by Leah Scheier
“Don’t say it! I won’t, I won’t break up with you. I won’t leave you. I’m sick of people telling me I should! If you want to leave me, go! But I’m not leaving you.”
He sighed and closed his eyes again. “I love you, April. You know that, right?”
I took a deep breath and leaned against his shoulder. “I know. We’ll get through this together, okay? And you can stop worrying—I’ll stick by you, always, no matter what.”
He nodded but didn’t open his eyes to look at me. “No matter what.”
Chapter 39
I have a date tonight.
I have a date tonight.
I have a date tonight.
I repeated the words to myself as I watched the clock tick closer to the final minute of last period. Jonah had called me that morning and asked me to meet him at the mall. The mall. Not a doctor’s office or a hospital. Just the mall. As if that was normal. As if we’d been hanging out there each day like everybody else, trying on clothes, buying ice cream, making out in the back row of the movie theater.
I couldn’t wait.
We were going to be a normal couple again.
I was so lost in my daydream that I didn’t notice the strange looks that Miles kept shooting me or the pucker of Cora’s red lips. It wasn’t until the school bell rang that I finally paid attention to my classmates’ whispering and understood that they’d been talking about me the entire afternoon.
As soon as the English teacher left the room, a circle of students formed around my desk, and Cora swept up to me like an army general leading an attack.
“I’m not staying in this class if he comes back,” she declared shrilly. “I’m going to complain to the school board.”
“Me too,” Miles chimed in. “I sit right next to him.”
I didn’t understand what they were talking about; Jonah hadn’t mentioned anything to me about starting school again.
“Jonah isn’t dangerous,” I told them, trying to keep my voice steady and failing. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“He’s crazy!” Cora shot back. “My mom heard from Kris’s mom that he’s actually insane. The doctors kept him locked away as long as they could, and now his parents are pushing the school to let him back in.”
I yanked my schoolbag off the floor. “Shut up, Cora. Jonah’s never hurt anyone.”
“Who cares? You don’t know that he won’t snap all of a sudden. Go apeshit and start screaming and stabbing people. How many personalities does he have anyway? Is one of them a rapist? Because I don’t want to meet that one behind the gym one day.”
“He doesn’t have other personalities!” I shouted. “You don’t understand anything about schizophrenia!”
I realized what I’d said too late; the word was already out, and I couldn’t take it back. I knew that they’d all guessed Jonah’s diagnosis. And I’d wanted to stand up for him and defend him against their prejudice. But I’d been planning to do it in my own way.
Cora flipped her hair over her shoulder and gave Miles a triumphant look. “I told you so, didn’t I?” she crowed. “Depression, my ass.”
The other students began to whisper and nudge each other. But I didn’t stay to listen to the rest. I wasn’t going to waste another second on them.
I arrived at the mall a little earlier than I’d meant to; as the bus pulled up, I saw Jonah stepping out of the corner hardware store, clutching a small, black plastic bag in his hands. I called to him, and he looked up with a guilty start and quickly shoved the bag into his backpack.
“April! You startled me. I was expecting you in half an hour.”
I shrugged. “I was excited. And the kids in school were obnoxious. So I left early.”
“Oh.” He smiled wryly as he led me to a corner café table. “They heard the news?”
“Yeah, they heard. Before me even. You never told me you were coming back to school.”
“I’m not. But my parents seem to think I am.”
“Do you have a choice? You have to go back eventually.”
He shrugged. “I always have a choice.” He looked away from me as he said it.
“Well, Cora will be relieved to hear that. She wasn’t very nice this afternoon.”
“I told you, didn’t I? There’s no going back for me.”
“Jonah, that isn’t—”
“No, please don’t argue with me. Not today. It’s our first date in a long time, right? So let’s forget about these last few months and just be us again, like we used to be. No doctors, no stupid therapy appointments, no medicines. Just Jonah and April. This one time. Please.”
I nodded and took a sip of Coke. “Okay. Just us.”
And it was just us that night; it felt almost like old times. We didn’t leave the mall until closing hour. I didn’t want the evening to end. Maybe I sensed that the calm was too good to last.
But that evening, he actually seemed okay to me. So when he invited me to his room, I told him yes, even though I was still unsure of what I really wanted—or how far I wanted to go with him that night.
His family was asleep, so we tiptoed upstairs. I was excited and nervous; there was an air of mystery and romance in the dark stillness of the house. Was he going to grab me when we got to his room? Pull me onto his bed and kiss me? Our last kiss had frightened me, but tonight I was sure he would be different.
But when we entered his bedroom, he didn’t try to touch me; he didn’t even bother to shut the door behind us. His expression was tense, his eyes focusing on some faraway point, his lips drawn in a grim, determined line. I have to be patient, I told myself. I needed to pretend that everything was fine.
“We could watch a show if you want,” I suggested in a light voice. “I have a midnight curfew, but we have a little time until I have to leave—”
“Can you help me?” he asked abruptly. “There’s something I need to do.”
I followed his gaze; he was staring at the punching bag hook in the ceiling. “What do you need?”
There was a nervous thrill in his voice. “I want to take my heavy bag down,” he told me. “Can you hold it steady while I unhook it?”
I should have asked him why he needed to remove it now, in the middle of the night. But Jonah had made so many bizarre requests over the last few months that this one didn’t stand out as anything unusual. “You want to stop training?” I asked as I took my place beside the bag.
He flexed his calloused fists and climbed up on a chair. “I’m not going to need it anymore. Dr. Hermann said that I should find some other way to channel my anger.”
His comment surprised me a little. It was true; his doctor had said that he should try some other exercise. Anyone would have suggested the same after examining Jonah’s bleeding knuckles. But he’d never taken any of Dr. Hermann’s suggestions seriously before; he tried never to refer to her at all if he could help it. Was this a positive sign? Was he finally coming to terms with his illness?
I heard him grunt as he detached the bag’s chain from the swivel hook, and together we grasped the smooth vinyl and let it slide slowly to the ground.
“Thank you for your help,” he said, leaning over and kissing me lightly on the cheek. “Good night, April.”
And then he turned his back to me.
I couldn’t believe it. Our first date in months, and he’d dismissed me with a brotherly little peck! How could he have treated me so casually? Didn’t he realize how long I’d waited for tonight? Didn’t he understand how much his coldness hurt?
I left his room without saying good-bye. He didn’t deserve a kind word after that cold farewell. With a rough motion, I pushed the front door open and stepped out into the street. I took a deep breath and felt my muscles relax. I need to calm down, I told myself as I headed home. I wasn’t being fair; he hadn’t meant to treat me badly. Maybe he was
just taking things slow. He’d asked me to try and leave the past behind us for just one night, so we could start again and rediscover each other, like a couple on a first date.
Just Jonah and April, he’d begged me. This one time.
This one time.
This one time.
It was that little phrase, chiming over and over in my head, that made me freeze then, that made me stop suddenly as the shock of understanding hit me. Then all at once, each sign, each word, each hint, came rushing back, overwhelming me.
There’s no going back for me, April. There isn’t anything left.
You’d be much better off…
Why hadn’t I heard what he was saying?
And today—it had been in front of my eyes all day.
The black plastic bag from the hardware store.
The guilty look when I’d interrupted him.
Can you help me, April? There’s something I need to do.
The vacant punching bag hook in the ceiling…
I screamed, there in the empty moonlit street, alone. I shrieked his name. Then I was running, my heels pounding against the pavement, gasping as the night air burned my throat. I kicked off my shoes and flew down the road, hardly feeling the stones as they tore at my bare feet.
The Goldens’ front door was still unlocked, and I threw it open and dashed up the stairs and down the hall to his bedroom. The knob turned easily, but the door wouldn’t budge; I threw my weight against it and felt it push me back. There was something jamming it shut.
All doubts had vanished. I screamed Jonah’s name and beat frantically at the door, hurling myself against it, begging him to open it and let me in. No answer came; there was a faint scraping sound and then total silence. I clawed at the wood frame and tried to wedge my fingers through the opening, then shouted for help again and again, my voice echoing through the still house.
Then Dr. Golden was in the hallway, blinking and rubbing his eyes.
“What’s going on?”
“I can’t get in!” I gasped, drumming my hands against the door. “Jonah’s blocked the entrance!”
There was no need for further questions; my frantic eyes, my bare feet, the eerie silence from Jonah’s room, told his father everything he needed to know. He was beside me in a second, and together we hurled ourselves at the door until it moved, scraping forward inch by inch. The gap was finally big enough to squeeze through. Dr. Golden went in first, and I followed after. I heard him shout; the room was dark, but through the shadows, I could see Jonah’s quiet form hanging limply beneath the ceiling hook, a rope twisted around his neck, his head bowed before us.
Dr. Golden sprang forward, grabbed Jonah by the hips, and lifted him. The taut rope went slack, and Jonah’s head lolled forward, an awful flaccid drop, like a rag doll’s. Behind me, I heard a high-pitched shriek, and the room flooded with light. Mrs. Golden was beside me, her hands over her face, screaming wordlessly at her husband. He was shouting back at us, ordering me to call an ambulance, begging her to find a knife to cut the rope. But she was frozen, paralyzed with shock, her mouth open in a final silent cry, her eyes fixed on the mottled, dusky face of her son.
I couldn’t panic; there wasn’t time. I pulled my cell out of my pocket and dialed, then thrust the phone into her hand and squeezed her fingers. “Tell them your address. I’ll help get Jonah down.”
She nodded dumbly, her eyes still vacant, and lifted the phone up to her ear. I dashed over to Jonah’s desk and yanked open the drawer, grabbed a pair of scissors, and ran over to Dr. Golden. There was a chair near Jonah’s feet, and I climbed on to it, squinting my eyes against the glare of the ceiling light. Carefully, I reached above his head, grasped the rope, and cut, sliding my fingers between the twine loop and his neck. I could see the red mark that the noose had left on Jonah’s skin, a raw and angry wheal at the corner of his jaw. The sight made my stomach lurch; I felt hot acid burning my throat as the room began to swim around me. Below me, I heard Dr. Golden grunting beneath Jonah’s weight; he was begging me to hurry, because his arms were getting weaker. I shook my head to clear my sight and gripped tighter at the scissors. Stay calm, I told myself. Don’t pass out now.
Then suddenly the rope went slack, and Jonah began to slip downward; I grasped him beneath the shoulders, and together his father and I eased him to the ground.
“Is he breathing?” I asked. “Please tell me that he’s breathing!”
Dr. Golden dropped to the floor and put his ear against his child’s purple lips. “Just tell me that he’s breathing!” He nodded quickly, and as he did, I saw it too, the slow rise of Jonah’s chest.
“He’s unconscious, but his pulse is good, and his breathing’s regular. He couldn’t have been up there longer than a minute,” he reassured me. “You got here just in time, April.”
That’s all I wanted to hear. He kept talking, but I wasn’t listening. His hands were on Jonah’s chest and neck, and he kept babbling about airways and cervical columns, arteries and blood flow.
I dropped down to the floor and closed my eyes.
I didn’t open them again until three red-faced paramedics barreled through the door to take Jonah away.
Chapter 40
I hadn’t appreciated how good Jonah’s first hospitalization had been until he was readmitted to 11 West. It was one thing to be a psych patient on a locked ward; it was quite another to be a psych patient on suicide watch. During his first stay, Jonah had not been judged high risk, so he’d been allowed small freedoms. Toward the end, they’d even allowed him to walk around campus unescorted. Now, a nurse accompanied him everywhere, even to the bathroom.
They searched our bags when we came to visit. We weren’t allowed to bring in anything that he could use to harm himself. It didn’t matter that he promised the nurse that he wouldn’t try to hurt himself again. Nobody believed him. Nurse Becky held on to my spiral school notebooks and pocket mirror while I sat with Jonah, just in case. She even took my house key from me.
Physically, Jonah recovered quickly. The doctors assured him that he was very lucky; most attempted hangings ended in brain damage or worse. This information wasn’t much of a comfort to Jonah. He hadn’t wanted to be lucky.
I’d been dreading the therapy meetings with Dr. Hermann; I cringed at the thought of her condescending sympathy. But Jonah received an unexpected blessing during his second hospitalization. Dr. Hermann had just gone on vacation, so a covering physician took over his care.
I was introduced to Dr. Mina Vardi a week into Jonah’s hospital stay. He’d already had several sessions with her and, amazingly, hadn’t hated her guts. At Jonah’s request, the doctor agreed to have me sit in on a session.
So with my mother’s reluctant permission, I returned to 11 West to meet yet another psychiatrist. Since Jonah’s readmission, I’d only been to see him once. My mom had forbidden daily visits this time around. Finals were coming up, I still had Ms. Lowry’s medical history project to finish, and my mom wouldn’t let me fail the tenth grade because my boyfriend had tried to hang himself. She’d actually said those words to me before ordering me to my room.
When I’d visited Jonah the first time, he was still groggy from his pain medications, so we really hadn’t talked much. Now as I stepped into the psychiatrist’s office, I realized that I didn’t know what to expect. Would Jonah be hostile? Would he refuse to let me speak to his psychiatrist again? Would he be sorry for what he’d done? Or would he just be sorry that he hadn’t succeeded?
He looked okay, all things considering. He was sitting in his usual chair, and as I entered, he smiled at me and nodded toward the seat beside him. The marks of his recent injury had begun to heal—his skin had regained its normal color, the little red freckles under his eyes had disappeared (Dr. Golden explained that was from the rope’s pressure), and even the stripe beneath his chin had faded.
“You’re
looking good, Jonah,” I told him.
The truth was that it upset me to see how healthy he looked. Maybe it was selfish of me, but it didn’t seem fair that I’d spent the last week fighting off nightmares, trying to block out the vision of his purple face, while he was resting comfortably, his memory of the whole thing wiped away by his blackout.
The doctor behind the desk nodded pleasantly and reached out to shake my hand. Dr. Vardi was a soft, round doughnut of a woman, white-haired and olive-skinned, with two sharp little black eyes sparkling over plump cheeks. “It’s good to meet you, April.” I noticed a light Middle Eastern accent when she spoke; the r in my name sounded exotic when she said it. “I’ve heard a great deal about you.”
“I haven’t heard anything about you.” My voice was sharp and hostile, and I didn’t return her smile. I’ve already been here, I wanted to tell her. I’ve already spent hours in this office. And after months sitting in this chair, you guys failed him anyway. And I ended up having to cut my boyfriend down from the ceiling.
“I can tell that you didn’t want to come here today.” There was no criticism in her tone.
I glanced at Jonah and saw that he was watching her calmly; he didn’t seem upset by her remark.
“I realize that you’re disappointed and frustrated, April,” Dr. Vardi continued. “It’s only natural to feel that way after what you’ve gone through—”
“What I’ve gone through? We aren’t here because of what I’ve gone through! We’re here to talk about Jonah. But we’re not going to do that, are we? You’re just going to throw a basketful of medicines at him and then send him home again.”
I couldn’t believe that I’d spoken to her that way. It wasn’t like me to yell at a complete stranger, especially one who looked like the Pillsbury Doughboy’s grandma. But she didn’t seem offended. She nodded again, as if she was actually pleased and wanted to hear me yell some more.
“You’re right. I did recommend a medicine to Jonah,” she said. “One medication, at a fraction of the dose that he was originally taking. He’s been on it for a few days. Why don’t you ask him how he feels?”