I stared at the eye—the same one I’d seen doodled on his shoe. Below it was a cartoonish drawing of a giant bicep sticking straight up from a ridiculously skinny arm. Next to that he’d written, I’ve been working out. I smiled, surprised at his ability to keep his sense of humor in there. I took a deep breath, trying to process it all. I folded the letter carefully.
I grabbed my math notebook that was still on the floor of the car, ripped out a piece of graph paper, and started writing.
Sebastian,
I’m glad killing yourself wasn’t on your agenda, but it sucks that you’re there (understatement? I have no idea what to say here). I’m sorry I stormed over to hospital. When I heard you were there, I kind of freaked out. I couldn’t stop thinking about that night either. I wish you’d stayed to talk more, too. What were you going to say before you left?
I realized I’d been holding my breath. I let it out; knowing I was insane and completely lacking impulse control, I just kept writing.
We don’t really know each other, but I’m here for you if you need me. Really.
Macy
P.S. Your mom said that if you wanted me to visit, she could put me on your list. Do you want me to come?
I folded the paper sloppily, stuffed it in the envelope, crossed out Macy Lyons and wrote Sebastian Ruiz on it. I ran back up to the porch and slipped it through their mail slot, my heart pounding, my brain swimming. Exposed.
CHAPTER FIVE
My stomach wouldn’t shut up as I drove to the hospital. I was so nervous, I couldn’t even look at the scrambled eggs and fruit salad Mom had made, let alone eat.
When Mom asked me where I was going, I’d quickly said the library with some overdue books, so then I ran back upstairs to grab a stack of books which were, in fact, overdue. One of the novels had a picture of Earth on the front and it reminded me of the solar system book Sebastian had with him that day under my oak tree. I’d asked Mom to get it for me after that day and I’d read it cover to cover, remembering what he’d said about things looking one way but acting another. All of the solar system books we owned were in Gavin’s room due to his short-lived obsession with Mercury in middle school, so I ran in and found the book on his bottom shelf. I flipped through it, ripped out the poster stapled inside, and ran to my car.
So here I was again, sitting in my car in the hospital parking lot. And this time I knew that I was actually going to see Sebastian. I had no idea what to say to him. Now the poster seemed like a stupid idea, but if nothing else it would give us something to talk about.
I went through the automatic doors, straight to the elevators, and pushed the button for the fourth floor. I pressed my hand to the cold mirror on the elevator wall, took my hand away, and watched as my fingerprint slowly disappeared.
The doors opened and I walked up to the desk where the same receptionist from the other day sat.
“May I help you?” she asked.
“I’m here to visit Sebastian Ruiz. I have permission this time.”
She looked at me closely.
“I was here the other day. I wasn’t on his visitor list, but now I am.” I said this matter-of-factly, to convince myself as much as her.
“Oh, okay,” she said, nodding. “What’s your name?”
“Macy Lyons.”
“Yes,” she said. “Here we go. And your code?”
I’d tried to memorize the code that Sebastian’s mom gave me so I could prove I was me. But of course I’d forgotten it. I took out my phone and found her most recent text with instructions and read off the code.
The receptionist picked up the phone, told someone I was here, and repeated my code to them. Then she hung up.
“You can have a seat,” she said. “A nurse will come to get you soon.”
“Thanks.”
I sat down, staring at my chipped fingernails, trying not to pull at my dreads. The second hand on the school-style clock hanging above me tick-ticked quietly. I heard some muffled voices through the doors—laughter, some carts being wheeled, doors closing.
Suddenly my phone rang. Loud. The receptionist raised her eyebrow at me. It was Rebecca. I quickly tried to press the DECLINE button, but I accidentally hit ANSWER.
“Damn,” I said.
“Nice to hear your voice too,” Rebecca said.
“I can’t talk,” I whispered into the phone.
“Where are you?” she whispered back, mimicking me.
“I’ll tell you later.”
“Tell me now,” she said.
The double doors that led to the actual psych ward swung open, and a petite black woman, a little younger than Mom, strode through like she meant business. She looked around, and her eyes settled on me.
“Later,” I whispered into the phone, pressed END and turned the ringer off.
“Are you Macy?” the woman asked.
I nodded.
“Alright,” she said, plopping herself on the chair next to me. She sighed, like it was the first time she’d sat all day. She was wearing one of those doctorly white jackets over jeans and a blue shirt. “I’m Rashanna. It’s good you came, but I don’t want any monkey business. You understand?”
Holy tough-ass. Wait. Monkey business? What?
“No smuggling anything in here, no touching inappropriately, etcetera, etcetera. Did you bring him anything?” she asked, a little more gently.
“Just this,” I said, showing her the poster. “It’s—it’s just a—I don’t have to give it to him. It was just a last-minute thing.”
She smiled. “No, that’s fine. That’s nice.”
“And, um,” I said. “Sebastian and I are just friends, so there won’t be any … you know.”
She laughed. “Good enough.”
Even though her voice was tough, her eyes weren’t—they were light and sweet, like honey. I immediately felt more comfortable.
“Put your things in here,” she said, opening a small locker. I shoved my bag into the locker.
“Phone too,” she said. Then she closed the locker and pocketed the key. I felt naked without my stuff.
“Come on,” she said quietly. “Let’s go see Sebastian.”
She took my wrist in her hand, which was dry and cracked, probably from washing it a thousand times a day.
She let go then and walked toward the double doors. She flicked her badge in front of the sensor and pushed the doors open.
I followed her, watching the white jacket swish back and forth as she walked. She led me past some offices with closed doors, a room labeled ACTIVITIES ROOM, an open nurses station, a small staff kitchen, and a room called the COMMUNITY ROOM where I could see kids sitting through the glass door.
The room was big, with a TV, a couple of orange and green couches that looked like relics from the eighties, and some folding chairs. A pale girl, who must have weighed about eighty-three pounds with long stringy reddish hair, and her opposite—a huge guy in denim overalls—played checkers at a small folding table. A short, blond guy sat on the large window ledge writing in a journal. Another guy and girl watched a game show. Other than the grotesquely skinny girl, they all looked pretty normal, like regular bored kids. I’d pictured goth-looking creatures with piercings and cuts all up and down their arms, straitjackets, around-the-clock group therapy, and cell-like rooms. I hadn’t thought of them playing games, watching TV, just hanging out.
“Here we are,” she said, as she gestured to a small room next to the community room. “The visitor meeting room.”
I stood outside the doorway. Sebastian sat inside the room on a wooden chair with nubby lime-green upholstery, staring out the window. He was wearing all gray—gray sweatpants, a gray T-shirt. His skin looked gray too. Like he’d been stained to match his clothes. If possible, he looked skinnier, his wrists bonier, his arms longer. His hair had grown out since I’d seen him at Rebecca’s. Instead of his usual buzz cut, there was an inch or so of fuzz.
Sebastian looked up then and saw me. For a second, he looked at me
the same way he had on Rebecca’s porch. Intensely.
“Look what the cat dragged in,” Rashanna said, walking over to him. I followed, my heart in my throat.
Sebastian smiled at me, but his eyes had dulled.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi,” I said.
Rashanna gestured for me to sit across from him. Other than a small square table, there were two chairs—one was all wood and one had a sun-bleached red vinyl-looking seat. I chose the all-wood chair.
“I’ll be back in fifteen minutes,” she said. Then she fake-glared at Sebastian. “I expect you to open that mouth of yours and make words come out.”
She walked away and, through the window to the hall, I could see her stop briefly to talk to the emaciated girl who’d come out of the community room.
“That’s Jodi. She’s anorexic,” Sebastian said.
“Yeah, I figured.” I leaned my elbows on the table.
“They have to write down everything she eats.” He looked out the window.
“Which one is your roommate?” I asked, beginning to regret coming. He didn’t seem to want me here.
“Short blond kid,” he said. “Probably writing in his notebook.”
Finally he looked at me again. Now his eyes were hollow, worn-out, and there was no shine to them. It was like he’d used up all his energy in that first look he’d given me.
“So, how are you?” he asked.
“Me?”
“Yeah, you. How are you?”
I laughed awkwardly. “I’m doing fine. How are you?”
“Great, really great. An all-inclusive vacation. I ring a bell and get everything I could ever hope for—a glass of water, a thousand pills, some prying into my head. Sometimes I even get an extra cookie at lunch.”
I didn’t know how to react to his sarcasm.
“It sucks,” he said. “I can’t do anything but sit around and think.”
“And that’s exactly what you hate doing, right?”
He smiled. “You remember.”
“I remember everything about that night,” I said, and then I realized how that sounded—like I was obsessed. “I mean, I keep thinking about if things could have been different.”
“What do you mean, different?”
“Like, if I could have done something,” I said.
He shook his head. “No, no way. I hate the idea that you would feel any responsibility.”
I stared at his fingers, which seemed impossibly long. I noticed a few scars on the knuckles of his right hand, and I wondered what they were from.
He shook his head and looked down at his fingers, too, flexing them.
“It’s okay,” I said. “As long as you say I’m responsibility-free, then we’re good.”
“Oh, see that girl?” he whispered loudly. I turned and looked out the glass door. A disheveled girl with greasy brown hair and too-tight sweatpants walked by with a watering can.
“That’s Lindsay. She’s our resident green thumb. She waters the plants every day,” he said.
“That’s nice,” I said, wondering why he was telling me this.
“All the plants are plastic,” he said, and smiled, so I did too.
“Does she know?”
“If she does, she won’t admit it. I think the job makes her feel important. But it’s kind of funny to see Rashanna scooping the water out of those plastic plants every day when she’s not looking.”
“That is pretty funny,” I said, and I liked that Rashanna let her keep doing it.
“Sometimes,” Sebastian said quietly, “I think about that night, and I wish I’d gotten a ride with you instead of leaving like I did. I think maybe then we could have kept talking and I wouldn’t have felt so alone. Then I wouldn’t have written that stupid shit I wrote in my journal that made me more depressed and I wouldn’t have taken that extra pill that made me crash before I had the chance to put my journal away so that when my mom came in the morning to wake me up, she wouldn’t have seen my journal all open on the bed and then she wouldn’t have read it … and then I wouldn’t be here.”
“Wow,” I said. “That’s a lot of thinking.”
He laughed a little. Even though he looked like hell, when he laughed, his cuteness came all the way through. His dark brown eyes lit up, and his eyelashes cast a shadow underneath. His mouth stretched wide. And with his light brown skin and the glasses and the fuzzy hair and the tall thin body, it was all good.
He caught me looking.
“Something’s different,” he said, staring at me.
“The dreadlocks,” I said, suddenly self-conscious.
I had a scarf wrapped around like a headband, so you could only see the dreads coming out the back. I pulled a few out to show him.
“Cool,” he said, and then he looked out the window, like he couldn’t focus anymore. I swallowed my hurt pride at his lack of interest in my dreads, which I pretty much attributed to our talk that night.
“Tell me what’s going on out there. Tell me about the last week of school. What did I miss? Don’t leave anything out.”
He looked at me anxiously. I hadn’t thought of Sebastian as someone who’d be hungry for gossip, but a starving man would eat dog food without a second thought. I’d give him whatever I could.
“Okay,” I said. “So … okay, the biggest thing, other than of course the rumors about you and where you were—”
“There were rumors about me?” He seemed curious, not mad.
“Oh yeah. Of course. Everyone knew you were gone, but no one knew where you went. Seriously, why didn’t anyone know? That was weird.”
“I keep to myself mostly,” he said.
“But I figured someone would know. I asked around. No one really knew.”
He smiled flirtatiously. “You asked around about me?”
“Just a concerned citizen,” I said, unable to contain my own flirtatious smile.
“Okay,” he said. “So, other than the kid trying to off himself—which, by the way, I didn’t—what was the big news?”
Sebastian was smiling. His eyes were shining. I was helping.
“Okay,” I said. “So, you know Mrs. Levin?”
“The guidance counselor? I do. I have been known to need some guidance every now and again.”
I laughed and continued. “So, this sophomore kid, Clay Bennington—do you know him?”
Sebastian shook his head.
“Me neither. But anyway, he drove off campus totally without signing out or anything and went to Starbucks, and while he was parking, he saw Mrs. Levin sitting in her car. He was afraid he’d get caught, so he scrunched down in his car and kept waiting for her to leave, so he could get his coffee or whatever. But suddenly, Mrs. Kamitzky drives up and parks—”
“The bio teacher?” Sebastian asked.
“Yeah, the bio teacher. She walks up to Mrs. Levin’s car, gets in, and they start making out.”
“No!” Sebastian said, exaggerated astonishment on his face.
“I swear.” I laughed. “Like full-on groping and all. And so Clay Benington hightails it out of there and goes running through the halls like a maniac telling everyone.”
Sebastian laughed. And then he stopped and suddenly his face had a greenish tint to it, and he looked like he was in pain.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
He got up and ran to the trash can and started throwing up. Huge, loud heaves.
“Oh my god,” I said. “Are you okay?”
I went to him and put my hand on his back. He was still throwing up, and I could feel his back convulsing with every heave. I willed myself not to throw up with him.
“Hold on,” I said. “I’ll get the nurse.”
I ran to the door.
“Rashanna? Hello? Anyone?” My voice sounded small and mousy in the hallway.
Rashanna came immediately. Her face looked concerned when she saw me.
“What is it?” she said.
“Sebastian’s sick. He’s throwing up.
”
When Rashanna got to the room, Sebastian still had his hands on the trash can, but he seemed to be finished vomiting.
“Come on, let’s get you lying down,” she said, her voice quiet and soothing. “Back to your room now.”
Sebastian started to walk, with Rashanna’s hand firmly on the small of his back. He towered over her, but she was clearly the one in charge. I followed them.
Rashanna looked back at me, like she’d just remembered I was there. “Sebastian needs to rest now.”
“Is it okay if she comes to the room?” he asked.
“Next time. I want you to rest some now,” she said.
He looked at me and shrugged. “Thanks for coming.”
“Oh,” I said. “I forgot to give you this.” I shoved the poster at him. He unfolded it, turned it around. I could see the crease marks and the little holes from the staples where it had been fastened in the book.
“It’s—”
“The solar system,” he said. “I remember. The book I was reading that summer.”
“Yeah.” I looked down at my hands. He was studying the planets on the poster. “I ended up buying the book and it came with this, so … it makes sense you should have it.”
He smiled now. A real, full smile with deep dimples in each cheek. A smile that took my breath away.
Rashanna stood back and stared at him.
“Whoa. You be careful where you point that smile, my boy,” she said. “That’s powerful. You know, that’s the first time I’ve seen that thing?” She looked at me now, and her honey-brown eyes could’ve lit up a small town.
“Sebastian, go freshen up and then head to your room. I’ll walk you out, Macy,” Rashanna said, her bossy self again.
“Bye,” I said to Sebastian.
“Bye.”
Sebastian ducked into the men’s room and I walked with Rashanna down the corridor. The whole time she was shaking her head and clucking her tongue.
She used her badge to open the doors to reception.
“You should come back if you can,” she said. “He wasn’t really feeling great today. I wanted to tell his mom another day would’ve been better, but he was insistent.”
“I’ll come back if he wants me to,” I said.
She nodded as she opened the locker and gave me my bag.
The Fix Page 5