This Is What I Want to Tell You

by Heather Duffy Stone

  She’s not applying, I said. I had no idea what he was talking about.

  Noelle is in my office. Ms. Hayes called me and asked me to remove her from Government class.

  What? I was starting to realize this had nothing to do with M.U.N.

  She was hysterical. Apparently she disrespected Ms. Hayes and this escalated. Your sister does not seem like herself.

  I don’t know what you’re talking about, I said. He couldn’t be talking about my sister.

  I’ve called your mother at work but we’re having trouble reaching her. I was hoping you could just sit with your sister and calm her down. I’ll give you two my office.

  As we went into the guidance offices, Keeley was coming out. She looked at us, her eyes wide.

  Hi, I said.

  Hi. Wha—

  What are you doing here? I asked.

  I was meeting with my college counselor, she said, looking at Mr. Taylor.

  Mr. Taylor, I said. Let me bring Keeley with me. She’s Noelle’s best friend. We can help.

  Mr. Taylor’s eyes darted between us.

  Okay, he said. He waved toward his door. She’s in there. I’ll give you all some space.

  Mr. Taylor walked into the college counselor’s office. I turned to Keeley.

  Apparently she freaked in Government, I said. Hayes kicked her out.

  That’s not like her, Keeley said. Something’s up.

  I don’t know why I felt so nervous as we pushed into Mr. Taylor’s office.

  Noelle was slumped down in a chair, her legs splayed out, loose and exhausted looking. She had a hood pulled low over her head, which was resting in her hands. She looked up when she heard the door. Her face was wrecked. There is no other way to say it. I’d never seen her like that. It was red and swollen and tear-streaked and her eyes were framed in heavy shadows. Her hair hung tangled out of the sides of the hood.

  Nole … I said. I didn’t know what to say next. I was scared of my sister. I didn’t recognize anything in her face. I couldn’t read a thing. I couldn’t feel a thing coming from her.

  She stared at us.

  Perfect, she said.

  Suddenly her eyes seemed to be flaming.

  Sweetie, what happened? Keeley said, moving toward her. Noelle held her hand out.

  Don’t come near me, she said.

  Keeley stopped.

  And don’t call me sweetie. You fucking liar.

  She pushed her hood back and sat up straight.

  Both of you fucking liars. What did you think? Oh, we’ll just have our perfect little honor roll beautiful people pseudo-relationship and dumb Noelle will never know the difference. We’ll just grow up into this perfect newspaper reading student government couple and forget about everyone else. We’ll just pretend we don’t have sisters or best friends or anything else. We’ll just have our perfect Oxford trips and scholarships and giggling pathetic romantic dinners and oh, WHO THE FUCK IS NOELLE? Honey, didn’t we used to know someone named Noelle? I don’t know honey it sounds kind of familiar but everything before Harvard is just a BLUR …

  By the end she was yelling, almost spitting her words. Keeley looked like Noelle had slapped her. She was frozen in place.

  I felt numb. I felt like a crazy person was standing in my sister’s sweatshirt. A true maniac.

  Noelle stood up slowly. She walked past Keeley as if she weren’t even there. It was like she’d stopped seeing her. She stopped right in front of me. Her face inches from mine.

  You are both so fucking selfish, she whispered. I bet you’re just like him.

  She walked out of the room so soundlessly it was like she simply stopped being there. The air was cold. The only sound was Keeley’s quiet crying.

  You looked wrecked, Jessica said when I walked into Government first period. She offered me eye drops but I waved them away. I dug my sunglasses out of my bag and slipped them on. My eyes were filling and spilling over before I noticed, all the time, before my head could catch up. Eye drops wouldn’t help me. Being back in school made everything rush in. Everything I was feeling changed to anger. I was stiff with being mad. By the time Ms. Hayes started lecturing I knew I wasn’t going to make it. I knew.

  Noelle, sunglasses, Ms. Hayes said, as if she’d just noticed I was there.

  Yes, I said. They are.

  Off, she said.

  I stared at her. I knew she couldn’t see my eyes and I narrowed them to glare.

  Now, she said. The rest of the class was silent, watching me.

  What do you care? I can listen just as well with them on as with them off. I didn’t know where this was coming from, who I was, talking to her.

  Noelle. We don’t wear sunglasses in the classroom. Take them off or it’s the principal’s office. It’s that simple.

  I’m not leaving, I said. You’re telling me you’re going to deny me a history lesson because of sunglasses.

  Ms. Hayes took a deep breath. She stared at me.

  You’re wasting everyone’s time, she said. Sunglasses or door, Noelle.

  Jessica leaned in to me. Just take them off, she whispered.

  But I felt empowered suddenly. For the first time in three days I felt something. I wasn’t invisible. Everyone was looking at me.

  This is bullshit, I said.

  Ms. Hayes already had the classroom phone against her ear. I need Mr. Taylor in Room 209 now, she was saying.

  I’m just sitting here listening and you’re harassing me because of some bullshit rule. This is great.

  Ms. Hayes shook her head. Nobody was moving. Mr. Taylor came in the door and looked at me. Ms. Hayes whispered something to him.

  Noelle, he said. I think you need to come with me.

  My face was hot. I didn’t know where the sound of my voice was coming from. I could see Ms. Hayes’ disappointment, embarrassment, all of it. I could see Keeley and my brother …

  Forget it, I said. Just forget all of it.

  The chair crashed to the floor behind me as I stood up. I didn’t mean to knock the chair over. But it crashed and echoed and I felt relieved.

  When Noelle and I were kids, she was in charge. There was something about her that commanded a room, that made you listen, that drew you in. As we got older, all of this command got quieter and quieter until it slipped away. The only time she was really in charge now was when she was angry. There was something about it—quiet and fierce—that was almost scary. Even to Lace. To me. All of us. It was like the only time she felt confident enough to command was when she was too mad to care.

  It was like that in Mr. Taylor’s office. She had us frozen.

  Keeley and I got Mr. Taylor to let us go look for Noelle. In the hallway everyone was talking about Noelle in Ms. Hayes’ class. It was like they’d never seen her before. They were talking about her like someone else altogether had been kicked out of class.

  Whoa, did you hear about Noelle?

  Who?

  That girl. She never talks. The twin.

  The one who hangs out with Jessica Marino?

  Yeah. Her. She freaked in Government.

  That girl?

  Yeah. She told Ms. Hayes off.

  No way.

  Totally. She was tough. And she looked wrecked.

  No, I’ve seen her. Always with the hood and like she’s been out all night.

  Did she go here last year?

  She was totally different. You just never noticed her.

  I heard it all in the hallways. The whispers even lower when I walked by, but I heard it.

  Don’t listen. Keeley held my arm.

  She drove back to my house. We didn’t talk.

  When I moved toward my front door my stomach started to feel like it had in Chem class. Keele
y was behind me, but then she was running up the stairs while I was frozen.

  The kitchen table still had this morning’s breakfast dishes on it—and in between two coffee cups and a crusty bowl rolled three or four canisters. Prescriptions. Medicine. Empty. Empty pill bottles rolling around on the table.

  Nadio. Keeley’s voice was quiet and booming and desperate all at once. I took the stairs two at a time. She was kneeling with my sister’s head in her lap. Noelle’s head was heavy. She was mumbling.

  Nadio, call 9-1-1 right now, Keeley said. Quiet. Even.

  I dug my phone out of my pocket. I dialed.

  My sister, I said. She took pills—

  Keeley had to repeat my address to me twice. My hand shook. I hung up.

  They’re coming.

  I stared at my sister lying on the floor. I stared at Keeley holding her head.

  Call your mother, Keeley said. Nadio, call your mother and tell her to meet us at the hospital.

  The phone weighed fifty pounds. I dialed like I was underwater. I watched.

  My sister had stopped mumbling.

  She was still.

  I didn’t want to die but everything was over.

  It was just over.

  That’s all I can tell you.

  It was easy to find the pills. Lace had a million different prescriptions—to help her sleep, relax, ease her headaches … There was a ceramic bowl that had been filled with grapes. It was on the counter below the phone. I rinsed it out and I poured a glass of water. I don’t know what I took from Parker’s house, but everything floated in my hands and underneath my skin. I brought Lace’s pills from her bathroom. I filled the bowl with the pills. Then I went back to my room. Lace had left a basket of clean laundry on my bed and when I sat down it tipped over. It was warm and soft. I curled up in the cloud of laundry and swallowed the pills in handfuls and sips.

  When Keeley and Nadio came home I felt like a balloon was sucking at my head in slow motion. Then nothing. Then there they were again.

  Then it’s a flash of images in my head, one on top of the other, bright flashes of light, BAM-BAM-BAM. Nadio’s big black eyes staring into mine, his hands gripping my shoulders, BAM Keeley yelling, Nadio holding the phone BAM red lights spilling over the wall of my room BAM the black rubber boots and thick veined hands of the ambulance drivers BAM the sound of sirens, a hallway spilling yellow light BAM a man’s voice with no body What did you take, Noelle? urgent BAM stinging burning down my throat BAM retching black charcoal, strange hands holding at my arms and hair BAM … and then everything was dark and slow.

  When I woke up in the hospital, Lace was asleep. She was sitting in a chair made of shiny green plastic—it looked like a school-bus seat—and her head was leaned forward on the bed, resting against my thigh. She was wrapped in a white blanket, her head turned toward me.

  Lace opened her eyes. She stared at me. The silence in the room was heavy. She sat up and the blanket fell off her shoulders. She scooted her chair back and climbed into the bed beside me, wrapping her arms around my neck, lying down next to me.

  I’m sorry, she whispered. Sweetie, I’m so sorry.

  I felt like I could break into a million pieces. I hugged her back.

  I didn’t want to die, I whispered.

  She pulled my head against her shoulder.

  I know, she said.

  I was crying. The sobs caught deep in my throat, Lace’s shoulder was wet. It had been so long since I felt anything. Now I felt it all at once.

  I didn’t know what else to do, I said.

  Lace was quiet, her hand rubbing my back. I wanted her, I needed her to understand.

  Mommy? The word caught in my throat. It didn’t feel right. It was the only thing that felt right. Mom. I didn’t know what else to do.

  I know, she said.

  I felt her shiver. She pulled me against her.

  Noelle, when your dad left me my world was broken. I didn’t have any parents. I didn’t have any family. I just had him. And then he was gone. And I knew I had you two to live for. I never wanted to die. But for a long time I didn’t know how I was going to live.

  I know, I said. I did. That was it. I didn’t know how I was going to live.

  The sheets underneath me were scratchy and dry and Lace’s skin over her collarbone felt soft and cool. I closed my eyes. I pretended we were at home. I counted the seconds of my breath in and out. I could breathe in this second. I just wanted to get through this second and then the next one. It was okay with my mom. That was enough for now. My body felt heavy and tired. My eyelids felt thick. My throat burned.

  Mommy? I said. Saying Lace felt so far away. It felt like what someone else called her.

  Mm hmm.

  Will you stay here?

  Sweetie, I’m not going anywhere.

  My mom and my sister were asleep on the starched white twin bed when I walked in, Noelle covered in the sheet and Lace next to her, dark colors, their hair twisting together over the pillow. They looked so similar; I don’t think I’d noticed it before. Lace could be our age. I sat down in the chair. I didn’t know what to do. I’d just walked Keeley to her car, picked up muffins. It was three in the morning and I’d wandered through the white-lit, deserted cafeteria, and it was all I could think to pick up—corn muffins in plastic wrap, made months ago and staring out from the counter beside the register. I bought three. Now I held the muffins and I watched my mom and sister sleep.

  Dear Dario,

  What I want to know is, what the hell am I supposed to do? Did I let my sister down, should I have seen this, should I get out of here?

  In Italy things are very traditional, aren’t they? As in the man is in charge and the protector of his family. Does that make me the protector of this family? I wonder what you would feel if you could see my mom and my sister, sleeping in this bare room, looking fragile, both of them. What would you be doing? Or would we even be here right now if you were a part of any of this?

  I don’t like people very much. I just don’t. But I can be whatever I am here with my sister and my mom. And Keeley makes me want to figure out more. She makes me laugh and she makes me want something I never thought about wanting. But right now I feel like there is too much of everything. Like I’m supposed to be giving them all something and I don’t know what it is.

  And I’m the only one awake around here.

  Boo? Lace lifted her head. She was whispering.

  Yeah. Are you hungry? I said. I held up a corn muffin.

  She looked doubtful. She shook her head, easing herself out of the bed. Noelle stirred and curled into a ball, her eyes still closed.

  Lace walked over to me. She took the corn muffin and kissed the top of my head. She stood over me and held my head against her stomach.

  Jesus, she said. Nothing prepares you for this.

  I didn’t say anything.

  Are you okay, Boo?

  Yeah.

  Really okay?

  I’m okay, Lace.

  We have to work on this.

  I know.

  We have to take care of each other.

  I know.

  We stayed like that for a long time. I think we were both watching Noelle sleep.

  Will you watch your sister, Boo? I just want to go get some tea.

  Yeah. Of course.

  I don’t know how long I watched her before Noelle opened her eyes.

  Hi, she said.

  Hey.

  She blinked. She pulled the sheet up to her chin.

  I’m sorry, she said.

  Don’t say you’re sorry.

  But I am.

  I know you are. I pulled the chair over to her bed. I reached up and held her hand over the sheet. I know you’re sorry. And I am too.r />
  You’re in love with Keeley?

  She said it evenly, softly, without accusation or anger. She was asking.

  I think I am.

  She looked down at my hand, her hand.

  It makes sense, she said. I mean, it really makes perfect sense.

  She looked up again. Her face was struggling to smile, tears coming out of her eyes.

  I think I’m just afraid, she said.

  She looked, suddenly, like she’d looked every year of our life. Like she was three and six and eight and eleven and scared somewhere and looking up at me, wordlessly begging me to help her across the river or bear the first day of school. She’d stopped asking for these things with her eyes a long time ago, but there it was again.

  I’m just scared of being left.

  Okay.

  My brother said something I think is true. I wasn’t scared of being left by him, I was scared of being left behind. Of Keeley living a life I couldn’t see. Of not getting to do the things other people got to do. Of not getting a chance.

  I don’t know. I don’t know if that was true. But when he told me Ben wanted him to go to Virginia and help some church family whose house had burnt down, I didn’t feel like I was being left behind. When he told me he wanted to go, that he felt like he could help there, like he thought it was important, but he didn’t want to desert me, I really and truly wanted him to go.

  I just feel like I need to do something, I don’t know, physical, he said. Where I can see the help I’m giving.

  I got it.

  When he told me he thought it would be good for me to spend some time with Keeley, then I wasn’t so sure. But I knew he needed to do this. I wanted him to go help somebody else. I wanted him to step outside of helping me.

  And I was so tired. I was so tired. I couldn’t tell him any more.

  I hadn’t seen Keeley. I’d been home from the hospital for a few days and I was on medical leave from school. I had all of these assignments and Lace stayed around and watched me eat and read and stare at the TV.

  I’m not leaving you, he said. I just need—

  I know, I told him. You need to step back. I know.

  As scared as I was of everything, I never felt like my brother was bailing on me. I just didn’t. He felt like everything was pushing in around him and he needed to step out of all of our space. It was hard, I knew, to be the only man in all of this. I think he felt some responsibility to be a caretaker or a protector—our protector—ancient as it may sound, I think that is what he felt he needed to be. But he didn’t know how.