“Dad? Dad. Look at me.”
He hesitates, then looks at me full on. Even in the dusk, I can see that his pupils are pretty much the size of dinner plates. “What have you taken? Valium? Something prescription?”
“I’m fine,” he says, straightening up. “I’ve just got to make it to the election and then I’ll go into rehab and we’ll all be a family again.”
“I’ll be living two states away.”
He slumps a bit. “Yeah. Yeah, I knew that.”
“What are you doing here, Dad? Are you really meeting Mom or did you drag me out of the busiest night of the year just so you could tell me you’re going to rehab in six months?”
He frowns again, looking back up at the moon. “There were going to be cities up there. No poverty, no war. That’s how it was supposed to be.”
“Okay, I’ve got to go. I’ll get Mel to drive you home–”
“I need to borrow some money,” he blurts out.
Well, that stops me. “You what?”
He sighs. “The campaign didn’t think it was a good idea for me to have full access to the accounts.” He shrugs, like he can’t blame them. “I’m short of cash. I don’t want to ask your mother.”
I don’t know what to say. What can I say? I’m not even angry at him. Just so sad I can barely look him in the face.
I take out every tip I’ve collected that evening and hand him the whole wad of cash.
“Thanks–”
“Go wait in your car,” I interrupt, still not looking at him. “Do not drive it.”
I turn my back on him.
As my dad lurches into the parking lot, I step into the entryway of the restaurant, grabbing the front door handle. A small red light catches the corner of my eye. I look over. Behind some bushes, in the shadows–
Nathan, smoking.
“I’m sorry,” he says, quickly. “I saw you talking to him and I was going to say hello but then…”
He doesn’t finish, but I know. He was going to say hello, but then he heard my dad being embarrassing and tragic and he got stuck there, not wanting to alert us to his presence by going either backward or forward.
“How much did you hear?” I say, heat in my voice.
“Mike, I–”
“I can’t believe you smoke,” I say. “It’s disgusting. It stinks. You get breath like a dog. And it won’t kill you fast enough.”
“It was an accident, Mike, I swear.”
My chest is burning, like it’s being squeezed in a molten vice. “I’ve got to get back to work.”
I don’t look at him once the rest of the night, even though he sits with Henna after Mel takes Meredith and my dad home. At the waitress station, Tina uses every opportunity to shout at me, but I don’t listen to her. I’m too busy repeatedly counting ketchup bottles and wishing I was dead, wishing I was dead, wishing I was dead, wishing I was dead.
CHAPTER THE SIXTEENTH, in which Satchel cries in her room, taking the blame for all her friends’ deaths, even though everyone she knows assures her that it’s not her fault; Dylan knocks on her window; he comforts her, finally kissing her; she stops him, says she understands his desire for her, but she’ll have to break his heart; they’re surprised by a knock at the front door; her mother yells up that it’s second indie kid Finn; Dylan looks surprisingly serious, and asks, “How do we know we can trust him?”
“Hey, Dr Luther.”
“It’s good to see you again, Michael.”
“Is it? Doesn’t that mean you failed last time, though?”
“Still concerned about failure, I see.”
“I know, I know. ‘Why does everything have to be something you win or lose?’”
“Do you know?”
“I thought I did.”
“…I should tell you up front that your mom’s been talking to me.”
“As a patient?”
“No, but don’t sound so shocked. She’s been talking to me as your mother. As your concerned mother. She told me things have been … challenging for you lately. It’s only fair that you know that. I won’t, of course, tell her anything that we discuss here, though. That’s between us.”
“Did she tell you she’s campaigning again?”
“She did. How do you feel about that?”
“It’s weird.”
“How so?”
“It’s like it doesn’t have anything to do with me this time. Like our lives have already separated and this is something that’s happening to her rather than to us. Plus, she’s being okay about it, actually.”
“That’s a generous thing for you to say.”
“It’s true. Mel’s been kept out of it except for at the concert. Did you see that?”
“I did.”
“That was so great. She was so great. She couldn’t have done that last time.”
“That’s good to hear. There was always a lot of strength in your sister. But we’re not talking about her, are we?”
“No. I guess we’re not.”
“Tell me what’s been happening, Michael. Tell me why you’ve come back to see me.”
“I thought my mom already told you.”
“I want to hear it from you.”
“…I’ve been getting … stuck. In loops. Again. Like I can’t leave the house unless I lock the door a certain way but I don’t really know what that certain way is or how there are even supposed to be different ways to lock a front door. It happens a lot when I’m washing myself, too, if I don’t do it in just the right order. Or if I start to touch things and count them, I can just get … stuck there.”
“What do you think will happen if you don’t do these things?”
“I don’t know. Something awful. Something I won’t be able to handle. Everything will fall apart.”
“Everything?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is it something to do with the spate of deaths at your school?”
“What do you know about those?”
“They’re not unknown. They’ve happened before. It’s one of the more terrible sociological phenomena.”
“Do you know what’s causing them?”
“‘Cause’? They were accidents and suicides, as far as I understand. Is there an underlying cause?”
“No. No, I guess not.”
“Unless you mean it’s something like the vampires or the soul-eating ghosts. Don’t look so surprised. We had armies of the undead when I was your age. It was pretty awful and scary, but it was confined, kept quiet, involving a fairly small group of people while the adult world looked on obliviously.”
“…I don’t know what to say about any of that.”
“Does this time around have anything to do with you?”
“I’m not an indie kid.”
“No.”
“But we were at the concert. And Henna and I hit those deer. And … other stuff.”
“That I probably wouldn’t believe? Even after what I’ve said?”
“Maybe.”
“Well, I don’t need to. As long as you do, it’s an important thing to talk about.”
“Jared said we can’t all be the Chosen One. In fact, hardly any of us can.”
“Jared is still your best friend?”
“You’ve got a good memory.”
“I take good notes.”
“Yeah, my best friend. He looks after me. He saves me from these loops sometimes. He’s more than my best friend, really.”
“You love him.”
“Yeah, but not like that, I don’t think. He’s gay, but it’s different. It’s like he’s my family, except better, because I’ve chosen him.”
“I understand. He’s important for your feeling of safety in the world.”
“Well, yeah. And I … I don’t know what I’m going to do when everything changes.”
“Graduating, you mean?”
“And going off to college. It’s not just Jared. Mel’s going across the country, we’re leaving Meredith on her own…”<
br />
“These are normal fears. It would be unusual if you didn’t feel them.”
“Yeah, but…”
“…but?”
“I don’t know if I’m going to make it.”
“Make it how? Michael?”
“You’re the only person who calls me Michael.”
“Make it how?”
“…Um.”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not, though.”
“I mean, you’re safe here. If you need to cry, you can.”
“It’s not okay.”
“How is it not?”
“…They don’t need me.”
“Not like you need them.”
“No. Jared said he thought I always made myself the least-wanted person in the group, but he told me that wasn’t true.”
“You didn’t believe him.”
“If you have to have someone tell it to you, how can it be true? How can you not just be the damaged one who needs reassurance all the time?”
“Don’t we all need reassurance? Aren’t we all damaged in some way?”
“You don’t understand.”
“Then help me. I want to.”
“Look, it’s… They’ve all got other lives. Jared’s got all this family stuff, Mel’s dating a doctor, Henna’s going to Africa. And what do I have? I have them. I don’t have anything else.”
“And that makes you feel like you matter the least.”
“Yeah. And I’m in these loops and I’m trapped and I can feel that I’m trapped and getting out of them is as simple as just doing something else. Anything. But it’s getting harder and harder to get out of them myself and what if I go away and start a new life and I get trapped in one and I can’t get out of it?”
“Okay, what if that does happen?”
“…”
“Michael?”
“…I can’t say it. It’s embarrassing.”
“I am impossible to embarrass.”
“…”
“Tell me, Michael. What if you get trapped in a loop and can’t get out?”
“…I’ll kill myself.”
“That’s a very final choice.”
“It’s better than being afraid forever. It’s better than always being afraid.”
“Those are the only alternatives? Being afraid or being gone?”
“That’s what it feels like. And I don’t know what to do.”
“About what?”
“About everything.”
“Isn’t that the problem, though? Isn’t that what’s causing the fear? Why do you have to solve everything? Why can’t you just solve today?”
“I can’t even do that!”
“You can and you have. You’re facing one of the biggest life changes anyone ever has to face: leaving school and going out on your own. Yet you’ve survived a car accident that you might not have and helped your badly hurt friend. You suffered a traumatic event at that concert, but look how you acted in saving your little sister.”
“Mom told you all that.”
“She thinks very highly of you, Michael. She worries about you.”
“Then she should tell me. Please don’t defend her.”
“All right. I’m just saying that you have solved a lot. You feel like you can’t face anything, that it’ll crush you, but you’re here. In this room. All those things you’re facing, and you still said to someone – said to your mother, no less, who I know you don’t regard as a natural ally – that you needed help. Doesn’t that sound like someone who’s looking for solutions?”
“…Maybe.”
“I’m going to ask you a question. What if everything did fall apart? What then?”
“I don’t understand.”
“If you didn’t do these things, if you stepped out of the loop before finishing it the ‘right’ way, what would happen? Would you survive it?”
“I don’t know. That’s kind of the whole deal.”
“Let me ask the question another way, then. Haven’t you already survived everything falling apart?”
“…what?”
“Melinda nearly died.”
“She did die.”
“Either way, if that’s not everything falling apart, then what is?”
“I don’t want it to happen again, though.”
“You said yourself she was doing great.”
“But Meredith is–”
“You’re responsible for Meredith, too? Everything fell apart at that concert and you all survived that. If I were to ask Melinda whether you were the least wanted, I doubt she’d answer like you have. Meredith, too, and I would bet money that your friend Jared would say the same.”
“They’re just being nice.”
“All of them? All the time?”
“Because I’m the broken one.”
“Is that true? Is that really true? You said they all have other stuff to deal with. I know exactly the difficulties your sister has faced, for example–”
“Yeah, but… She’s doing better now.”
“Perfectly?”
“Well. No.”
“But you’re measuring yourself against her?”
“Why are you coming at me so much?”
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to. I’m only trying to say that there might be other ways of looking at things. Ways that don’t make you so afraid. Ways that don’t make you wish you were dead.”
“…”
“Do you cry a lot when you’re on your own?”
“Almost never.”
“Then obviously you need to, Michael. It’s okay. There are some tissues there if you need them.”
“…I feel like I’m at the bottom of a well. I feel like I’m way down this deep, deep hole and I’m looking up and all there is is this little dot of light and I have to shout at the top of my lungs for anyone to hear me and even when I do, I say the wrong thing or they don’t really listen or they’re just humouring me.”
“Because they couldn’t possibly care about you.”
“…It’s hard to feel that. They tell me. They show me. And I still don’t feel it.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“The fear gets in the way. And I get stuck in a loop.”
“Because if you can just get the loop right–”
“Yes. If I can just get it right, it’ll all be okay. I’ll, I don’t know, save everyone. And the world won’t fall apart. And it’s getting harder to do.”
“I bet it is. All the stuff that’s going on for you.”
“All the stuff that will always go on.”
“That’s probably true, too.”
“Can I tell you something, Dr Luther?”
“Yes.”
“You won’t laugh?”
“I won’t.”
“…I hate myself. I feel like an idiot saying it because, blah, blah, teen angst, boo hoo, but I do. I hate myself. Almost all the time. I try not to tell anyone because I don’t want to burden them, but I feel like I’m falling farther and farther away from them. Like the well’s getting deeper and I’m running out of energy to climb it and any minute now, any second, it’s going to stop being worth even trying.”
“I won’t keep harping on this, but I will say again, just gently, because it’s true. You’re here. And that’s trying.”
“…Can you help me?”
“Yes. For now, as a start, I’d like to put you on some medication. Why are you making that face?”
“Medication.”
“Medication … is a failure?”
“The biggest one. Like I’m so broken, I need medical help.”
“Cancer patients don’t call chemotherapy a failure. Diabetics don’t call insulin a failure.”
“This is different and you know it.”
“I don’t know it. Why is it different?”
“Because it means I’m crazy. Crazy is different.”
“Michael, do you think cancer is a moral failing?”
“What kind of
cancer?”
“Don’t play. You know what I mean. Do you think a woman who gets ovarian cancer is morally responsible for it?”
“No.”
“Do you think a child born with spina bifida or cerebral palsy or muscular dystrophy is at fault for their condition?”
“No, but–”
“Then why in heaven’s name are you responsible for your anxiety?”
“…Because… What?”
“Why are you responsible for your anxiety?”
“Because it’s a feeling. Not a tumour.”
“Are you sure?”
“You think I have a tumour?”
“No, no, no, no, no, no. Not what I meant. A feeling is pride in your sister. A feeling is fear at the concert that makes you act. A feeling is embarrassment or shame. A feeling may or may not be true, but you still feel it.”
“And anxiety is a tumour on your feelings?”
“Feelings don’t try to kill you, even the painful ones. Anxiety is a feeling grown too large. A feeling grown aggressive and dangerous. You’re responsible for its consequences, you’re responsible for treating it. But Michael, you’re not responsible for causing it. You’re not morally at fault for it. No more than you would be for a tumour.”
“You realize I’m now going to obsess about having a tumour.”
“I’m sorry. Ill-chosen words. But if you’re going to obsess about something, obsess about your obsession being a treatable disorder. Obsess about it not being a failure of something you’ve done or something you didn’t do or some intrinsic value as a person that you fail to have. Medication will address the anxiety, not get rid of it, but reduce it to a manageable level, maybe even the same level as other people so that – and here’s the key thing – we can talk about it. Make it something you can live with. You still have work to do, but the medication lets you stay alive long enough to do that work.”
“…”
“Michael?”
“…”
“Isn’t it possible to think of this as a success?”
“I never wanted to go back on it.”
“You told me, just now, just today, that you’d rather be dead than have to go through this much longer. I take that seriously. I don’t think your suffering is fake. I don’t think these feelings about wanting it to end are fake. I don’t think your self-hatred is fake. So why do you think it’s fake?”