The Survival List

by Courtney Sheinmel

  “Yep. Luckily that was the only Audrey emergency—though every second of it felt like a fresh emergency.”

  “I’m going to make it up to you,” I said. “If Audrey is free, and you want the rest of the summer off, then I can suck it up and co-babysit at the Hogans’ with her.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” Juno said. “I’d rather be with you and the triplets than doing anything else. So that’s what I pick . . . unless you’d pick babysitting with Audrey over me.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “Just checking. She’s a pretty good babysitter. She was great at playing the whisper challenge with the kids, and I’m not so great—for obvious reasons.”

  “I don’t even know what the whisper challenge is, so that’s how good I am at it.”

  “It’s when you put on headphones and play music really loud. The person next to you whispers something, and you try to hear it through the headphones, and then you whisper it to the person next to you, who’s also wearing headphones, and on and on, until you get back to the first person, and see how everyone mangled their original phrase.”

  “Like a game of telephone, but with hearing damage.”

  “Yeah. Except my hearing is already damaged, so it’s hard for me to play, which I’m sure is why Audrey taught them the game in the first place.”

  “Which makes her a pretty shitty babysitter. She was modeling insensitivity on top of hurting their ears.”

  “They loved it.”

  “Kids love things that are bad for them all the time.”

  “Seriously, when we showed up in the morning, they were happy enough to see me, but with Audrey, it was like Taylor freaking Swift had just shown up. If they had to choose between the two of us, they totally would’ve picked her over me. It made me feel so bad.”

  “I’m sure it did. But anyone would be lucky to have you as the babysitter. Anyone would be lucky to have you as a best friend. You’re so extraordinary. You could basically be best friends with anyone, and you picked me. Lucky me.”

  “Lucky me, too,” she said.

  “And as long as I’ve already triggered the cheese-whiz alarm, just one more thing. Talley’s friend CJ said that Talley brought out the best in her, and she wasn’t afraid of the worst in her. I think it’s the best definition of best-friendship I’ve ever heard, and I want to make sure that you know it’s how I feel about you—you bring out the best in me, and every time I’ve given you my worst, you’ve been there. You haven’t been afraid of any of it. Just so we’re clear, I’m here for you, too, for all of that.”

  “I know,” Juno said. “Thank you. Ditto. And you’re off the cheese-whiz charts. The alarm is broken beyond repair.”

  “I did it on purpose,” I said. “I never liked that alarm.”

  “Hey!” came a shout, and Eddy was flying out the front door. “You didn’t tell me Sloane was here!” He flung himself at me.

  “Wow,” I said. “Is it possible that you grew in just a week? Because I’m pretty sure you’re a few inches taller than the last time I saw you.”

  “It’s probably a growth spurt,” Eddy said. He moved his hand between the top of his forehead and my chin. “Yep. I think I’m chin height.”

  “Oh no,” Juno said. “That hand is going vertical instead of horizontal.”

  “It’s not! I swear!”

  “You too big for a present?”

  “Definitely not.”

  “Good,” I said. “I brought you something back from California.”

  “Really?”

  “Uh-huh. Your sister has the bag.”

  Juno handed it over and Eddy pulled the stuffed bear out. “Neato bandito!” he said.

  “Neato bandito,” Juno echoed. She grabbed my hand and squeezed really hard, and the three of us walked into the house.

  Epilogue

  I’m freewriting in Dr. Lee’s class at Hamline. This is what she makes us do every morning, just to get our creative juices flowing. We can write about whatever we want. The only rule is we can’t lift our pen from the page for the whole 15-min period. My hand gets pretty cramped up by minute 10, but I power through.

  The reason I’m writing out the rules right now is because I don’t have anything else to say. I’m totally blocked.

  I know, I know, Dr. Lee, you don’t believe in writer’s block.

  (Not that you’ll ever see this. Another rule of freewrite is that we never have to share it.)

  I always agreed with the no-writer’s-block thing. Dr. Lee said it, so I agreed with it: there’s always SOMETHING to say. You might not know exactly how to say it, but you can certainly start by saying it badly.

  But now . . . I don’t know. It’s pretty early in the morning, and it’s August, which is generally the laziest of the months, and so much has happened in my life that I barely recognize it anymore. So right now, writer’s block feels like a distinct possibility.

  And I’m all out of freewrite rules to write down, but I know Dr. Lee is watching to make sure none of us lift our pens.

  Blah.

  Blah.

  Blah!

  Dr. Lee just said, “Five minutes down.”

  She always updates us in five-minute increments.

  You may be watching, Dr. Lee, but you can’t see what nonsense I’m writing. Thank goodness, or you’d probably regret asking Hamline to let in this high schooler.

  I didn’t get a scholarship, à la the fake Stanford writing class. But Dad agreed to let me spend a chunk of my babysitting money on tuition. We’re getting better with each other. We’re not at 100% total agreement on everything. Just last night, he flipped out because I was texting Juno during dinner. But it no longer feels like we’re strangers sharing the same house. I found a suicide survivors’ group that meets at the rec center on Sunday evenings. The kind of group Nicole told me about. Dad and I have been going together.

  Last Sunday, we stopped by Talley’s grave on the way home. I’d been scared to do it, because I didn’t want to see her name etched into a stone on the ground. Turns out, her gravestone isn’t even there yet. According to Jewish tradition, sometime before the 1st anniversary of her death, there will be an unveiling, and the gravestone will be put into place. It gives family members some time to get used to the absence before they see the name like that, the death so official. Not that I ever think I’ll be used to this. It’s been more than sixty-six days. I’m not even counting days anymore. But I’m still not in the habit of not having a sister. Part of me still thinks I’ll wake up tomorrow, and Talley will be calling to me, “Hey, Sloaners, I just had the best idea.” I’ll run down the hall toward her, and the memory of this horrible nightmare will fade to nothingness, the way dreams do. Maybe I’ll vaguely remember that I had a bad dream, but I won’t be able to recall what it was.

  Dad and I didn’t stay long at the cemetery. We cleaned the dirt from the crevices of Mom’s stone, and left little rocks on top of it. Another Jewish tradition is to leave rocks, not flowers, on graves. Flowers die, but rocks don’t. Leaving them on someone’s grave symbolizes the enduring legacy of love. We left rocks for Mom, and we left rocks on the empty space beside her, where Talley’s stone will go someday—someday soon, I know. But not today.

  By the time we walked back to the car, it was nearly eight o’clock. The sun had set. (The earth had set.) When Talley died back in May, it was the time of year when days were getting longer. Now three months and five days have passed. The days are shortening again. I let Dad drive home. I’ve been practicing a bit, but I’m not quite comfortable with night driving just yet. I’d just been to a suicide support group, and then to my sister’s grave. I know Talley was right—I can do hard things; but there are only so many hard things you can fit into one day.

  “Five minutes left.”

  My hand is really cramping. But, in general, I’m writing more, again. Which isn’t to say that I’m not totally overwhelmed by sadness, because I am. I miss my sister so much that sometimes it’s like I
can feel her absence even more than I ever felt her presence. And that’s saying a lot, since Talley had a more palpable presence than anyone I’ve ever known.

  But Dad was right about life going on. I’m working on my short story again, the one I started last spring, that I thought I’d hand in at the end of the semester, but it never got out of the vomitous first-draft phase, so I handed in an old story that Dr. Lee had never seen. Now I’m mining for the diamonds in this one, and making it better. (I hope I’m making it better.) It’s realistic fiction, like I usually write. The characters are completely made up. It’s not about Talley.

  But, of course, things are about her even when they’re not. Having her as my sister will affect everything, always. It’s like the butterfly effect. She flapped her wings in my life. Everything I do from now on will be different, because of her.

  I always said that I loved to write because I loved making new things—things that wouldn’t exist if I didn’t exist. Well, everything I write is only because Talley existed, too. Maybe one day it won’t just be Dr. Lee and my workshop classmates reading my stuff. Maybe I’ll get published, and strangers will read books with my name on the cover. And it’ll be the exact right thing they need to read at the exact right moment, and it’ll help them, somehow. Talley will be a part of all of it, and she’d love it, because she loved making a difference.

  That’s my dream.

  In the meantime, I’m trying to make a difference in other ways, too. This fall, when I turn eighteen, I’ll be able to volunteer at the crisis hotline. I’m already signed up for training. It’s run by the mental health department at Golden Valley General, the hospital where Talley died. I haven’t been there since that night, and I’m scared, but Talley will be with me in her way. I wouldn’t be doing it if she hadn’t been my sister. She’ll always be part of my story.

  “Thirty seconds,” Dr. Lee just called. “Write your last sentence.”

  Here it is: our stories never really end, because the love goes on forever.

  Author’s Note

  DEAR READER,

  The book you are holding in your hands is a work of fiction. Sloane and Talley Weber are products of my imagination. But Talley’s experience with mental illness and the shame she felt about it are real-life struggles for too many people. Depression is one of the most common mental illnesses in the United States, but it is often undiagnosed, untreated, or ineffectively treated. It is the number one cause of suicide, and suicide is the third leading cause of death for people ages fifteen to twenty-four.

  Those statistics are overwhelming. I think we tend to underestimate the prevalence and power of depression because it can be so hard to see; people who are depressed often look exactly like those who aren’t, and that can also make it more difficult for those who are experiencing it to seek help. But just because others can’t tell by looking at you that you’re suffering doesn’t mean you deserve to suffer, and it certainly doesn’t mean you should suffer alone. There is no shame in being sick. There is no shame in asking for help.

  The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is free, confidential, and available twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. If you need support, or if you think someone you know does, you can call them at (800) 273-8255, or chat online at suicidepreventionlifeline.org.

  With love,

  Courtney Sheinmel

  September 2019

  Acknowledgments

  MY HEARTFELT THANKS:

  To my agent, Laura Dail—thank you for being a fierce advocate, a loyal friend, an enthusiastic supporter, an opportunity-finder, a follow-upper, a fashion-inspirer, and for connecting me to my editor, Claudia Gabel.

  To the aforementioned Claudia Gabel—what can I say? It’s hard to admit when a book gets the better of you, but this book did get the better of me . . . at least for a little while. Thank you, Claudia, for your kindness, your patience, and your steadfast belief in this story and my ability to tell it.

  To the team at HarperCollins, especially Stephanie Guerdan, for entertaining and productive brainstorm sessions; Judy Goldschmidt, for her thoughtful notes; Becca Clason and Aurora Parlagreco, for designing a cover that I can’t stop staring at; Shona McCarthy and Kathryn Silsand, for their careful reads of the manuscript; Maya Myers, for going over every single sentence with a fine-toothed comb; Shannon Cox, Haley George, Ebony LaDelle, and Kaitlin Loss, for helping to get this book into readers’ hands; and Katherine Tegen, for giving this book the very best home.

  To Lia, Rachael, and Daniel Carson—my boots-on-the-ground-in-Minnesota friends, who answered all my pressing questions (is it a highway or a freeway? Seltzer or bubbly water?); to my Bay Area pals, especially Lisa, Peter, Marachel, and Lily Leib, who have traveled down Memory Lane with me approximately a million times, usually while sharing Round Table Pizza; to Alex Coler Warren (and Lucy!), who answered all my questions about cochlear implants; and to a few friends who let me ask some very personal questions, and helped me get Talley’s story just right.

  To my extraordinary writing community. Shouts-out to three in particular who helped with this book: Adele Griffin, who mined for diamonds in my (vomitous) first draft, and went line by line, page by page, chapter by chapter, on the phone into the wee hours, talking me through every one of her excellent notes; Sarah Mlynowski, whose eyes beam sunshine and optimism, and who often gets to the heart of what I’m trying to say faster than I do; and Meg Wolitzer, who was one of my very favorite writers long before we met in person. Thank you, Meg, for taking me seriously as a writer, for challenging me to go deeper, for making me laugh, and for sharing boatloads of guacamole.

  To my Writopia Lab family, especially Yael Schick, Danielle Sheeler, and Rebecca Wallace-Segall; and to my beloved Tuesday workshop alums who still hang out on our group text-chat, and remain endlessly inspiring: Drew Arnum, Lily Davis, Altana Elings-Haynie, Katie Hartman, Pilot Irwin, Georgia Silverman, Carly Sorenson, and Kai Williams.

  To Amy Bressler, Jennifer Daly, and Arielle Warshall Katz, who are the kind of friends who bring out the best in me, and aren’t afraid of the worst in me.

  To Regan Hofmann, my daily sounding board and the Queen of Metaphors. Speaking of metaphors: sometimes when writing gets tough, I remember the time she taught me to chop firewood. I swung the ax, it got stuck, I wanted to give up, and she made me keep going. Boom! Firewood. Thanks, Regs.

  To all my friends, who show up, whether to celebrate or to commiserate: Lindsay Aaronson, Andrew Baum, Jen Calonita, Maria Crocitto, Erin Cummings, Gitty Daneshvari, Julia DeVillers, Melissa Eisenberg, Gayle Forman, Jackie Friedland, Jake Glaser, Mary Gordon, Corey Ann Haydu, Mary Beth Keane, Logan Levkoff, Melissa Losquadro, Geralyn Lucas, Samantha Moss, Richard Panek, Laura Schechter Parker, Stacia Robitaille, Jess Rothenberg, Jill Santopolo, Katie Stein, J. Courtney Sullivan, Bianca Turetsky, Susan Verde, and Christine Whelan.

  To my parents . . . most people only get two parents, but I have three, and they are constant sources of love and support: my father, Joel Sheinmel; my mother, Elaine Sheinmel Getter; and my stepfather, Philip Getter.

  To my sister, Alyssa Sheinmel, and my brother-in-law, JP Gravitt; to my stepsiblings and siblings-in-law, Laura and Rob Liss, Doug and Sunčica Getter, and IanMichael Getter.

  To the five best nieces and nephews on the planet: Nicki, Andrew, and Zach Liss, who have aged out of being my test readers; and Sara and Tesa Getter, who have aged into it, and whose excitement and encouragement are the most meaningful.

  To the ones I miss, especially my aunt Jean V. Odesky; and my grandparents Diane and William Buda, and Doris and Archie Sheinmel.

  And to my grandma Diane’s sisters, who were killed in the Holocaust: Minka, Esther, and Yedith Liebson—oh, how I wish I’d met you. This book is for your older sister, and for you.

  About the Author

  Photo by Jennifer E. Daly

  COURTNEY SHEINMEL is the author of over twenty acclaimed books for kids and teens, including Edgewater and the Kindness Club series. For the
past decade, Courtney has mentored teen writers at the nonprofit Writopia Lab, and has been recognized by the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards as an outstanding educator. She lives in New York City.

  www.courtneysheinmel.com

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  Copyright

  Katherine Tegen Books is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

  THE SURVIVAL LIST. Copyright © 2019 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

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