Safe Harbor (The Edge of Everything)

Chapter 1

Mom pulls us up to the drop-off area of the enormous, deserted parking lot at the edge of the enormous, deserted college campus.

The entire thing is shrouded in a dense, cold mist. We’re the only ones here.

With any luck, this is the beginning of a horror movie.

Any second now, something large and murderous will emerge from the mist, swallow me whole, and effectively put me out of my misery.

Sadly, nothing happens.

Just outside the car, on the world’s saddest sheet of paper taped to the world’s saddest parking cone, someone has scribbled the words:

Welcome Safe Harbor? Teen Attendees!

An arrow below the words points in a direction where there is nothing at all.

“Someone must’ve bumped the sign,” Mom says in her I’m-sure-everything-is-absolutely-fine voice.

Just so there’s no doubt about my mood and angst level, I’m wearing black eyeliner and black lipstick. My nails are freshly painted with black polish. My custom-made T-shirt reads grave dirt inside in a custom-designed (by me) font.

I lean back in my seat and reread the directions the counselor emailed. Climb the promenade steps, walk about one hundred feet, turn right at the student union, then left at the library, and then you’ll come to Thomas Hall. Room 334 is on the third floor.

“You’ll be glad you went. I guarantee it,” says Mom.

I look at her. She’s always guaranteeing my feelings. “What you mean is you’ll feel glad you forced me to come here.”

“There’s no reason to be nervous.”

“Good to know. I’ll just stop feeling my emotions, then. Just like you and Dad did.”

She wrings the steering wheel. “Honey, this is hard for me, too.”

I’m instantly guilty. “I’m sorry,” I say. I know this whole thing, the past ten months, has been harder on her than it has been on me. “I still don’t understand why I have to—”

“We’ve been through this,” she sighs. “Your father and I think it’s time you talk to someone more qualified.”

I remember when I used to think they were the most qualified about everything.

I look out into the already-dissipating mist. It’s the middle of June here in Los Angeles, and the early-morning fog is typical. We call it June Gloom.

“Especially after what happened,” Mom adds.

“How many times can I say that I’m sorry about that?” I look down at my boots (black, combat).

“We know you’re sorry. And we love you no matter what. Whatever came over you, I’m sure we’ll find out it’s completely normal.”

Mom’s phone rings. It’s Dad. Her flinch is fast, almost undetectable, but I still see it. Mom taps the screen to answer and hands me the phone.

Dad’s face appears. “Hi, Sunshine,” he says.

I inspect the background. He’s at some sort of beach resort. “Where are you?” I ask.

“Sandals Bahamas.” He clears his throat. “It’s on the shared calendar.”

The shared calendar. Because that’s the only way we know where anyone in the family is these days.

“Are you with . . . her?” I ask.

“Honey,” Mom says in her subject-off-limits voice.

Dad ignores my question and swivels the camera away from a blurry, bikini-ed woman in the background.

“Are you guys at the thing?” he asks.

Mom answers for me in a shouty mission-control voice. “We just arrived.”

I look at her. “There’s a space in between a shout and a whisper known as talking.”

“Someone’s cranky,” Dad says. “Is your period coming up?”

When I was younger, one of my favorite books was Firestarter by Stephen King. If I had the power of pyrokinesis, I would maybe set him on fire.

Dad continues on: “You’re one hundred percent allowed to feel whatever it is you’re feeling.” He sounds like he’s reciting from a Divorce for Idiots manual. “Your mother and I support you no matter what.”

It’d be easier to believe that if he weren’t over three thousand miles away from me on a beach with some woman he keeps wanting to introduce me to, but who I will never, ever, ever agree to meet.

I don’t say anything, so he keeps blathering. “I know this is stressful, but plenty of kids make it through to the other side. You will be okay. And talk to this therapist as much as you need to. That’s what she’s there for.”

Somewhere behind him, a Bob Marley song begins playing. The one about how everything will be all right. I listen in silent disbelief.

I glance over at Mom, but she’s looking out the driver’s side window. Even though we’re parked, she’s still gripping the steering wheel tight.

Dad runs his hand down his face. “Sweetheart, say something. Please.”

The “please” gets to me. I want to give him what he wants—what they both want—which is for me to be fine. More than that, I want to get back to the version of myself I was before their divorce, but I don’t know how to get her back.

I open my mouth, wanting to say something to reassure Dad, but then I catch a glimpse of his girlfriend moving into the frame behind him.

“Have fun on vacation,” I say, and hang up before he can respond.

Mom sighs. I tilt my head back against the seat, trying to prevent the tears suddenly filling my eyes from spilling out.

They do anyway. It’s been happening to me a lot since the divorce.

I call it Sudden Onset Tears Syndrome (Sots).

I turn my head to the window so Mom won’t see.

Sometimes I can’t tell what sets me off.

This time the reason is obvious. The Bob Marley song.

When I was little, whenever I was upset about something, Dad would play it on guitar.

Mom would sing. And the lyrics would insist, again and again, that everything would turn out just fine.

By the time they got to the end of the song, I’d feel better. When had they stopped being able to make me feel that way? Had they changed? Or had I?

Mom reaches across the console and squeezes my hand. Is she having the same memory I am? I squeeze her back.

“I should go,” I say after a few seconds.

“We’re early,” she says. “You still have time.”

“It’s a long walk,” I say.

She nods. “Get all your feelings out while you’re in there, okay? Don’t worry about what me or your dad would think. This is all about you. Feel free to get as angry and confused and frustrated as you want.”

A part of me wants to point out that getting as angry, confused, and frustrated as I wanted was what landed me on this sad, deserted campus going to group therapy with a bunch of other kids whose parents also lacked the ability to make them feel like everything would turn out okay. But I don’t.

I watch Mom drive away and then check the time.

Fifteen minutes to go. I definitely don’t want to be the first one to walk into Room 334.

I find a spot against a tree on the grassy quad and get out my sketchbook.

A few minutes of drawing will help me feel slightly less stressed, nervous, angry, guilty, sad, and all the other emotions that I seem to feel all at once these days.

A couple of minutes pass before a minivan pulls up to the drop-off area. A boy wearing baggy beige sweats and an even baggier and beiger hoodie steps out, eyes glued to his phone. His mom, a compact, fast-moving woman, rushes out and tells him to hold still for a picture.

“For your father,” she says. She snaps the pic, then grimly types out a message as if it’s the last thing she wants to be doing.

Done, she gives her son a perfunctory shoulder pat and darts back into the car. The boy keeps his eyes on his phone as he waves goodbye. Even as he heads up the stairs.

I do a quick gesture sketch of him with my charcoal pencil and caption it Screenager.

Another car arrives, one of those sleek, ultraluxe SUVs.

For a full minute no one emerges. No doubt their parent is having the same coaxing, this-won’t-be-so-bad heart-to-heart with them that my mom did with me.

Finally, a man in a business suit slips out of the driver’s side.

Is he a dad or a chauffeur? Hard to say.

He sprints to open the passenger door. A girl (tall, unbelievably gorgeous, with hair curled like calligraphy) dressed head to toe in Chanel comes swishing out.

Dad (or maybe chauffeur) offers her a fur shrug; she refuses it with a gentle look.

Then she bows her head to accept a kiss to her forehead.

Dad then, not chauffeur. She heads up the stairs.

Before she can get too far, the dad asks her to stop for a photo, like he’s paparazzi now.

She reflexively poses as he snaps a burst of thirty and sends them all off.

“I’d love to see the look on your mother’s face when she sees your outfit,” he says with a booming laugh.

The girl says nothing.

She’s a dream to draw. I caption my sketch Diva.

Another car pulls up: a normie sedan in powder blue.

The door squeaks open. A girl being swallowed by a very, very large flower-patterned sweater bounces out.

If a couple of those flailing air dancers that you see in car dealership lots reproduced, she’d be their offspring.

Even from this distance, I can tell her eyes are blazing bright with excitement.

Then two people—her parents?—come out to give her a group hug.

“We love you,” says the woman.

“Have a blast,” says the man. He turns to introduce himself to Diva’s dad. “I’m Scott, Preethi’s dad.”

“And I’m her mom,” says the woman.

“Bradley,” says Diva’s dad, confused and possibly horrified.

The daughter, Preethi, skips up the stairs to Diva. “Are you here for Safe Harbor, too? I think it’s gonna be really supergreat, don’t you?! I can’t wait to meet everyone! And our counselor! Anyway! What’s your name?” It all comes out as one breathless word.

Diva looks slightly afraid. “I’m Lilliam.”

“You excited?” Preethi asks.

Lilliam smooths her already perfectly smooth hair and thinks. Preethi doesn’t wait for her answer. She hooks her arm into Lilliam’s and yodels, “Let’s go! Bye, Mom! Bye, Dad!”

“Everything’s gonna be just fine,” says Preethi’s dad.

“Everything already is just fine!” adds her mom with a laugh.

“We love you!” they chorus. Then her dad throws his arms around her mom.