Wren has brought over - I shit you not - twenty dresses. Luckily she remembered to keep the tags on. She taped her receipt on my mirror so she wouldn't lose it in the junkyard she calls her purse.
Dressing up for prom is a whole thing. Everyone resorts to the shopping mall (because ordering online poses way too much of a risk), which means you see the same dress at prom three or four times. Wren figured she'd snag everything in her size and decide from there.
She twirls around in an emerald green dress lined with silver studs on the collarbone. I shake my head. It's too dark. It swallows her. She wriggles out of it and tosses it in the rejected pile.
She squeezes into a short maroon dress that puffs out at the bottom, motioning for me to zip her up. We scrutinize her reflection in the mirror as she does an array of poses.
"Seven." I finally say. She lets out a noise of frustration and flings it off.
"I need to be an eleven!" She rummages through the others, picking out a long black dress. "I want him to get an insta-boner when he sees me." Wren shoots me a grin and I laugh.
Forty minutes later, we've found the one. I zip up the black and gold dress and she spins. It clings to her body in all the right places. The push up bra she's wearing is just enough pop for the low cut. A cluster of fake diamonds litter her left breast, forming the shape of a flower. And the dress hits her right below the knees. Wren hates knees. She says they look like old, wrinkled man faces.
"Winning!" She hugs herself, beaming. "You'd better be ready for me, Kyle Flannigan." She kicks the reject pile into her bag. "Has anyone asked you yet, babe?"
"No."
She gives my shoulder a squeeze. "I'm sure someone will soon, duh. What about that Nex guy?"
"I don't know." I shrug.
"Well, maybe if tomorrow goes well, he'll ask you."
"Maybe."
"How did he get your number anyway?" Wren asks, frowning. "And what kind of name is Nex?"
"Probably a gamertag," I laugh. "Or maybe his parents are scientists."
Wren slinks out of her prom dress and slips it on a hanger. She slides it onto the nook of her doorway and bites her lip. "I... I watched a simulation video."
I don't know what to say.
"It was so fucking creepy," she says, avoiding my eyes. "I could barely handle five minutes of it and I knew I was watching a video. I'm... I'm so sorry man." She lets out a shaky breath. The beginnings of tears pool at the bottom of her eyes.
I hug her. "It's okay, Wren. Seriously."
"Your Mom invited me to a group tomorrow."
"What?! Oh my god, Mom and her groups. I'm sorry, ignore her."
"No, I thought it was cool. I wanna go."
"Ugh, no, Wren, no."
"Why?"
I look away. The thought of Wren at some group with Mom and Alex is just... weird. Them all standing in a circle, talking about me (my illness) when I'm not there. Wren doesn't push the topic. She switches gears, perking up. "Oh my god, you know I'm not a total gossip or anything, but did you hear about Kelly?"
"Who? Moore?"
"No, no. Williams. The cheerleader. Apparently she's had some like, undercover lover for a year."
"So?"
"With a girl."
"Whaaaaat?"
Wren nods. "Right?! Who would have guessed?"
My phone's alarm goes off. Wren glances at the screen. "Meds?' she asks. I nod, rifling through my purse for the litter pills. I head to Wren's connected bathroom and find a seemingly clean cup and fill it with water. I stare, unblinking at the capsules.
Don't.
All Wren sees is the back of my head. A trashcan sits to the right, just out of view of the doorframe.
Poison.
I could drop them in and she wouldn't know.
Don't take them.
Before I can change my mind, I swallow them.
Blink, Mom crosses her arms, raises an eyebrow and leans back.
This is the hail Mary of not-good-signs.
"Honey you're in no condition to date."
Commence a ten minute one-way discussion where Mom lays out, breaks down, and definitively decides exactly why dating is not good for me right now. Alex sits still, frozen with keys in his hand.
Mom and Alex are on their way to a group meeting. Dr. Britten says it will help give the family perspective on what I'm dealing with. It's a bonding exercise. It creates a similar hell so you can cut your daughter a break.
Apathy hits me like a tidal wave. The medicine has finally worked its way through my system. All the cares and opinions fall, cards from my hand. I fold. Game over. I'm a puppet without strings. The light buzz of nausea hums at the top of my head.
"Okay," I finally say. I sound far away. I feel far away. Like I've taken a step back inside of my own body. Like I'm watching everything play out from behind glass.
Mom stare sat me, her eyes narrowing. She's been just as vocal to the doctors about the sedation and weight gain. Most parents from these groups tell her that it's an unavoidable side effect on some drugs. You just have to keep plowing through the pills. Keep picking up the bottles, switching out the labels, finding the right cocktail mix. Roll the dice till you hit snake eyes.
And hey, better to have a lethargic kid than a crazy one, right?
"Are you okay?" Mom searches my face.
"Yeah."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah. I'm just gonna go in bed and read."
She frowns. "You know what? Go."
"It's okay. I could take a nap."
"Heather," she stops. Squints. There's a sparkle of suspicion in her eye. "Are you playing me?"
I shrug. "No."
She stares. Sparkle sparkle.
"Out. Get ready and go. I want you back right after the movie, okay?"
I sigh and drag myself upstairs. I feel sleepy and tired and I wish I had never mentioned the date to Mom. Why did I bring that up? I'll be fighting to stay awake the whole time. And in a dark movie theater? I'll be sure to give in. Nex will probably think that I find him boring. My bed is calling out to me. The pillows so fluffy. That blanket so warm.
I could shuffle inside of there and hibernate. It sounds so good.
Blink, Mom hands me a jacket. I'm in the middle of walking out the door.
Nex is late. Twenty minutes late. The movie's already started, the faint buzz of its opening music audible through the thick metal doors. The smell of popcorn litters the air: butter and salt and spit. I stand in front of the theater alone, looking out at the still parking lot. No one is outside except for the guy at the ticket window, who's been staring at my butt without much subtlety. My phone shows no missed calls. No text messages.
I've been stood up.
I kick off my flats and head to the couch. I'm not heartbroken or anything, it's just the sudden cold shoulder that's weird. Is he playing mind games? Did he have an emergency? Whatever the reason, he could have texted. He could have told me not to wait outside for thirty minutes. I could have been sleeping.
Or maybe it's something else. Maybe he found out my diagnosis.
The day's medicine is still chugging along through my system. Extended release, formulated so you can lie in bed all day without interruption.
I realize that I've fallen asleep when I hear the door swing open. Mom, Alex and Wren come in.
"Hey," Alex calls. He plops onto the lazy boy, flicking on the TV to catch the remainder of some sports game.
"That group meeting was so eye-opening," Mom says.
"Oh yeah?" I mumble, rubbing my eyes. "Lots of talking?"
Wren sits next to me, tossing her legs on my lap and leaning back. "Each of us had to take turns standing in the middle of a circle. They'd given us this like, paper that we had to read out loud. It was simple instructions on how to bake a cake or change car oil. But when you started reading, everyone would shout at you."
Mom nods. "It was horrible."
"Horrible," Alex agrees.
"I couldn't think, much less read out loud." Wren shudders. "It was overwhelming."
"Overwhelming," Alex agrees.
Mom strokes my hair. "Honey, if that's what you go through every day, you're the strongest person I know."
A silence settles over us. This is the part where I'm supposed to confirm or deny their experience. Where I'm supposed to say something reassuring. What is it like to live with this? That's the whole point of these groups. Trying to understand. Compassionately putting yourself in someone else's shoes. Pretending you had a deteriorating brain and trying to recreate its effects to give you a "broader scope of experience."
But what can I say? That sometimes I see shit, and I have no idea if it's real or not? That the voices in my head are a thousand times crueler and louder and vicious than the insults any human would feel comfortable screaming at a stranger? That I can't even trust myself to know the line between reality and hallucination?
Instead I say: "I was stood up."
Their faces smooth over with pity.
"Oh, I'm so sorry. I completely forgot." My Mom reaches for me, wrapping me up in her arms like the feathered wings of a bird protecting its nest from the rain.
"I'm sorry." Wren squeezes my hand.
"He doesn't know what he's missing." Alex says.
A sigh escapes me.
What's worse is that I don't really care. I mean, deep down I do, but I don't. The connection of my heart to my head is severed and sending sparks into the air. My brain is prohibited from producing the chemicals I need to bet upset, to cry, to feel broken. My feelings are lying somewhere in my body, but I can't reach them. The good ones, the bad ones. They're gone.
I am empty.
I am a shell.
A ghost star, orbiting in soundless space.
A void.
Mom never once mentioned the stack of bills that awaited us when I was released from the hospital. She didn't flinch when they recommended weekly psychotherapy sessions. She never balked at the price of the pills, refill after refill after refill.
But she never asked me what I wanted, either.
In the morning, I head to the girls bathroom and flush the pills.
Redhead isn't there this time.
The capsules circle round and round in the water until they're out of sight.
Out of mind.