by Amy Reed
Subject: Re: imperfect words
Connor,
Tell me you hate me. Tell me you’re pissed at how selfish and irresponsible I’ve been. Tell me I’m stupid and reckless and crazy. That, I can take. That, I can wrap my hands around and hold and know it is true.
I’ve hurt you, Connor. I’ve taken advantage of your kindness and patience. I’ve made everything about me. I’ve hurt you and hurt you and hurt you, and then I come around begging to be loved again, and you just do it every time. You say you don’t want to ask anything of me, but hasn’t that been the problem? You always giving and giving, and me taking and taking? It’s not fair. None of this is fair. I shouldn’t be able to come back to everyone loving me, delusional about some kind of magic mental illness that gets me off the hook, that takes away all responsibility, like I’m some kind of victim of my brain chemistry. I think your mom has brainwashed my family, and I mean that in the nicest way possible. They have this idea in their heads that everything’s going to be fine as soon as I start seeing a therapist and taking medication, that we can just forget any of this happened and everything’s going to go back to normal and I’m going to be their brilliant little daughter again. But what if I don’t want to take their stupid magical pills? What if I don’t believe in medicine like they do? What if I don’t believe in any of this?
I am responsible, Connor. I’m responsible for all of this. Maybe you all think the best thing to do is forgive me, but you’re wrong. Maybe what I really need is to be punished. Maybe everyone needs to just let me go. Maybe you should just ignore me. Maybe you should hurt me as much as I hurt you.
Isabel
From: condorboy
To: yikes!izzy
Date: Friday, March 9—6:48 PM
Subject: Re: imperfect words
Fine, Isabel. You want me to tell you the other stuff? You want me to punish you? Will that make you feel better? I used to think I understood you, but now I’m not so sure any more. So even though I don’t think you know what you’re talking about, I’ll do what you tell me. Because that’s what I’ve always been good at, isn’t it? At least lately. Maybe this summer we were something like equals, with you perhaps the more colorful one. But there was a give and take, a reciprocity that hasn’t been there for a long time. Yes, you’ve been selfish. The world has revolved around you, your need has sucked up everything I could possibly give. You have never shown the slightest interest in my life. That is not friendship. That is not what friends do. You have been a horrible fucking friend, and a smarter person would have given up on you a long time ago.
But I am obviously not that smart. And I’ve started to hate myself for it, for giving everything to you so freely. The fucked-up thing is that you never forced me to do anything. It was all my choice. Don’t you see? I’ve wanted to love you all this time; I’ve wanted to dote on you and heal you and lose myself. And part of me wants to blame you, wants to hate you for that, but deep down I know it’s my issue, not yours. No one can really make anyone do anything unless they have a gun to their head. And maybe you could say you had a sort of emotional gun to my head. Maybe your sorrow and confusion and mania and danger scared me into submission. And maybe you have some responsibility in that. God, I don’t fucking know anymore.
Do you want to know what I’m really upset about? And by upset, I mean scared, not angry. I was scared every time you refused help, every time someone who loved you said they were worried about you and you responded as if they wanted to hurt you. Even though you knew your life was unraveling, that you were unraveling, you still thought you had control. You wouldn’t accept that maybe somebody knew better than you. And that stubbornness took you away from us, away from yourself. That stubbornness will kill you if you don’t give it up. And I cannot accept that. I will not let that happen.
Isabel, listen to me. You will take those fucking pills and you won’t whine about it. You will talk to the doctors and do what they tell you and you will get better. It may not be easy. It may be hard work. It may be the hardest and most painful thing you’ve ever had to go through. But whoever said life was supposed to be easy? Whoever said you were entitled to some sort of charmed life? People struggle, Isabel. That’s part of life. Just because you’re beautiful and brilliant and talented does not mean you’re exempt from pain.
Fuck, I don’t know if anything I say even gets through to you. I don’t know if anything I do makes any difference at all.
Connor
From: condorboy
To: yikes!izzy
Date: Sunday, March 11—6:11 PM
Subject:
Isabel, talk to me. I know you’re there.
Love,
Connor
From: yikes!izzy
To: condorboy
Date: Monday, March 12—2:13 PM
Subject: I’m sorry
Dear Connor,
I’m sorry I haven’t been taking your calls. I pretend to be sleeping whenever I hear the house phone ring. I don’t know what I’d do if I heard your voice. I’m afraid of it like I’ve never been afraid of anything.
Everything you said is right. Your words mix with my parents’ words and my sister’s words and spin around in my head, collect in the corner like cobwebs. But maybe it doesn’t matter anymore. Maybe I’m too fucked up to even be helped. There was a window when I thought maybe something was possible, a brief few hours when everything seemed clear and I knew what to do. The morning I woke up in that guy’s bed in Portland, I just knew I had to go home. And that gave me something to think about for the next four hours. It gave me a destination. And when I got home, I knew I had to write to you. And that gave me something to think about for a while too. Thinking of you made me feel sane. And then I went to sleep, and maybe for those hours when my eyes were closed and my body was still, maybe something inside me relaxed, and if a stranger came around and looked at me, he would think I was just a normal sleeping teenage girl. Maybe I looked like a girl who did well in school, a girl who had a boyfriend, a girl who was going to a good college. And these things would have all been true a few months ago. And maybe they could all be true now if I returned to life and got back to work. Maybe.
But those thoughts seem so translucent now, so like ghosts. When I woke up, things were black again, and they’ve just been getting blacker. My mom took me to a new shrink on Friday, one your mom recommended. Some little voice inside said I could trust her, but the bigger voice said what’s the use? And she wrote up a prescription, and she said I’d feel better in a couple weeks, but I had to be patient. And maybe this wasn’t the right drug, so maybe we’d have to try another one, and I’d have to be patient again. And maybe this would happen over and over until they found the right chemical concoction to keep me from going up and down, and she was sure that we’d get there. But I didn’t want to hear “patience,” I didn’t want to be told maybe it wouldn’t work. I know the other words were there, words like “hope,” words like “getting yourself back.” But those are the see-through words, the fragile things. Those are the things that break and cut you, the things you regret ever being stupid enough to believe in.
Part of me feels so done. Done with this chaos inside me, the chaos I’ve created in the worlds of everyone who’s ever mattered to me. Done with the darkness. Done with the shame. If I was gone, none of this would matter. You’d all get your lives back. And maybe after all this taking, that’s the best gift I could possibly give.
I’ve always doubted things. Questioned. But beneath it all, no matter how false everything seemed, I could always believe in my feelings. I always knew they were true. But now I have doctors and therapists telling me those are lies too. So now what? If everything is a lie, what do I have left?
I have you. You’re the one consistent thing I can trust. But you aren’t enough, Connor. I’m sorry. As wonderful and magical as you are, you can’t save me. And that’s not out of any weakness on your part. I know you’ve tried. Don’t think for a second that I haven’t noticed you
r busy little heart trying to fix all the things I break. But how could you possibly save me from myself? How could you pull out the broken pieces of me, rewire the faulty parts of my brain? Only I can do anything about that. The psychiatrist, the therapist, the doctor, my parents, my sister, you all keep saying just try, Isabel. Just be willing to try. But the truth is, I’m tired. Connor, I am so fucking tired. I don’t think I can try anymore.
The therapist gave me workbooks, but even opening them seems too hard. Lying in bed and reading a couple of pamphlets about bipolar disorder seems about as hard as running a marathon. All I want to do is reread your emails. It’s the only thing that really seems worth doing. It’s the only thing that seems like something I can even do. That’s the only world I want to live in anymore. The world of your words. The world of you loving me. But the real world is bigger than that. The real world hurts too much.
I don’t want to be crazy anymore. I don’t want to feel any of this. I don’t want to feel anything. I could pretend I believe it’s going to get better. But I would be lying. And I’m sick of lying. I’m sick of trying to protect everyone from myself. I don’t think it’s enough to do it for you anymore, to do it for my family. And that leaves me only one option. So now I’m saying good-bye. So now I’m the silly girl writing a suicide letter.
I’m sorry. You have to believe I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt anyone, especially you. Connor, you have loved me better than anyone.
Love always,
Isabel
I’m getting in the car. The directions to your house are taped to my dashboard. It took me this long to find you. It took me this long to decide to break your rules and do something as simple as look you up. And now maybe it’s too late.
I stayed home from school today. I never stay home from school. Even when you were gone, even when no one knew where you were, I kept plugging along. But this morning my heart felt like bursting and Mom took one look at me and said I deserved a mental-health day. The irony is too horribly perfect.
So I was here to get your email. I was here to panic and call your house and your sister and your mom and my mom. And now I’m in the car and driving on this empty, tree-lined road because nobody answered. I am driving too fast because I’m trying to catch the next ferry to Seattle. I am trying to get to you before it’s too late.
People do this for fun—this drive around the island, this ferry-boat ride. Tourists are up there right now, standing on the deck under the heat lamps, pointing at Seattle, pointing at the Olympics and Mount Rainier in the distance, pointing at otters and seals and jellyfish in the water. They’re waving at the kayakers, waving at the fishing boats. They’re smiling and taking pictures and squealing when the horn blows. They only notice how beautiful everything is.
They don’t know you are somewhere dying. They don’t know this big old boat is going way too slow to save you.
I am sitting in the car. I have been parked on the car deck for thirty minutes now, but I have stayed in this position, ready to go at any second. But there is nowhere to go when you’re stopped and floating in the middle of the water. There is no way to make things go faster. There is absolutely nothing I can do.
We are almost there. I have been trying not to think this whole time, but sharp blasts of images keep tearing through me. Your face pale and lifeless. Bathwater stained red with blood. One thought repeats weakly, a sad attempt: Your parents don’t have a gun. Your parents don’t have a gun. I’m sure of it. They aren’t the type. But of course that means nothing. Of course there are so many other ways to die. And you are so resourceful.
And now everyone is starting their cars. A man in a reflective vest removes a wedge from under my tire that I didn’t even know was there. I jump in surprise. The car shakes and he looks at me like I’m crazy. He has no idea what’s going on. None of these people know what’s going on. They just think it’s any old day, and they’re just waiting for the cars to move so they can go shopping or whatever they do when they go to Seattle.
My phone rings. It’s your mom. She got my message. I can barely understand her because she is crying so hard. She’s in her car, on her way home to you. The car in front of me pulls forward and the man in the reflective vest waves his arms at me to move. I drop the phone and it is lost somewhere under the seat, and the man is screaming at me, I can see it on his face, but the words don’t make it through the window. I am trying to drive and look for the phone at the same time, and I can’t hear your mom or the man in the reflective vest even though I know they’re both screaming.
I find the phone but she is gone. I drive down the ramp and now there are so many men in reflective vests waving me along. And I think of you. I think of the boat ride to camp and all the stops at the other little islands on the way. I think of that island where the nuns operate the ferry terminal, where instead of these big, burly men, it’s the island monastery’s nuns, in habits instead of vests, wrapping the rope and speaking through walkie-talkies and waving the tourists along. You told me they prayed for us every time we departed. “Us?” I remember saying, thinking you knew something I didn’t. “They pray for everyone, silly,” you said. “They’re nuns. That’s what they do.”
Everything is going too slow. The sign in the terminal says 5 mph and I want to drive right into it. I try calling your mom again but she doesn’t answer. I try calling your house, and as it rings, I wonder if you can hear it. Are you there, alive, choosing not to answer the phone? Is this all just some sick trick you’re playing to see who comes running, so you can see who loves you the most?
The streets wind around buildings full of people working. I can see the ballpark to my right, the Space Needle to my left, a steep hill in front of me. I just go the way my directions tell me, find Madison Avenue, keep driving forward, then only 3.1 miles across town until the next turn, when I will be only a few blocks from your house. As I climb the hill, I see more men holding hands. I try to picture any of them with Jeremy, but they are too old. I hope you will take good care of each other at Reed. Don’t let him date anyone too lame.
But what if you never make it there? Will they just replace you with the next person on the waiting list, no big deal, like the reason you’re gone is that you just chose to go to a different school?
There are too many stoplights. Too many buses. Too many people jaywalking and demanding I stop. I feel the time running out as I wait for this light to turn green. I feel my lungs deflate the longer I’m kept from you.
Drive. Just drive.
Breathe.
I am going down the hill now. There are fewer businesses and more houses. Fewer stoplights, fewer cars. Up another hill and the houses are getting bigger. The trees are getting taller. The speedometer says the car is going faster, but everything seems slowed down. The closer I get, the longer it seems to take. The directions say I’m almost there. Turn right here. The street is silent and wide and lined with almost-mansions. Two blocks. Three. One more turn and then I’m there.
And now I see the ambulance. The police car. The fire truck. The red lights spinning round and round, lighting up everything like a morbid disco ball. The neighbors standing around. A car parked in the middle of the street. Is that your mother’s car? Did she leap out while it was still moving, too scared to even take the time to park? Why is there a fire truck?
I pull into someone’s driveway. I get out. I run. The door to your house is open. I step inside and it seems like a movie set. You cannot really live here. I hear voices upstairs. I run. I am scared but I run. I close my eyes and I run.
There are firemen in the hallway. They are big and in my way, but I am fast and I get through them. There is a woman who must be your mother. She is leaning against the wall. She has her hands in front of her eyes. The men in uniform are all looking through the doorway, your doorway. They are all looking at you. All these men who do not know you, and it is your mother who has her eyes closed.
On the floor. You. With your eyes closed. The paramedics roll you on you
r side. Your arm hangs lifeless. You are wearing pajama pants and a tank top, like you could be just any girl. The men are on their knees around you, moving things—their bags, their equipment. They are getting ready to do something. They are fast. How many times have they done this before? There is so much movement and you are too still. They are touching your things, pushing them aside. A pair of fuzzy slippers flies into the corner and I want to hurt the man who threw them.
He has his hand in your mouth now. I cannot watch. I scour the walls with my eyes, searching the paintings and collages for some kind of clue. Every inch is covered by something you made beautiful. There are magazine models piled on top of each other, their faces framed by torn, burnt edges. Their eyes have been gouged out and replaced with black. Red Xs are over their mouths. A chorus of voices silenced. What were they trying to say, Isabel? What were they screaming that made you have to shut them up?
Someone says, “One, two, three.” I look just in time to see them shove the tube up your nose and down your throat.
And just like that, you are alive. You are coughing. You are gagging on the tube. This is the first time I’ve heard your voice in months, and it sounds like this. You are vomiting. There is the sound of suction. Someone says, “Roll her over.” Someone says, “Make sure she doesn’t aspirate.” I feel your mother behind me. “What does that mean? What does aspirate mean?” She squeezes my shoulders. I try to tell her I don’t know, but nothing comes out. My throat is raw, like I’m choking on the tube too. I am holding your mother’s hand. We are watching you. We are willing you not to die.
They are pumping something into you. They are pumping something out. Your eyes are still closed but I can see tears running down your cheek. “Is she going to be okay?” your mother asks, but no one answers, no one even acknowledges her question. They are setting up the gurney. They are pushing us out, like we don’t even matter, like you are theirs now because they saved your life.