Belzhar

by Meg Wolitzer

“No,” I said. “I’m in shock.”

  “Shock? Why?”

  I paused. “My boyfriend died,” I said, trying out the words, and I began to cry all over again.

  Leo was confused. “I didn’t even know you had a boyfriend,” he said.

  “Well, I did, and he died, okay? And I can’t get out of bed and start dinner and spend time with you. I’m sorry, Leo, but I just can’t.”

  “Should I go?” he asked. He was hovering there in the room, almost as if he was afraid to leave me alone.

  “As opposed to what?”

  “I don’t know.” Then he said, “Maybe I should call Mom and Dad.”

  “Maybe you should.”

  “And what should I tell them?” he asked.

  “Tell them my boyfriend died. And I am inconsolable.”

  Then I lifted up the blanket so it covered my head too, and the world went dark, and basically it stayed like that for a very, very long time, until the first day I went to Belzhar.

  • • •

  And now here I am in Belzhar once again, confronting Reeve and Dana the same way it happened in real life. It’s just as terrible as ever, the way Casey warned it would be. My tears are already starting. But then I think of Sierra clinging to her brother in Belzhar when the sky began to get dim. She held on to him tightly, and she stayed with him, and she’s still with him now.

  Reeve and Dana are just staring at me coldly, and I reach out and do something I didn’t do in reality behind the school. This was not part of what actually happened. But even so, I take Reeve’s hand, and he doesn’t resist.

  “What are you doing?” Dana says, but by the end of the sentence her voice has gotten puny and insignificant, just like her. I can barely even see her now; she’s basically evaporated. It’s just Reeve and me, and his hand is cool in mine at first, but as I continue to hold it, it gets a few degrees warmer.

  The sky begins to dim—it’s time—and if I keep holding on to him, then I can stay here with him and go back to the way we once were in my mind, when he loved me and I loved him, and we were together.

  But now I imagine Casey and Marc breaking the news to Griffin. And in a distraught voice Griffin says, “She stayed? But she said she wouldn’t.”

  And I have the predictable, clichéd thoughts: I picture my parents coming up to the hospital in Vermont, where I’m sitting in a bed attached to an IV and a monitor, unresponsive to human voices and staring at nothing, my hand rapidly moving in the air as if I’m possessed. My mother whispers, “Babe, oh babe.” And Leo’s in the doorway, trying hard to focus only on the game on his little handheld, so he doesn’t have to look at me.

  But this is self-indulgent. How much everyone would miss me. There’s also what I would miss. And again, I think of Griffin, and how he wants to be with me, genuinely.

  Reeve, though, loves me here, in this limited way. And he only loves me here because I can’t bear the idea that he doesn’t. He’s a boy from London with an ironic smile, clever words, sleepy eyes, and a scrape to his voice. He’s a boy who’s kind of a player. Kind of a douchebag, maybe, but not terrible. Just a teenage boy who came to the States for a few months, wanting to have a good time.

  That’s all he is.

  That’s all he was, and I can’t stay here with him.

  Without realizing it, I’ve let go of Reeve’s hand, and he’s receding along with Belzhar itself, which slides away from me like water pulling back from a shore.

  Somewhere out in the world—in London, England, specifically—he’s back at his old high school. And maybe another girl, not Dana, but someone with an English name, like Annabel or Jemima, is flirting with him right now, wanting him to pay attention to her. And maybe he will.

  I killed him once, in order to tolerate knowing that he didn’t love me. Maybe Dana was right; I am a psycho loser. I killed him and preserved his “love” inside me in a little bell jar. I don’t know why I needed to do this. Why I had such a big reaction to a boy not loving me back. Why it felt like a tragedy, even though it wasn’t. Dr. Margolis said the mind plays tricks on itself in order to stay in one piece.

  “It was self-protective for you, Jam,” he’d explained in one of our sessions. “And we can take a closer look at that.” But I didn’t understand a word of what he was saying.

  It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to see Dr. Margolis again sometime, like maybe when I’m home on break.

  Maybe I should buy myself another journal one of these days. There are other things I could write down; I don’t have to be ruled by this forever. I might even try writing a few song lyrics; ever since joining the Barntones I’ve been listening closely to the words in songs. Song lyrics have a lot in common with poetry, at least good song lyrics, anyway.

  I can do whatever I want, because it’s over now. I am done with it. Done with him.

  “With who?” someone asks.

  I look up, confused, and I’m back in my dorm room. Above me in the darkness stands DJ, her long black hair hanging down. “What?” I say.

  “Who are you done with? You were talking in your sleep,” she says. “But you were also writing in your journal,” she goes on, holding up my journal. “It was very peculiar.”

  I snatch the journal back from her and quickly flip to the end, peering down at the last line on the last page, which has been all filled in. This is what I see:

  And I let him go. So I guess that’s the end of him and me. Which isn’t the worst thing in the world.

  I close the journal. “What time is it?” I ask DJ.

  “Two a.m.,” she says. “Can we go back to sleep now?”

  I try to orient myself. It’s the middle of the night near the very end of the semester at The Wooden Barn. I just saw Reeve for the last time. “DJ,” I say, “I have to go somewhere.” I get up and grab my down coat from its hook, and shrug it on over my nightgown.

  “Where?”

  “To Griffin’s room. It’s important.”

  “In the boys’ dorm? Why don’t you just go paint a giant E for Expelled on your nightgown? That was a Scarlet Letter joke, in case you didn’t know.”

  “I did know.”

  “You guys only had to read Sylvia Plath, unlike the rest of us, who were forced to read Nathaniel Hawthorne and other equally hip and cutting-edge writers.”

  “Just let me go, okay?” I say quietly. “I need to see him. I think you know what that feels like.”

  “Yeah,” DJ admits. “I do. Well, good luck,” she says as I head out. “Don’t get caught, Jam. That would be a shame.”

  Silently I descend the stairs and head past Jane Ann’s room, hoping to escape her light-sleeper antennae, and then I push out into the night, the air cold on my blazing face. In the stillness I make my way down the path to the boys’ dorm. I’ve only been on the first floor of that building before, in the common room where girls are allowed, but when I climb the stairs it’s easy to find his room. The nameplate reads JACK WEATHERS AND GRIFFIN FOLEY.

  I push the door open and slip inside. Jack is curled in a fetal position in the bed by the door, a lacrosse stick resting against the wall. In the bed by the window is Griffin, and his eyes immediately open when I appear, and he says, “Jam?”

  “Should I leave?” I whisper.

  He doesn’t answer, but just draws back the blanket. All I can do is get in, and we lie squished together, side by side, in absolute silence. He’s waiting for me to say something. “I went to Belzhar,” I tell him.

  “How bad was it?” he asks. “The death, I mean.”

  I don’t reply at first. I know that when I tell him, he’ll have every right to think I’m an awful person for having been such a faker all semester. He’ll think I’m someone who just wanted everyone’s sympathy. But I have to tell him, because otherwise the story about Reeve and me might drag on forever. Griffin could keep
bringing it up, thinking he’s being respectful of the memory of my boyfriend who died.

  “The thing is,” I say, “it only felt like a death.”

  Griffin doesn’t understand. He looks at me, trying to figure it out, and then he says, “Wait, he didn’t die, this guy? Not . . . back then?”

  I shake my head. Griffin just keeps looking, and then he shifts his body away from me. I don’t know if this is the signal that I’m supposed to leave, and that he’s done with me. He doesn’t say anything for a long time, and I realize he’s going to reject me now. I don’t think you ever get used to that.

  But finally he says, “You know what? I’m glad.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, that you didn’t have to live through something like that.”

  “You are?” I’m just astonished. “I’ll tell you all about it sometime,” I go on. “The whole thing, how it happened. I mean, only if you want to hear. There’s a lot more to say.”

  “I’m sure there is,” he says.

  And I’ll tell the others too,” I say. “I understand if you feel like you’ve been ripped off. You’ve all been through so much worse. I didn’t want to hurt anyone, especially you. But it all just sort of happened. If you want to get out of this, Griffin—”

  “I don’t,” he says.

  “You don’t?”

  “No.”

  And then, for the moment, there’s nothing more I need to say or do, no action I need to take and nothing I need to prove. I feel extremely tired, as if I’d been splitting logs for a year. I lean my head against Griffin’s chest and we’re silent. Just two hearts ticking away.

  • • •

  At some point we must have both fallen asleep, because a phone rings in the distance—who here has a phone?—and wakes me up. I open my eyes and the unfamiliar room is starting to fill with light. It’s morning, and right away I understand that I’m about to get caught and be expelled from school. I’ve ruined everything, and it is a shame, as DJ said.

  Without saying good-bye, I flee the room. As I race down the hall, Dr. Gant strides toward me. All I can do is skid to a stop, waiting for the inevitable.

  But he only says, “Jam,” his voice vague and distracted.

  “I know I shouldn’t be here—”

  “True,” he says. “But I just got a call. I have to tell somebody.” He lifts his eyeglasses and rubs his eyes, then looks at me. “You’re good friends with Sierra Stokes, right?” I nod. “So you know about her brother.”

  “Of course.”

  “That phone call was from the chemistry teacher. He was watching the news, and there was a breaking story about André Stokes.”

  I stare at him for a moment, feeling something flood through me, unsure what it is. I feel dizzy now, and afraid, but I ask him, “What did it say?”

  “He’s been found! He’s alive and he’s okay. It’s the most amazing thing.”

  For a moment I can’t really take this in. He’s waiting for me to respond and I’m just silent. “Is that really true?” I finally ask. I immediately think, I have to tell Sierra.

  But I know I can’t. She’s unreachable.

  André has finally been found, but Sierra won’t ever know. She can’t be with her brother in the fullness and uncertainty of the real world. Deep inside herself she’s on a bus with him in Belzhar, just riding and riding.

  “Yes, it’s true,” says Dr. Gant. No wonder he doesn’t care that he caught me in the boys’ dorm. This news makes everything else momentarily irrelevant.

  “How did they find him?”

  “The detective was interviewed. It was a new detective; he’d just started. And he saw some notes about . . . a lead? And he looked into it. Something like that, I can’t quite remember. André was being held by a man in a house not too far from DC. They made an arrest. I don’t know many details yet; no one does. It will all come out.” He shakes his head, distracted. “Poor Sierra,” he says.

  CHAPTER

  21

  THE VERY LAST SESSION OF SPECIAL TOPICS IN English ought to be a kind of celebration, but it’s not and it can’t be. Though we’ve gotten through the semester together, in a class like no other we’ve taken, and though our lives have been transformed, we’re missing someone. And now that André has been found, Sierra’s absence is unacceptable. On the last day, it can be felt powerfully around the oval oak table. I think maybe I feel it most powerfully of all.

  Mrs. Quenell knows how upset we are. She’s upset too. But still she’s brought a bakery box with her, and she places it on the table and says, “Red velvet cupcakes for everyone, to match your red leather journals.” When she opens the box, there are only four cupcakes inside. One for each of us.

  “Thanks, Mrs. Q,” Casey finally says, because she doesn’t want us to come across as rude.

  “I do know how you feel,” says Mrs. Quenell. “And believe me, I feel it too.”

  André Stokes has been a big story in the news. Over the phone my mom and dad have filled me in on what they’ve read online and seen on TV. Obviously none of us here has had access to any of that, except for the newspaper, which is delivered to The Wooden Barn first thing every morning.

  “She should be home with her brother,” I say in what comes out like a wail.

  “Yes, she should,” Mrs. Quenell agrees.

  They need each other, André and Sierra. Whatever he went through in his captivity was dark and frightening; I can’t even imagine how frightening. He will have “a long road ahead of him,” as the experts always say. But at least there’s a road. His family loves him, and that’s got to help him over time. Of course, I don’t know anything about this at all, but I know that he and Sierra were always so close. If they were together at home they could help each other; I’m sure of it.

  Then Griffin says, “You know what, Mrs. Q? This being the last class and everything, I’m just going to come out and ask you something. No one is going to want me to do this, but sorry, guys, I have to.”

  “Hey,” says Marc. “What—”

  “She can think what she likes, Marc. I really don’t give a shit anymore,” Griffin says. “Sorry for the language,” he adds quickly. I sit there waiting to see where he’s going with this. Griffin speaks so much more freely these days. “Mrs. Q,” he says, sitting up straighter, “do you know what happens when we write in our journals? Do you really know?”

  A pulse jumps in the side of Griffin’s face, and I get the feeling he’s as shocked as we are that he’s asked her this. It’s reckless. But we’re all out of ideas now, and this is it, crunch time, the zero hour, whatever cliché you want to call it. Class is about to be over for good, and Sierra’s still in Belzhar.

  The silence is elongated and feels endless. No one takes their eyes off Mrs. Quenell’s face, which at first looks kind of neutral, then as if it’s trying to harden itself, then suddenly it looks softer. Then finally it collapses.

  “Yes,” she says. “I do.”

  We can’t quite believe it. I’m still not sure we’re talking about the same thing.

  “And you planned it?” says Griffin.

  Mrs. Quenell plays with her watch, turning the band around and around on her narrow wrist. Griffin has unnerved her. “It’s not like that,” she says. “You make it sound devious, Griffin. It isn’t. It wasn’t. That’s not it at all.”

  “So what can you tell us?” I ask. We’re begging her, really. We’re actually begging Mrs. Quenell, an elderly woman we know very little about except that she’s a great teacher and has integrity. She wouldn’t let us fall under the weight of our problems. She wouldn’t baby us. She had respect for us, even as we hated ourselves and everyone else, and thought nothing would ever feel good again.

  Now here we are, on this last day. In under forty minutes she’ll leave us for good, but before then, we have to know exactly w
hat she knows, and what it means.

  So she tells us. “It’s actually kind of a personal story,” Mrs. Quenell says. “I’ve never told it to any of my students before, though they’ve often asked me what I know or don’t know.

  “First of all, I can’t say that I exactly ‘know’ what the experience of writing in the journals is like. It’s your experience, not mine. And I didn’t want to get too involved, because it might have ended up calling attention to the class, and hurting my students. So I did an exhausting balancing act for a very long time. But I’m leaving here tomorrow for good. And before I go, against my better judgment I’ll let you know what I do know, which isn’t all that much, I’m afraid.

  “I’ll start with a little history that I think is relevant.” She abruptly stops talking, and the pause goes on for so long that it seems as if she’s changed her mind. But then she says, “When I was about your age, I went through a very difficult time. I suppose you could call it a breakdown.”

  Oh. That kind of difficult. The kind that some people at this school know something about.

  “I was sent to a psychiatric hospital near Boston,” Mrs. Quenell goes on. “And while I was there, I was very withdrawn. I talked to no one. Then one day a somewhat older patient, a college girl, was admitted. I rarely heard her talk, but every day, when it was time for medication, the nurses called out to us by our first and last names, and I took note of her name, because I thought it was unusual. We never really spoke, except once, when we were sitting at dinner and I passed her a platter of food and she said, ‘Thank you, Veronica.’ She knew my name. And for a split second she looked at me the way an older, wiser person sometimes looks at a younger one. With kindness, and without condescension.”

  Right, I think. That’s the way Mrs. Quenell often looks at us.

  “Do you know what became of her, Mrs. Q?” I ask.

  She turns to me, seeming to force herself to focus on the here and now. “Yes. She got better. And I got better too. And I would probably never have known that, or thought of her again, for I really didn’t like to think about that painful period in my life.