by Kelly Harms
Luckily, I don’t remember any of that night. I only remember waking up and getting medicine and feeling somewhat better but exhausted. Very, very tired. I remember my dad was there, and my mom came, too, and they were cool but polite to each other. I remember Dad saying, as I moved in and out of sleep, that maybe I should move in with him. I remember my mom asking how it would look on my college applications if I dropped out of all my obligations at my current school. I remember thinking, Do I have to put my suicide attempt on my college applications?
Now, I park on a huge ramp and go to the front desk of the glossy hospital and ask for Jessica Odanz. No one asks me why I’m asking for her. There is no metal detector, no bag search for contraband. They just give me her room number and directions to a bank of elevators.
I find this all very annoying. I could be a madman, a reporter, or, worse, a lawyer. And I had such a great cover story all ready to go. I think I look like a guidance counselor. I only wear flat shoes, and I have a frumpiness I can’t really shake, not that I’ve tried that hard. I don’t have a school ID, but it seems like something a person would forget when she rushed to the hospital to see her suicidal student. Anyway, it’s all moot. No one asks. I go up to room 632—it takes three elevators for some reason, which can’t be efficient—and start wandering around in the hall.
I don’t really have a plan for next steps. My guidance counselor ruse is as far as I got. I suppose I need to just go in and talk to Jessica. I need to let her know she’s not alone and that whatever she’s feeling right now is understandable. Survivable. I need to say: I know that place you’re in, between the bridge and the water. You jumped, you meant to jump, but as you fell, you were overcome with regret, because just as it is human to want the kind of pain that brought you to this bridge to stop, it is also human to flinch when you see death rushing your way.
I need to say all those things without telling her I was falling once too.
I start trying to think up good lies about why I know she’s here. Things that will make her apt to open up to me. The thought of someone opening up to me is almost laughable, but once, a long time ago, she trusted me. What if I could be the person she trusts again?
Before I can think of how to say any of this, a nurse comes barreling out of her room, talking on a little Star Trek–style chest-pocket-mounted communicator, and she nearly smacks right into me. “Jessica, you have a visitor!” she hollers back into the room. “She’s decent,” she tells me. “Go on in.” And what can I do but walk in the door?
The first thing I notice about my sister is that she is much prettier this year than she was even the Christmas before. She has a new sharpness to her eyes, a sharpness she is leveling at me right now. She also has greasy blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail and a hospital gown, so she’s not at her best. But there’s a bit of life about her I wasn’t expecting, not in someone who just tried to off herself.
“Well, well, well,” she says. Her voice doesn’t sound shaky or angst ridden. But it’s not manic either. I remember, when I was her, wondering how I should act in order to make the people around me most comfortable. Happy to be alive? Sad to be depressed? By that point, though, I was so numb most every emotion had to be faked. “I wasn’t expecting you to waltz in here.”
“Neither was I!” I say with more emphasis than I intended. Well, she knows I’m a homebody. She won’t take offense. “You look quite hale and hearty,” I tell her. “Are you sure you shouldn’t be home by now?”
“I definitely shouldn’t,” she says. Then she holds up her arms.
So it was the retro wrist-slashing thing. Her arms are swathed in bandages up to the elbows. I try not to show my upset, but it is just empirically upsetting. She is so, so young. I know she’s almost twenty-two, not really a child. But she’s sure as hell not old enough to do what she did.
Jessica watches my face for a moment. Then she says, “I fell through a plate glass window.”
“No, you didn’t,” I blurt.
She looks down. “Who told you?”
“Mom,” I lie. “She just called me on Tuesday. I drove here to see you. It took me three days.”
“Am I supposed to believe that?” she asks.
“Definitely not,” I admit. “I mean, the drive did take three days, but the rest would be very strange. Mom would never call me about something like this.”
“Was it my dad?”
“I don’t think he even has my phone number,” I say. “I found out on my own. The charting software around here needs to be updated.” This is true, if not pertinent.
“So you hacked the hospital?” she asks. Jessica knows I can get around computers with some level of competence.
I shrug. It’s believable, I think.
“Why, though? If no one called you and you didn’t know I was here.”
“Maybe I just have an alert set for all hospitals near your university,” I say.
She shakes her head. “That doesn’t make sense, Paige. Are you tracking my cell phone or something?”
“No,” I say. “Though that’s not a bad idea. I might look into that in the future.”
She makes a face and shakes her head. “Then how?”
I give up. “I found out at Pictey,” I say. “Though I think I should clearly state that I am not here in any official capacity. I don’t want to be fired for misrepresenting my work to you.”
“You work for Pictey?” she asks. “That’s the start-up you told us about?”
“That’s the one,” I say.
“It’s hardly a start-up,” she says.
“Well, it was. At one time.”
“Every company was a start-up at some time. Now it’s a huge corporation. And don’t you have some fancy job there too? Mom tells everyone you’re very successful.”
“I work in Safety and Standards.”
“What does that mean?” she asks.
“If you flag something, I review it to see if it’s ok.”
There’s a moment of quiet. Jessica shifts uncomfortably in her bed.
“So what, did someone flag me?”
“Yes. Or you flagged you. That happens too. The point is, your flag came across my desk, the night you . . . you know.” I grit my teeth, waiting for the onslaught of anger or disappointment or maybe hurt that should accompany my confession.
But all she says is, “What?”
I level a look at her. “Have you been on Pictey since you . . . you know?”
“I don’t know!” she says. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Since you tried to do yourself in,” I say, and too late I realize how inappropriate that was. “Since you got hurt, I mean.”
My beautiful sister cracks a beautiful smile. “No, the first one was right,” she says. She takes a breath. “Ok. Yes. I know what you’re talking about now. Mia Bell’s feed. I posted a sort of pathetic comment on her feed.” She narrows her eyes at me. “What does that have to do with you?”
“I was the one who should have gotten you help when I saw it. I should have called emergency services and escalated the situation and saved your life,” I tell her. “But I didn’t, because I didn’t know it was you, and it was time for me to go home for the day. And I’m very, very sorry about that.”
“Oh! So you think . . .” Her voice trails off. “Paige, no. Just no. I wasn’t posting on Pictey to get flagged, and I certainly didn’t know you worked there until five minutes ago. I mean, I don’t know why I posted there exactly, but it wasn’t to get attention from a sister in another state I only see once a year. I just wanted to see, I don’t know, if I was the only one, I guess?”
I think of what I should have told her long ago, before things got this far. Now would be the perfect time to fill her in. I could tell her about my challenges with Mom, my own depression, my anxiety, my attempt. I could put myself in a tailspin and end up facedown on the floor.
Instead I say, “You’re not the only one. You’re not even in a very exclusive c
lub. Statistically speaking, someone in the world tries to kill themselves every two seconds.”
Paige raises an eyebrow. “Is that what you came here to tell me?”
“I came to apologize for missing your flag. And to see how you’re doing,” I say. “How are you doing?”
“Apology unnecessary,” she says dismissively. I try to believe her. “And as for how I’m doing . . .” She shrugs, then gestures around the room.
“I think you’re saying you’re not doing as well as you could be,” I carefully interpret.
“Yeah, maybe. Though really this is about as good as I can hope for. I’m on suicide watch. There’s no glass in the room. They took away the cord that works the call button.”
“Let me see your phone,” I tell her.
“No,” she says quickly.
“Where are Mom and your dad?” I ask.
“At work.”
“Oh,” I say. I guess that makes sense. She has been in here for a week. How long did I have to stay? Three days? A week? Either way, Mom only came that first day. People have to work. “Well, if you give me your phone, I might be able to help you feel a little better.”
“You don’t have to make me feel better. I’m already feeling better. I’m getting the help I need. Or I will be.”
This is good news, empirically speaking, but it puts me at a loss. “But Jessica, I need to help you. I feel very poorly about your situation. I feel it’s largely my fault.”
“In what universe is this your fault?” she asks archly.
“Well.” I try to figure out how to make her see. “I’m the person who reviewed your flag. I understand it wasn’t your intention when you posted to ask for help, but I should have helped you anyway. If that post hadn’t gone to a colleague who called the ambulance, I could have been responsible for your death. And besides . . .” I pause, try to tell her my truth. “I know what it’s like.”
Jessica blinks up at me. “What what’s like?” she asks, almost like it’s a dare. I try to answer, but panic rises up in me every time I even think the words. I can’t have a panic attack in the hospital where my sister is recuperating from a suicide attempt. That would be very selfish.
“What it’s like to have a lot of pressure,” I say at last. “Mom. Grades. That stuff.”
She looks at me for a long time. “So you drove for three days to see me?”
I nod.
“To see if I was ok and say sorry you didn’t call 911 because of something I posted on the internet?”
“That’s right.”
“Oh, Paige. You are so weird.” She reaches out her arms. “Come here.”
Awkwardly, gratefully, I lean over the bed, my arms by my sides. I know in a normal hug the hugger should put one’s arms behind the huggee’s body, but her body is pressed up against a hospital bed, and I don’t want to hit her scars. I let her wrap me up, though, and squeeze tight. It feels impossibly good.
“I can’t believe you work for Pictey and never told us. That seems really weird.”
“It never came up,” I say truthfully. We mostly talk about the weather at Christmas. Sometimes sports.
“Well, you never brought it up,” she says. “That’s for sure. I love Pictey. I’m addicted.”
“I don’t think that’s accurate,” I say. “I’ve reviewed your daily usage times, and they seem within healthy ranges in general.”
“It’s an expression,” she says.
“Ah.”
Her shoulders slump. “You know, Paige, I almost died,” she says.
“I know. I’m really sorry.”
“Me too. And the worst part is, I was not going for ‘almost.’”
Shivers of recognition run through me. “I know that too.”
“The doctor says it was a cry for help,” Jessica says. “But really I’m just very lucky. If that person at your office hadn’t called 911, I would be dead.”
“That’s what I figured.” Between the bridge and the water. Consuela was her net.
“Pictey kind of saved my life,” she says.
I wish I could make her see it’s much more nuanced than that. If she weren’t being spoon-fed unrealistic expectations every time she opened her phone, if she weren’t a demographic to sell to, a data mine to cull, if every ad she sees weren’t so perfectly designed to meet up with her own perceived lacks, she might not have been so depressed in the first place. And if people like Mia Bell didn’t make their livings telling everyone how perfect they were, maybe Jessica wouldn’t feel so damn imperfect at the end of every day.
“Are you sure it doesn’t make you feel worse?” I ask. “All those retouched photos and”—I search for something innocuous but come up empty—“dream weddings?”
“Nah. I know that stuff isn’t real.”
Now I know she’s lying. If she didn’t believe in Mia Bell, then why did she ask her if she ever felt like dying? “Give me your phone,” I say.
“Why?”
“I want to show you that the people you follow, the influencers, aren’t real.”
She looks at me for a long time. “This is a weird conversation,” she says at last.
“Not that weird,” I say. “Though I’m not that versed in the art of conversation. We’re exchanging information, though. That’s pretty much my goal here. To exchange information that will aid in your recovery from an attempted suicide.”
Jessica shakes her head. “No one says ‘attempted suicide’ here. They all say ‘cry for attention.’ And ‘self-harming behaviors.’”
“Lipstick on a pig,” I say.
“Exactly. The thing is, those euphemisms all make me feel like an idiot. Like I can’t even do suicide convincingly.”
“You convinced me way too much,” I say. I feel all those old feelings, feelings I hate, rising in my throat.
We are both quiet.
Generally, many of my panic attacks come from experiences that touch, however gently, on the first month I came back from the hospital after I tried to kill myself with pills. That first month was awful, because I was terrified of myself. I walked through the house and saw ways to kill myself everywhere. I saw curtain cords and poultry shears and my stepdad’s Gillette and the giant mahogany highboy that certainly could be pulled down atop myself with a well-placed yank. I simply could not trust myself not to do that. I thought I would do it in my sleep, if not while awake. I felt, whenever I was alone with myself, that I was locked in a room with a murderer. It took a very long time for my meds to work.
“Are they giving you proper treatment?” I ask.
Jessica nods. “Antidepressants, superstrength, and Valium, and sleeping pills at night, which seems a bit ironic.”
I think about telling her Mom’s sleeping pills were my weapon of choice. Instead I say, “It takes a long time for the SSRIs to work. Sometimes weeks, sometimes months.”
“That’s what they tell me.”
“When can you go home? When you’re stable?”
“When I’m stable, my parents are putting me in a loony bin.”
“What?” I immediately think of One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest. “Like an asylum?” When I was discharged from the hospital, I went right back to high school. I had a GPA to think of.
“There’s a pamphlet over there,” she says. When she points, I notice for the first time that she has an empty IV port on her left arm and wires coming out of a pocket of her gown attached to a heart monitor. I see an oxygen tube hanging down on her neck, but it’s turned off. It’s been fifteen years since I was in Jessica’s place, but not that much in the treatment process has changed. Her vitals have been normal for three days now. Anyone else would have been sent home. She really is on suicide watch.
I get the pamphlet. The Colorado Springs Suicidal Ideation Treatment Clinic for Young Adults. It has a picture of a tree on it. “Well, it will keep you safe,” I say. I feel inexplicably jealous.
Jessica sighs. “So you’re on their side.”
“I probably am
. I want you to live.”
“You barely know me,” she says.
“Well, that’s true. I only see you once a year. Maybe you’re a terrible person.”
“I’m not a terrible person.”
“Oh,” I say. “Well, either way, you still shouldn’t kill yourself. Anyway, if you’re truly evil, the state will take care of it eventually, at no small cost to the taxpayer.”
“Jeez, Paige. You’re so weird.”
“I’m very average, actually. I am an outlier only in my profession—which, while difficult and taxing, is also highly competitive—and I’m a decent programmer as well. I also have an exceptional credit score. On all other fronts, I am the absolute median American Woman.”
“Ok,” says Jessica. She looks up at the ceiling. “So you’re not weird.” For the first time in this conversation, Jessica Odanz sits up.
“Hey!” I say. “Are you allowed to do that?”
“Do what?” she asks.
“I don’t know. Sit up? Move?”
“Of course. I’m supposed to take walks, too, but I can’t go outside, so what they really mean is I’m supposed to drag myself around the thirty-foot hall of the psych ward for ten minutes and then come back in here.”
“This isn’t the psych ward,” I say. “This hospital doesn’t appear to have a psych ward. This is general medicine. Much better. You know,” I offer, trying once more to give her the benefit of my experience without actually facing down that experience, “you won’t have to talk to people about this when you get home. People will be hesitant to bring it up. Everyone will be very awkward about it.”
“Oh yeah?” Now, finally, she reaches over to her bedside table and grabs her phone. It’s an older model, probably Mom’s old phone, and the case is black glitter. She pulls down the notifications and holds the screen to face me. “You’re right about the awkwardness, but not the hesitance.”
The first text is a phone number with a nearby area code and the words R U dead?
The next is from someone named Ilsa P., and it says, is it true? & did u use pills or ? It goes on like this, maybe six more barely literate text messages asking about the specifics of her suicide attempt. Times have changed. When I went back home, no one knew what I’d done. My dad told my high school principal we’d had a family emergency in Asia, and that was why I was out of school for so long. I have to give him points for that—vague enough to mean basically anything, and in Asia—too big to check up on.