I’m the reverse of a lottery winner. I’m the one in a million you don’t want to be.
“Ethan, I want to try something, a strategy of sorts,” says Dr. Greenberg. “If you want.” I glance up. His voice has dropped down now to almost a whisper. He leans forward, his elbows on his knees. His gnarly, old guy hands are clasped tight. “Remember how we talked about intrusive memories? Do you remember what I said they were?”
“Yeah,” I answer. “The stuff I feel when I have my nightmares and, like, flashbacks. They’re not like normal memories because it’s like I’m … like my brain thinks it’s happening again.”
“Yes, very good,” says Dr. Greenberg. His voice is even softer now. His body is perfectly still as he talks. Groovy sighs next to me, like he’s trying to remind me that he’s still there.
“So something we can work on in here is trying to desensitize you to those memories. To integrate them into your actual memories so they don’t bother you like they bother you now.”
I nod, and I wonder if he wants to try some new medication. I’m already on four different things. I think being on a fifth has to mean I’m definitely the most screwed up patient he’s ever had.
“I want to try something I call my counting method,” he says. “It’s surprisingly simple, but I’ve found it to be very effective.”
I squirm a little in my seat. “You mean I just count?” How the hell is that supposed to do anything?
Dr. Greenberg nods. “Well, what I do is I ask you to close your eyes or look away from me and listen to me as I count. Here in my office. I’ll count to one hundred. And what you do is recall the memory from the beginning, from the moment you were taken and put into the truck. Let yourself feel it. Let the memory come to you. And as you hear my voice get to fifty or sixty, let the worst part of the memory build. Eighty or so is the point when the truck arrived at its destination, when you realized you’d survived the drive. Try to let the memory begin to end. When I reach the nineties, you’ll hear me say, ‘Back here,’ and then you should start to leave the past and return to the present.”
My heart is racing now. “What if I say no?” I ask.
“Then we won’t do it.”
I swallow. The sour taste is still there. I clutch some of Groovy’s fur in my hand and release.
I want to be okay. I want it so fucking bad.
“I’ll try,” I say. “But if I want to stop, what do I do?”
“Just open your eyes or look at me and say stop.”
“Seriously?”
“I promise,” Dr. Greenberg says.
“Okay,” I tell him. “Okay.”
Dr. Greenberg asks me if I’m ready, and when I say yes, he begins to count.
“1, 2, 3, 4…”
The sun is beating down on my back, and I’m thinking about how maybe Jesse and me can talk our moms into letting me spend the night over there. And maybe we can use his binoculars and spy on his babysitter. Maybe she’ll take her shirt off and everything.
Suddenly, there’s the sound of a vehicle coming up behind me. I coast to the side of the road to let it pass. I’m still thinking about that babysitter. Monica is her name.
The sound of the roaring engine is coming closer. I glance over my left shoulder. It’s a black pickup, moving in toward me. Not too slow. Not too fast. Like early morning fog. Like a shark. Gravel kicks up as it gets closer and hits the back of my shin, and it stings something awful.
“14, 15, 16…”
Now the truck is forcing me off the road. I’m falling down. I haven’t fallen off my bike since I learned to ride a two-wheeler in second grade. The wind is knocked out of me, and the heels of my hands are scraped up. I flip them over to check for blood, and that’s when I feel a hand on me. It’s so strong. It’s like Hercules just picked me up. I don’t fight. I can’t fight.
“28, 29, 30…”
For somebody so strong his voice doesn’t sound all that gruff. It’s thin and pinched up. Like it doesn’t get used much. And it tells me to get down.
“Get on the floor. This is a gun on your neck.”
And it is. The metal feels heavy on me. Heavier even than the guy’s hands.
There’s garbage on the floorboard. Cigarette butts. A wrapper for a Snickers bar. How weird that is, I think to myself. My favorite candy but a gun on my neck.
And we’re moving. The truck is moving. Fast.
And then the voice.
“Sorry, buddy. You were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“51, 52, 53…”
Where is he taking me? How can this be happening? How can this be real? This has to be a joke. This can’t be real. This isn’t real. This is real!
“72, 73, 74…”
I can see through a rusted out pinhole on the floor of the truck that we are going very, very fast. We are speeding. We are on the freeway. We are moving and this is happening and this is real.
“Don’t cry. I don’t like crying,” says the pinched up voice.
I bite my thumb knuckle until I taste blood. And that’s how I make myself stop.
“81, 82, 83…”
I can feel the truck stop. Finally. He didn’t kill me. I’m not dead. I can hear the key sliding out of the ignition.
“91, 92, back here, Ethan, 93, 94 … 95, 96, 97, back here, 98, 99, 100.”
I open my eyes. Tears are sliding down my cheeks, but I’m not sobbing or anything. Just crying. It’s the first time I’ve cried in front of Dr. Greenberg.
But I’m not puking.
Dr. Greenberg is in the same position he was when I closed my eyes. His face is just still, neutral. His hands are clasped together.
My body hurts. Like I’ve just run ten miles or climbed some steep hill or finished a five hour drum solo. I realize I’ve been touching Groovy’s head the whole time, but in the memory I didn’t even feel him.
I sit there for I don’t know how long. Maybe five minutes. Maybe ten. Dr. Greenberg never says anything.
“So I made it to a hundred,” I say. Because I’m pretty sure he isn’t going to talk until I say something first.
Dr. Greenberg’s eyes crinkle up a little and he smiles.
“You made it there and back again, Ethan.” He finally moves, reaching for a pad of paper and a pencil on the stool in front of him. “And if you want to, now we can talk about it.”
CAROLINE—199 DAYS AFTERWARD
The main best thing about living in Texas, maybe the only best thing, is that in December there’s a pretty awesome chance that you are still wearing shorts. Which means the weather is nice enough that you can still play guitar in the garage of this guy who is your new friend and who you are linked to because of a bizarre tragedy that made national news.
So there’s that.
“You stick your tongue out when you play that chord,” Ethan says, wiping his forehead with his shirt sleeve. “Also, you look constipated when you do it.”
“It’s the F chord, asshole. That’s a really hard chord.”
Ethan grins. He likes messing with me.
I like being messed with by him, to be honest.
“That sounded good,” he says. “Especially the bridge.”
“Yeah,” I say, and he’s right. It kind of sounded totally amazing, like my guitar and Ethan’s drums were chasing each other, daring each other to catch up. “It did.”
Ethan asks me if I want to take a break, so I place my guitar down carefully and sit down on the driveway. I eye the back door nestled between two carefully manicured holly bushes. “How soon before your mom is out here with drinks?”
Ethan doesn’t answer right away. I glance up at him and he’s staring at his lap. In a voice that’s a little softer than usual, he says, “My therapist told her not to worry about you.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
I can’t decide if I should be glad this shrink guy deemed me worthy of spending time with Ethan or be offended that I’m apparently such an issue that I had to
be discussed at all.
Although I get why I’m an issue. I mean, how could I not be?
“Well,” I ask, peering down at my shoes, “I mean, that’s good, right? That he said we can hang out?” My words buzz like an anxious mosquito. Ethan could say no. He could use this moment to tell me no, it’s not good that we hang out.
And I really like hanging out with Ethan Jorgenson. I know it’s weird, but I do.
All Ethan says is, “Yeah, it’s good,” and my heart swells a little, and we sit there in silence for a minute or two. That’s one of the things I like about Ethan. We’re both okay with being quiet sometimes.
“I’m glad,” I say. We’re still not looking at each other. It’s easier that way.
More minutes pass. I knock my shoes together and a few crumbles of dried mud tumble toward the ground. My shoes are always covered in mud from my shifts at Jackson Family Farm, and I’ve given up trying to keep them clean. We’re heavy into Christmas season now. So many jams and jellies have been sold by the dozen that by the time the holidays are over Enrique should be able to take a cruise around the world and never work again. Plus, in a genius move, he got his cousin Carlos to play Santa, so he’s really raking it in on the photographs alone. Me and Jason McGinty having to dress up like Santa’s helpers was enough to get us to make up after our fight. And of course, Jason’s face and some doctored up Dr Pepper were all it took to get us to make out again, too. Emma told me I should play harder to get, but Emma doesn’t seem to understand that I don’t think Jason is worth that much effort.
“I’ve been writing some lyrics,” Ethan says, breaking into my thoughts, his voice still quiet. “But I don’t know if they suck or not. They probably do.”
I finally make eye contact. I don’t know how, but he’s finally gotten rid of those corny Polos he was wearing and has a normal T-shirt on for once.
“Lyrics about what?” I ask.
Ethan shrugs. “Just shit about my life. You know.”
“Yeah,” I say, sort of feeling like an idiot. “I can guess.”
“Anyway, they probably suck.”
“They probably don’t,” I say. “I’ll read them if you want me to. And I’ll tell you if they suck. You know I will.”
“Yeah,” Ethan says. “I know. Maybe that’s why I don’t want to show them to you.”
“Shut up and go get them. I mean, if you want.”
“They’re in my head,” he tells me. “I have to write them down.”
I nod. “Well, do it later. Then give them to me. I want to read them.”
Ethan considers my request as he scratches the back of his neck. The sweat that built up while he was drumming has lessened, but the dark hair over his forehead is still slick. His cheeks are all pinked up. I look at him without trying to stare, and I think for the millionth time about how he was gone for four years. When he left I wasn’t even in high school. I hadn’t gotten my period yet, and I still cared about my grades. It seems so freaking long ago.
I hurt for him and I hurt for Dylan, and when I think about the bastard responsible it doesn’t seem fair that he got to choose how to end it, with a gun in an alley behind a restaurant.
“I’ll write the lyrics down later, I promise,” Ethan says, taking a drumstick and spinning it through his fingers like he does sometimes. I think he does it when he’s not sure what to say next. Or when he’s trying to figure out what to say next.
“Just show them to me if you want to,” I say. “No pressure.”
Ethan works the drumstick up and down his right hand three times and then he says, all of a sudden, “Do you think this is fucked up? I mean, that we hang out?” He’s talking to the drumstick when he asks.
I draw my knees up to my chin. “Yeah,” I say, because it’s the only answer. “I mean, it has to be, right?”
“Because of how we know each other?” Ethan asks. The drumstick is still climbing up and down the ladder of his fingers like it’s hungry for a workout.
“Yeah,” I say. “Because of that.”
“But you like hanging out, right?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I don’t have anyone else to play music with. And you’re cool.” And funny and nice, I want to add, but I don’t want him to think I’m going overboard—even if it is the truth.
Ethan shrugs, but I can tell from the way his cheeks are still pink that maybe I’ve embarrassed him a little bit.
“So how come your therapist said it was okay if we hang out?” I ask. I really do wonder what this guy thinks of me.
Ethan finally stops spinning his drumstick. “I told him I liked hanging out with you. That it didn’t feel weird even if it is weird. He said as long as I liked hanging out, it was good we did.”
“How much does this therapist charge, for great advice like that?” I ask. I’m being a smart ass, I know. But there is a part of me that wonders how much therapy costs and how maybe someday my parents could find a therapist like that for Dylan. Not that they ever would, of course, with the way they want to live their lives pretending nothing happened to him.
Ethan smirks, but he says, “I think he costs a lot, but I don’t know. He went to Harvard and everything.”
“It’s weird that there are people out there who actually went to Harvard,” I say. “It sounds like going to Mars.”
“I know,” Ethan says.
I take my guitar and rest it in my lap and start plucking at the strings. I’m not sure if Ethan wants to play anything else. We don’t usually talk this much when we take a break, but the truth is, each time we’ve played lately, we seem to be talking a little bit more each time.
“So,” he says, starting the drumstick finger twirling routine again, “how’s Dylan doing?”
My throat tightens up. I wasn’t expecting that. We haven’t spoken about Dylan since that day Ethan chased me down the street.
“Not so great,” I tell him. “Still not sleeping so good. Still crying a lot. My mom is hoping that Christmas break will be better because he won’t have to go to school.”
“Yeah,” Ethan says. “Hopefully.” Then he frowns and looks down into his lap. “I remembered something the other day.”
“Yeah?” I ask. My heart is hammering hard all of a sudden.
“Yeah,” Ethan says, still looking at his lap. “I remember the first night he was in the apartment, we got pepperoni pizza to eat, and he ate some of it.”
It’s weird but this makes me feel better. Because I know how much Dylan likes pizza, especially pepperoni.
“I wish I could remember more,” Ethan says, and we make eye contact for a moment. “My memory is just … it’s fucked up.”
“It’s okay,” I tell him, and I want him to believe me that it is okay. That maybe it doesn’t even matter now how much he can tell me about Dylan. That all that matters is that he’s trying to get better. But if Ethan can get better, I don’t understand why Dylan can’t, too. I wish I had a million dollars and could spend it all on getting Dylan better. Or at least try to get him the help he needs, which is more than anyone else seems to want to do.
We stop talking, and there’s just the sound of the occasional car passing in front of Ethan’s house or the random yip-yip of the Chihuahua who lives next door. Finally Ethan asks me, “You want to play that White Stripes song again?”
“Yeah,” I say, getting to my feet and hauling my Fender over my shoulder.
“I’m gonna be watching you,” he tells me. “Making sure you don’t make any weird faces this time.”
I roll my eyes but I’m laughing. “Shut up,” I tell him. “And count off.”
Hanging out with Ethan is like listening to one of your favorite songs. And you like it so much that fifteen seconds into it you start it over again before you even get to the end. Just so you can hear the beginning again. Because you like it that much.
ETHAN—201 DAYS AFTERWARD
I’m supposed to be working on this assignment for Mrs. Leander. Reading a short story and answering questio
ns about it in my composition book. Only I keep getting distracted.
I’m working on these lyrics that maybe (maybe) I’m going to show Caroline.
I’ve got a clock in my heart
That I want to turn back
To the start of it all
When it all went to black
They’re probably too cheesy to share. Or too stupid. I rip the page out of the composition book and think about where I can hide it. I’m pretty sure Gloria isn’t going through my drawers, but I can’t be sure about my mom.
“Hey, Ethan.”
I look up from my bed and there’s my dad, standing in the doorway, dressed in khakis and a collared shirt and tie. I blink. Sometimes when I see my parents it’s like I can’t believe they’re real and in front of me. I catch them staring at me sometimes, too, like they’re thinking the same thing about me.
“Hey,” I say. “You’re home early.”
“My last appointment canceled.”
“Oh.”
My dad hovers in the doorway of my room, like he’s waiting for me to tell him it’s okay to come in. My mom never hovers. She just walks in and starts touching stuff or touching me, like she needs the constant reminder that I’m really here.
“I was wondering if you wanted to go with me to the hardware store. I’ve got to get a few things for some projects around the house.”
My dad loves projects around the house. Even though we could probably afford to hire someone to do most of the work, ever since I was a kid he loved making lists and plans of To Do projects, complete with little diagrams he drew in ballpoint pen on graph paper.
“Yeah, I’ll go,” I say. A big part of me would rather stay at home and work on lyrics. But I know my dad wants me to say yes, so I do. I push a smile onto my face as we head out the door.
The hardware store is almost in Clayton, so it’s not a short drive. But at least it’s not on the freeway. The counting thing with Dr. Greenberg was supposed to help me even though when he suggested using the method again, I was too anxious to try. I have no idea if it helped to do it that one day. I mean, I haven’t vomited on myself on the way to any of my appointments, but I sure as hell still feel like I could every time we pull onto I-10.
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