Forever Mark
Jessyca Thibault
Other Books by Jessyca Thibault
doll eyes.
glass girl.
plastic heart.
Author’s Note
When I started the journey to publication three years ago I was told by an agent that my main character, Carson, was too angry. She wasn’t relatable. That hurt because, in part, Carson was based on feelings I had. I related to her.
What does it mean to be relatable anyways? Am I only relatable when I’m drinking coffees as tall as I am? Or when I’m walking around everyone’s favorite red store? How about when I’m screaming the lyrics to overplayed songs on the radio?
I do all of those things, but those aren’t the reasons people have told me that they can relate to me. I’m raw and honest and full of emotion. Sometimes I say things I shouldn’t but I say them because they’re true and real. I make mistakes and I admit to them. I can be sad and sometimes moody.
People are multi-dimensional. They feel everything. I’m letting you know now that my main character is lost in the beginning. She’s lost and scared and imperfect and maybe a little angry. So if you’ve never related to any of that then maybe this isn’t for you. But if you have and if you give Carson a chance, you might find that you can relate to a piece of her too.
I don’t want to say too much here and I understand that notes from the author don’t typically go before the book, but if you’ve read any of my other work then you know I’m a human with a lot of anxiety and so I love a good disclaimer.
Let’s just pretend this never happened.
The first rule of bike club is you don’t talk about bike club.
(I’ve never actually seen Fight Club. I should not be allowed to make that joke)
(Please don’t blame my book for the fact that I’ve never seen Fight Club)
Love,
Jessyca
To the girls and boys with the heavy hearts and the loud minds.
One day that weight will turn into wonder
and that noise will become a song.
Stay for that day.
Chapter 1
They Don't Care
“When you tell someone you're broken – that you have issues, that you're damaged goods – you want to believe them when they say they don't care, that they can handle it. You want to believe the idea that they can make your world better, brighter. That they can stop the pain and introduce you to a life worth living. Well, guess what? They can't. Like they said, they don't care. And that's the problem. Because the thing they don't care about isn't your issues. It's you.”
Crap.
This was something I had written on a napkin while I ate dinner the night before. You could say I was a little shocked to be hearing those words read back to me by my therapist. After dinner I had brought the napkin up to my room and put it on my desk, where I thought it would be safe until I could transfer it to my journal. Obviously, I had been wrong since that freaking napkin was in the hands of, you know, my therapist.
Dr. This-Is-A-Magical-Land-And-You-Are-A-Majestic-Unicorn looked up at me when she finished reading what was on the napkin. “What are you thinking about right now?” she asked.
What a loaded question.
I was thinking about how I should stop writing on napkins. I was thinking about how that room was insanely stuffy and all I wanted was to leave. I was thinking about how lovely it would be to slip the doctor some of my profanity-filled writing next time – there was plenty of that to go around – and see if she had the indecency to read that out loud.
“I'm thinking that I need to put a lock on my bedroom door,” I said. “Because apparently privacy is a major issue in my house.”
Dr. M (for short) looked at me over the top of her glasses. Her short and fuzzy hair was especially fuzzy in that moment. It looked like there was a dull brown light bulb sitting on top of her head. Her mouth was scrunched together, which made her slightly larger two front teeth peek out over her lips. Not for the first time Dr. M reminded me of a plump rabbit. If I happened to have a carrot in my back pocket, I would have offered it to her to munch on. Unfortunately for Dr. M, I didn't make it a habit of carrying vegetables in my back pocket on Wednesday afternoons.
Now if our sessions were on Thursdays that would have been an entirely different story.
Dr. M tilted her head to the side, her eyebrows furrowing to the center of her forehead. I had been to enough sessions with her to know that she was analyzing my body language, scrutinizing me like some science experiment. I knew she wanted me to talk about what I wrote, but as far as I was concerned that napkin was private property (not to mention stolen), and it was not up for discussion.
“Your mom found this last night - ”
“No, my mom stole that while she was snooping in my bedroom last night,” I said, cutting my therapist off. “Probably looking for drugs. Tell me, did she find any of my secret stash? She didn't give you the good stuff, did she?”
I wondered if drugs were one of the red alert topics to avoid during therapy. I knew suicide was a big no-no, though I almost learned that lesson the hard way when I made a (poor, I'll admit) joke about wanting to kill myself during my first session with Dr. M. She hadn't known me then and almost threw me into a psychiatric hospital. It took about thirty minutes of me repeatedly telling her that I was only kidding about launching myself off a very high cliff and that I had no plans to off myself before she finally backed off. Dr. M didn't know me any better now, but she had at least (begrudgingly) become accustomed to my inappropriate sense of humor and tendency towards sarcastic remarks. Still, I had avoided taking a second swing at a suicide joke.
The truth was, sometimes I did feel like ending it all. Sometimes I did feel hopeless and alone and like saying goodbye to the world would be the only way to stop feeling that way. My life didn't exactly have a whole lot of meaning after all. I wasn’t someone the world would cry over losing. Dr. M didn't know any of that though, and it wasn’t something I planned on ever discussing with her. Besides, everyone felt like that sometimes, right? Everyone had those days. It was normal.
I wasn’t sure whether mentioning a drug problem would earn a girl a one-way ticket to rehab. I didn't do drugs, but I guessed that fact was irrelevant if the therapist didn’t believe it.
Dr. M went on as if I hadn't said a word. Apparently she didn't think I did drugs. Either that or she wasn't concerned with my fake drug problem, which could have been a totally legitimate drug problem. “And she's worried about you and how you are feeling.”
I narrowed my eyes. “If she was so worried about how I felt then she'd stay out of my room because how I feel right now is highly pissed off and violated. That's how I feel.”
Dr. M cleared her throat. “Who are you talking about in this poem, Juliet?”
“It's not a poem,” I said through clenched teeth. “It's just something stupid I wrote.”
“Your feelings are in no way stupid,” Dr. M said, seemingly unbothered by the fact that I had completely ignored her question. “You wrote about pain in the poem. What pain are you feeling? Why do you think you are damaged?”
I had to give it to her. Dr. M was persistent, but I was extremely stubborn. She could try, try, and try again but I had no intention of spilling my guts to her. I sat in that uncomfortable therapy chair and just stared into Dr. M's eyes, not saying a word.
“What's wrong?” she asked.
What’s wrong? Nothing was wrong. Everything was perfect. You know, except for the fact that my life was one big cesspool of suckiness. Besides that, though, everything was freaking peachy.
“Nothing. I'm fine.”
Dr. M looked down at the napkin again and sighed. After a moment of silence in which I
counted the hideous rings suffocating her chubby fingers – I got to twelve, but I suspected there may have been a few hiding beneath the folds of her finger flab – she handed me the napkin. I crumpled it up and put it in my pocket.
A switch seemed to flip in her, and suddenly Dr. M's sigh turned into a smile. Apparently she had decided to try a different approach to getting inside my head. It was unnerving how she could do that – go from one emotion or gesture to the next in 0.5 seconds flat. Too bad her “smile” always looked more like a cross between a wince and a facial tick and almost seemed to cause her pain. It in no way gave me the warm and fuzzies necessary to divulge my deepest and darkest secrets.
“So what did you do last night, Juliet?” Dr. M asked.
I could feel my blood boiling beneath my skin. That was strike number two, and I thought I was going to lose it. I kept my cool though and told Dr. M exactly what I did last night. I don't think she was expecting me to be quite so blunt, though she probably should have been. It wasn’t like it was the first time I’d ever talked about it. It was basically the only thing I had ever talked about. Still, she had probably been hoping I'd beat around the bush a little so she could pull the details out of me and feel like a total genius. Or, at least, feel like she was doing her job. My nighttime, well not exclusively nighttime, adventures were one thing I wasn’t shy about.
No point in being shy when everyone knew.
Dr. M's eyes got really wide after I finished talking. She looked like one of those toys that you squeeze until their eyeballs pop out of their little plastic bodies.
“So you had sex with him, this boy you just met? You had sex with him in the back of his car?” she asked.
Dr. M was always going on about how everyone had a purpose and how we were all basically majestic unicorns (cue the nickname), but even she who prided herself on not judging anyone couldn’t quite keep the judgment from clouding her face. It was all in her mouth. Yep, that sorry excuse of a smile had been wiped clean off her face, and the thin line of her mouth was screaming with disappointment.
“Actually, it was in the front seat. We never made it to the back,” I said, yawning.
Dr. M swallowed hard. I could tell she was using every ounce of her restraint not to jump out of her therapist chair and ring my neck. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath before asking, “Why do you think you do these destructive things, Juliet?”
That was the last straw. That was three strikes, and she was so out.
“It's Carson,” I said, seething. “Not Juliet. I refuse to be associated with some ancient teenage tragedy.”
Dr. M knew I went by my middle name. After about ten sessions of me reminding her of this, I found it hard to believe that this detail had somehow slipped her mind.
“I'm sorry, I forgot that you prefer to be called Carson.”
“No, I don't prefer to be called anything because I prefer for people to leave me the hell alone and not talk to me. If it's necessary though, then yes, it's Carson.”
After a few minutes she cleared her throat. Time for Round Two. “Carson,” she began slowly. “Why did you have sex with that boy in his car?”
“Because his car was cleaner than the supply closet.”
Dr. M paused. “That's not what I meant. For the past six sessions, you've told me about the sex you've had with different guys in different places. So my question is, why do you keep doing this to yourself?”
I laughed. “Why do I have sex? Because it's fun.”
“I wish you'd take this seriously,” Dr. M said. “The behavior you're displaying is both dangerous and destructive.”
“Slut shaming isn't nice, you know,” I said.
“I'm not shaming you, Carson. I'm just trying to get to the root of the problem.”
“Maybe I'm a sex addict,” I suggested. “Do you have a pill that cures seventeen-year-old sex addicts?”
Dr. M gave me a disapproving look. I was wearing her down. “I don't think you're a sex addict,” she said.
“I guess I am just hopelessly damaged then.”
I instantly regretted opening my mouth and I just hoped that Dr. M hadn’t memorized the words written on my napkin. Luck had to come to all of us eventually.
“So you do believe you're damaged?” Dr. M asked. “Why, Carson?”
Apparently it wasn't my lucky day.
“I was being sarcastic. I'm a flawless creature.”
Dr. M huffed. “And are you being sarcastic now, Carson?”
“It's hard to say. One of the voices in my head says flawless and the other says hopeless. It could be sarcasm, but I suppose I could have a touch of insanity, so your guess is as good as mine,” I replied.
I thought Dr. M might throw something at me – maybe a pen... possibly a book... perhaps her chair...
“You're not crazy or hopeless, Carson,” she said, trying to keep her voice measured, controlled. “And if you feel damaged, well, damaged things can always be repaired. People are the same way. You just have to be willing to put in the work.”
“But isn't that your job? To fix me? Isn't that why my mom's paying you so much money?” I crossed my arms over my chest.
Dr. M shook her head. “I can help you work through your problems, but ultimately it will be up to you to make changes,” she said.
“I'm not sure I have any problems.”
Dr. M gave me a sympathetic look. She felt sorry for me. “But I think you do, Carson, and I think you're using sex to escape from them.”
I glared at Dr. M. I didn’t need her sympathy, and I didn't care if she had a degree or not. She had no idea what she was talking about and, honestly, as far as I was concerned Dr. M could play the Feelings Whisperer with someone else. I didn't belong there. Sure I joked about being crazy but I was completely sane – I didn't need therapy. And that wasn’t denial, that was a fact. Denial would have been me saying that I didn't have a bad attitude. I was fully aware that my attitude was less than sparkly, but that didn't warrant therapy.
“So, Doc, are you going to tell my mom about all of my little sexcapades? Are you two going to have a little conference about how I'm a troubled teen on a doomed path to nowhere?” I asked through gritted teeth.
Dr. M shook her head. “Whatever you say here is between you and me, Carson. It's completely confidential.”
I didn't say anything. I had a feeling Dr. M thought this statement would encourage me to open up more. It didn't.
After a moment of dead silence, Dr. M took a deep breath. “You know I'm here for you. Right, Carson?”
I actually didn't know that. What I did know was that as soon as the clock struck four – and it was about to – my time would be up, and Dr. This-Is-A-Magical-Land-And-You-Are-A-Majestic-Unicorn would forget all about me. I’d be just another folder in her file.
I didn’t reply to Dr. M. Instead I spent the last three minutes of our session shifting my gaze back and forth between her and the clock. As soon as the big hand hit the twelve I was out of my chair.
“Well, I think time's up. See you next week, Doc.”
Chapter 2
Fading Out
I feel like I’m fading
Like my light is dimming
Living as a speck of dust
Among stars
Burning brightly
I don’t have it in me
To burn any brighter
If I try I might
Burn out
But maybe that’s what I want
To be extinguished for good
Half of me is scared of this possibility
The other half doesn’t care enough to be scared
I just want someone to see something in me
Anything in me
I just want to be left alone to fade
Alone to fade away
I just want someone to give me a reason
To stay
I just want someone to tell me they want me
To go
I need a reason to stay
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br /> As I left the building and walked outside, I couldn’t help but think that I had finally broken Dr. M's relentless positivity, or, at least, fractured it. As I’d gotten up from the chair, she looked like she'd just fallen off the side of a rainbow and had her pot of gold stolen by some unfriendly leprechauns, the poor dear.
I looked around the parking lot, searching for my mom's car. She didn't trust me to drive to the sessions by myself. She wasn’t exactly wrong, as I could guarantee that if I had been behind the wheel I'd have skipped the shrink and gone for some retail therapy instead, but that didn't stop me from resenting her.
I took the napkin out of my pocket and smoothed it against my leg before re-reading the words I’d scribbled across the material. I’d never meant for anyone to see the inked-up napkin and knowing that both my mother and therapist not only read, but analyzed my writing made me feel slightly like puking all over the place. My personal feelings were my personal feelings and no one else's. I didn't owe anyone any explanations.
I heard a noise, turned my head to the right, and was instantly blinded by the sun. I put my hand over my eyes just in time to see a boy on a bicycle coming straight at me.
“Hey!” I yelled. The guy swerved at the last second and crashed into a trash can. I felt sort of bad for a second but, then again, better the trash can than me.
“Sorry,” the guy said as he reached for the red baseball cap that had fallen off his head. He stood and wiped bits of garbage off his clothes. He was tall and muscular with messy dark hair and tattoos covering his arms. “I didn't see you.” He looked at me and stopped, then shook his head before continuing. “I must be blind though because you're kind of hard to miss.”
I raised my eyebrows. Was this tool calling me fat?
“Excuse me?”
The boy shook his head, realizing his mistake. “Oh, I didn't mean it like that,” he said. “I just meant that you're beautiful.”
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