Imagine Us Happy

by Jennifer Yu

  “Drink this,” she says when she gets back. She hands me a teacup with a cartoon pug on it. “Whenever you’re ready,” she adds.

  Some unknowable amount of time passes. Four tissues. Four tissues’ worth of time, and I manage to move to the cup to my mouth and take a sip.

  It’s green tea. Light and herbal. The heat of it spreads through my body, somehow both similar to and nothing like the Fireball from earlier tonight.

  “It’s good,” I say, surprised.

  “That’s why I keep it around,” my mom says.

  I drink the rest of the tea, hiccupping a few times. When I wipe my face, the back of my hand comes back black and red and beige, some ungodly combination of mascara and blush and eyeliner and foundation and lipstick.

  “Kevin just broke up with me,” I say. I shut my eyes, but it’s no use—a fresh wave of tears seep out from between my lashes. How can I be crying right now? How can there possibly be more inside me when I feel so goddamn empty, so hollow, like the inside of my chest has been carved out?

  “I’m so sorry to hear that, Stella,” my mom says quietly. Not in the way that adults say I’m sorry to hear that when they’re just trying to get you to shut up. Like she means it.

  “You are?” I say.

  “Of course I am,” she says. “I know how much he means to you.”

  “I just thought you’d be happy,” I say. I squeeze my eyes together tighter, but it’s no use. “Jesse Rogers’s mom called you. You thought he was bad for me. Everyone thought he was bad for me. My grades have been so bad this semester.”

  “Of course I’m not happy, Stella,” she says. “I’d do anything to keep you from feeling like this. I’d go back in time and keep you from ever meeting Kevin in the first place. But no—that’s not the right answer, either.”

  “I just don’t understand,” I say. “I don’t understand how the person who always answered the phone when I called him crying at two in the morning could be the same person who threw a book out my window because of a stupid health project. I don’t understand how the person who laughed with me about stupid gray paintings at art museums could be the same person who thought life would be over if he couldn’t go to Columbia. I don’t understand how someone who could talk about the meaningless nature of existence like it was the most beautiful thing in the world—”

  I cut off, choked up.

  “I don’t understand how someone like that could hate himself so much,” I say.

  Then there are the versions of Kevin that I doubt I’ll ever tell my mother about: the Kevin who turned me into the kind of girl who ditched school to ruminate over park graffiti; the Kevin who read Waiting for Godot in the fading sunlight and put it down long enough to tell me he thought I was beautiful; the Kevin who held my hand while a snowstorm howled outside and said, Do you want me? like he didn’t already know the answer, like the answer could possibly be no.

  “People are complicated,” my mom says. “They can be full of love one moment and full of anger the next. Beautiful and ugly at once, kind and cruel in turns. And the worst part and the best part about loving someone is learning that they’re no exception.”

  She smiles a little, sharp and sad, and I think—oh.

  “I’m sorry that I’ve been a terrible daughter,” I say, crying with renewed vigor. Scenes from the school year play in my head, and I feel guilt like a tidal wave, like I’m suffocating with it.

  “Oh, Stella. You know that’s not what I meant. You haven’t been a terrible daughter,” my mom says, sounding amused.

  “I haven’t been there for you when you and Dad have been fighting and I—I said those terrible things to you that one time, and that other time I should have just stayed, and—”

  “Shh,” my mom says, and smooths down my hair. “Honey, it’s okay.”

  “I hate that he’s not here,” I say. Thinking about my dad makes me feel angry, and feeling angry makes me feel a little bit less sad, and feeling a little bit less sad makes me feel like maybe one day my chest won’t feel so hollow and things will start being okay again.

  “Please,” my mom says. “Don’t make this about your dad. He really does just want—”

  “The best for me, I know,” I say, annoyed. “You said that. It doesn’t change that he wasn’t here all spring, that he left you all alone—I know that I did it, too, so I guess I should also hate—”

  “Stop,” my mom says sharply.

  I stop.

  My mom sips her tea. She looks like she’s conflicted over something. She looks like she’s tired. Outside, the sun is starting to come up over the horizon, fracturing the indigo of the sky with pretty rose-gold streaks. I don’t know how long we’ve been sitting here. Sixty tissues, I’d guess. Sixty tissues’ worth of time.

  “This probably isn’t the best time to tell you this...” my mom starts. “But your father and I—we’re separating.”

  It takes a few seconds for that to get through.

  “You’re getting divorced?” I say blankly.

  “We’ve been doing a trial separation,” my mom says. “It might be temporary.”

  “You don’t sound very confident,” I say.

  She chuckles. “I’m not. But...people change. Circumstances change. I don’t know who your father will be in one year and he doesn’t know who I’ll be in one year. Perhaps we’ll find our way back together.”

  “Okay,” I say. Sixty tissues later, and I’m finally numb.

  “We probably should have told you sooner,” my mom says ruefully. “We probably should have told you together. But—ah, well.”

  I’m tired. I’m so, so very tired.

  “I think maybe the three of us should all go see Karen together,” my mom says, and now there’s really nothing else to do: I laugh.

  66.

  “Thank you all for taking the time to come in today,” Karen says.

  I know that I am probably imagining the faint note of smugness in her voice, and that she probably doesn’t actually linger on the word all just a few beats longer than necessary, but I still can’t help but resent her for this. All of this.

  “As I’m sure Stella has mentioned to you,” Karen continues, “I have been a huge advocate for this family session over the past few months.”

  I try to sink farther into the couch, but there’s nowhere left to go.

  “So,” Karen says. “Is there something specific that you’d like for us to discuss today?”

  On my right, my dad clears his throat—a-heh-hem—and then abruptly falls silent, probably because he doesn’t want to be here any more than I do and wouldn’t know how to talk about his feelings even if someone wrote him cue cards.

  “Thomas and I are separating,” my mom says diplomatically. “And Stella has had a tumultuous semester. We thought that it might be—valuable—for us to come and have a discussion as a family about—about—”

  My mom trails off, frowning a little.

  “It sounds like there’s quite a bit to discuss,” Karen says.

  “Yes,” my mom says. “Quite a bit.”

  “Why don’t we start with you, Stella?” Karen says.

  “Yes, why don’t we,” I say, sarcastic. I notice that the quote on the bulletin board today reads:

  I Am Safe Here.

  —which doesn’t seem like a very good representation of the situation at hand, all things considered.

  “Well, let’s see,” I say. “I loved someone, and he loved me, too, but then that crashed and burned. I had two best friends, but that crashed and burned, too. I had an okay grade in calculus, but it turns out that it’s rather difficult to focus on derivatives and integrals when life is going up in flames, so that also crashed and burned. Should I keep going?”

  “It sounds like it’s been a difficult semester,” Karen says.

  “Oh, does it?” I
say.

  “Have you found any of the coping mechanisms we’ve discussed to be helpful in dealing with those events, Stella?” Karen says.

  “Arson,” I say. “And petty theft.”

  A moment of silence. Karen crosses her legs, then uncrosses them again.

  “Stella...” my mom says. She looks pained, which makes me feel kind of bad. But it’s only been a week since Jeremy’s party, and I’m just not ready to talk about all of this yet. It’s one thing if my parents want to spend an hour working through their feelings about the impending separation and who gets to keep the china in the dining room dresser, but—I can’t. I just can’t.

  “Look, Mom,” I say. “I know I agreed to come do this with you guys, but—I think I need some time. Isn’t that normal? Didn’t they try to teach us this at camp? Sometimes you just need time.”

  “Ah, yes...” Karen says. “Camp.”

  Her voice is a practiced, deceptive casual, and there are alarm bells ringing in my head before she even finishes her thought.

  “You know, Camp Ugunduzi,” I say. “‘Camp Ugunduzi is an experimental four-week wilderness program—’”

  “We think it might be beneficial for you to spend another summer at Ugunduzi,” Karen says.

  “‘—for teenagers aged fifteen to seventeen and’ wait, what?” I say.

  “Your parents and I have been discussing this, and we all believe that you would benefit from another summer at Ugunduzi,” Karen repeats.

  I look in disbelief from my mother, whose pasted-on look of determination is wobbly at best, to my father, who gives me his best trust-me-I’m-a-lawyer grimace.

  “Is that a joke?” I say.

  “Stella, after you got back from Ugunduzi last summer, it genuinely seemed like you were in a much better place,” Karen says. “Think back to the fall. You told me you felt much better, do you remember that?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “But that was in spite of camp, not because of it. Who could feel like a normal person when they’re stuck in upstate New York playing mental health charades all day?”

  “I reached out to Jessie, your former counselor at Ugunduzi, and she said that she would be willing to keep a spot open for you if we let her know in the next few weeks. Personally, Stella, I think that we’re quite lucky.”

  And that’s when I begin to understand that this was not just some impromptu family session, cobbled together at the last minute. This was an ambush.

  “What is this?” I say. “Did you—did any of you—ever think at some point during the many conversations you’ve apparently been having all year about what would be best for Stella and what Stella needs and how Stella’s feeling that maybe, just maybe, you should have asked Stella?”

  “Look,” my mom says. “We understand that you might be upset or angry right now...”

  “I’m not upset with you. I’m not angry. And I’m not,” I add, “going to talk about any of this at Ugunduzi. Because I’m not going.”

  “You’re going,” my mom says.

  “I would like to pursue legal emancipation,” I say to Karen.

  “Don’t be so dramatic,” my dad says.

  “I’d like to bring the conversation back to Ugunduzi,” Karen says. “Stella, we all understand that in an ideal world you would spend this summer in Wethersfield.”

  “In an ideal world,” I mutter, “I would spend this summer on Mars. Where there are no people.”

  “But we’ve agreed that another summer at Ugunduzi is the best course of action for the world we’re dealing with right now, especially given the alarming trend toward impulsive and self-destructive behavior that we’ve seen over the past few months!”

  “What does that even mean?” I moan.

  Karen turns to my parents.

  “Anne and Thomas, I have a colleague who works with many parents who are considering separation,” Karen says. “I’d be happy to put you in touch if that’s something you’re interested in.”

  Then she turns to look at me.

  “How are you feeling about the separation, Stella?” she says.

  “Is it really my turn again?” I groan. “What about Dad? He’s barely said anything since we’ve gotten here!”

  I take a moment to revel in my father’s obvious discomfort at being in the one place on Earth where an abundance of four-syllable words won’t save him—a therapist’s office. Then Karen says:

  “I’m happy to do another family session next week if you don’t feel like everyone has participated—”

  And the moment ends.

  “All right, fine,” I say. I close my eyes and try to get in touch with my emotions, to really dig deep into the place where there’s usually roiling turmoil or soul-crushing despair, or—like the night after Jeremy’s party—this awful, aching emptiness. But the thing is, there’s...not really anything there.

  “I’m feeling...like I should be feeling...more than what I’m actually feeling right now,” I say. “Does that make sense?”

  “Sure,” Karen says. “It can sometimes take a while for our emotions to catch up to a big life change like this.”

  “No, that’s just it,” I say. “I think I have processed it, but I just...don’t feel any which way about it. I mean, it’s not like you guys—”

  I look at my dad, who is in the middle of a particularly vigorous readjustment of his glasses.

  “—were super happy, and now there’s been some huge tragedy that’s forcing you apart. I mean, come on. Do you guys even like each other? I’m pretty sure you don’t.”

  Then I turn to my mom, who has a guilty expression on her face that practically screams, I HATE YOUR FATHER’S GUTS. I start to feel like maybe the reason why my parents sat on either side of me was not so that they could prevent me from getting up and flinging myself out of the window, but instead so that they wouldn’t have to sit next to each other.

  “You were both miserable,” I say. “Mom was crying all the time. I hadn’t gotten eight hours of sleep in months. Everyone was miserable. So...this literally just seems like the right thing to do.”

  I look back at Karen, who is nodding despite the fact that I stopped talking ten seconds ago, and at her clock, which informs me that we only have three minutes left.

  “Am I being crazy right now?” I say. “I feel crazy for not feeling crazier about this.”

  “You’re not being crazy,” my mom says. “And I’m—we’re—sorry that our difficulties made your junior year harder than it needed to be.”

  She looks pointedly at my dad, who clears his throat and says: “Yes. Yes, your mother is right, Stella. We’re very sorry for that.”

  “I think you’re being perfectly reasonable,” Karen says. “You’ve observed that your parents are not happy together, and perhaps subconsciously realized that separation would make both of them happier months before they themselves came to that conclusion.”

  “Exactly,” I say.

  Karen drums her fingers against her notebook.

  “Do you ever feel like you could feel that way about Kevin?” she asks.

  “What?”

  “Like you weren’t happy together, and perhaps separation would make both of you happier in the long run,” Karen clarifies.

  I feel like I’m being punched in the gut for the second time this afternoon.

  “It’s different,” I say. “We just established that my parents don’t even like each other. Kevin and I actually—I mean, we genuinely love each other. I still love him even though it’s over, and I know that he still loves me, too, even though...”

  I pause. Swallow hard.

  “Even though he decided it wasn’t worth it to fight anymore.”

  There’s a sharp twist in my chest, so sudden that I lose a breath.

  Karen looks at me sympathetically, and for once I wish that she’d just say s
omething. Something about healthy coping mechanisms or how maybe mindfulness can help me or that no feelings are permanent and everything will eventually pass—something corny and therapeutic, because for once in my life, I sure as hell need it.

  But we’re finally out of time.

  67.

  By the time I get home, that twinge I felt in Karen’s office has detonated into a searing ache, the kind that feels like there’s a black hole inside your chest and it’s threatening to consume you from the inside out.

  It’s over.

  I mean, it’s been “over” with Kevin countless times now, but never has it felt so final. Never has it felt like it is actually too late for one of us to make things right. And never has it felt like even if I were given the chance to try and make things right—to fix it one more time, to look into Kevin’s eyes and pull him close until both of us feel that gravity, that tenderness again—I don’t know that I would.

  So I do the only thing I can do. I pull on my old, worn-down Nikes. And I go for a run.

  I started this story at the end, on a Tuesday afternoon in April when spring was in full bloom outside my window and I let Kevin walk away for the very last time.

  I hope you understand how we got there now. And I hope you understand why I don’t want to leave things there—not with that therapy session, not with me crying in bed and certainly not with Kevin storming out of my room after I refused to give things a fiftieth final try.

  No, there are two more conversations that I want to tell you about. The first comes soon after that last fight in the spring, and the second comes much later—after April is over, after AP exams wipe out the first half of May, after I’ve skipped prom and passed almost all of my finals and even gotten a 1950 on the SATs.

  I’d like to think that maybe these two conversations are the real end of this story, if only because endings are lot less depressing when you can find some semblance of a beginning in them, too.