by Lang Leav
“You know, I used to hear stories about kids who hung out at cemeteries in the middle of the night. I never thought in a million years that I’d be one of them,” I said.
Rad shook his head. “Me too.”
After a few minutes he stopped and stood up, fishing the necklace from his pocket. He looked at it with a mixture of curiosity and sadness. “You know, I’ve never opened it,” he said. “I don’t know what she put in there.”
“I’m sure it’s a picture of you.” I stood up and looked at the gold locket cupped in the palm of his hand.
He nodded. “I think I should just bury it and walk away.” But there was a hesitancy to his voice.
“Maybe Ana would have wanted you to look inside.”
Rad seemed to be thinking it over, and then he pried at the edge of the locket with his fingers. It clicked open with little resistance.
“It’s not a picture of me,” he said. I leaned in closer to examine the photograph stuck in the heart-shaped frame.
“It’s Candela,” I said, looking at him with surprise.
“Yeah,” he said. I couldn’t read the expression on his face.
Without a word, he snapped the locket back into its original position. Then he dropped to his knees again and placed it slowly into the freshly dug pit.
We were silent as he scooped the dirt onto the locket, filling in the void. Then he took the patch of grass and put it carefully back into position, patting it down gently. It looked like we were never here—as though the locket and its mysterious significance had been swallowed up by the earth. Rad glanced at his watch. “It’ll be daylight in a few hours. Let’s get out of here. I know a great place where we can watch the sun come up.”
Four
It was a dreary, downcast day. I was riding to the bus stop in Mum’s car, booked in for my first appointment with a psychologist just before noon.
Mum had been grilling me about Rad since breakfast and hadn’t let up. “I’m only trying to stop you from making a huge mistake, Audrey,” she said as she pulled up at the bus stop. “You’ll thank me one day.” She adjusted the rearview mirror to catch her reflection before smearing bright red lipstick across her lips.
“Mum, I’m not seeing Rad anymore,” I lied. “Can you please just drop it?”
After we left the cemetery that night, Rad took me to an old lighthouse at Widow’s Cove. It stood at the end of a battered wharf and wasn’t much taller than a lamppost. We climbed up a rickety ladder and onto a balcony edged with thin metal railing. It was still dark, and the moon—large and glowing—threw a pale shimmer of light across the water. That night, we talked the way old friends do, with candor and ease. We were still deep in conversation when the sun announced its arrival with an astonishing flourish of orange and pink.
“Well, the damage has already been done.” My mother’s voice, always on the verge of hysteria, drove a wedge into my thoughts. “I was in the grocery store the other day, and I heard the Baker sisters gossiping about it in the next aisle.”
“That’s because they’re assholes, Mum. I can’t live my whole life worrying about every damn thing people are saying about me.”
“No, you can’t. But in the future, you can try to be a little more considerate. Imagine how Duck feels, you taking off with some guy.”
“We just talked; that’s all. And Duck knows that. Rad needed a friend that night, and I was there for him. You’re just trying to turn it into something that it’s not. Maybe you’re projecting your own guilt onto me,” I said, my words coming out in a rush before I could lose my nerve.
Her eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about. What you did to Dad.”
Her face turned an ugly shade of red. “How dare you,” she hissed. “That happened years ago. Your dad has gotten past it. You’re the only one who won’t let it go.”
“Well, what choice did he have?” I spat at her. “At least we kept your dirty little secret to ourselves.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew I had gone too far.
“Get out!” she screamed. “You ungrateful brat. Get out now.”
I got out of the car as quickly as I could, slamming the door behind me.
As the bus pulled away from the stop, I sat in my seat pinching hard at the skin between my knuckles. I took a deep gulp of air through my mouth and exhaled slowly. Feeling self-conscious, I looked up to see whether anyone noticed how jittery I was. But the bus was crowded, and all the riders looked like they were in their own worlds.
My mother had a way of making everything seem ten times worse than it actually was. She watched me like a hawk, scrutinizing every move I made, looking for an opportunity to call me out. When I was thirteen, she came to pick me up at a birthday party. She caught sight of a cake stain on my new dress and yelled at me in front of all my friends. Though it was years ago, the humiliation I felt that day remains fresh in my mind.
As the bus continued, starting and stopping in the heavy morning traffic, I reached into the pocket of my jeans and fished out the crumpled piece of bright yellow paper my dad had given me the night before.
Ida Summers & Associates
24 Sentinel Street, Cremorne
Ida Summers was a name already familiar to me. I heard it dropped every so often in the school playground, like a status symbol. She had a reputation for treating damaged adolescent girls.
It was strange. The words “panic attack” were thrown around so often that I used to think nothing of it, applying the expression to the most trivial things. But now whenever I heard it, my stomach turned itself into knots. I used to be bulletproof, and I didn’t even know it.
Describing a panic attack to someone who has never experienced one is impossible. However, to one who has, no explanation is needed. You just have to say the word “anxiety,” and their eyes would light up with a knowing look. A mixture of “Welcome to the club” and “I know it sucks, but at least you’re not alone.”
The other night I was watching a movie when, midway through, it went out of sync. As the actors spoke, their words no longer matched up with the movement of their lips. I picked up the remote and tried the pause button. When that didn’t work, I tried to restart the movie, hoping it would fix the problem. In the end I gave up and just stopped watching it altogether. That was when the realization hit me; that out-of-sync feeling is exactly what anxiety is. Only, imagine it is not on a movie screen but in your brain. The worst thing is you have no control over it. There is no fix. You have to wait until things begin to feel normal again, but when you’re in that state of mind, you can’t tell if it ever will. And that’s what makes it so terrifying.
I arrived at the clinic twenty minutes before my appointment. I was still in a bad frame of mind from the argument with Mum earlier. I tried my best not to think about it.
The building was a two-story brick terrace house next to a row of boutiques, a mini shopping mart, and a secondhand book store. I pushed through the wrought iron gate and made my way up the concrete footpath to the bright red door. To my right was an intercom next to a rectangular plaque that read Ida Summers, along with two other names I didn’t recognize. I pushed the red button labeled Call.
I heard a burst of static, and a female voice, almost childlike, came on.
“Hello?”
“Hi, it’s Audrey for my eleven-o’clock appointment with Ida,” I said into the speaker.
“Wonderful, come in.”
There was a buzzing sound followed by a click as I pushed the door open. I walked into a small reception room and was greeted by a petite lady dressed in a gray pantsuit.
“Hello,” she said smiling at me from behind her desk. “Is this your first time with Ida?”
“Yes, it is.”
She stood up and began riffling through a filing cabinet before pulling out a piece of
paper.
“Can you please fill this out?”
“Sure,” I replied, taking the form from her tiny hands.
“Audrey?” I heard as I was flicking through a magazine. When I looked up, I saw a lady in her early thirties standing by the doorframe. Her inky black hair was cut into a sharp bob, and a pair of tortoiseshell glasses framed her china-doll features.
“Yes.”
“I’m Ida,” she said with a smile. “Come with me.”
I followed her up a narrow flight of steps and through a wood paneled door. Ida’s office was small and stark, the furniture sparse. It was almost monochromatic, with eggshell walls and abstract art; geometric patterns flourished and faltered within frames of brushed aluminum. A neat row of certificates were displayed on an otherwise bare wall proclaiming to Ida’s numerous areas of expertise. A tall, narrow window positioned behind a solid oak desk cast little light into the dimly lit room. “Over here, darling,” she said, waving at a brown leather lounge chair in the center of the room. “You can sit here. Put that shawl over you if you get a bit chilly; I like to have the window open. You can smoke in here if you want.”
“It’s okay; I don’t smoke,” I said, settling myself into the lounge.
“Wonderful to hear, love; I wouldn’t recommend it,” she said with a quick, throaty laugh. “Though you don’t mind if I do?”
“No, I don’t mind,” I replied. She drew a cigarette from a silver case and lit it with a fluorescent pink Zippo. She took a long drag and sighed with pleasure, blowing the smoke out the window. Then sitting at her desk, she regarded me carefully.
“You’re a pretty one,” she said. “How old are you—sixteen? Seventeen?”
I pulled the dark blue shawl across my body. “Turning eighteen. It’s my birthday in a few days.”
“Well, happy birthday in advance!” she said brightly. “Are you comfortable, dear?”
“Yes, thanks.”
“Any plans for your big day?”
“No, not yet.”
“Anything you’re hoping for?”
Rad’s face filled my mind in the same way a camera lens brings a blurry image sharply into focus. I felt a tug of longing in my chest—one quickly replaced with a wave of guilt.
“No, not really,” I lied.
She gave me a thoughtful look.
“So,” she said with a smile, “tell me what brings you here.”
I shrugged. “My parents, I suppose. They think I have issues.”
“And how do you feel about that?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Mum drives me crazy.”
“She does?”
“Yeah, she’s always on my case. We had a huge argument just this morning.”
“Oh?” said Ida, taking another drag of her cigarette. “What was it about?”
“It’s a long story,” I mumbled, looking away.
“Well, we have almost an hour to kill.”
I smiled in spite of myself.
“She cheated on my dad a few years back. I don’t like thinking about that period in our family’s history.”
“And that’s the reason why you were arguing? About something that happened years ago?”
“No, not really. Once in a while I bring it up.”
“As a weapon against her?”
“Only when I want to go nuclear. I know it’s wrong.”
“So what was the argument really about?”
I shook my head. “Something stupid, I don’t know.”
“About a boy?” she guessed.
I was about to deny it, but I could see from her expression that I had given myself away.
“It’s so cliché, isn’t it?”
“There’s a reason why things in this world turn into clichés. It’s because they’re common,” she said with a smile. “So does this boy have a name?”
“His name is Rad. It’s a messy situation.”
“Why?”
“I met him at a funeral—he’s Ana’s boyfriend.” After a short pause I added, “She’s a girl I went to school with. It was her funeral.”
“Oh,” said Ida. “What happened to Ana?”
“She took her own life.” I bit down on my lip and looked away.
“I see,” she said, with a heavy sigh. “What a terrible tragedy.” She stubbed out her cigarette on a red heart-shaped ashtray, her eyes meeting mine. “So, you’re feeling guilty about your attraction to Ana’s boyfriend?”
“Yeah,” I said, twisting the tassel ends of the blue shawl around my forefinger. “Plus, to complicate matters, I have a boyfriend too. His name is Duck.”
“How long have you known him?”
“Since forever.”
“And how do you feel about him?”
“Well, he’s like family to me. He lives just down the street, and our mothers are best friends. Duck’s been there for every birthday, every Christmas, practically every milestone in my life. I suppose it was a natural thing, for us to wind up together.”
“How long have you been an item?”
“Since we were fourteen. He saved my life.”
Her eyes widened. “He did?”
I nodded. “I had an accident, down by the lake. I almost drowned, but he saved me. After that, I suppose I felt like . . .” I paused.
“Like you were in some way indebted to him?”
My mind shot back to that night I snuck into Duck’s bedroom. Up until then, there was a firm line drawn, at least for me. Until he pulled me from the bottom of that lake, from certain death, I thought of him as a friend and nothing more. Although I never said it out loud, I did wonder from time to time whether we would have been a couple if I had never gone to the lake that day.
“When someone saves your life, I suppose you do feel a sense of obligation.” I frowned. “Not that I don’t love Duck; I just feel like we don’t have anything in common.”
She nodded. “And do you know how he feels about you?”
“Duck has this fixed idea in his mind about the two of us. He’s studying law next year like he always planned, and once he gets his degree, he wants to settle down.”
“What do you think about his plan?”
“I think it’s something I always went along with because it was so far off in the future that it didn’t feel real to me. Now that it’s getting closer, I feel panicky about it. I don’t want that life. Maybe I did once, but since I met Rad, it feels like there’s a whole other dimension.” I paused and chewed on the tip of my thumb. “It’s almost like there was only an up and down before him, but now I have discovered you can also go sideways too. Does that make any sense?”
Ida nodded. “Actually, it makes perfect sense.” She reached across her desk and grabbed a notepad and pen. “It’s clear you’re going through a tough time,” she continued. “Are you in your final year at school?”
“Yeah.”
“So you have your upcoming exams to deal with too.” She gave me a sympathetic look. “No wonder you’re finding it difficult to cope.”
“I am. Everything seems to be happening all at once.”
“You poor thing,” said Ida as she scribbled something on her notepad. “Were you close to Ana?”
“No, but my best friend, Candela, was really close to her.”
“And how is she doing?”
“I’m not sure,” I frowned. “She seems to be okay, which is weird. I thought she would be a lot worse.”
“Everyone grieves in their own way.”
“I suppose.”
“And your problems began only recently?” Ida asked. “After Ana’s death? How did you feel, when you heard the news?”
“Shocked at first. Numb, if anything.” I felt a chill go down my spine, and I pulled the blue shawl tighter around my body. “But later that night—well, it w
as weird. I had this sensation I’ve never experienced before. It was like . . . my mind was being pulled from my body. That’s the only way I can explain it. I thought I was going crazy. I’ve been looking up the symptoms online, and I think it was a panic attack.”
Ida nodded. “I would say that’s what it was. Have you had another one since?”
“Yes, and I feel like I’m always on the verge of one. Do you think it will keep happening?”
“It’s likely.” The look she gave me was almost apologetic, and my heart sank.
“The worst thing is the constant anxiety.”
“I know, darling,” she said. “The worrying is a vicious cycle. Most people tend to think themselves into full-blown panic attacks. But I have something that might help you.”
She reached into her drawer and pulled out a small glass jar containing a cluster of rubber bands. She unscrewed the cap, fished one out, and came around to where I was sitting, handing the piece of brown elastic to me. I gave her a bemused look as I took it from her outstretched hand.
“Slip that onto your wrist,” she said.
I did what she asked.
“Good girl.” Without warning, she pinched the elastic with her thumb and forefinger, pulled it right back, and then let it go.
“Ouch!” I cried, as the sharp sting of rubber bit into my skin. I pulled my hand away from her. “What the hell?”
“Sorry, honey. You see, when you find yourself getting into a cycle of worry, that sharp ping snaps you out of your own head. It’s a way to ground you and bring you back to reality.”
“Oh,” I said softly. I began to see the logic behind the idea and was filled with a spark of hope. Maybe this will work.
“When you start to feel anxious, pull the rubber band back and snap it against your skin. That should ease the anxiety.”
“Okay, I’ll give it a go.”
“Good.” She glanced at the clock on the wall. “Looks like time is up, sweetie.”
“Already?” I said, surprised.