The Bright Side of Going Dark

by Kelly Harms

  He gives me a little side-eye and says, “Not to enable, but if you want a new phone, I can take you into town.”

  “That is the very definition of enabling,” I say with a laugh. “Anyway, I have my rental car until tomorrow. So I can enable myself. But I am actually kind of enjoying not having the digital monkey on my back.”

  This is partly true. But partly like saying you enjoy having allergic hives. I hear phantom text notifications and feel as though my back jeans pocket is vibrating constantly. There is a large part of me that truly believes something important is happening and I am missing it. All the time. Every second of the day. I reach for my phone over and over again. Even just a few minutes ago I wanted to find out how far in miles my mom’s house is from Dewey’s. Do I need that information for any reason? No. Did I want it? Yes. Is phonelessness a very repetitive exercise in not getting what you want the moment you want it?

  Apparently it is.

  “Can’t say I blame you. It’s a struggle to keep my phone boundaries, but it feels like an important thing I can do for Azalea at this moment in her life, since I’m the only one she can look to for healthy modeling. I’m already fighting a losing battle—all her friends at school have phones. In fact, I’m starting to worry that I might be actually isolating her with my no-phones-for-kids policy. But I want to give her time to go outside, play with the animals, stay a kid a bit longer, I guess. She’s only nine.”

  I smile. “She does seem like an awfully fun kid. She and I would have been fast friends at that age. My three deepest passions were animal stickers, reading about animals, and actual animals. Specifically cats, at the time.”

  “Well, my daughter is my favorite person, and cats are her favorite animal. So any hypothetical friend of hers is a friend of mine.”

  I put this theory to the test. “Oh, good. Because I’m kind of spinning my wheels in this posttech world of mine, and I was hoping you could come out tonight and spin some wheels together.”

  Now a cocky smile cracks over his face. “Are you asking me on a date?”

  “No,” I say, flushing. Having gotten to know both Dewey and Azalea even a little, I’ve concluded he’s probably not the sort of guy who would enjoy being someone’s rebound. “I’m afraid not. But there’s a good reason: I was jilted at the altar a week ago.”

  The smile fades; the eyebrows lift. “Oh. Well. That’s shitty.”

  “It’s for the best,” I say, knowing I’ll have to get good and used to saying such things whenever I decide to resurface. Not sure when that will be. “I think we were on the wrong course,” I add and weigh the truth of it as I do. It feels close. Not quite there.

  “Still, I can’t imagine how upsetting it would be,” he says.

  “I’d rather not dwell,” I say. Typically, when it comes to my online presence, I have a well-practiced way of avoiding anything of a too-personal nature. In real life, I just sound standoffish.

  “We don’t have to talk about it. Maybe instead I can take you to the ’Ridge and show you a good time. Sway you on the whole ‘no date’ thing.”

  I flush with the flattery. “Um . . . well . . .” I shop around for how to handle it. Flirt back? Warn him about my emotional state?

  What would I do if I had my phone right now? I consider. Well, I wouldn’t be here, for one thing. I’d be texting him from my mom’s porch, while also scrolling email or watching YouTube. In texts, a million things go unsaid or misunderstood. I could pretend I didn’t notice he was flirting. I could take thirty minutes to respond while I thought of the right answer. I could decide I was in too deep and go quiet and never talk to him again. I could spend the next hour cyberstalking Tucker.

  But also, on text, I wouldn’t see how good Dewey looks in those jeans. So then, it’s a good thing I’m here in real life. “How about not downtown Copperidge,” I say, thinking of the Inn Evergreen and the time I spent there wallowing in the bathtub. “How about . . .” I try to remember what other resort towns are within a short hop of here. “Let’s go to the village and have dinner at Black Diamond Baron’s. I’ve always wanted to go there, but my mom says it’s too touristy for her.”

  Black Diamond Baron’s is a restaurant packed with hungry skiers seeking calorie-laden après in the winter, but in summer, it’s opened up on all sides with a large courtyard where patrons can bring their dogs. Unbidden, the memory of Mike in his wagon outside his favorite coffee shop comes up. All the wagon memories are bittersweet—it was only toward the end that he needed that much help to get around. I push the thoughts of Mike away. He’s gone now. It’s long past time I accepted that.

  “I want to spend the night eating a massive juicy burger and fries,” I tell Dewey, determined to keep things light, “and petting other people’s dogs. I want to do all that while talking to someone fun and interesting, in real life, with no phones on the table and no notifications on my watch.”

  Dewey’s eyes smile at the suggestion. “I love this plan,” he says. “I love the little doggy menu they have.”

  “There’s a cocktail there for dogs too,” I say. “It’s peanut butter and bacon bits in a stainless shot glass. The pups lick it out. It’s very cute.”

  “Oh, that is cute,” he agrees emphatically. “Let’s go, and then if we see a particularly good-looking dog, we can send a bacon shot over with our compliments,” suggests Dewey.

  “If we see a really cute one, can we just keep the treat and see if the dog will come home with us?” I ask. But even as I speak, my heart gives a tug to remind me, as nice as a new dog might sound, I could never survive that kind of loss again.

  He sighs. “Azalea would kill for a dog. But I’m not having great luck with canines and chickens at the moment,” he tells me, gesturing to the fence.

  I pause. “You just need the right canine. A vegetarian, maybe, or a pacifist?”

  “Now, that I could get behind. Do you know any such canines?” he asks.

  “I did.” I remember telling him about Mike as if he were still alive and try not to be embarrassed. I had enough on my plate in that moment. I wanted to pretend this one sorrow was still ahead of me. “The truth is,” I say, “my dog recently died. I’m just very bad at talking about that.” So bad, I mentally add, that this is the first time I’ve done it in a very long time.

  “Oh dear, I’m so sorry,” says Dewey. “Do you miss him all the time?” he asks.

  “All the time,” I admit, praying I won’t cry in the face of Dewey’s kindness. “He was my best friend. I tried to replace him with a guy, but look how that turned out.”

  Dewey shakes his head. “A two-legged jerk is no match for a three-legged dog,” he says.

  I smile. “What makes you think my fiancé was a jerk?” I ask.

  Dewey doesn’t answer but just makes a soft sound with his mouth. A sort of hm.

  “Well,” I say. “He wasn’t that bad. Still, I preferred my dog.”

  “Will you ever get another?” he asks.

  I don’t know if he’s talking about fiancés or dogs. Either way, the answer is the same. I shake my head. “I don’t think I could bear it anytime soon. But it can’t hurt to see what else is out there. Just for fun.”

  PAIGE

  “So you want me to check you out of here?”

  “Check me out? Like a library book?” asks Jessica. I am back in the hospital, back in my sister’s needlessly beeping room. Last night after my visit I spent my waking hours monitoring the comments of my/Mia’s post like a hawk and zapping occasional trolls. And then, thinking I may as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, I started commenting back to some of the most heartfelt comments. Or as Mia might put it, I was making sure everyone felt “seen.” After all, lemminglike though Mia’s followers may be, everyone there is somebody’s Jessica.

  By this morning I am starting to feel jittery. There’s been no response from Mia. Nothing. Not the slightest blip. At the very least you’d think she’d have an assistant or a friend who would catch this kind of thing
, but nope. I look through every possible social outlet, and she hasn’t posted anywhere, and neither has anyone else on her behalf.

  Is she really dead after all?

  The obits yield nothing. She’s not dead. At least not publicly. But my sister nearly was, so after breakfast with Cary in the kitchen and another of his fortifying pep talks, I head back to the hospital with an armload of flowers, ready to discuss her request.

  “I don’t mean check you out like a library book. I think you would be out of circulation if you were a library book.”

  “Nah,” she says, reaching for the box of cookies I picked up on the way. “They don’t have that kind of budget. They’d just write ‘damaged’ on the inside cover and put me right back out there.”

  “On further thought, I wonder if it’s not better to leave you here,” I say. “For several reasons.”

  Jessica grimaces around a mouthful of cookie. “I don’t think so,” she says. “I don’t like it here, and my IV port is itchy. Two people have the flu down the hall. Mom hasn’t been by for three days because she’s afraid she’ll get a staph infection. Dad won’t take me home without Mom’s agreement, so I’m in limbo.”

  “Really? So your father actually wants you to go back home?” My dad offered to take me home, too, back then. In retrospect I wish I’d gone with him.

  “No,” Jessica says sadly. “He wants to say he wants me to come home,” she says, astutely, “and let Mom be the bad guy.”

  “Mom will not knowingly be the bad guy under penalty of death,” I say. “She’ll leave you here indefinitely.”

  “Not indefinitely. The suicide squad will pick me up as soon as they have space for me. Sometime mid–next week at the earliest.”

  I train my eyes on the corner of the room. I do not like the idea of my sister being in the hospital for an unnecessary week. “Perhaps,” I say slowly, “I could speak with Mother about her taking you home. Perhaps she could take some time off of work to support you.”

  Jessica looks as skeptical as I feel. There is nothing wrong with my mom, per se. She’s not abusive. She’s just not especially good at saying or doing helpful things in times of trouble. Or at other times either. But, I try to tell myself, just because she’s wildly self-absorbed doesn’t mean she couldn’t do the right thing. If you could only get her attention.

  “Maybe she could. But she won’t. And anyway, truthfully,” Jessica admits, “I’m not a minor. I can leave anytime I want. I’m just scared.”

  The awful days rush back to me. I breathe. I think about slipping off and taking half a Xanax. I tell myself: This is not me anymore. This time things can be different.

  “What are you scared of?” I force myself to ask, as if I don’t know. As if I didn’t live these weeks myself, live through the shame and the tiredness and the wondering why I’d survived and what it was for when I was still so very, very sad.

  “Myself,” she says at last. Her eyes lose focus. “Being left alone.” She inhales and exhales, sets her chin, as if daring those fears to get in her way. “That’s why I want you to spring me. Just until they get a bed at the loony bin.”

  “And what, exactly, would we do if I ‘sprang’ you?”

  “Well, what are you doing when you’re not here?” she asks.

  I think of Mia’s feed and how to explain the nuances of my slightly dubious recent behaviors to a young adult battling depression. “I’m working on a sort of freelance project,” I say. “For a high-traffic user on Pictey.”

  “Are you ghost posting?” she asks.

  “What is ‘ghost posting’?”

  “It’s when an internet celebrity hires a ghostwriter to post a jillion photos a day and keep up their feed so they can lie around and binge-watch Prime Video.”

  I look at my much-younger, in-the-know sister in surprise. “Is this a common occurrence?” I ask.

  She shrugs. “I mean, sure. Lots of them are totally open about it. Some don’t point it out, but you can totally tell, because their ghost spells everything right and makes things nicer than they really are. But I don’t like it when people do it. I think it’s really fakey,” she says.

  I swallow. “More fakey than just being an internet influencer in the first place?” I ask.

  Jessica looks at me like I’m crazy. “Influencers aren’t fake. I mean, lots of them do all their own stuff too. They can be really inspirational and show their real lives and encourage people to be themselves. They’re, like, empowerment agents.”

  “Like @Mia&Mike?” I ask flatly.

  “Yes!” Jessica says emphatically. “Wait. That’s who you’re ghost posting for?”

  I try to think how to answer this. Perhaps I will say nothing. Now is a good time to arrange these flowers.

  “I don’t believe it. She’s definitely never used a ghost before.” Jessica frowns. “And also . . .” Her voice drifts off.

  “Yes?” I say, turning back to her, ignoring the vase.

  “Well, it’s an odd coincidence; that’s all. You work at Pictey, and you see my post on Mia’s feed and find out I’ve done . . . what I’ve done.”

  I nod.

  “And then a week later you’re working for her? I mean, how exactly did that come about?”

  “I thought you were majoring in communication studies,” I say to her.

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “You’re just making surprisingly intelligent connections for someone whose career ambition is to go into PR.”

  Her face falls. “I’m not going into PR,” she says. “Though I would if I could. I’m not going into anything. I’m getting kicked out of school.”

  I look at my sister in disbelief. “Surely you’re joking.”

  She shakes her head sadly. “I got caught cheating in my last final.”

  I nearly drop to the floor in shock. “You cheated? On a communications final? What on earth, Jessica! Communication is a skill that people normally master by the time they are five years old.”

  She pops up in bed. “I don’t know what you think communications classwork consists of exactly, but I got behind in privacy management.”

  “Ah,” I say. “That does make sense.”

  She puts her hands up, bandages flapping. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means you posted your suicide note on a social media platform. Privacy isn’t your strong suit,” I say.

  Jessica, who her whole life has been nothing but a one-person laugh track, laughing at board books and knock-knock jokes and teen foibles and Saturday Night Live sketches, many of which I don’t totally understand, begins to cry. I deflate and start wondering where to put my hands.

  “It’s not,” she says through her tears. “It’s really not. Mom should have taken that class for me. My friend Jules told me that Mom told her I was in the hospital for bowel problems. I mean, bowel problems. She must be absolutely humiliated.”

  She probably is, I have to privately admit. Two daughters trying to kill themselves looks causative. But Jessica doesn’t know about me and my “emergency trip to Asia.”

  “She shouldn’t be humiliated. Empirically,” I say, “people your age are highly susceptible to depression. Your odds are further multiplied. You have a familial tendency toward perfectionism, unreasonable role models, and untreated depression. Your likelihood of being sexually assaulted is one in three, your odds of finding a job that covers your expenses are thirty percent, and your generation’s average student debt at graduation ranges from one to three hundred thousand dollars, depending on who you ask.”

  “Jesus,” says Jessica, and she starts crying harder.

  “I’m trying to make you feel better,” I insist.

  “You are terrible at it!”

  I sigh. “Yes. I see that. I don’t have a terribly high ‘emotional intelligence quotient,’” I say, making scare quotes around the words. “That’s why your leaving with me may not be such a good idea. I’m afraid I’d upset you and you’d hurt your
self again.”

  “It’s not like that,” she says. “It’s like, I don’t want to be dead. But I don’t know how to be alive.”

  I nod and sit on her bedside and try to think what Karrin would do. She would wait for Jessica to go on, so I do.

  “I’ve been very unhappy, for a very long time, and I’ve toughed it out and talked to my family and increased my exercise and taken Wellbutrin, and I still don’t know how to feel happy that I’m alive. Mostly when I go to bed at night, I feel relieved that the day is over, and when I wake up, I wish a new day didn’t have to start. It’s so hard to get out of bed. It’s so hard to do anything. And you have to spend the entire day faking as though you don’t feel that way, when that’s the only way you know how to feel anymore.”

  My heart squeezes in recognition.

  “That’s why I follow people like Mia Bell. If you look at her feed, you can tell she knows how to enjoy being alive. She is always doing fabulous things and eating fabulous meals, shopping, attending events, doing yoga workshops in the Caymans.”

  “It’s entirely possible you could do most if not all of those things,” I say.

  “The trouble is I don’t want to,” says Jessica. “All I want to do is sleep all day and cry.”

  I frown. “Then isn’t it good you’re in the hospital, where you can do exactly that? You can sleep for a week straight, and no one will mind at all.”

  “That’s what I’ve been doing for the last six months,” she tells me. “Spoiler alert: It didn’t make me feel better. It just got me behind on my coursework.”

  Ah.

  “And you cheated,” I supply, “because you knew Mom wouldn’t speak to you for two weeks if you fell off the dean’s list, which is published for anyone to see.”

  She nods. I sigh.

  “She means well,” I say. “If it matters. Things were much worse for her growing up.”

  “I know. And yet she still never got a B and can’t imagine what it feels like.”

  I shrug. These things are all true. My mom is nowhere near as cruel as her own mother was, nor as neglectful as her father. She never hit us for laughing or locked us out of the house for wearing a skirt shorter than our knees. She never surrendered to her own sorrows or spent weeks in bed or stopped putting food on the table. She did better than she was raised to do. And yet it wasn’t quite enough. Not for me, and not, I now realize, for my sister.