Chapter 7 #2
“Okay. Now, your mom explained to me what was going on, but if you don’t mind, I’d like to hear it from you. It isn’t often my teenage clients’ own idea to come to therapy, so I don’t want you to feel like I’m assuming what help you might need, if any.”
I press my lips together. “Uh-huh. Well, my best friend died.”
“How did she die?”
“Suicide.” I pause. “I get that we’re supposed to say she killed herself, not that she committed suicide, but whatever.”
“You can say died by suicide, if you prefer,” says Anna. “It’s not the word ‘suicide’ that’s the problem so much as the idea that a crime was committed. Truthfully, in here you can say it however you like.”
“But you’re going to judge how I say it, right?”
“Not judge, no, but the words you use do help me get a better picture of how you feel about the situation. Talk about it however feels right for you, no matter what the words are.”
I mull this over. “Right. Anyway, she jumped in Moss River and drowned. That’s what happened.”
As I say “jumped,” something shifts in my chest and throat, and the second half of the word comes out strangled.
It’s like my body knows I shouldn’t be talking so flippantly about this.
I clamp down on my emotions, on my thoughts.
Getting emotional is too much work. It’s exhausting.
I just want to get through this appointment and get back to my game.
“I’m so sorry this happened,” Anna says. “That grief is a heavy burden to bear no matter how old you are. When did you find out about this?”
“Last Sunday.”
“So it hasn’t even been a week.”
“No.”
“How did you find out?”
“The news. Then my mom called her parents. They’d been looking for her after she didn’t come home. She hadn’t gone to school either. I went and checked a few places I thought she might be.”
“You helped with the search?”
“Yeah. A bit.”
“What were you thinking about, while you were searching?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did you think something terrible had happened, or did you think you would find her? What thoughts were going through your head while you were looking?”
I shift to a more comfortable position, trying to remember that day.
I know I drove around town for several hours, checking all the usual spots—the parks where we played sports as kids, the three fast-food places we rotated between each week, the athletic fields behind school, the food court at the mall, the old movie theater with the broken-down seats—but my memory of that time feels hazy, almost like I wasn’t thinking anything.
“I know that I thought about how weird it would be if I found her at the movie theater,” I say.
“Because, like, maybe she skipped school to watch movies all day. But it was weird because that was a story my brain made up, like, that’s where she would be if this was an emotional sitcom episode.
I’d find her in the movie theater and we’d have a talk about what was bothering her and everything would be okay in the end.
Alissa would never skip school to go to the movies, especially without telling anyone, especially without telling me.
And she wouldn’t sit in there all day, and she wouldn’t have .
. .” I huff in frustration. I’m blabbing and I need to get to the point.
“And so by the time I checked there, that was when I started to really think something was wrong. But I didn’t think .
. .” I realize I’m jabbing my thumbnail into the meat of my thigh, and I stop.
“I thought it would be, like, kidnapping or something. I guess I didn’t pay attention to her closely enough. ”
“It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking we could have known if we’d paid more attention, but the truth is that we don’t always pick up on the symptoms of severe mental illness, even when we see them in someone we’re very close to.
And mental illness in teenagers is often overlooked because of excuses like hormones or age. ”
“But I would have known if she was super sad.”
“Depression doesn’t always manifest as sadness. It is, sometimes. Other times it’s anger, or fear. And many times, the person who has depression is very good at hiding it behind their behaviors. Was Alissa very loud or outgoing?”
“Kind of the opposite.”
“Quiet, careful?”
“Yes.”
“Punctual?”
“Extremely.”
“I’ll bet she was a straight A student, never acted out, always did what she was told. Maybe she never had trouble with her parents or other authority figures, or even criticized them.”
“Sure, she never criticized anyone. She’s the nicest person I know. Knew.”
Anna nods. “Sometimes, someone really is that nice. Sometimes that could be reluctance, and it signifies someone who is vitally afraid of doing something wrong. I’m not saying this to diagnose your friend, only to give you an understanding of what might have happened.
What is important to understand here is that it is not your fault that you didn’t know.
It’s not your friend’s fault, either. The feelings that lead a person toward suicide also make it incredibly difficult for them to reach out for help.
Sometimes they don’t know they need help until it’s too late. ”
That sounds like bullshit, I think, but I catch myself before I say it.
I’m sure she reads it on my face, but whatever, I don’t care.
How does someone not know they want to kill themselves?
How do they not have that thought and immediately go, “Holy shit, I should find someone to stop me”?
How do you not notice that your best friend is so scared that they want to die?
“Can we talk about something else?” I ask. My nail is digging into my thigh again.
Anna nods, unfazed. “Of course. What would you like to discuss?”
Nothing, I’d like to leave.
“I don’t really know.”
“Would you feel comfortable talking about your mom?”
My stomach sinks. I shrug.
“Usually that kind of reaction is a no,” says Anna. “Why don’t you tell me about school? Just a normal day there. What classes you have, what you eat for lunch, that kind of thing.”
That’s easy, at least, so I humor her and start talking. But I’m already retreating from this conversation, out of the room, out of the building.
Thursday, March 13
4:45 p.m.
Hi
Saturday, March 15
7:26 p.m.
Hey, Ash, you said you played CoH?
7:54 p.m.
Yeah, playing now
Are you in a clan
Yeah Ikelos Lair Why?
They’re a top clan
8:01 p.m.
Yes we are Why again?
I want to join
I’m sorry what Did you start playing CoH?
Yesterday
Not to be an asshole but you’re probably too low leveled for us And you may not even be on our server.
I am, I checked
Are you online right now? What’s your char name?
Ravenweal
8:10 p.m.
Wtf you’re level forty-five already? Have you been playing nonstop
Not nonstop, but a lot I want to start doing raids but I need a good clan I tried joining one yesterday but they were super unorganized
Okay hold on I can’t just ask them to invite anyone You seriously leveled up that much in two days? You didn’t use a bot?
No bot I’m just competitive, I guess?
No shit What raids are you looking to do?
All of them I should hit the level cap by Tuesday or Wednesday so I can do endgame stuff.
You got the expansions?
Totally updated except for Dreambreaker, yeah
Okay I mean, I think it’d be cool if you joined, but I don’t have invite power. I’ll have to ask someone who does.
That’s fine You need a resume or something? Seems like a serious vetting process
Some of the people in the clan are professional streamers, so it is kinda serious We try to beat records, get world firsts, etc. They’re big in the community too
Cool I want in
Jesus, you’re intense when you want something, huh?
Like I said Competitive
Okay okay If you’re serious about the game, I’ll ask
I wouldn’t be bothering you about it if I wasn’t
You think you’re bothering me?
I always think I’m bothering people It’s just I want this more than I want to not bother you
8:32 p.m.
1. You’re not bothering me If I didn’t want to talk to you, I wouldn’t have given you my number 2. It’s cool that you’re playing the game 3. You should be getting a clan invite in the next couple of minutes.
Check your messages It’ll be from Zookini
8:40 p.m.
Thanks, Ash Seriously.