"All the work to impress, charming girls out of their dresses
And smiling pretty, well pretty will swallow you forever."
- "Celebrity Status," Marianas Trench (2009)
Alejandro
The early morning air is quiet and dull, and the only sound grounding me to my surroundings is the constant strike of my running shoes against the sidewalk. I used to run with my mom in Central Park before the sun came up, but, now that I'm in another state, I'm by myself for once. Jordan's a runner, too—we were in track together—but he prefers to jog in the evenings because he's such a morning grump. That's one habit his dad was never able to rip away from him.
Unlike usual, I actually don't mind being alone. For years now, morning runs have been my elixir, something that always stays the same no matter what the rest of the day has in store for me. My first therapist recommended it to me when I was fifteen, and, although I had no medication to back it up, it did help tie me down a little.
I should be exhausted, so much so that I could sleep for a day straight, but I'm not. New York Fashion Week ended the night before the last available move-in day, forcing my mom and I to fly a red-eye across the country to make it in time for check-in. Jordan's parents left him with some hired movers to do all the work, but Alejandra Molina would never stand for that. Even after a chain of sleepless nights in the busiest week of her year, she was by my side.
After my second time lapping the campus, she calls me just as I'm approaching my dorm. It's 7:36 AM now, the sun low in the sky, but it's almost 11:00 back home.
I walk the rest of the way to the building, listening to my mom complain about her jet lag, how quiet the condo is without me, and her idiot PA's inability to get her coffee order right. She's up and at 'em despite yet another night on a plane—an endless supply of manic energy is one of the many things we have in common. I may talk up a storm, but with my mom I can barely get a word in edgewise. I guess she's where I get it from.
I'm back in my room, getting ready to go take a shower and trying not to wake my roommate, before she finally says something I can respond to.
"Your appointment with your therapist—" Her voice is kind when she speaks to me, but I hear her pull the phone away from her ear to snap at a misbehaving intern before returning to me. "This afternoon, right?"
"Yeah." I pick up my shower caddy and my clothes, still trying to wrap my head around the idea of community bathrooms. "I'll tell you how it goes. She has great reviews, but...if I need to change, I'll let you know."
"Good. And your medication?"
I look at the nondescript box at the top of my closet—where the pills reside when I'm not frantically taking them behind my roommate's back. I'm trying not to be secretive about my illness, but I'm still not in a position where I'm comfortable blasting it to someone I barely know.
"Lo tengo [I have it.]"
"Bien [Good]," she sighs gently, obviously missing me. "Te extraño mucho, mi amor. [I miss you so much, my love.]"
"Te extraño también. Chao, mamí. [I miss you too. Bye, mamí]."
"Chao, mijo."
I hang up after she answers, tossing my phone on the bed and heading to the showers. Jordan's down the hall from me, the door to his room still closed, and I imagine I won't be hearing anything from him until the afternoon.
I shower for longer than usual, trying to wash New York City off of me just as much as the sweat. I fantasized about leaving everything I don't like about myself on the East Coast, but the pills in my room and my upcoming appointment with my new therapist are proof that that was never really possible.
In the last few years of my life, I remember feeling like I was in purgatory: sitting around waiting for someone to diagnose me and dreading my next spin on this endless rollercoaster. The flailing highs, the bottomless lows...I can't do it anymore. I just can't.
Here, I have the opportunity to turn things around. Just because I'm bipolar doesn't mean that I'm doomed for the rest of my life—things can get better—and I'll make sure they do if it kills me. But medication and therapy are just where it starts, the first steps in a long journey. I'm a little more daunted by the idea of changing the parts of myself that I hate the most—the flaws that I can't pin on a diagnosis.
Recently, I've been infatuated with the idea of permanence: a girl that cares about me as more than a trophy or a plaything, healthy friendships that stay in my life forever, and a diligent focus on my classes instead of relying on luck and natural talent.
As I watch the suds disappear down the drain, I inhale slowly. All of that is easier said than done.
When I open the door to our room again, my roommate Miguel is finally awake and sitting up in his bed. I met him yesterday, and, since he moved in two days before me, he dedicated his time to helping in whatever way he could.
He's incredibly nice, but I'm not sure how to feel about that after spending my whole life with Jordan as my best friend. Years of snake bites in your back will do that to you.
Miguel sees me, breaking out into a smile before clapping his hands and pointing at me.
"Yoooo...Alejandro! Good morning, brah!"
He has the most California surfer-bro dialect I've ever heard, with open body language that makes it seem like we're old friends instead of complete strangers. I've only known him for about twenty-four hours, and yet he has no intention of starting our relationship with an awkward phase—or even a period of observation to figure me out.
"Morning," I answer, my voice naturally a lot quieter than his. "Did I wake you up?"
"Yeah, actually—I heard you talking to your mom. But it's okay; I need to get to the gym anyway." He picks up his water bottle, tapping the lid a few times before standing. "Random question—I know you said you were from New York, but the Spanish, and your accent...?"
He trails off, gesturing to his mouth, and it takes me a moment to realize what he's asking.
"Oh...I'm Colombian. I was born and raised in New York, but...between my mom and a ton of summers in Bogotá, I still got the accent."
"Really?!" His face lights up in recognition, although I'm still at a loss as to why. "My mom's family is from Brazil; we go to South America all the time."
"Well..." I pause, struggling over the natural hostility that's been beaten into my lexicon over the years. "Then we're practically cousins."
The line doesn't come out like I wanted to—it's dripping with sarcasm and a little bit of mockery that instantly make me regret my words. He's just trying to be nice, but I'm so hardwired for competition and backhandedness that I'm going to ruin our friendship before it even starts.
"I know right?!" he says, completely unfazed, and claps me on the shoulder before heading to the door. "That's so sick."
I can't help but laugh a little when he's gone, completely inexperienced with someone so recklessly positive. While he certainly has a lot he could brag about, he doesn't. He's just...good. Nice.
Even though he's at one of the top schools in the country, I have a sneaking suspicion that there's just one braincell bouncing around his head like a ping-pong ball. According to the abridged backstory I got during move in, he's one of the top soccer players in the state, they offered him a scholarship, and he took the bait.
He's not the sharpest tool in the shed from the little of him I've seen—wearing his blond hair with all of the stereotypes attached, but I think I like that about him. It's a nice change of pace to know someone who has no devious plans constantly stewing in their head.
By the time Miguel returns and starts getting ready to go to the gym, Jordan bursts through the cracked door with a blanket around his shoulders and spite in his eyes.
He's been acting all weird since our move-in yesterday, snapping at me and muttering to himself under his breath. I would assume that he's finally regretting coming here, just like everyone said he would, but his anger doesn't seem to be directed at me. He stares off into space, looking around us for something or someone I can't comprehend.
"Jo, you look pissed." I can't stop myself from laughing at his mood, watching him sit on my bed and stare straight ahead. "What are you thinking abou—"
"Homicide."
His answer is snappy and short, cutting me off. I'm pretty sure he doesn't really want to catch a murder charge on his second day in California, but his face says different.
I look over at Miguel, who's obviously taken aback at the raincloud that always seems to be hanging over Jordan's head. I'm more than used to him by now, but Jordan Dawson is one of the scariest people I know: a face trained into robotic apathy, an unwavering monotone voice, and a vampiric paleness that echoes the coldness of his demeanor. He's not always so off-putting, but I think he just prefers people to keep their distance.
"You met your roommate?" I ask, thinking about his exasperation when he found out that we had them assigned to us.
"Like hell I did." He pulls the blanket closer around his shoulders, closing his eyes. "He gets up with the fucking birds; I can't take this for three quarters."
"You're...Jordan?" Miguel says from his bed, kind face twisting a little at the way the energy in the room shifts. "I wasn't expecting you to be so—"
Jordan's eyes suddenly snap in his direction, and Miguel's sentence gets lost in his throat. I can feel his fear from all the way over here as Jordan's eyes threaten him, terrifying icy blue piercing into paling skin.
"What?"
Jordan's voice is ever so quiet, daring him to finish his sentence.
"Nothing," Miguel answers quickly, standing and speeding out of the room to go to the gym.
I did tell him about Jordan yesterday, but I omitted his...worse qualities from the conversation for his sake. He's worse than normal today, and I hate for this to be Miguel's introduction to him, but it's not like Jordo (who believes kindness is a liability) would be interested in niceties with him anyway.
When the door closes, Jordan's face finally relaxes into something more human: a slightly amused smile. But, once his initial mirth wears off, his expression once again shifts—this time into wistful dullness.
Part of me wants to ask him what's wrong, because I know how dangerous it can get when no one checks on you. But the other part of me, the one that's a little jet-lagged and surrounded by a completely new environment, just wants to wait his sour mood out with no confrontation.
We were supposed to go to different colleges on different coasts, to have our clean break after a lifetime of codependence. We don't really know who we are apart from each other, and the next four years were supposed to fix that. But now that we're together again, we're just postponing the inevitable time when we detach and start two separate existences.
It's kind of a comfort having him here, to see a familiar face in a completely new world, but sometimes I wonder if we're making the biggest mistake of our lives.
"Hey," I start, trying to raise his spirits a little. He is having one hell of a culture shock—on a coast that he despises without any domestic help or his family to tell him what to do. "I have my appointment with my therapist in an hour. After that...we can drive to San Jose for lunch. So you can look at buildings that have more than ten stories again."
"Look—I know you're trying." He softens a little, closing his eyes. "And that sounds great, but...I kinda have something I need to do here today. Old business to catch up on."
What kind of "old business" could he possibly have in California? I lift my brows at him as a question, but he just grins to himself in a way that turns even my stomach.
"Don't worry about it. I hope your appointment goes well."
~🖤~
I hate being chauffeured. If I don't want to draw a lot of attention to myself, especially on the way to a therapy appointment, then it's probably not the best idea to show up in the back of a Benz like the president of some foreign country. But my mom insists, and, since freshmen can't have cars at Stanford, I'm not in much of a position to resist. I consider myself a people person with a bigger affinity for all things common in comparison to Jordan, but I still have a line to draw at public transportation.
The coast looks clear; the parking lot is empty save for a few cars and completely devoid of motion as we pull in. Friday afternoons must be slow for Dr. Suzuki—good.
The car stops, and my driver moves to open his door, but I stop him with a lift of my hand.
"I got it." I open my door on my own again, stepping out before turning to him again. "Gracias, Jorge. I'll call you when it's over."
I lower my shades as he nods and drives off, feeling the need to conceal my identity like a superhero in disguise. When I'm anywhere that I don't want to be seen: doing the walk of shame out of apartment buildings or riding out the consequences of one of my many bad decisions, I hide my face.
I'm grateful that my near celebrity status on the Upper East Side didn't follow me here. However, I'm still irrationally afraid of seeing someone that I might run into again and having to explain myself. Therapy isn't something to be ashamed of, I keep telling myself. But, even after a few years, it's still taking some getting used to.
I'm perfect. I'm perfect in every way but this one, and I can't stand that.
I push open the front door of the office building, lifting my shades and greeting the receptionist as I keep an eye out for movement. The coast is clear as I follow her pointed finger and sit in one of the two upholstered chairs outside of an office door.
I look to my left once I get bored of checking my texts, noticing a stack of magazines set up on a tiny brown accent table. The one on top is a Forbes from a few years ago, and my mom is on the cover staring up at me. I pick it up, wanting to turn it over and eliminate any chance of someone recognizing me here through her face and last name. However, before I can do so, Dr. Suzuki's door starts to open and I hear the voices of two different people.
I drop my shades back over my eyes and open the magazine over my face in one movement, looking over the tops of the pages. Someone who I assume is Dr. Suzuki appears in the doorway with a girl my age that looks extremely familiar...but not familiar enough to put a name to.
She exchanges a chorus of "thank yous" and "so nice to meet yous" with Dr. Suzuki, and as she does so I mull over her short, curly brown hair, dark eyes...my God, those eyes...and warm, light brown skin from behind the magazine. Everything about her—from her freckles to the string of shells around her neck—is strangely intriguing to me.
Where do I know her from?
She glances in my direction, almost meeting my eyes, as she waves one last goodbye and leaves down the hallway. But in that short moment it hits me. It's that girl from yesterday—she lives in the same dorm as me.
I waved at her when I saw her outside, flirting nonchalantly without even thinking about it. I've made a promise to myself to stop screwing around, but it's hard to get myself out of the habit of planting seeds that I can come back and collect the fruits of later.
Even though I'm used to people pausing when they see me, she froze like a deer in headlights and then took off running full speed into the building like a total weirdo. It was a...memorable introduction, I'll admit. But I won't lie and say it was enough to turn me off.
Jordan stared after her once she left, cold eyes burning, and I couldn't tell if the look in them meant that he wanted to rail her or throw her off a skyscraper. If either is true, then I'd better lay some kind of claim to her before this turns into one of our regular disagreements. If she's at Stanford, she's obviously brilliant, and anyone with eyes can see that she's a cutie.
But those aren't the only factors that draw me to her. If she's here in this office with me, then maybe she has problems with herself, too. Maybe she knows what it's like to struggle, to try to be better when your own brain won't allow it. Maybe she understands.
Once she's gone, I put the magazine down and lift my shades at Dr. Suzuki. She obviously noticed my mom on the cover, her eyes flickering between her and I for a second before giving me a smile and her hand to shake.
"Hello, Alejandro," she says once I return the gesture. "I'm Dr. Suzuki."
"Hi."
I glance around for a moment when I step into her office, trying to find clues about her: pictures of family, or even pets. I mean, this lady has a whole file on me and I know nothing about her.
The Stanford degree on the wall says that her name is Hinata Takahashi—she must be married. A few pictures show two dogs and a little girl that's probably her daughter. There's a numberless analog clock above the door, a big, open window that shows the street, and a small fountain sitting among potted plants in the corner.
Growing up with a mom at the center of the fashion world, I've learned through osmosis how to tell things about people just from the way they dress. But, plain and professional, Dr. Suzuki is harder to decipher. She's wearing a pencil skirt, a button-up blouse, and a cardigan on top of that, with her shiny, pin-straight black hair in a low and immaculately neat bun. She looks pleasant but no-nonsense, like a kind librarian.
She gestures for me to sit on her leather couch, taking a seat across from me and opening a laptop.
"So. Tell me how you're feeling."
I sit as well, inhaling.
Trapped in my head, guilty for my past, embarrassed because I'm here, exhausted from jet lag and a best friend that drains my life energy.
"I'm...making it," I say out loud, not wanting to jump into the deep end just yet.
"Good," she murmurs, obviously not buying it. "So, let's get to it. The records you allowed me to obtain from your old therapist show that you were diagnosed with Bipolar 1 disorder earlier this year. How do you feel about that?"
What am I supposed to say? That I was thrilled at the news? That I'm not completely resentful toward the universe for throwing this at me?
I look away from her, still not knowing how to respond. The word doesn't even appear in my thoughts before it leaves my mouth on its own accord.
"Angry."
"Are you angry at the diagnosis, or the fact that you have bipolar disorder?"
"Both. I don't want to accept either." I put my hands on either side of me, rocking backward on my heels. "I wish I could say that the diagnosis is wrong, but I know it's true. My life has been a rollercoaster; I haven't known up or down for years now. I get too high, I get too low...it's exhausting to just...be alive."
She sets her laptop down, crossing her legs at her heels and leaning forward on her elbows.
"Well, those are baseline symptoms, but this condition varies from person to person. Why don't you tell me what your last episode was like?"
I watch her hang on my every word and exhale heavily. The last thing I like to do is discuss my faults—especially in detail with someone I've only known for two minutes. However, this is her job, and I doubt that I can say something worse than what she's already heard from someone else.
"Well, I...I could work for days at a time with no rest. That was good—it helped me get into Stanford. I had so much energy, so I spent it working all day and partying all night. I don't think I was ever sober for more than a few days at a time, actually. When I hit the decline, I got involved with someone that I shouldn't have, and things spun out of control fast. I could've been expelled, but...my family wiped it from history. And when my acceptance from Stanford came in, I couldn't even be happy."
She isn't nodding anymore, instead opening up her computer again. I'm quiet for a while, and it takes her a moment to figure out what to say.
"Well, that must have been horrible for you. How did you feel afterwards? Now?"
"Mortified. Scared. Guilty. Like I couldn't believe it was me." I shrug. "Like I don't want it to be me."
She nods, and I look back up at her.
"Dr. Suzuki, I would do anything to take back the damage I caused to the people I'm supposed to love. To apologize to everyone I've hurt. I know it might not be enough, but...I'm at my dream university, I'm healthy, and my relationships are still intact. I just...feel like I'm not suffering enough for what I did to them."
"But what about the hurt your disorder has caused you, Alejandro?" she murmurs gently. "According to these notes from Dr. Mendez, you suffered for a while before and after you were diagnosed. You held—hold—a lot of guilt for your actions. What is that like for you?"
I turn my eyes to the clock, twisting the golden rings I wear on most of my fingers to soothe myself. I've never been able to tell anyone about my illness on my own accord, and I don't imagine that I will. Is it because I don't truly believe that I have bipolar disorder, that I'm not really just screwed up beyond repair? That saying I do feels like an excuse even I don't believe?
I humiliated Jordan, dragging him down with me and scratching his face off for trying to pull me up again. I disappointed my abuelos so much that I couldn't even recognize them. I made my mom cry and cry for days on end because I was the one thing that she couldn't figure out how to fix. Girls that once looked at me like I was the world teared up when I would pass them by. I left one night and ran miles and miles, crying in the freezing cold of the city, hoping I would pass out and never wake up.
Tears burn my eyes and the back of my throat as my thoughts run away from me. I want to say more, but my answer is just one word.
"Hard."
Dr. Suzuki doesn't push me for more. "After your last episode, you were prescribed a mood stabilizer. How is that working out?"
"Fine."
A look of slight concern crosses her face, and I try to un-clam myself once more so she can get back to helping me. There's so much to talk about: how my self-confidence fluctuates from astronomical highs to subterranean lows, growing up in my mother's shadow, my vanity, my friendship with Jordan, my superiority complex, my sex addiction, or any of the other things Dr. Mendez was able to draw out of me once I warmed up to the idea of him.
"Well...enough about your past," Dr. Suzuki starts, trying something different. "What about your future? How are you feeling about that?"
I swallow, thinking about Stanford, about Jordan, about the girl in the waiting room. About me. I want to trust myself enough to hope for a better future; I have to. I have to make it work.
"I feel...uncertain. But...ready. Ready to make it better than the past."
"Good, good." She nods, regarding me with thin onyx eyes that radiate kindness. "I'll let you in on a secret, Alejandro. Truly toxic people don't recognize their effect on others or become so hell-bent on trying to turn themselves around. Bad people don't care that they're bad. But...I don't think I can say that about you. If you want to be better and make up for what you've done, then you're halfway there."
Dr. Suzuki's cheeks lift slightly, her crows feet appearing as she gives me a warm, less professionally clinical smile.
"Don't worry so much about being a better person than you were in the worst of your illness. I'm more than sure you already are."