didn’t care.

  I played every song I knew that conveyed the emotion I was feeling. I played for hours, maybe even an entire day, without ceasing. I didn’t look around me. I didn’t hear anyone if they came into the room.

  I was driven to release what was inside.

  But the piano didn’t seem to help. I didn’t feel better.

  I looked down at the keys and saw the little droplets of smeared blood from my raw hands and it didn’t help.

  I wanted to bleed more.

  Pain brought purity and I wasn’t in enough pain to ever be pure.

  I hated these hands that could do nothing right; these hands that were the instruments of the Devil and his demons.

  Without even thinking about it, I stood up and moved to the side of the grand piano. My right hand curled around the lip as I stared at the piano strings.

  If I ran my hands over them quick enough, they would cut me. My hands would bleed and it would stain the metal strings and the unfinished wood.

  If I unstrung them, I could pull them across my skin and slice my flesh. It would cut deep, maybe deep enough that I wouldn’t be able to use my hands ever again.

  My left hand was in my mouth as I contemplated the piano. My teeth tore at the skin between my thumb and index finger. The metallic-tasting blood coated my tongue and I knew that anyone who saw me would be disgusted, but I didn’t care. It was comforting.

  Then, without warning, my hand was out of my mouth. It pushed the stick forcefully and the lid came crashing down. The strings and hammers were hidden from me and I grit my teeth against the pain as my right hand was smashed.

  It wasn’t enough to break the bones, but it was enough to satisfy me for the moment.

  No one came running. I must’ve truly been alone. I went up to my room and sat on my couch for what seemed like days. People came in and out of my room, but I ceased to care. It wasn’t really my room anyway. It was the space given to me by Stephen. It was his. He could enter whenever he wanted. It’d just been an illusion that it was mine in the first place.

  At one point, I thought I wanted to listen to music, but even the thought made me feel physically ill. All of it was vain, but even if I put the teachings of my father aside, most of my music made me think of her.

  Red Hot Chili Peppers, Johnny Cash, Camille Saint-Saëns, Bonnie Raitt, and Band of Horses were all out.

  I couldn’t even think about Otis Redding, and Jeff Buckley was completely out of the question.

  I stood up, my body feeling stiff. I went to the bookshelf and took out the art book she’d looked at the first or second time she’d been in my room. I flipped to Flaming June and then to A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.

  I remembered the field trip I’d taken with Jane. It was before they pulled me out of regular school. It was on a Monday and the museum was quiet. There were people milling around, but Jane kept me calm.

  I remembered the awe I’d felt as I saw all of the works contained within the building. I’d never seen so many pictures in all my life. I felt sick to my stomach from all the people around me, but my mind was alight with the possibilities.

  People had created these things. Some of them depicted Biblical stories I recognized. I remembered standing in front of A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte and feeling very small. I imagined myself in the picture, standing next to the little girl in the center, bathed in light.

  In a world full of small dots, I would be fine brush strokes as well.

  The little girl could be my sister and the woman with the red umbrella would be my mother. She would let me play by the water and wouldn’t get angry when the cuffs of my pants became muddy.

  Maybe the little girl was Sophie before she’d go
tten so damaged. I could’ve saved her. I could’ve taken her hand and run away with her, and we would both be brush strokes in a sea of dots. The woman with the red umbrella would never find us.

  I ripped the picture from the book and did the same with Flaming June.

  Pictures were vain.

  I continued stripping my room of things that shouldn’t have been there, the flurry of motion causing my stiff and sore body to ache.

  Everything in my room reminded me of her. It was horrible. Instead of finding her invisible fingerprints on my things comforting, I found it heartbreaking and painful.

  After hours, I was left with a desk, a bed, my bedside table, my couch, and religious books. Everything else was ripped down and tossed out into the hallway.

  Everything but the little green rock.

  When my room was complete, I knelt down at the foot of my bed and prayed for forgiveness.

  “Elliott,” I heard, and after long minutes I flicked my eyes to the left. “If you don’t stop this, if you don’t start talking, they’re going to send you to the hospital.” Jane whispered the last word.

  I recognized what she was saying and what it meant, but I didn’t have the energy to panic or even care.

  They could send me there and dope me up and maybe my thoughts would slow and I could find some peace.

  Maybe the change in scenery would clear my mind of warring thoughts. Maybe I could purge my father’s words from my mind and think of my own again.

  “... can’t just shut down.”

  Stephen was in my room with Robin.

  I didn’t care. It was his room. He might have given it to me years ago, but it still wasn’t mine.

  “Elliott, I need you to...”

  I didn’t bother listening to whatever else Robin was going to say. I wouldn’t respond and I couldn’t help that my mind was occupied.

  “Elliott, please! Stop doing this. Start talking again! They’ll put you in an institution! They’re already talking about it,” Jane pleaded, holding my hands.

  I wished her nails would dig into my skin. I wished she’d have one of her “episodes” and cut me instead of herself.

  “Please don’t let them do that.”

  I remained silent, even though her voice was pained and painful. Being admitted into a mental facility seemed preferable to staying here in this room. Even with everything taken out, it still reminded me of Sophie and what once was.

  Maybe I needed intense therapy and drugs. Maybe I needed to be removed from this place of supposed comfort.

  Institutions were sterile.

  They were whitewashed and held no history.

  They were clean and peaceful.

  She had never been there.

  I sat there for a long time, composing and deleting the letters I wanted to write to her in my head.

  My entire existence played out behind my eyes and I relived every pain, every false hope, every defeat.

  My brain functioned well enough to recognize that Robin had told me Jane was back in the hospital. She had cut herself too deeply and I hadn’t answered the door when she knocked.

  I felt sick.

  Sophie was gone. Jane could’ve died.

  I couldn’t be here anymore.

  I didn’t want to be here anymore.

  There was too much.

  I needed to go.

  For five years they had told me that it would get better, that I would get better.

  It hadn’t. I hadn’t.

  I needed to leave.

  I needed to not exist in this space.

  I would never be able to say it all, so I wrote it down. I set it on my bed and waited for Dr. Emmanuel. He stopped by just about every day now.

  He never entered my room, but would just lean against the doorjamb.

  I never spoke to him.

  He would read it.

  We would shred it.

  And then we could deal with it.

  I didn’t look at him when he arrived. I nodded to the bed and waited quietly as he entered my room carefully and read it.

  Somehow he coaxed me from my spot on the couch and got me down the hall where Stephen and Robin were waiting. They both looked so tired. I briefly wondered if they always sat in here together, waiting on my status report from Dr. Emmanuel.

  He motioned for me to sit down in my usual chair, but I chose to stand. I stood next to the bookshelf, facing away from all of them as my finger ran over the spine of the ancient Bible Stephen had shown me a long time ago.

  “I think it’s time to discuss some options for Elliott.” Dr. Emmanuel’s voice was calm and I liked that. “Things aren’t working for him right now.”

  There was a pause and I felt sick as I heard the leather chairs squeak as people shifted in them.

  “He has expressed an interest in going to Baltimore to complete some inpatient therapy.”

  “What?” Stephen’s voice was loud and I wished he’d quiet down. “He told you this?”

  I turned just to see his expression. I didn’t look away when he looked directly at me. “You told him that?”

  I nodded.

  Dr. Emmanuel spoke again. “He didn’t say it. He still isn’t speaking, so he wrote it down.”

  “You want to go?” Stephen asked.

  I nodded again.

  “But there’re no precautions there. There are people...”

  I watched without emotion as Robin put her hand on his shoulder. “Perhaps that’s what he needs, Stephen.” She knelt down and took his hand.

  He kept looking at me. “You want to go?” he asked again. Stephen liked to fix things, like Dr. Emmanuel said long ago, but he seemed upset that I was choosing the hospital. Why did he feel like he had failed when he used medicine and hospitals to treat and heal other people?

  This time I knew I needed to speak, to use words to convince him. “I c-c-can’t k-k-k-k-keep ggggggoing liiiiike this. I d-d-d-d-don’t w-w-w-wwwwwant to be here.”

  Everyone was silent as they processed that I’d spoken. They hadn’t heard my voice in a while.

  Finally, Dr. Emmanuel asked in a soft tone, “By ‘here,’ do you mean Stephen’s or do you mean here, as in ‘alive’?”

  I looked down at my bare feet, the tears I hadn’t been able to produce for a while finally spilling. I had no words to convey how much I wished I was with my mother.

  “Oh, God,” Stephen said.

  I looked at him as he clutched Robin’s hand tightly and I pinched my eyes shut, unable to bear witness to the pain I was causing.

  The car ride felt long. No one tried to force conversation. Trees passed quickly by the windows.

  We visited Jane in the hospital before going to Baltimore. She and David had said goodbye to me, but I couldn’t return it.

  Even as I watched Jane turn her small frame into David’s large body as she sat on the hospital bed, tears streaming down her face, I could feel nothing beyond shame that I was the cause of those tears.

  My body felt like it was not my own. I felt relaxed and calm, even though I was inside a vehicle that sped me closer and closer to the unknown.

  My thoughts still raced, but something stopped the insanity of my brain from translating it to my body.

  I was calm walking into the facility. I was calm as Robin and Stephen checked me in. I didn’t panic as the staff looked at me or asked questions. I didn’t panic when someone said that I would be on a twenty-four-hour watch for now.

  I didn’t have any second thoughts until I was shown to my room and I saw a second bed that had a picture taped onto the wall next to the pillow.

  I turned around, trying to make my way back out, but Robin’s light hand on my arm stopped me. Stephen was right outside the door. He wasn’t blocking it, but ju
st his presence there stopped me as much as Robin’s touch.

  I wanted to be better for him. He wanted so much for me to be able to do regular things and to be normal. It hurt to think of all the ways he’d tried to help over the years. It pained me to remember how he tried to make my life comfortable; how he’d reacted when he learned that I wanted to come to the hospital.

  But his reaction was part of the reason why I needed to be here. As much as he wanted to fix me, he also wanted me to be comfortable. In his quest to give me all of the things I needed to feel safe and secure, he had created a cocoon that coddled and cradled me. I knew he could see it. I knew Robin had probably spoken to him several times about it, but the fact that he loved and cared for me kept him from being able to intellectualize the situation.

  I had to remember that I was choosing the hospital because I needed to get better, otherwise my life just needed to be over.

  They wouldn’t put me in a room with someone who would hurt me. I knew that Dr. Emmanuel would have arranged for my safety.

  Whoever my roommate was, he wouldn’t hurt me.

  I had to trust in that belief, otherwise I would be doomed from the start.

  I couldn’t keep going the way I was.

  I missed my mother. I missed my brother. I even missed the routine of my father’s rules.

  Those people, their rules, their faults and flaws, would never be in my life ever again.

  I missed Sophie and I had no way of knowing if we’d ever be together again.

  My life was my own and I was tired of spending it hiding.

  It was amazing how normal I felt in a house full of freaks.

  My sessions with Dr. Emmanuel continued just as they had at home, except they were more intense here. He asked me questions about things that were hard to articulate. There were times when I couldn’t write them down either.

  I met with him every other day. On the alternate days, I met with other kids who were like me. I didn’t speak, I just listened.

  I was horrified.