Maybe I'll die at 17. Maybe...
Not now, though. Not here.
Not. Right. At. This. Moment.
Lately, I've been having this thought stuck to my mind, glued to every neuron I possess, reluctant to lose grip until I figure the shit out of it. It has to do with kinetic energy, and where mine would go once I'm deceased.
Kinetic energy is everywhere: in hydropower plants, windmills, moving cars, even in a bullet from a gun—tempting, very tempting, but not really my cup of tea, or should I say poison?
Anyway, it's there when I walk to school or run away from my problems. So, since this sucker of a thought wouldn't let go of me, I did what any teenager would do: Googled it until my eyes went red. I also mustered the courage to casually bring it up for debate in Professor Lucas' class, where we discussed the issue openly, with all my classmates convinced it was important for next month's AP exam.
I know, I know. Brilliant, right?
"Jack? Are you with me?" someone says, and it sounds familiar but like a thousand miles away at the same time. A voice reminding me I'm not in a classroom, but a hospital bed, wearing a gown. Damn it.
"Jack? I'm going to need an answer here, please."
"Yeah, I hear you," I croak in defeat, with all my moronic words strangled up in my now dry throat. "Hi, Elena." I greet her, looking at her shiny, golden name tag.
I don't want her to see how confused I am after what I tried to do; hence I give nonchalance a go. It backfires quicker than the speed of the fake apology I gave Mom a couple of hours ago.
"Can you tell me what happened?" She looks tired, as if she were the reflection of my inner turmoil, and because I don't answer, she keeps going, "is this the first time you've tried to take your life?"
I nod, and the ache of it all comes crushing down my temples.
"Have you come close before? Thought about it before?" She leans in closer, her voice almost a whisper.
"Is this the part where I get to play my doctor-patient confidentiality card, doc?" I ask her, earning a tiny smile in return.
"I think you are confused, Jack."
"How so?" I try sitting straight, and the weight of my failed attempt at whatever this was slaps me right down. Or maybe it's gravity pulling me under, finally granting me my wish.
"First of, what you mean is more like doctor-patient privilege, where everything you say is afforded such privilege. But we are not—I'm not your physician yet."
"That's an easy fix. By the power invested in this gown, I now declare you my doctor. Welcome to the shit show, Elena. Hope you brought gloves." I fake a smile, but she remains motionless.
"Can I continue to explain the difference between what you said and what this is, Jack?" Her face gives nothing away, but her tone is warm.
"By all means, doc. Carry on..." I feel like a total freak. Which I am...
"Doctor-patient confidentiality refers to the protection of your medical records and information outside the context of a lawsuit. Okay?" She tilts her head to the side and her auburn hair casts the afternoon glow. A brief movement of her right hand shows me elegant, manicured fingers that prompt me to carry on answering her questions. "Let's try this again, shall we?"
I nod once more.
"Have you had these kinds of thoughts before?"
"You mean death thoughts?" I stress the death word, wanting to punish her for unknown reasons.
Now it's her turn to nod.
"I think about death all the time," I confess, and it feels somehow liberating.
"How far back does that go?" She looks at me as if I were about to pop, like a see-through bubble—fragile and unstable.
I wasn't expecting that question. It makes me walk down memory-lane, and that's not a place I visit often. "On and off since I was in second grade." I sigh an endless sigh, and with furrowed eyebrows, I clear my still dry throat and carry on, "that's when things started changing..."
"In what way?"
"Everything went fuzzy. I—my memory—I can't place anything anywhere. I don't know how else to explain it."
"Can I ask you yet another difficult question?" Elena awaits calmly.
"Sure. Go ahead, doc."
"Does mental illness run in your family, Jack?" I gasp and she notices.
"No," I say, and the sour taste of my own bullshit invades my mouth. "Wait, that's a lie. My mom says my dad is mentally ill. And my older brother says my dad's illness looks a lot like being an asshole." After my words come out, I hear her laugh. It's soothing.
"How about more recently? How have you been coping with your adolescence and your thoughts?"
"It's more of the same, I guess. I walk around feeling spoiled and too weak. Like any other boy would excel in life except me. Like literally any other person would do better at living than me..." I trail off, partly because I can't believe I said these things out loud, and partly because I just can't go on.
Elena sits there, with her thoughts and mine, for a couple of seconds, and then she produces a bubble gum packet. I recognize it straight away. It's Bubble Yum. Thomas, my elder brother, used to buy me those every time we sneaked out of the house...
Before I know it, I'm clenching my jaw, so tightly I could break a tooth, but I'm also accepting one with my heart pounding in my chest. I try ignoring the one tear that rolls down my left eye while I'm unwrapping Elena's candy offering.
"Now, you may not remember this, Jack. But these were made in the 70s. Huge hit. These days, everyone expects bubble gum to be super soft and easy to chew. Well, believe it or not, bubble gum wasn't always this way..."
I don't know where she is headed with all this crazy gum-talk, but it's interesting, and I've got all the time in the world, or at least tonight, to listen to her babbling.
After a brief pause for water, which she sips from a plastic cup placed near my bed, she adds, "Before, bubble gum took quite a bit of chewing to make it edible. But Bubble Yum changed all of that. Suddenly, chewing gum was easy, fun, and delicious! At least until the rumors started—"
"Rumors? What rumors?" I ask, now genuinely hooked.
"School kids started spreading rumors that Bubble Yum was so soft because spider eggs were one of the ingredients. How else could the gum be so soft? People just stopped chewing them. For a while, I stopped chewing them..." She looks apologetic, as if her confession made her a bit of a fool.
"What happened next, Elena?" I ask, wanting more time with her and this story.
"Well, an ad came out in the papers. But, even after that, even after I knew it wasn't true... I still couldn't chew it. It's funny how a rumor works. Once it's out there, you believe it, and you find out it's not true—and still—you can't put the damn gum in your mouth." She scans my face and flutters her lashes in amazement. I'm still chewing.
"Just the other day, I went with my son to the store, and he wanted some candy. So, I asked him to pick one, and he grabbed this packet." She stares at it as if it were magical. "And then my ridiculous thought process went like this: wait a minute, he's too young for gum, he'll choke. And immediately after, I thought: you are a doctor, a medical woman, you know he won't choke—that's crazy."
"And?" I ask, interrupting her. But heck, she has me bursting from curiosity.
"And it hit me. It was my irrational fear of the spider eggs rumor burning in my head, after all these years..."
Silence descends upon us both like a wet blanket. She stands up and opens the window. Through the thin, metallic gap, the breeze comes in. I feel it over my tears.
"Jack?"
"Yeah?"
"I guess we all need to learn where the spider eggs actually are. Perhaps even more importantly, where they are not?"
"I guess so... Yeah. Thanks, doc."
"I'm signing your release papers tonight, okay?"
I nod for what feels like the millionth time...
After she is gone, and I've shoved my humiliation, conscience, and wristwatch inside my backpack, my mom finally comes by the room and gobbles the lie that all I wanted was for a splitting headache to go away. Hence, the pills and all the swallowing more...
"That's okay, Jackie. It was all a mistake. You are safe now, and that's all it matters." She was so easily convinced. She was starving for my dumbass explanation. Eager to get the hell out of this place that reminded her of Dad so much.
In the middle of the corridor, surrounded by all the noises from the ward, I close my eyes for a split second, allowing Elena's words to ricochet inside my rib cage, and chew even harder. My mother is waiting in the car and honestly, I don't know how I will look at her on the drive back home.
If only I could make all these toxic, deafening rumors I carry inside my head daily go quiet. I'd give anything to get rid of them. Even my life...
With an endless sigh, I keep dragging my feet and that's when I clash against a soft wall.
"Mind where you are going, idiot!" Time slows to almost a halt, and it's so translucent. With inhumane clarity, my eyes pick on the most ridiculous details—like the tiny powder dots glistening under the ceiling's white lights that land on her long, dark hair. Or the fact that in my absent-minded heist I've managed to scatter all the contents of her—go figure—identical to mine, black backpack. As she gets closer, my breathing hitches as her attention settles on me...
"Great. So, I won't even get an apology. Chivalry is definitely dead." Her voice is hoarse, with a trembling pitch that's intoxicating and adorable all the same.
I can't help but smirk at the death mention. If only she knew... When my gaze finds hers, everything becomes unimportant. A heartbeat after and I'm drowning in the white azure of her almond-shaped eyes. She bends to collect her stuff, snorting, flicking a lock of hair off her blushed face, breaking the connection.
Thank god! I needed it—to breathe, to steer my eyes away from her skin. I could've sworn she couldn't be more devastating. Then she smiles, an evil smile.
"You really are a piece of shit, aren't you?"
And then she's gone and all I can do is gape at the empty space she occupied a few seconds ago. Talking about kinetic energy in all its glory, right?
Where will mine go if I try again and succeed? Google said unless I die by losing several limbs or being launched into outer space, my gravitational potential energy will not change much when I die. My kinetic energy will become zero because I will no longer be moving.
I'll be a zero. Makes sense.
Good thing she walked away without a second glance in my direction. I didn't want to get to know her after all. I'm all sorts of damaged goods.
I'd rather not become her spider eggs...
Yeah, good thing she stormed away from me.
Good, good thing.
Right?