Chapter 50
Autumn
People love How to Be Human.
I mean, some people hate it, because haters gonna hate, right? I lose a lot of followers in the first week.
But I gain about a bazillion more the second week.
“How does that make you feel?” my brand-new therapist, Connie, asks.
She asks that a lot. At first the question made me want to curl up and hide my face, but I’m starting to get better at answering.
And she’s really good at helping me figure it out.
What sensations are strongest in your body?
she asks. Where are they—can you point? Are there any words you can use to describe the sensations?
If not, can you show me, with your hands, what the sensations feel like?
“I mean, good,” I say. “Followers are money and money helps me support myself and also means I have money left over to donate to the nonprofits I care about.”
She nods. “Okay. Money is good, yeah. What else?”
“I feel…proud,” I say.
“Proud. Where’s the pride located?”
We find the pride in my chest, and I tell her it’s big and puffy and orange.
“Anything else?”
I put my hand to my throat, and she imitates me with her own hand. “Something there?” she asks.
“It’s tight,” I say. “I think I’m scared, too.”
“Scared. Yeah. Do you know what you’re scared of? And it’s okay if you don’t. Knowing that you’re scared is the important part.”
“What if they don’t keep liking it? What if people get bored of hearing about my personal growth and figuring out my feelings in my body and all that?”
“What if they do?” she asks. “Do you want to brainstorm a little about that?”
I nod. My throat is tight with fear, and something else, too.
Gratitude. I think about Tucker, giving me shit about always trying to be happy.
I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for him.
I wonder where he is and what he’s up to…
and if he’s happy. Or, really, what he’s feeling, and in what part of his body.
“What?” she asks.
“Did my face do something?” I ask.
“I think I’d call it a smirk,” she says.
“Sorry. I was thinking about someone.”
“What kind of someone?”
“You know I told you that I came here because I realized being happy all the time wasn’t really making me…happy?”
She nods.
“Well, that wasn’t completely my idea. Someone helped me figure it out. A guy.”
And I tell her the story.
When I’m all done, she looks at me with her eyebrows up, and I wait for her to say something about how I need to go get this guy because he sounds awesome and how could I let him walk away, but what she actually says is “Do you think you told me that story to avoid brainstorming about what you’d do if people stopped loving your current work? ”
Fucking therapists.
The text from my dad pops up as I drop my keys onto the kitchen counter, having just gotten home from the therapist’s office.
Dad
Have you talked to your brother?
Autumn
No, why?
Dad
He posted to that dang account again. How to Be Miserable.
Autumn
What did he post?
I can’t fathom why Haru would have picked up How to Be Miserable again, when he only did it in first place to get my goat. Goat gotten, thoroughly. He’s not one to belabor the same old prank.
But the phone stays stubbornly silent. I navigate to Poststack, to How to Be Miserable, and read it for myself. It’s called Recipe for Being Miserable.
Kinda artsy for Haru, actually.
Recipe for Being Miserable
1. Meet someone you could love.
2. Lose that person, through your own actions. Or tell yourself that anyway. Maybe nothing you would have done would have made it better, but you don’t want to believe that. Maybe it’s easier to blame yourself than to be broken over what you’ll never have now.
3. Punish yourself for a long time.
4. Punish yourself for so long and so hard that you forget what you love. Like messing with your brothers or helping out your sister. Like eating a whole pepperoni pizza or a fresh-from-the-oven chocolate croissant or having sex.
My body goes hot and cold all over, in waves.
That’s not Haru.
5. Meet someone else you could love.
Oh.
He said love. He said he could love me.
But this is a post about being miserable. Maybe he is going to say he realized he couldn’t.
Or maybe…
Maybe he does.
How does that make you feel? my therapist asks. Where do you feel it?
In my chest. Like a big, fat, orange wave of…happiness.
6. Let yourself get to know her. Find out she’s not only beautiful but also smart and fun and bold and so, so fucking brave.
There isn’t enough room in my chest for all the feelings right now. They’re everywhere. Belly, core, throat, mouth. I am one big feel.
7. Get scared. Tell yourself the same old lies again. You might hurt her, too. You might lose her, too. You might screw this up—worse than last time. As if there’s something worse than death.
Of course there’s nothing worse than death. But there’s something almost as bad, and that’s letting someone you love walk around in the world far away from you when she could be at your side.
It’s the best recipe for being miserable.
Recipe for Happiness: Pull your head out of your ass and quit feeling sorry for yourself. Get the girl. If it’s not too late.
“It’s not too late,” I say aloud.
Which is when the knock comes at the door.