by Zac Brewer
Duckie didn’t miss a beat. Unlike my mother, he knew when to stop. Generally. “Consider it dropped. Oh, by the way, I’ll be a little late to economics today. Drama committee meeting during first hour.”
“Can you give me a ride to my shrink after school?”
“Of course.” He leaned closer and squinted, examining my face with his eyes. “You feeling okay? You look like you aren’t feeling well. Are you sick or something?”
My throat was still burning, and the bruises around my neck hurt. Thank the fashion industry for decorative scarves. “Can we just go now?”
His jaw twitched slightly at my biting tone, and he turned the key in the ignition. “Ma’am, yes, ma’am.”
He was annoyed. Or hurt. Or some other thing that I didn’t feel like exploring at the moment. I rested my forehead against the window and dozed until Duckie pulled into his usual spot at the back of the school parking lot. No quick getaways today. Maybe because he was mad at me.
Still, he held the door for me once we reached the school. We headed to our lockers, the silence between us heavy. I fully expected to see “RIP” on my locker door, but the janitor had painted over it, just like Duckie had said he would. Sticking out of my locker vents was a small black envelope. I took it in my hand and shoved it inside my backpack before Duckie could see it. It was probably some new joke about me dying, which was going to get really old really fast. Duckie grabbed his books and shut his locker. He turned to walk away, but before he got four steps, he turned back again and mouthed “I-L-Y” to me.
I mouthed back to him, “I-L-Y too.” Because I did.
Grabbing a seat at the back of the class next to Duckie’s empty desk, I tried to will time to move forward as quickly as possible. Not that I had anywhere to be.
I pulled the black envelope from my backpack and opened it, mentally preparing myself for whatever idiocy it contained. Inside was a black piece of paper. Written on it in messy silver swirls was simply, “Thanks for the apple. —Derek.”
Furrowing my brow, I read the note over again. Derek. The new guy. The one with the amazing eyes. How thoughtful of him. Or was it some kind of joke? Why the black stationery? I flipped the note over, searching for more words, but found nothing. So I sank down in my seat, fretting about why he’d left me a note over something as silly as an apple and not hearing a word that Ms. Naples had to say about economics. Duckie joined me after a few minutes, looking just as bored as I felt. I hid Derek’s note in my backpack, but I wasn’t sure why, exactly.
It felt like the entire world was staring at me during the next two classes. But I wasn’t sure if people were actually staring or if I just thought they were staring. By the time I got to lunch, my hands were shaking. I didn’t want to go home, but I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t want to be anywhere, really.
When I got to the lunchroom, Duckie was waiting for me with an expectant look on his face. He wanted an apology, and he totally deserved one. The moment I reached him, I gave him a hug. “I’m sorry. I had a really bad night and I totally took it out on you.”
He hugged me back and when we parted, he wore a satisfied smile. “Just try to remember that I’m on your side, okay? I’m always on your side.”
“I will.” He walked me over to our usual spot before he went to grab our food. I tried to be as casual as possible about searching the crowd for Derek, but I didn’t see him anywhere. Duckie returned with two trays and set them on the table triumphantly. “It’s nacho day!”
In case it wasn’t obvious . . . Duckie really liked nachos.
Relieved that the tension between us had evaporated, I set Derek’s note in front of Duckie and said, “That new guy, Derek, left this on my locker.”
After reading it, he said, “That was nice.”
“Yeah, I guess. But what’s it mean?”
Through a mouthful of chips and cheese, he said, “Why does it have to mean anything? Maybe he was just being nice.”
“Why?” I looked at Duckie, and he sat there for a moment, looking at me. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, which was rare.
“Let’s ask him.” Duckie picked up the note and stood, then started walking toward Derek’s table.
I reached out with my right hand but missed grabbing his arm by seconds. “Duckie, don’t!”
Before I could say anything else, my best friend was standing in front of the new guy, smiling. “Hey.”
Derek looked a little more than surprised, which was a perfectly natural reaction to your first encounter with the Duckman. “Hey.”
“So Derek. Brooke and I were just discussing the nice thank-you note you left her.” Duckie tilted his head slightly just as I walked up behind him. I was hoping to drag him away before he did something stupid, but then he said, “What’s it mean?”
Too late, I guess.
Derek looked confused. “It means . . . thank you.”
“I’m sorry. He’s being stupid.” When Derek turned his blue eyes to me, my mouth went a little dry. It took me a moment to recover. “I heard you moved here a few weeks ago. From where?”
He shrugged. “A dumpy little town near Chicago. Are you new too? I hadn’t seen you around until yesterday.”
I shook my head. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a strand of my pink hair and wondered what he thought of it. The weird, skinny kid wearing leopard-patterned shoes and the pink-haired freak had just strolled into his world. Did he want us there? Did it matter if he didn’t? “No, I’ve been in this school system since kindergarten. I was just out for six weeks . . . for medical reasons.”
“Been there. Got the T-shirt.” A strange, almost knowing look crossed his face, and I wondered what it meant. Derek apparently inspired all sorts of questions in me.
Duckie had fallen silent, so I looked over at him. He was staring across the lunchroom at Tucker. I nudged him curiously. “What are you doing?”
“I’m willing him to talk to me. With my magical brain powers.”
Tucker was seriously cute, but it was almost a surprise that he was the object of my best friend’s affection. Tucker was everything that Duckie was not. He was straight As and student council. He was football team and track. Yeah, he might have been theater, but he was also yearbook committee.
I leaned closer and whispered, “Should I go ask him why he hasn’t talked to you yet?”
As the words left my mouth, he met my eyes with a silent Damn you because he knew full well that turnabout was fair play. He sighed, dramatically, which was the only way that Duckie ever sighed. “Okay, I’m going. But you are one sadistic person, you know that?”
As he walked toward Tucker, I said, “I-L-Y too, Duckie.”
Derek said, “You two a couple?”
I had to fight to suppress a laugh. “No.”
He nodded as if he understood. I hoped he did. There was nothing that I hated more than outing my best friend to people who didn’t know him. “His name is Duckie?”
“It’s his nickname. Kind of a long story, but we’re both pretty obsessed with this movie from the eighties called Pretty in Pink. His real name is Ronald, but no one but my parents and the old hag in the office really calls him that. Not even the teachers.”
Derek raised an eyebrow. It was okay. I knew we were weird. No need to remind me. “Is that why you dye your hair pink? Because of the movie?”
This was the part where he’d either decide that Duckie and I were interesting enough to continue speaking to in the future, or strange enough to be avoided from here on out. “No. I just did that to piss off my mom.”
He smiled at that. “What class do you have next?”
“Gym. You?”
“Chemistry.”
A weird silence fell between us. I swallowed hard, guessing our conversation was over. “Well, I’ll see you around.”
“Yeah. See ya.”
I spent the remainder of the school day thinking about that stupid thank-you note and wondering what it meant. There was no way it could have ju
st meant “thank you.” Who sent thank-you cards anymore? It was bizarre.
After school, Duckie drove me twenty minutes to Dr. Daniels’s office. He pulled the Beast into a spot and put it in park before asking, “So should I go in with you or—”
“No.” The word had snapped out of my mouth like the crack of a whip. I immediately felt terrible for how it seemed to make Duckie feel. But he couldn’t go in with me. I didn’t want him to view me as someone’s crazy patient. It was bad enough that Dr. Daniels had stopped in my room at Kingsdale to introduce himself the day after Joy had offed herself. I didn’t talk much during that little visit. But he did. He told me that Joy had been a high-risk patient of his for a long time. He told me that suicide is contagious, but that he thought that I was stronger than Joy had been.
As far as I knew, Dr. Daniels would always think of me in that white room, wearing scrubs, taking pills to numb the pain and help me rest. I couldn’t have Duckie thinking about me that way. I just . . . couldn’t. “Just wait here, okay? I’ll be out soon.”
He nodded as I exited the Beast. I knew he was hurt, but I didn’t know what to do about it.
Minutes later, I was seated across from Dr. Daniels in a cozy floral chair. He handed me a bottle of water and smiled. “How are you today, Brooke?”
“I’m okay.”
The look in his eyes said that he knew I was lying. I didn’t really give two shits. “You started back in school again recently, right? How’s that been?”
“It’s been fine.” We could go back and forth all day, doc. I really didn’t care. I was only at the appointment because the psychiatric team at Kingsdale Hospital had insisted on weekly therapy for at least six months, and my parents agreed. I wasn’t planning on being around that long.
Dr. Daniels shifted in his chair a bit, as if getting comfortable. He knew he was in for a tough time convincing me to open up. I could see it in his eyes. “Tell me about it.”
I shrugged his question off. “What’s to tell? It’s school. I get up, go to class, go home.”
“High school can be pretty rough, even in the kindest of circumstances.”
Truth, doc. Truth.
“What was your first day like? Walk me through it.”
“It was short and obnoxious. So I left early.” I was trying to annoy him, but it didn’t seem to be working. If he were my mother, the conversation would have ended two questions ago. But the doc was cool as a cucumber. He must do this for a living or something.
“Why? Did something happen?”
I debated not telling him about the graffiti on my locker, or the scribblings on my notebook, or the stupid funeral invitation. After all, he was just going to ask me how I felt about those things, and I’d had about enough of that stupid question. Every day, a couple times a day, while I was serving my time inpatient, someone would ask me how something made me feel. The biggest feeling I could recall having was inspired by them asking how I felt—pure, unadulterated anger. Frankly, it pissed me off that they wouldn’t let it go.
Thinking about the inpatient facility brought the acrid smell of antiseptics to mind. I could almost smell it—just a wisp—and then it was gone.
He looked at me expectantly, awaiting a response to his question. When I didn’t give one, he said, “Okay, then. You don’t seem to feel up to talking much. So why don’t we do something else?”
As calmly as ever, Dr. Daniels grabbed a game of Monopoly from a shelf in the corner and began setting up the board between us. As he passed out the money and set the cards in their respective places, two things happened: A. I seriously began to question his approach to therapy. And 2. I found myself feeling a little more like answering some of his questions. Not a lot of them. Just the facts, ma’am.
After a moment in which I debated what he was up to with this whole Monopoly thing, I scooted forward in my seat and reached into the box. I picked up the little metal thimble and placed the top hat on its dimpled end, making it look like a tiny, faceless gentleman. I don’t know why. I’d always used that as my play piece, for as long as I could remember. Then I set my little dude on Go and bit the inside of my cheek. Hard. “Someone wrote something on my locker my first day back. And then someone else—or maybe the same person, I don’t know—wrote it on my notebook later that day.”
I didn’t bring up the funeral invitation. It felt like too much, for some reason.
The doc chose the race car. I instantly wondered what kind of vehicle he really drove. I was guessing it was either a sedan or an SUV. The man was wearing khakis, for goodness’ sake. Race car? Puh-lease.
When he spoke, his tone sounded so casual, but I could hear the hint of interest in between his words. “What did they write?”
“RIP.” What was I doing? Hadn’t I sworn to myself that I wasn’t going to give any information to this shrink? Before I knew it, my mouth decided to keep talking. “Y’know, like on gravestones. Rest in peace.”
“Wow. You go to school with some real winners, eh?” He looked at me, and I could tell that he could relate. What did the kids in school pick on you for, doc? Why don’t we talk about your issues for a while?
I shrugged and rolled the dice. “If by winners you mean assholes, then yeah.”
As I moved my piece, the doc said, “Do you think people know about your suicide attempt?”
“It feels like everybody knows.” I sank into the seat cushion some, wishing I were anywhere but in this room. I didn’t want to play Monopoly with some sedan-driving, khakis-wearing loser, let alone tell him my deepest, darkest feelings.
The doc rolled the dice and moved his piece forward, claiming a railroad. He looked a little triumphant as he picked up the card. Way to go, doc. You may have lost at high school, but you win at Monopoly. “Why do you say that?”
“Because I can see it in their eyes and hear them whisper every time I’m around.” My words came out sharper than I intended. So I took a breath and tried to keep my cool. No need to let the doc see how much something bothered me. “Besides . . . small town. Y’know? Gossip travels at lightning speed.”
The doc was quiet for a moment. He was looking at me as if weighing how to get inside my head. Best of luck, doc. “Is it possible that you’re so concerned that they might find out about your attempt that you’re sensing something that isn’t there?”
“Isn’t it also possible that therapists are full of crap and just guessing at the problems and potential solutions of strangers?” I said it to hurt him, and I hoped it did.
But to my great shock, a smirk appeared on his face. “I suppose anything is possible.”
Maybe the doc knew that therapists were generally full of crap and khakis were a poor fashion choice. Maybe he knew, but didn’t care. That was actually pretty cool. “I suppose it is.”
I rolled the dice again and moved four spaces. My faceless thimble gentleman was just visiting the jail. But at least he wasn’t locked up inside. At least he was free.
My mind turned back to the inpatient facility again. It had been a lot like how I imagined prison must be. Someone was always around. Someone was always watching. But even though people constantly surrounded you, it was so damn lonely.
The doc picked up the dice and held on to them for a moment. When he spoke, his words were hushed, as if I was a nervous woodland creature and he didn’t want to startle me. “Do you ever think about attempting suicide again, Brooke?”
It was ballsy of him to ask, but I wasn’t surprised that he had. That was why I was here, wasn’t it? To keep answering that question until someone in the psychiatric community believed me and gave me a pass back into the real world, where no one had to tell anyone how they felt? I took a breath before I responded. The lie was so easy, so familiar to me now that it was like a second skin on my tongue. I tried to make it sound natural, but both in my head and out, my words sounded practiced. Almost robotic. “No. I just want to get better.”
Dr. Daniels paused, eyeing me for a moment before speaking. He kne
w I was full of shit. He rolled the dice and got a six. As he moved his piece slowly from square to square, he said, “Are you certain? This is a safe space, Brooke. You can say anything to me, and it’s just between us. And I assure you, there’s nothing you can say to me that would shock me or surprise me. You shouldn’t say you’re not feeling suicidal if you don’t mean it.”
When Duckie and I were little, there was a poem we used to say whenever the other was lying. Liar, liar, pants on fire, hang them on a telephone wire. Duckie’s child voice filled my head with that song as I sat there in the doc’s office, wishing I were anywhere but there, wishing that people would stop asking me questions or at least not be so damn troubled by the truth that I couldn’t tell them. With Duckie’s singsong voice filling my head, getting louder and louder with every refrain, my even temperament broke for a moment and I knocked the game board over, sending playing pieces and cards and rainbow-colored money all over the floor. The doc looked mildly surprised, but not as shocked as I’d hoped. I scooted forward in my seat and gave him the hardest glare I could muster. “I swallow the pills they prescribed me at Kingsdale, don’t I? I came here to see you and play goddamn Monopoly. I’m answering every stupid question you ask of me. What do you want, a legally binding contract swearing I don’t have those thoughts sometimes? Because I can’t give you that. And expecting me to is about the dumbest thing I can imagine.”
He sat forward too, mirroring my posture, but not my tone. His was calm and even. “This isn’t like some list where you can check things off, Brooke. Therapy is a process. It takes time. I want to help you.”
“Then move the hands on the clock forward about thirty minutes.” I held his gaze, daring him to speak again, to say one more stupid shrink thing. A long silence hung between us before he finally broke it.
He looked disappointed. Not in me, but in his seeming inability to make me grasp his checklist bullshit. “You seem aggravated.”
What I wanted to say was And you seem like a nosy asshole with a framed diploma on the wall. But what I said instead was “Check your clock, doc. I think our time is up.”