There are five pills in my hand: one antipsychotic, one mood stabilizer, two antidepressants, and an anti-anxiety med. Five colorful capsules full of chemicals I'm supposed to swallow with water two times daily, even on an empty stomach.
At sixteen, this makes me a freak.
Don't take them, don't take them.
Yeah, I heard you the first five thousand times.
They're poison.
In a sense, I guess they are.
Poison.
It's my first day back at school since The Incident, and instead of hanging out with my friends, I'm hiding in the last stall of the girls bathroom staring at my medication. I look back and forth between my hand and what lies below it. The pills. The sparkling water of the toilet. All I have to do is spread out my fingers and the little capsules would slip through. They'd dissolve into nothing. There'd be no evidence.
Throw them away throw them away throw them away!
The door swings open, accompanied by hisses. I peek through the crack of the stall, and sure enough, a redhead's world is ending.
"If you ever open your mouth again, I swear to God I'll—" A cheerleader. Six feet. Blonde. Of course.
"What? What are you going to do, Kelly?" The redhead, drenched in black everything. Black make up and black clothes drowning out pale skin and bloody hair.
"Stop it. Just stop it, you fucking psycho."
Redhead leans in close and whispers a word I can't catch.
Kelly smacks her. The slap echoes across scribbled walls, looking for a place to land. Red lets out a small laugh beneath her hair. Her face hangs twisted to the side.
"Stay away from me." Kelly turns. The door swings.
Red's perfectly still in the roaring silence. She finally lets her head roll all the way back, scarlet hair falling behind her. Her shoulders go up, down, up, down, down, down. But no sound escapes.
She pulls back her sleeve. A scatter of scabby criss-crossed lines call out to her. She digs through her backpack, gulping air. A razor reflects the dull florescent lights. She turns to her image in the mirror, her face changing when she catches the glint of metal. Gray eyes become dark and flat.
She gently drags the tip of the razor across her lips, like a lover's fingertips. She shivers and closes her eyes. Redhead brings the edge's sharp bite to her wrist, ready to sink it into flesh.
I need to do something. Now.
She jerks up at the sound of the toilet flushing. I exit the stall, but she doesn't putaway the razor or pull down her sleeve. Redhead squints at me. Tilts her head. A spark of recognition.
"You're the girl from the play."
Ugh. Yes I am. When will everyone forget?
Her eyes trace down my arm, to my hand. "What's that? Are those pills?" I wish I could rip myself apart and start all over again. Instead, I point to her arm and mirror her question. What's that? Those lines on her wrist? Secrets aren't free.
Her eyes flicker with amusement, and she smiles. Redhead takes the razor, and without breaking eye contact, drags it across her wrist. Scabs break apart. Flesh splits. Blood bursts. She doesn't even flinch. Holy shit.
"Stop!" She laughs.
She's crazy.
Right. Says the voice in my head.
I lunge forward and knock the razor out of her hand. She stares at me, reaches out, and knocks the pills from mine.
The bell rings. Thank God. Redhead slides her wrist under running water. I pickup the scattered pills and toss them in the trash. She plucks the razor from the floor and tucks it in her backpack. She pulls down her sleeve.
Red brings a single finger to her smile. Shhh.
Her grin and gray eyes disappear behind the swinging bathroom door. A drop of her blood sits on the dirty porcelain of the sink.
What the hell just happened?
In truth, I admire a specific kind of bravery: the one that comes with invisible scars. The romantic struggle out of suffocating darkness. The kind only achievable when one's life turns to a tragedy. One who fill the emptiness with pain—if only to feel alive. But that? That's not bravery. That's escape. I take out my prescription bottles and shake out a new dose. The pills drag down my throat one by one, dry and resistant. I swallow hard, forcing the chalky capsules into my system.
They sit heavy in my stomach.
I slide into the empty desk next to Wren, the pills bubbling. In no more than sixty minutes, I'll be sedated. Living life medicated.
"You'll never guess who just asked me to prom," Wren says.
"Who?"
"Kyle. Freaking. Flannigan."
"Shut up!" Wren frequently finds trouble on purpose, hoping to spend a detention or two in the same silence with her long-term, monogamous crush: a tall, jet-black haired misfit who sports faded leather jackets and a light touch of eyeliner. He embodies the perfect picture of misunderstood bad boy. (Although to Wren's credit, she's liked him since we were eight and he rocked chubby cheeks and Power Ranger shirts.)
"Did you scream? Faint? Die? Deets, Wren." We giggle like madmen.
"I almost peed," Wren whispers. We erupt into cackles.
A mocking voice from the back of the room cuts through our celebration. "The pink light runs! The pink light runs!" Class chatter halts. Heads turn. Eyes flicker between the boy at the back of class and me. The memory of The Incident lurches to the surface. A hundred staring faces in the dark. The ringing absence of sound in my ears, like the aftermath of a bomb. I clutch the desk, white hot. Hearing my own words said out loud brings a cold, thoughtless shudder across my neck.
Kill him.
Wren yells at him to shut up.
Snicker, snicker, snicker from the back of the class. Insults like demented, nuts, psycho.
Kill him.
Wren stands, but I grab her arm. Don't.Snicker, snicker, snicker. Crack up, deranged, crazy chink bitch.
SHUT HIM UP.
I stand. I turn around slowly. (For purely dramatic purposes, of course.) My eyes connect with his, and fear flashes across his face. The interesting side effect of The Incident is how everyone acts around me now. In the hall, their eyes dart away before mine can reach them. They whisper behind hands and hair. They flee and scatter from my path. Nothing scares people more than crazy. I walk up to him. His friends take one step back. Leaning in close, until his eyes have nowhere else to look, until I am his entire peripheral world, I whisper.
"What did you say?" My words caress his face and he cringes. "Crazy chink bitch, was it?"
He says nothing.
My hand reaches out and he flinches. I cup his cheek in my hand. (Okay, I'm being a little over the top now, but forgive me. It's been two weeks since I've had an audience.)
"I'm flattered," Our faces are close enough to kiss. "But I'm Korean."
I head back to my seat and sit down in the hushed silence. Wren grins and lifts an eyebrow. I shrug. In thirty minutes, it'll be back to the gray. Mr. Willaby walks into the room and begins to take attendance. The heavy hail of apathy trickles down, silent and spreading, one milligram at a time.
I don't hear anything from the back of the class.
Spring production sign ups hang on the wall. The familiar group rushes it.
"You doing lights again?" I ask Wren.
She shrugs. "Probably soundboard."
The splatter of human beings crowding the paper eventually thins out, and Wren bites her lip.
"You sure you wanna do this?"I stare at her. Have I ever said no to that question? Wren rolls her eyes and takes a pen out of her backpack. She hands it to me,and I print my name clearly and slightly bigger than I normally would. Just so there are no misunderstandings.
There are about twenty of us who have signed up so far. We don't know what play McCormick will pick for another week or so, but he better pick something heavy, dark, and juicy. I need a monologue so powerful it erases the bullshit from The Incident. Something so mind blowing that I'll be remembered for nothing else.
"This is it," Wren says, staring at my name on the sheet. "Last production of senior year."
She hits me in the shoulder. We've been signing up for drama productions since middle school. Wren backstage, and me on it. It's all coming to an end. One final year, and then off we go.
"Let's make it count." I say.
"Fuck yeah," Wren slings her arm around my shoulder and we head down the hallway. Kyle walks past us, and the look between them both reminds me of every amazing love story I've read ever. The way they look at each other makes me feel lighter. That look has passed between them for nearly a decade, but lately it's been more... real. Yeah, that's the only way to explain it.
Like they know there's something special between them, but they're saving it for last. Like they know where they're supposed to end up, and there's no rush in getting there. Like they're taking their time,growing separately, so that they can become one when they're fully formed twos. That look says they're serious. That they care too much to let themselves get in the way and mess it all up.
What a beautiful way for love to unfold.
Wren's hair even seems a brighter blue when she looks at Kyle. Her whole body lights up in response to him. Like he's some mythical greek god who's very presence ignites her body into flames. When he walks around the corner, Wren lets out a small sigh.
"That jaw, though. Something about that jaw just drives me insane. I could rip that jaw off with my teeth."
I laugh. "There's a shark joke there somewhere."
Wren's cheeks shimmer a pale pink. Her freckles dance across her face, a sprinkle of stars spinning the bridge of her nose. As Kyle's effects wear off, her feet touch the floor and she kisses the clouds goodbye. I nudge her and tease, playing my part, but I couldn't be happier. If anyone deserves a happy ending, it's Wren. If only one of us could have that fairy tale butterfly feeling of love that blossoms in your stomach—the feeling you get from books like The Fault In Our Stars and Eleanor &Park and heck, even Twilight—it should be Wren.
We head into the cafeteria and speculate about the next production. Wren's thinking romantic tragedy, I'm betting dark fantasy.
Either way, we both agree it'll be an unforgettable experience.
Gray. I float along in a world of gray.
When I blink, I'm somewhere else. I'm in and out, in and out of consciousness,merely rousing out of the chemical haze to occasionally experience my life.
Blink, it's sixth period. My notebook's completely empty. The teacher's staring at me. Did he ask me something?
Blink, there's me in the mirror. I look dead.
Blink, how did my jeans get this tight?
Blink, Wren asks if I'm okay.
Blink, I'm in my car.
Blink, am I alive? Or do I just exist? Not that I care, of course. The drugs won't let me care that my life flashes by, a film on fast forward.I rise out of existence, into living.
Blink. I'm in Dr. Britten's office. The clock ticks. She's late. I take out my notebook and scribble, no stopping.
Humans are composed of the same six chemicals. You, me, the reality personality on TV. We're all ninety nine percent oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen,calcium and phosphorus. Blacks, gays, annoying kids on the street. Six chemicals.
Old people, narcissists, pedophiles. Six chemicals. Everyone who lives and breathes and loves and dies. Six chemicals. Cells, molecules, atoms. Protons, neutrons, elemental bonds. Minerals, proteins, acids, fats, muscle, bone, skin, hair, teeth, dreams, fears, hopes. Death. We have so much in common. Seven billion people on the planet, and we're all six chemicals. When you look at the numbers, there is no evidence for the soul.
On the bright side, our lives are meaningless.
If I ever split my atoms I would explode, leaving nothing more than mushroom shaped smoke. Because in the end, we're just chemicals. And your chemicals will fail you. Every time.
"Heather?" Dr. Britten's holding the door open. The glimmer on her glasses makes her an alien. I close my notebook and stand. I walk into her office, but my life goes on without me. "How long since you've heard any voices?"
She's out to get you.
"A long time." I say.
Dr. Britten stares at me, an open invitation to elaborate. Therapy works like this: you ramble on and on and on, and they interject only at random intervals to make an observation, or play devil's advocate, or repackage your thoughts and hand them back to you looking shiny and new and not so screwed up.
"How's the new medication?"
"I'm the fat walking dead." Here's three hours of staring empty eyed and souled at the ceiling. Here's ten extra pounds in the last two weeks and counting. All in tablet form.
"Well, you're still in the adjustment period. We'll see how the side effects are in a few weeks."
"I've read that plenty of people go off their medication and manage just fine."
"In four weeks, if you don't see any improvement with Risperdal, we can switch you over to Zyprexa. But we still need six weeks total to determine any significant change."
"Can I try to get better without them first?"
"You have."
"Can we at least lower the dosage so I can function?"
"I'm afraid we can't."
I am a hamster in a cage, running the big wheel that leads to nowhere. Run, run, run.
"How am I supposed to act when I can't feel anything?" I ask.
Dr. Britten raises an eyebrow.
"The next production? The entire reason I'm in here?"
"Do you think putting yourself into another high stress environment is a good idea?" she asks. Sometimes Dr. Britten and I play question and question. Whenever she wants an answer, I just phrase it in a question. Even though she doesn't let on, I'm pretty sure it drives her insane. Good. That makes two of us.Dr. Britten goes on to say I'll need treatment for the rest of my life. She reminds me that even if we lower my meds at some point, I will always need therapy. I will always need to "manage my illness". I say, I can do this on my own. I want to try to do this on my own. The drugs suck. They make me fat, dead, unfeeling. When drugs run their course, I am nothing more than a shadow on the wall.
"Heather, this is a medical condition. Not a matter of will or strength. You need to stay on your medication."
She's wrong. She's wrong about us. "You're wrong. You're wrong about me."
She smiles at me. A platonic, ambiguous smile that reveals nothing. "Your mother and I have been discussing some options for group therapy." God. The clock ticks.
Blink, I'm back in the car.
No wait, my bad. That was a beep. My phone beeped. Time for another round of drugs, the alert says. I reach for the pills in my purse. My fingers coil themselves around the bottle. I am these five little pills of anti-everything. Anti-life, anti-feeling, anti-me. You are what you eat, right? I am the unraveling of myself. I am the deteriorating mind in my skull. I am the gray matter loss in the parietal cortices, spreading to the temporal and frontal regions of the brain. I am the diagnosis written on my chart. I am my prescriptions. Waking sleep. Dreaming life. I toy with the bottle, my fingers dancing across the paper with BATEMAN,HEATHER printed on its surface.
Don't.
Each round of pills is another pound gained, another moment lost. Scrambling around in a fog, arms stretched out, searching for a surface to guide me while I'm being force fed corn meal. Rainclouds on a string tied to my wrist, shadowing me wherever I go. Trudging through swamp water. Each step a battle. Gray. You need help, Heather. You can't do this on your own. It doesn't matter if you're not enjoying your life. All that matters is you're not a raving lunatic. You're never going back up on that stage. You're never finding redemption shhh. Get fat, Heather. Be a zombie, Heather. Swallow the pills. Live dead.
No. No, thank you. The little capsules call out to me. I take my hand out of my purse and put it back on the steering wheel. I can skip a dose. It'll be fine. Fine. I turn away from home and head onto the shallow dirt path that leads into the woods, seeking the abandoned bridge. It used to cross over a big, gushing green river full of fish and life and smooth stones, but the river dried up and the bridge became useless like you. All it lords over now is a bunch of boulders fifty feet below, a gorge crawling with insects and weeds. Sometimes people jump off the bridge. They know there's nothing but rocks underneath, but they do it anyway.
I step out of the car and breathe in. The drugs are dissolving, the assisted chemicals all used up. Hello, life. Hello, feeling. I stand on the bridge's low wall, looking down into the Ravine's open mouth as so many others did before me.
Jump on in, jump, jump. It's a familiar invitation. Dive on in, dive, dive.
The Ravine often tells me that it can help me escape for good. I don't ever have to look back, just keep running straight into its mouth and let it clamp shut. Just jump. The Ravine says if I do, I'll wake up. I'll no longer live in this never ending haunted house. Peace and quiet can be found in the chasms down below. Just dive. The Ravine says. Come on inside. I give the Ravine two words with my middle finger.
Come on, Heather, it croons. Don't you want it all to end? No more pain, no more chaos in your mind. I'll give you silence. I'll give you sleep.
You want my body that badly? You want my blood staining your teeth?
Yes, yes.
That's not how my story ends.
It laughs. No, no. Your story begins here. You can fly, Heather.
Fly like your father.
The same dance we've done for four years. I lift a foot and let it hover over the edge. In my mind, I picture myself falling all the way to certain death. Or leaping, arms spread out like an angel. Or closing my eyes, and taking a step forward into the great unknown. Small pebbles break apart from the bridge and tumble into the distant abyss. Drool drips from the Ravine's open mouth. It pants with hunger and impatience. My foot dangles in the air. My heart is a lit stick of dynamite. Hair a victim to the wind. Molecules thrum. Blood pounds. Sparklers ignite under my skin. I am alive. I am awake. The crunch of leaves. Footsteps approaching. Over my shoulder stands... me.
It's looking in a mirror where the reflection doesn't match up. Dr. Britten says the best way to "test reality" is to stop and ask myself if this is really happening. Analyze the current situation. But how do you ask yourself if you really exist? I blink hard and shake my head, and the image of myself is gone. In its place stands a guy. His arms are crossed. He tilts his head.
"You gonna jump?"
"No."
He smiles, but only one corner of his mouth lifts up. He looks between the Ravine and I with curiosity. Something clicks into place.
"You're Bateman, right?" Great. That's just what I need right now, for this guy to report back to everyone that I was dangling my foot over the bridge where my—never mind. It wouldn't matter whyI'm here. It'd be a one way ticket back to the loony bin. It'd be a welcome invitation for more mind bending games with Dr. Britten. Misunderstanding and mistrust from Mom. Restraints. Limits. Meds, meds, meds. The end. Game over. I hop down and head back to my car.
"Hey, where are you going?" He runs in front of me and takes steps backwards to match my pace. One corner of his mouth still props up in amusement. Up close, he's cute. Cuter than I thought. His eyes are black pearls, glints of emerald and lavender and silver and onyx, framed with long dark feather lashes. Boys always get the good eyelashes. It's a genetic injustice.
"I knew you weren't gonna jump," he says.
"Good for you."
"Look, Bateman. Sorry if I pissed you off," he shrugs, like an apology is something that frequently rolls off his tongue. Like the word falls out of his mouth as naturally as an exhale. "I'm Nex."
"That's not a real name."
He halts in front of me. I'm tempted to side-step him, but I stop instead. He leans in close. My body betrays my mind and tingles at his closeness. Cells rebel.
"Maybe. But I like Nex."
"Okay."
My voice is higher because I'm a victim to hormones right now. It's nothing more than chemicals combining and reacting. My biology is responding to this attractive boy, not me. It's science. I'm hardwired to feel this way.
Liar.
He reaches out and his fingers fiddle with my hair. My stomach flips over,unleashing a swarm of butterflies in the process. Got caught up in the wind, he says. There. He fixed it. Nex's black pearl eyes shine at me. I'm in the spotlight. I'm on centerstage. I have both feet hovering over the edge. Nex nods at the Ravine.
"You got some kinda history with that thing, huh?" The tingle drops like an anchor. Walls rebuild. Armor wraps around my heart,metal scales. I walk past him and he lets out a small laugh. "See you at school, Bateman."
I don't turn around. As I open my car door, he calls out one last line: "For the record, I don't think you're crazy."
Although there's a smile in that sentence, he sounds genuine. I shut my eyes. He has no idea how long I've been waiting for someone to say that. When I walk through the door Mom is waiting for me, arms crossed. That's never a good sign.
"Where were you?"
"Went for a walk."
"Take your meds?"
"Yes." Liar.
Mom sighs. The lies are tiny black spots on my soul. I give her a hug so she can't see them. "You guys should go out tonight." I say. "You deserve it."
"Thanks, honey. But the only thing I want to do right now is take off my pants."
"Ew."
She laughs. "When you're my age, you'll understand." She unloads groceries,tucking things away in proper places. "By the way, you start group therapy next week."
"What?"
"Dr. Britten has group therapy sessions with young adults." She doesn't meet my eyes.
"Please don't ever refer to me as a young adult ever again."
"She says it'll give you a sense of community, let you know that you're not alone, and I agree."
"Mom, I already go to her twice a week."
"So what's once more?"
"I have homework to catch up on."
Mom puts a hand on her hip. That's never a good sign, either. "Heather LilaBateman," Uh-oh. Full name. "We're all doing this for you, but it's useless unless you help yourself." She softens, sighs. She wraps her arms around me. "I'm sorry, hon. I know this is hard. I mean, I can't imagine what it's like, but I know it must be hard."
"Yeah."
"The Risperdal still making you gain weight?"
"Ugh. Yes."
"Well, you could use a little extra meat on your bones, you're so tiny as is." She squeezes my arm.
"I know, but it'll become a problem if I'm on it for a year." Mom nods. She's never been one of those mothers who obsesses about the way she looks, for which I've always been grateful. Wren's Mom is always telling her she needs to lose weight, or get her hair done, or paint her nails. Wren's Mom always borrows her clothes and stretches them out. My Mom's always trying to fatten me up, telling me that healthy triumphs over skinny. Mom can be a nag and obsessive, but she's always put me first. Even when she was picking up the pieces from Dad's fallout, she still put me first.
"Well, we'll do what we can, baby,"
"Yeah. But maybe I don't need to go to group?" I flash her my best smile.
"Nice try," She snaps a hand towel in my direction and I can't help but laugh. "Now get out of my kitchen."
My room is a library more than anything else. Books and movies overflow their structured cases, ending up in tall stacks leaning against the wall. They run across the window sill and fill the space under the bed. Most of them are uncorrected galley proofs, handed down from Mom for feedback from a young eye. Her words, not mine. A few of my father's works have their own special place above my desk. I crawl into bed and take my phone out of my purse. I have several missed calls and messages from Wren:
I'm going shopping, want to come?
Hey, leaving in ten.
UGH, cannot decide. Help.
[Picture of Wren smiling, modeling a blue dress in fitting room]
[Green dress with a slightly less enthusiastic smile]
[Red dress with a neutral expression]
[Purple dress with indecision]
[Pink and black dress, frowning, obviously tired]
[Gold dress, a funny face, clearly at the delirious point of exhaustive shopping]
Please call. NEED ADVICE.
I'm just buying them all.
Come over tomorrow!
I call Wren, but her voicemail picks up. Sorry, I tell her, phone was on silent. All the dresses look great. I'll come over tomorrow so we can choose one. Don't forget to hold on to the receipt! There's a fifty fifty chance she'll lose the receipt. When I set the phone down, it rings, but it's not from Wren. It's a blocked number.
"Hello?"
"Bateman." I can hear the smirk in his words.
"How the hell did you get my number?"
"Let's just say I know some things."
"Wow. Cryptic. I'm going to guess you asked someone."
"Guess all you want," he laughs.
"Anyway, you haven't been to the movies in awhile. Want to see something tomorrow?" This kind of confidence should be illegal.
"I'd rather do homework." Not really, but Nex probably approaches every girl on the block this way. I'm not falling for this crap.
"It's a Saturday night."
"I've been out for two weeks. Can't let my grades slip."
"Ah, right. Penn State. Congratulations by the way." Okay, this in-depth knowledge of me is starting to get creepy. (And a tiny bit flattering.)
"Thanks."
"So want to say seven?" Before I can stop it, laughter escapes me. Damn. Adding fuel to the fire."I'll take that as a yes."
"No. I'm hanging out with Wren tomorrow. Sorry." Wren always says that playing hard to get is the surest way to keep a guy's interest. But then again Wren's liked the same guy for eight years and never dated.
"Alright. Sunday it is." I won't lie. It's nice to have someone interested in me, staring at me the way Nex did. The only guys who ever put their hands on me are doctors. The only ones who want to pay close attention are doing so for medical reasons. I'm usually a slab under a microscope. A finicky vein escaping the needle. The hospital gown going under the MRI.
"Fine." I say. "Sunday. But we're doing matinee. And I want to see a scifi flick. No romance." There. Power dynamics in my favor. It's in the middle of the day, so it can't be a date.
And on the heel of that thought, Nex says, "It's a date."