The Bridge

by Bill Konigsberg

  She walks over to Aaron, who is standing there with his hands in his jacket pockets. She shakes her head.

  “Do you think it’s too cold to be without a jacket?”

  Aaron shrugs. “Not really. I’m pretty warm, actually.”

  “Good,” she says, and she pulls it off him, left side first, then right. Then she finds a nearby trash bin and throws it in there.

  “Hey,” he says.

  “Bozo the feminist needed her jacket back.”

  “I liked that jacket.”

  “Face it. I’m doing you a favor,” Tillie says. “And no way am I introducing you to another gay boy while you wear that monstrosity.”

  “Hey!” says Amir. “That’s not—”

  And Aaron says, “Oh.”

  “Yeah. Gay,” Tillie deadpans. “All the good ones are gay, as my mother says.”

  “Wait. I’m a good one?” Aaron asks.

  She ignores him. “Aaron, Amir. Amir, Aaron. You have boys in common, apparently. If I sound angry and bitter, it’s because I am.”

  She walks toward the reservoir, leaving them alone together.

  “Hi, I guess?” says Amir.

  “Um, hi,” Aaron replies. Then he looks over his shoulder. “I think I have to go follow her.”

  “Yeah. Please tell her I’m sorry again, and that I’m willing to talk and to apologize many more times. Also tell her to please, please not say anything about this to anyone, okay? I’m not ready.”

  Aaron says, “Sure.” Then he walks over to Tillie, who is crying on a bench facing the reservoir. Joggers zip by, oblivious to the drama that is Tillie’s life; she wants to be that oblivious to it as well.

  “So,” Aaron says. “That happened.”

  “Jesus,” Tillie says.

  “Sorry. You okay?”

  “Does this look like I’m okay?”

  “Sorry.”

  “I’m not mad at you. I’m just. How do you ghost someone you care about? Even when you have a secret?”

  “He told me to tell you he’s sorry and that he’ll apologize a million more times if you want him to.”

  “Whatever. Can we not talk about him? I think I need to forget. Like get drunk or something.”

  Aaron laughs. “That sounds like a brilliant idea. Everyone says that depressed people should add alcohol.”

  She smiles despite herself. “Shut up.”

  He bends down and kisses her shoulder. “So I’m a good one, eh?”

  “If you ever mention that again, no, you’re not.”

  “Point taken,” says Aaron.

  Tillie stares out at the reservoir and thinks about the power of water. How it is life and death at once. We subsist on it and would die without the drinking water in front of us, and yet an overabundance of it, like the rushing Hudson River less than a week ago, can kill a person.

  People are like that, too. And love. Life-saving and life-taking, and it’s almost too much to navigate, that there’s this thing out there we need so much, that also hurts and destroys as it does.

  She wants Aaron to ask her what she’s thinking about. And also she’s so glad he doesn’t, because she might scream.

  And if there’s a single person in the world who would get that, he’s sitting right next to her.

  CHAPTER 7D: APRIL 23

  CHAPTER 8D: APRIL 24

  CHAPTER 9D: APRIL 25

  Tillie’s first day back at school is anticlimactic, to say the least.

  Savanya gives her a hug and asks where she’s been, but otherwise, it’s like nothing has happened. Which is good—no one trolls you for perceived weaknesses they don’t know about—and not so good—if a Tillie falls in the forest and no one hears, did Tillie exist in the first place?

  She wonders what would have happened had she jumped. Had she died. Would anyone have cared?

  None of these thoughts are helpful to Tillie in homeroom, so she tries to put them out of her mind. Under her desk, she texts her lifeline.

  Tillie smiles despite herself. Being someone’s favorite counts for something, she guesses.

  The bell rings, and she heads off to class.

  “Moo-ve,” Samantha Quinn says as Tillie attempts to maneuver the crowded hallway.

  Tillie’s palm hits Samantha in the forehead in a way that shocks everyone who sees it. Tillie looks down at her hand, which is in a claw position, the palm red from contact, like it belongs to someone else. Samantha looks like Tillie hitting her in the face with her palm was the last thing she’d expected, which it surely was. The girls who witness the assault share looks with one another that vary from appalled to impressed, and when Ms. Steinke grabs Tillie’s hand and brings her to the principal’s office, Tillie wonders if this will be the shortest return to school in human history.

  The clouds have begun to lift. Aaron tells his dad he’s okay to walk to his appointment alone. His dad, who has taken a week off from his residency to hang at home with Aaron, smiles when he hears this.

  “I see it, you know.”

  The grin that crosses Aaron’s face feels true and deeply good to Aaron, and he just about floats as he walks up West End Avenue, listening to Robyn, who he hasn’t listened to in a while. He needs a little up-tempo this morning.

  At the office, Laudner notes the difference in Aaron’s demeanor, too, and says he wonders if the meds have already begun to kick in.

  “You mean there’s more?” Aaron asks, and then he pumps his fist like he’s saying, Score!

  Laudner laughs and hands over the test Aaron does every day. Little bubbles to fill in. Anything above fifty-four is severely depressed. Today he scores a thirty-one.

  “Mild to moderate depression,” the doctor says. “That’s a big difference in a short time. Five days. Congratulations!”

  And yeah, it’s a weird thing to celebrate being moderately depressed. But Aaron feels the difference in his brain. He actually feels it. So it’s a little hard for him to not break into another smile.

  “I honestly didn’t mean to,” Tillie tells Principal Pembree. “Seriously. It was like my hand acted without my consent.”

  The principal tilts her head and scratches her chin. “Was this about the video?”

  Tillie nods.

  “What did Samantha say to you?”

  “She said, ‘Moo-ve.’ ”

  The principal frowns. “Yeah, that’s not okay with me.”

  Tillie stays still.

  “Comments like that are not acceptable. Neither is punching, but frankly, I get it even though I don’t endorse the action. Are you okay, Tillie?”

  A week ago, Tillie would have nodded, said little, and been relieved when she was excused to go back to class. But now she says, “No. Not really. I mean, I’m getting better and I’m not a danger to myself, but no, this hasn’t been okay at all. Basically everyone seems to think I got Molly suspended, and everyone seems to hate me for it, and last week was probably the worst of my life.”

  Principal Pembree nods. “I heard you’d needed some mental health days. Do you need some more?”

  Tillie struggles not to raise her voice.

  “What I need is to know the school has my back.”

  “We do!”

  Tillie’s face feels hot. “I appreciate that, but. You suspended Molly for a few days. Why didn’t we talk about it as a community?”

  “Okay. Thank you, Tillie. You’re always so quiet. This is the most I’ve ever heard you say.”

  “Well, no more. I’m done not speaking up, because it almost …”

  The principal’s face changes, like the unspoken words have gotten through anyway.

  “Are you feeling brave?” Pembree asks.

  “What? Why?”

  “Just an idea I want to float. Feel free to say no …”

  Aaron finds himself singing as he walks home. He twirls once, too. He feels like he’s just gotten out of jail. Like this new thing is happening and it feels like the sun has just come out after a long and endless winter. He sings
“Can’t Forget Your Smile” aloud, not caring in the least if people hear him. He’s finally free! Or getting free. From the hell of depression.

  His dad is out doing errands when Aaron gets home from therapy, and he breaks out the notebook his dad gave him. He writes his name on the front in big letters and then entitles the notebook Thoughts from Up High, Never to Fall. He stares at the words and smiles.

  He does, actually, feel good. Surprisingly good. Stupid not good enough thing aside—and he’s put it aside because what good does it do to focus on it all day? The clouds overhead have parted and the sky is shining bright blue, and he feels himself lighter in the shoulders than he has in a long while. They said it would take weeks for the medicine to work, but here he is, five days in, and he’s just about cured.

  He should write a song! Yes. He’s written plenty of songs when he’s been sad. What if he writes a happy song? The idea makes him smile. Yes. A happy song.

  He closes his eyes and thinks. What is happy? What does he like to do?

  He likes walking. He likes being in communion with nature, or, well, whatever New York City is. Nature adjacent. Central Park? Nah. What’s his favorite place to walk?

  He thinks of the block between Amsterdam and Columbus on Seventy-Fourth. The gray brownstones, all in a row, the curved windows, the quiet. He imagines people smiling, walking down the street, as if this street were the antidote, the antidote to all the things wrong with this hell of a civilization we’ve created.

  He writes.

  He reads what he’s written. Interesting. People don’t really express happiness openly these days. Everything is so jaded. This sort of song expresses happiness and hope. That’s new. It’s what the world needs more of.

  He lies back on his bed, shuts his eyes, and thinks to himself: Maybe I’ll be the one. The person who brings kindness back. Happiness.

  Yeah. Maybe that’ll be me.

  Tillie is buzzing as she walks the hallway en route to chemistry from the principal’s office. Funny how things work. She was summoned there for punching Samantha Quinn, and left with the possibility of running an assembly on online bullying. And she isn’t sure how that will go over, if she chooses to do it. She doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to being open and vulnerable at school, and surely some of the girls will double down on their cruelty. It’s what happens when you’re real.

  A thought stops her in her tracks.

  I’d rather be real and made fun of than fake and safe.

  The biggest smile she can remember having at school crosses her face, and she is glad that classes are going on at the moment so she’s alone, although when she thinks about it for a second she finds herself wishing that everyone could see it, because this is her, this is Tillie Stanley, and she almost didn’t make it, but she did, and now she knows. She knows! The joke isn’t on her. It’s on them.

  She feels her eyes welling up, and even though no one is in the hallway, she steals into the quiet restroom almost no one uses because it’s tucked in the science wing, along a less-used hallway.

  She opens the door and standing there, staring in the mirror, is Molly Tobin.

  Tillie stops in her tracks, like she’s hiking and she’s just come across a bear.

  Molly turns toward her. Her eyes are rimmed red, and she frowns, exasperated.

  “What? Jesus. What the hell do you want?”

  Tillie is stunned into silence. So she stands there, voiceless.

  Molly huffs. “Oh, you probably love this.”

  And there’s a part of Tillie that does. But she pushes that part down, because there’s a crying girl standing in front of her, in the rarely used bathroom along the science corridor.

  “You okay?” Tillie finds herself asking.

  “Peachy. I’m perfect. I’m wonderful. Can you just go, please? You’ve already ruined my life.”

  But Tillie doesn’t go. “Nope,” she says.

  “You won’t go?”

  “Nope. Not going.”

  “So you’re just going to gloat? Fine. Terrific.”

  “Molly,” Tillie says, “shut up. Stop talking.”

  Molly’s expression is maybe even more shocked than Samantha’s was.

  Tillie goes on. “So what’s wrong?”

  Molly runs her fingers through her hair and looks away. “Why would you even care, anyway?”

  Tillie leans against a sink. “Because you’re a person?”

  “A person who made a video about you.”

  “Yeah, about that. What the fuck. Why would you—”

  Molly puts her hands over her eyes. “I don’t know. I really, really don’t. Could you just go, please? I’m really not in a place—”

  “I was suicidal, Molly.”

  “Because of—”

  “Not really. I mean. Not entirely. My life’s been shitty in lots of ways. It wasn’t like, you made a mean video and I decided to jump off a bridge, okay? You don’t have that power over me. But yeah. That wasn’t fun. How would you feel if someone made a video like that about you?”

  Molly slinks down the wall until she’s sitting on the floor. “Jesus.”

  “I can’t actually imagine why a person would do that, but you did it. So …”

  “I’m sorry,” Molly whispers.

  Hearing these two words just about takes Tillie’s breath away. It’s like she’d imagined confronting Molly a zillion times, and none of the times did Molly simply say she was sorry.

  “Thank you.”

  “Sure. I suck. That’s basically the consensus right now.”

  “What happened?”

  “It’s over,” Molly says.

  “What’s over?”

  Molly snorts. “The reign of Molly Tobin. Over. It’s like I left for a week, and I came back and it’s all gone.”

  Tillie comes and leans against the closest sink to Molly. “Is that really so bad?”

  Molly screws her face up, and it’s like Tillie can see the split. Between the Molly she used to know and the new one.

  Molly stares at nothing. Like several inches to the side of Tillie. “I don’t know.”

  “I’m sorry. That must suck, I guess.”

  “Why are you being so nice?” Molly pulls her knees up and rests her chin on them.

  Tillie says, “This is what nice people do when they see someone struggling. They don’t, like, tease them.”

  “I guess I deserve that.”

  “Yeah. You do.”

  Molly wipes her eyes. “Sorry. Really.”

  “Thanks. I’m better now. I mean, not a hundred percent better, but I’ve figured some shit out. I’m done being quiet about all that shit. I punched Samantha Quinn about twenty minutes ago.”

  Molly flinches. “You did?”

  Tillie nods.

  “Wow,” Molly says. “What happened? You used to be happy.”

  Tillie flashes on sixth grade, and Saturday mornings with Molly. She remembers Dylan’s Candy Bar and candy binges. Something about narwhals and llamas. Lots of laughter. It feels like another lifetime, actually. “Was I? I don’t remember.”

  “You were happier. I mean, somewhere around ninth grade you got kinda … severe. Fashion-wise for sure, but also your expression. The way you glowered at people. I was like—I used to know that girl.”

  “Well, you changed, too.”

  Molly chuckles under her breath. “Maybe not quite as much as I should have.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. It’s hard, okay? Try being Molly Tobin and liking …”

  “Liking what?”

  Molly sits up again. “Okay. So I know it won’t equalize anything. But what if I tell you a secret? And you know what? If you want to, like, tell everyone? I don’t fucking care. It’s not like Gretchen and Isabella have the time of day for me anymore.”

  “Molly, if you’re about to tell me you’re a lesbian, you’ll be the second person in two days to come out to me as an excuse for being a jerk.”

  Thi
s makes Molly smile in a way that Tillie remembers from all those years ago, this sweet, sunny smile with the dimples spreading wide.

  “You ever hear of Throne of Glass?”

  Tillie shakes her head.

  “So I’m kind of obsessed.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Celaena Sardothien is everything. I’ve read the entire series like twelve times. I cyberstalk Sarah J. Maas’s Instagram, hoping against hope that one day she’ll answer. My absolutely biggest dream is to go to a con dressed like Celaena and meet Ms. Maas.”

  Tillie breaks out laughing. Molly stares at her for a moment, and then she realizes it’s okay and laughs, too.

  “I guess it’s kinda stupid,” she says.

  “No, not at all. This would be, like, my favorite thing about you, probably, at this point.”

  “Are you into fantasy?”

  “Not particularly. But I like that you are. That you’re not some Spence robot. No offense.”

  “Some offense. But yeah. I get it. So are we good?”

  Tillie snorts. “Yeah, Molly. We’re great. All’s totally forgiven. No, we’re not good.”

  Molly offers Tillie a sad smile. “But are we better?”

  Tillie can’t remember the last time she had this. Power. Of any sort.

  “We’ll see,” she says.

  CHAPTER 10D: APRIL 26

  Aaron sits with Sarah Palmer on the subway, she of the ungenerous view of Aaron’s performance in Rent the day he almost died. But this time, they don’t talk about acting. Aaron has other things on his mind.

  “I wrote this song yesterday,” he tells her. “It’s called ‘Seventy-Fourth Street’ and I don’t know if it’s good but anyway it got me thinking. Do you think we could start a movement? Like of people saying hi to each other on the street?”

  “Um. Why would we do that?”

  “To be nice to each other! That’s maybe the takeaway out of all of this. I guess I was depressed or whatever—”

  Sarah puts her sneakers up against the bottom of the pole people hold on to when it’s crowded. “Yeah, I heard about that. How are you? A lot of us have been really worried.”