Chapter 23
At home, I go straight to my room. There are so many ways for me to hurt myself in the house.
Knives in the kitchen. Medication in the bathroom cabinet.
How did I never think about this before?
How is it so easy to die by suicide? I always thought it was this big deal, this extreme thing, but now that I’ve had the thought I can’t unthink it.
Did I feel this way before and just didn’t know?
I don’t want to die, so why am I thinking about all the ways I could?
I don’t want to die, but what if I lose control and accidentally kill myself?
I get under the blankets and wrap myself up tight, phone clutched in my hand.
I want to call someone, anyone, but I don’t want them to worry, or think that I’ve lost it completely.
And who am I supposed to call? Not Dad, that’s for sure, and I don’t want to freak out Mom or Shar.
I already drove Forrest away. Jayden’s probably so excited about his new crush, and my problems will totally kill the vibe.
Makayla is Jayden’s twin, so if I call them, then he’ll know too. And Anna—
Anna.
I open our text thread. The last thing she sent me was a meme, and looking at it, I smile. Anna’s such a good friend. Hey, I type.
The ellipses pop up instantly. Hiiiieeee
I’m—
I delete and try again.
Something is—
No, not that.
Can you come over?
Of course, she says.
I lie there, staring at the thread. I need her.
I don’t want to die. I check her location, and watch her tiny dot move around her house and then out of it.
It moves faster than normal, so I know she must have called a car.
I keep my eyes fixed to her as she snakes through Capitol Hill, down its east side; past Judkins Park, where we went to a protest rally a few years ago; across Rainier Avenue and up the back of Beacon Hill, and then the dot pauses on the street outside my house.
I push back the covers and set my feet on the floor.
She knocks, and it takes everything in me to get up and walk out of my bedroom, but I do.
When I open the door, she steps inside and wraps me in a hug. My head nestles into her neck, and I squeeze back, feeling the comforting softness of her in my arms.
“You give the best hugs,” I mumble.
“I know,” she says, and squeezes me tighter for a moment before releasing me. Her face is serious. “I’m going to make you some tea, and we’re going to go in your room, and you’re going to tell me what’s going on, because I know you and I know something’s up.”
I nod. She heads to the kitchen and fills our electric kettle, then selects two mugs while I stand there and watch her. Brekky meows from the floor, Earl Grey echoing him from the cat tree.
“I should feed them,” I say, and cross to the cabinet where we keep their wet food. Brekky headbutts my hand as I open it, and tries to climb inside, on top of the pallet of cans. I pull him out. “Get out of there, you ridiculous little boy.”
“Herbal or caffeinated?” Anna says.
“Definitely herbal,” I say. I do not need to add a caffeine buzz to whatever the fuck is going on inside my brain right now.
“Chamomile? Peppermint? Rooibos?”
“Chamomile is good.” I crack open the cat food and scoop the portions into clean bowls, then carry them to the feeding station, the cats trailing me the whole way. They chow down, and I follow Anna back to my room. She hands me my mug, and we sit down the bed.
“So,” she asks. “What’s up?”
And I tell her everything.
When I’m finished, she’s quiet for a little bit, turning the mug around in her hands. Maybe this was too much. Maybe I overwhelmed her.
“Wow,” she says finally. “That’s a lot.”
I look down. “Sorry.”
“Oh my god, NO.” She reaches out and squeezes my knee. “Not ‘a lot’ as in you’re too much. ‘A lot’ as in . . . wow, you’ve been dealing with a lot.”
“Oh.”
“I’m not surprised you have a crush on Forrest,” she says.
“You aren’t?” I can’t even hide the incredulity in my voice.
“No.” She waves a hand. “And also, I don’t think you’re crazy. But that definitely doesn’t sound like anxiety.”
“Yeah.” I raise the mug to my nose, breathing in the sweet, musty smell of the chamomile tea. It’s familiar and calming. “I just . . . don’t know what’s going on with me. I’m . . .” My voice gets watery and thick, my throat closing up. “I’m scared.”
“Sidney.” She scoots closer to me.
“I’m sorry I’ve been a bad friend.” I’m crying now, through my words.
“What are you talking about?” she says. “In what way have you ever been a bad friend?”
“I’m self-centered, and I make everything about me, and all I can think about is my own problems, and—”
“OK, those are all basically the same thing, so that’s one thing, and it’s not even true,” she says. “Nothing you just said about what it’s like inside your head sounds remotely like that. Honestly, it sounds like torture.”
I cry harder, because she’s right, and she puts her arms around me, hugging me tightly.
We rock back and forth, in a comfortable embrace, until my tears slow.
The door swings open a little bit as Brekky pushes through, and a moment later, Earl Grey pokes her head in too.
Brekky jumps up on the bed, curling up against Anna, and Earl Grey prowls over to my bookcase, jumping on top of it to look out my window.
“So . . . I think you should tell your moms,” Anna says finally, pulling back from our hug.
“Urrrgh.” I shut my eyes. “They’re going to freak out.”
“They’re supposed to freak out,” she says, twisting side to side to stretch out her back. “They love you. And they don’t want you to . . .”
“I don’t want to either.”
“I’ll help you,” Anna says. “I brought my homework. We can study until they get home and tell them together.”
I press my face to my knees, squishing my glasses against the bridge of my nose. “I’m so behind on the essay. I’m going to fail Lundahl’s class for sure.”
“Maybe.” Anna shrugs. “Maybe not.”
“How are you so chill?”
“I mean, I’m not, at all. But also, therapy and medication.” She bends her wrist gayly, wiggling her fingers at me. “Maybe I need therapy and medication,” I mutter.
She snorts. “Maybe you do.”
As usual, Shar gets home first. Her truck pulls up, and the cats scatter, dashing to greet her.
Our walls are thin, and I can hear everything: the passenger door slamming shut, her key turning in the lock, her work boots on the floor as she heads to the kitchen.
She sets something down on the counter, probably her backpack with her lunch and water bottle and whatever else a carpenter needs to bring to work.
“It’s gonna be OK,” Anna says, her quiet voice bringing me back to my room. I was so focused on listening to Shar’s arrival that it almost swallowed me up. Anna touches my knee from where she’s sprawled out beside me, doing a reading for history class.
“Sid?” Shar calls from the kitchen, and a moment later she’s tromping toward my door. A knock sounds.
“Hey,” I call back. “Anna’s here studying with me.”
“Oh, great!” She peeks her head in, smiling at both of us. “I’m gonna take a nap, then probably get started on dinner once your mom gets home. Anna, you’re welcome to stay.”
Anna glances at me, then grins at Shar. “Thanks!”
Shar withdraws, and I look down at Anna. “Please stay.”
“Shar’s cooking. Of course I’m staying,” she says. “When do you want to tell them?”
“Before dinner,” I say. “I just want to get it over with.”
She nods, and turns her eyes back to her laptop.
I watch her for a while, then zone out, staring out the window.
Images play in that weird liminal space behind my eyeballs, and my room fades out until I’m alone in the dark theater of my brain, watching the past few days over and over and over.
Forrest probably hates me now. Who could like someone who literally walks away while you’re telling them you want to date them?
A little while later, the sound of the front door opening jerks me back to reality again. I look at Anna, and she gives me the thumbs-up. I take a deep breath, and slide off the bed. Here we go.
We nearly run into Mom as we step out of my door.
“Hi sweetie,” she says, and catches sight of Anna behind me. “You two hanging out?”
“Yes. Um. Actually. Anna came over to help me with something. Can I talk to you and Shar?” I shove my hands into my pockets, gripping the fabric at the bottom.
She frowns slightly. “Of course.”
We follow her down the hall and into the room she shares with Shar.
Its walls are painted an eggshell white, like the living room and kitchen, with gauzy curtains and framed photos of our family above the bed, a queen-size that takes up half the room.
A small brown leather armchair sits in the corner opposite the door, Earl Grey asleep on top of the fleece blanket piled on its seat.
Shar is lying down on her side of the bed and cracks an eye when we come in. “What’s up?”
“Sid and Anna want to talk to us about something,” Mom says, closing the door. She crosses to the chair and slides Earl Grey to one side so she can sit; the cat lets out a croaky meow of protest, then resettles in her new spot. Shar straightens up, yawning, and motions us to the bed.
I perch on its other side, Anna standing next to me.
“What’s going on?” Mom asks. I can already tell she’s worried, and I hate that I’m about to make that even worse.
“I’m, um.” I clasp my hands together, rubbing one thumb over the other.
I didn’t think about how to say this, but it’s too late now.
“I’ve been having these . . . thoughts. For a long time, actually.
But they started getting worse last year.
And this year. I thought it was anxiety, but .
. . it’s something else. I get these, like .
. .” I spread my hands out, as if I can show Mom and Shar in the shape of the air between my fingers.
“Visions. I don’t know. They feel so real.
Of you guys getting hurt, or Dad, or . .
. people turning on me. And I hear these voices all the time.
Telling me to do stuff. Like run away, or that my friends hate me, or .
. .” I swallow. Tears sting my eyes, and I take off my glasses, pressing the heels of my hands against my eyeballs.
Anna grips my shoulder. “Today they’ve been telling me to kill myself. ”
The room is silent. Even Earl Grey stops purring for a moment, only to start again.
“I was standing in the train station this morning and this thought just popped into my head,” I say, rushing onward.
“That I could just jump in front of it. Why would I think that? I don’t want to die.
But I couldn’t even walk down the street today without thinking about jumping in front of a car.
I’m afraid I’m going to do it, and I don’t want to, I don’t want to, I don’t want to die!
” My voice breaks on the last word, stretching it out into a wail and then I’m sobbing, bent forward on the bed.
Mom’s arms close around me a moment later, someone else’s hand on my head, Shar and Mom both murmuring to me as I cry.
Anna’s holding my arm with both hands now, squeezing my bicep.
“Sweetie,” Mom says. “Honey. We’re going to figure this out, OK?”
I nod, the top of my head rubbing against her chest, and slowly sit up. Mom pats my face with one of Shar’s cloth hankies, as Shar gives me a small smile and leaves the room, coming back a moment later with a glass of water for me. I sip and then take the hanky from Mom, blowing my nose.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” I say. “I didn’t want to upset you or anything. I haven’t been able to focus on school because it’s just been getting worse and worse, and I have a huge essay due on Friday that I’ve barely started.”
“Your well-being is way more important than school,” Mom says in a low, fierce voice.
“But last year . . .”
“Is this why you were struggling then?”
I nod.
“Sidney. I’m so sorry.” Mom cups my face with her hands. “I thought I asked you what was going on.”
“You did, but . . . you were so mad.” My voice drops to a whisper. “I thought you’d just get more upset if I made excuses.”
“Oh, no. No, no, no. My baby.” Mom scoots closer and wraps her arms around me. “I’m sorry for anything I did that made you feel that way.”
I start crying again, and I can tell by the way she’s breathing that she’s crying too, and that just makes me cry harder.
“Anna,” Mom says after a while. “Thank you for helping Sidney. I’m guessing that’s why you came over today.”
“Yeah,” Anna says. “Sidney’s my best friend.”
“You’re a good kid,” Shar says. “I’m going to make us all some dinner, and then we can talk about what to do next.”
“Thank you, sweetheart,” Mom says.
“I got you.” I hear Shar’s footsteps grow faint as she moves out of the room.
I let out a deep, shuddering sigh into Mom’s shoulder. I told people the truth, and the world didn’t end. I told people what my brain is doing, and they didn’t lock me away or tell me I’m crazy. They still love me. They’re going to help me.
Mom squeezes me closer, her arms warm and comforting, and for the first time in a long time, I feel safe.