by Spencer Hyde
“My notes were a mess,” I said to Fitz. “What did you want me to read?”
“That thing about the hero’s journey. Looked like you needed to give it some more thought,” he said with a mocking smile.
I knew he was half teasing, but I also knew the other half was seriousness and an eagerness to hear my thoughts. Like, when people are sarcastic only it’s funny because there’s some truth in it, right?
“That journey is not realistic, Fitz,” I said. “Real life is right here in the psych ward. Real life is therapy. Real life is the truth: most drives don’t end up on the fairway. Most meat is tough. Most people grow up to be just people and nothing more. Most people leave here and only recover some small portion of their identity. Most people struggle to find real love. Most people struggle to find real happiness.”
Fitz didn’t respond for a minute. Then he said, “Wow. That’s super depressing.”
“It’s true,” I said, feeling bad that I’d mentioned anything. But it’s how I felt sometimes, and I thought he should know.
The introduction to the movie was playing. I was excited to see the movie I’d picked, but I was also interested in my discussion with Fitz.
“What if you could try, though? Just once. What if you tried the journey just once, Addie Foster?” he said, taking off his bandana and rolling it in his hands. “What if you tried for real happiness? Wouldn’t that help answer your essay question?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“You’re too good for this world, Addie. You won’t break the rules, even if it’s to answer an essay question for a grade in school?”
“It’s not about the grade,” I said.
“Then what is it about?
“It’s about figuring out what Beckett was trying to say by telling such absurd stories filled with ridiculous rituals. I have rituals. We all have rituals. But there’s something more because the thing doesn’t have an answer. It’s funny, sure, but I’m after what’s behind that humor.”
“Okay. So take off the mask,” Fitz said.
“Whatever. Let’s just watch the movie. I love this film.”
It’s true that the essay question was starting to consume my thoughts—my obsessive tendencies were taking over in a big way, compounded by the fact I was forced to stay in my room. I was only allowed a certain number of bathroom visits per day because of my washing. It seemed like my obsessions wound back to the same starting point the more I thought about that question on Morris’s exam. Reading more about the time period and other writers and other works wasn’t helping me as much as I thought and hoped it would. I needed to change the rules.
Maybe I needed to see the world from a different perspective, like one filled with country singers’ voices or something like that. Maybe Fitz was right. Maybe I needed to leave a safe place and go against everything I thought I needed in order to find out what I wanted to know.
It was all so confusing.
“Wait. Is this some rom-com or something?” said Fitz.
“I want my horse!” shouted Wolf.
“Somebody get this man his horse!” shouted Fitz, pointing to Wolf.
Martha told us to be quiet, and Jenkins came back to check on Wolf.
“You’re so obnoxious,” I said.
“He should have his horse,” said Fitz.
“I agree.”
Jenkins helped Wolf calm back down, though he continued to mutter about his horse under his breath as the movie rolled on.
“I like those movies sometimes. But, no. This movie is not a rom-com, but a tragicomedy,” I said.
“A tragi-what?”
“Tragicomedy. It is tragic because . . . well, I don’t want to give it away. But it’s mostly about the comedy. It’s both. Whatever. Just watch,” I said.
We watched for about fifteen minutes before Fitz spoke up. I swear, he couldn’t keep his mouth shut for very long. In fact, I’m sure he set some sort of record that night.
“So it’s a parody,” said Fitz. “I like Hamlet. Dude was crazy, but at least he made it entertaining.”
“It’s absurd.”
“Most parodies are,” said Fitz.
“No, I mean it was written during the time of the Theatre of the Absurd. Just like the play I’m reading.”
Fitz sighed heavily. “If it’s about waiting, I don’t care to watch. But I like comedy. I prefer comedy, I should say.”
“Yeah, you should say that,” I said.
He nudged my leg with his leg. I liked playing the literal game with him.
“And based on your favorite movie so far, you like comedy, too,” said Fitz.
“I like it when writers pay attention to language. I like this movie because of the writing.”
Fitz laughed quietly into his lame sweater. “You might be the only person I’ve ever met who said they like a movie because of the writing.” He leaned forward on his elbows.
“Tom Stoppard said that words deserve respect, and the right ones in the right order might nudge the world a little,” I said.
I think he could sense how serious I was because he sat up and nodded without a goofy grin or sardonic response. It was easy to explain to others why I enjoyed writers like Stoppard—they nudged the world a little with everything they wrote. And because I was stuck in obsessions and rituals and ticks and washing and thinking and blinking and coughing and sniffling and retreating into my captive mind, I needed to feel those little nudges. To me, those nudges were more like earthquakes. They woke me from my stupor of thought, my haze of obsessive thinking, and led me to a clearing in the fog.
Words saved me from myself. That might sound corny, but it’s true. Without good writing, I’d be so far down that rabbit hole that I wouldn’t ever find my way back home. I knew that, and because I knew that, I was aware that if I held on to that kind of writing, that kind of thinking and hoping and believing, then one day I’d emerge from that hole and live a life on the top of the world and not somewhere buried in my disorder.
And maybe even I could move the world someday—just nudge it a little. Maybe I could wear happiness not as a mask, but as a part of my self. The real thing.
“Good writing takes me out of myself. I know that sounds weird. But, whatever.”
“It doesn’t sound weird, Addie Foster. It’s beautiful,” he said. He sat back up and stared at the screen. “I’d really like to show you something beautiful, too.”
“Yeah?”
“But it’s not in the psych ward,” said Fitz.
“Don’t define yourself by where you are. That would be a mistake,” I said.
The pace of my heart increased rapidly. I placed my hand on my chest and started counting, and I think it bothered Fitz. But then he started laughing, loudly, and he rolled off his chair and onto the tiled floor.
“What?” I said, worried. “What did I say?”
He kept laughing until he was crying.
Martha heard the noise and walked over with Jenkins. I didn’t like Jenkins. He was an older male orderly with a paunch and these really big, nasty, peppered lamb-chop sideburns that took up half his face. And he had horrible breath—such horrible breath.
“What’s going on?” said Martha.
“Everything okay here?” said Jenkins, looking just at me.
Fitz gained some control and sat up quickly, probably afraid of being sent to the isolated part of the ward where they kept patients who were on “suicide watch” or in some other type of special state that required a close eye and more bodies to observe or guide or care or whatever.
Junior turned to Fitz, looking really annoyed.
“I’m fine,” he said. “Just two cuckoo birds talking about living in the cuckoo’s nest.” He flashed a massive, sarcastic grin at Martha and Jenkins.
“We’re okay,” I said, assuring Martha. She di
dn’t look like she fully bought it, but she walked away with Jenkins and left us alone. Martha un-paused the movie, and the room was quiet again.
“What on earth was that?” I said, leaning into Fitz.
“It’s funny.”
“It’s not funny,” I said.
“When you showed up after our failed escape attempt, I took all the anger I had, all the frustration, all the shadows following me around these halls, all the voices talking behind my back, and all that mess up here,” he said, pointing to his head, “and I was able to direct it and control it like I never thought possible. I took all that and put it on you. It’s not fair, but it’s what I did. I shouldn’t have, but it seemed to work for a while.”
“I didn’t know that,” I said.
“I know. And here I am trying to talk to you about getting out, about something that matters to me, and you stop to count your heartbeats.”
“That’s not fair,” I said. “I can’t control it sometimes. You can’t control the voices, can you?”
“You’re right. I guess I was just counting on you, but nobody in here is reliable. I’m not. I’d already told Junior and Didi that we were going to try to bust out of here again, but we can’t count on each other. You were right. In the end, we’re open with nobody. The walls are too high, too deep. Nobody is set up to climb something like that. We just don’t have the skill set or the right equipment.”
“You’re not just asking me because I’m another capable body?” I said, feeling sheepish at making that comment after his about breaking down walls.
“For being so bright, you sure don’t recognize when someone has a real crush on you, do you?”
Fitz sighed and sat back in his chair and looked at the ceiling, placing his bandana over his face.
I thought about what he’d said: crush. I was about to count my heartbeats again, but I stayed my hand. Crush. It consumed my thoughts. Crush.
In that moment, I realized I had unwittingly become some kind of source of hope or something for the other inpatients. Fitz had planned on me for another escape attempt, and he wanted me to go with him because he liked me, not because he needed me. Well, maybe he needed me, but in a romantic way. Whatever. Get over it.
I’d never thought there would be any reason for me to escape because the ward held my redemption. I’d never considered the fact that doing something for the others was a way, or could be a way, of finding answers for myself.
Maybe Fitz was right. Maybe putting my faith in other people would stop me from focusing on my own heartbeat. Maybe I could hold my hand on someone else’s chest and listen to that instead. Maybe my heart was figuratively small because I didn’t put it in touch with other hearts often enough.
I reached out my hand and placed it on Fitz’s chest. He didn’t move. He breathed lightly, and the bandana softly lifted, then fell back over the contours of his face. He took the bandana off and looked at me with all this hope. I didn’t know what to do with it—it was consuming.
We both turned to the movie and let it fill in the space between us, fill in the part between the seconds. When the movie ended, I looked at Fitz.
“Amazing, right?”
“Yeah,” he said. “But I didn’t like that they died.”
“They had to die. It’s absurd, sure, but to make it a tragedy those characters have to die.”
Then he turned to his left and shouted, “Shut up!” He glanced at me. “Sorry. You know the drill.”
“Who was it? Quentin?”
Fitz gave me a funny look. He shook his head and stood up.
Junior stood up at the same time and threw his chair into the wall next to the TV on the roll-in cart, narrowly missing Jenkins, who was sitting nearby. Junior looked at the rest of us before stepping to the door, only to be restrained by Jenkins, who took him away. Maybe to his room, or maybe somewhere else he could watch him. That left us with Martha.
Fitz sat back down and put his hand on mine to keep me from standing. He could see that my eyebrows were raised and that I was worried about Junior.
“Calm yourself. He does that all the time. Actually, I’m surprised he didn’t break the drywall. He doesn’t ever hurt people, though, so don’t worry.”
I looked at his hand on mine, and he did the same. There was a nervousness in his glance that I liked. He kept his hand there and looked at me.
“Addie Foster. Who knew you were such a fan of words?”
“You knew. That’s why I slaughtered you at Boggle,” I said.
I worried I’d stepped onto shaky ground considering how he’d walked away from our game weeks before, so I put my other hand on my chest and apologized.
“Don’t apologize,” Fitz said. “Just let me try to redeem myself tomorrow.”
“Deal,” I said.
We all separated to our respective rooms after that, and Martha walked with me to mine.
“I see you looking at that boy all the time, Miss Addie,” she said. “It’s not hard to see that you two like one another.”
“That obvious, huh?”
“I think it’s cute,” she said.
“Gross. Nothing’s cute.”
Martha opened my door for me, closing it behind me as I walked in and sat on the bed. The moonlight was playing on the wall, a few small shafts of light giving the boring room a little character.
I put my head on the pillow and stared at the slats of light on the wall. I thought about how every good story needs an adventure—and if I was the protagonist, I needed to have something that I was after. Could it be as simple as needing an answer to a question that was truly making me anxious? Could it be as simple as wanting to help the guy with the handsome gap?
I mean, Doc kept encouraging me to do things that I wouldn’t normally do, try things I normally wouldn’t try. He kept talking about the value of exposure therapy. Think and step outside of the way I was living. Take risks. Be daring.
Well, how was I supposed to do that inside the ward? Maybe Doc was asking me to step outside, literally? I liked that thought. And if I helped Fitz, I would be finding answers for him while also finding an answer for myself about Dr. Morris’s question. I mean, I would just be doing what the doctors wanted me to do. Maybe not in the way they meant it, but it’s all semantics, right?
After another hour of thinking it through, I knocked on my door.
“Thought you were asleep,” said Martha.
“Just need to pee real quick,” I said.
I walked to the bathroom, and Martha went back to her desk. I knew she didn’t care how much time I took, as long as it wasn’t outrageous. I took a detour on the way back from the bathroom and slid a note under Fitz’s door. I imagined him smiling that goofy smile as he opened my note.
Difficult roads often lead to beautiful destinations. I’m in. Are you? Y/N
—The Comic Character Who Is Way Funnier and Smarter Than the Tragic Character
I stayed by the door for a minute and heard him laugh on the other side—probably at the over-the-top quote I’d stolen from the sign hanging above Tabor’s desk. So ridiculous.
It made me smile, hearing Fitz laugh. I walked back to my room and waved to Martha, then went right back to bed, where I spent the next three hours obsessing over Morris’s essay question and thinking about what I’d just agreed to do. I wasn’t the type to do something like that. Not me. Not Addie Foster.
Then again, was I really sure what my type was? Was I really going to break out of the psych ward? Well, why in the name of Zeus’s beard do they put up all those freaking obnoxious quotes everywhere if they don’t want us to listen to them? Why inspire us and meet with us all day, every day, if not to motivate us to take action?
The next morning found me in Dr. Riddle’s office. I had a lot on my mind. I was so excited about the idea of my upcoming adventure that I didn’t really take not
e of the schedule I had to stick to in the regular, ho-hum of the day-to-day. I was sure Doc knew somehow, that he’d found the note or that Fitz had confessed. It made me feel jumpy.
The idea alone was keeping me in a state of excited anticipation. Isn’t that how it always works? We get all excited about something, and then it turns out that the anticipation was better than the real thing. Oscar Wilde said there are the two tragedies in life: not getting what one wants, and getting what one wants. Makes sense.
I guess my life had kind of worked that way. But I was determined to find out who I was and what I was about. Maybe the real thing would actually be better than the anticipation this time.
“Parent Visit today, Addie. Doubling up on visits this week for the holiday. Are you excited to see your mother?”
“Of course,” I said.
Doc started scribbling in his stupid little folder. He had to know something was up. He never took that long to write down morning notes. He was also more chipper than usual. Maybe because he was planning some devious way to get me to confess after already getting the details from Fitz? What a snake.
“Are you writing down the fact that I’m excited to see my mother? Seems pretty pointless, Doc. I mean, how is that going to help me medically?”
He smiled and put his pen down. “I like to write down more than just comments, Addie. I’m writing down notes about your mood at the moment. You seem happy. Again. Still,” he said.
“Did you know that there is a ninety-nine percent chance that a breath inhaled today somewhere in the world will contain a molecule from Shakespeare’s dying breath?”
“I didn’t know that, in fact. Seems like things are okay, though.”
“Things are better than before,” I said, looking around his desk for the stress ball. He noticed what I was doing. My palms were sweaty, and I balled the cuffs of my sweater in my hands. I tried to think of another random fact to throw him off the scent. He probably noticed that too because he wrote down another note. He had to know something.