Behind the Falls

by Brenda Zalegowski

  “Noah!” my dad calls in a heartbroken voice.

  “Let him be, Oliver. If he feels safe there and it calms him just let him be,” Mom insists. I know I must look insane curled into this little space with my knees against my chest and my head in my arms. It must terrify them to look at me like this and I can’t make myself care because this is where I feel safe. The house in Illinois has the perfect closet and this house thankfully has this spot.

  Eventually the pain recedes. I can breathe again. My heart is still pounding but not as fast. I feel foolish for having gotten so carried away over a panic attack. Have I ever been more convinced I was dying? I don’t think so. I don’t even understand why I CARED that I thought I was dying. It would be a relief actually.

  I look up and Mom is sitting there in front of me on the bathroom floor. I realize she’s been sitting there the entire time. I shiver and sigh and rest my head against the sink cabinet as we look at each other. My hair is wet. My pajamas are soaked.

  “Better?” she says quietly as she reaches a hand towards me. I nod as I give her my hand and she tugs me so that I climb out of my cubby and into her arms.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper. I shiver again.

  “It’s not your fault,” she says. “We need to get you into some dry clothes,” she says when I shiver a third time. “Can you manage or do you need some help?” I take stock of my body and I feel okay physically if not a little shaky. I’m not about to pass out or anything.

  “I can do it,” I tell her. She leaves me there and comes back with fresh pajamas. I’m a little unsteady but I manage to get to my feet. She’s already running the shower for me and she leaves me to clean up and get dressed. I rinse the fear sweat from my skin then I dry hastily and put on the fresh pajamas. When I emerge from the bathroom Mom and Dad are just finishing up putting new sheets on the bed.

  “I’m sorry,” I say again as I climb into bed.

  “We love you,” Dad says. He pulls up my desk chair and takes my hand as I curl myself around a pillow. Mom climbs onto the bed on top of the blankets and holds me, stroking my hair and whispering to me to calm me.

  The panic attack is a thing of the past but I’m wide awake now. At first I feel embarrassed by my overreaction. I would hope I know a panic attack from a heart episode by now but I really thought I was dying. I probably am dying. My heart is probably weakened by all of this activity and it’s only a matter of time before I do die. I’m okay with that I think. Now that the attack is over I feel nothing but shame, remorse and an overwhelming despair.

  It feels like hours go by before my eyes get heavy again. Mom and Dad are both still here with me. Mom still strokes my hair. It reminds me of the way Max strokes my hair when he’s trying to comfort me or put me to sleep. There’s no less love in the gesture no matter whose touch it is, Mom or Max. I’m one step away from deep sleep. My thoughts are disjointed and I feel like I’m floating on a sea of warmth. My grip on Dad’s hand relaxes as I lose control of myself to slumber.

  They let me sleep in the next day. When I finally stumble into the kitchen they’ve already had breakfast. Mom offers to cook something for me but I shake my head.

  “You have to eat something,” she insists.

  “Just cereal,” I say and I let her get it for me like I’m an invalid or something. “Shouldn’t you be at work?” I realize after I start eating Lucky Charms.

  “I took a personal day,” she says as she kisses the top of my head.

  “So…they had to call a substitute for the substitute?” I laugh but it sounds hollow and false in my ears.

  “You’re starting the Xanax again,” Dad says as he comes into the room. I sigh. I knew this was coming.

  “Why? The Xanax wasn’t working even when I was taking it. I had panic attacks the entire time I was taking it so why bother?” It’s the first time I’ve told them the truth but at this point I figure how much can it really hurt? If they’re going to make me take a drug that I don’t want I might as well let them know it’s pointless.

  “So you’ve just been lying this whole time?” Dad asks and he doesn’t sound angry but he does sound disappointed in me. I hate when I disappoint them. I shrug.

  “The only time it seemed to do anything was when I took too much when we went to Aunt Sarah’s for Thanksgiving. I can’t take that much all of the time. I might as well be in a coma.”

  “Noah, you have to be honest with us. Didn’t we agree? Didn’t we agree the first time Dr. Bachman stopped your meds? You promised to come to us with anything. Now you’re hiding things from us? It doesn’t work, Noah. You’re heading in a bad direction again and it’s scaring us and you have to be honest,” Mom has to stop because she’s crying a little. She’s talking about a year ago when I finally lived through the Hell and was on the other side of it. For the last year before we moved here I was drug free and as normal as I ever managed to be.

  “You need to be honest and you need to work with your doctor and you need to take meds until we’re sure you’re okay. You need to really do the work this time, Noah. No lying to us. I will not hesitate to have you admitted…”Dad sounds threatening and I believe him.

  “Wait, what?!” My heart pounds and I feel sick. “Admitted?” I repeat the word back to him to make sure I heard him right. Oh Jesus he means it. He would have me committed just like my cousin Chris said he should…

  “We don’t WANT to do that. Of course we don’t,” Mom says. “But we won’t let this thing take you from us. We’ll do what we need to do. I’ll call Dr. Cooper now. I’ll see what he has to say about the Xanax. If it’s really not working then we’ll have to try something else.”

  We end up talking to Dr. Cooper together on speaker phone. They make me confess everything, the panic attacks no one knew about, the growing despondency and how I just really hate myself right now.

  “Everything was fine when we first moved here,” Mom says. “The change began around November. School was fine, Noah was making friends, getting good grades and then we saw him starting to slip. I, we, just don’t understand.”

  “Noah? Has there been anything significant that may have brought on this anxiety that you had been controlling prior to November?” asks the doctor.

  “I mean, my friend was in the hospital and I panicked about that but he’s fine now,” I say.

  “It was before that though,” Dad chimes in. “You spent Halloween weekend in bed. We could tell things were different in November even before Max got hurt.”

  “There’s nothing,” I said. “I mean, it just happens, you know that.”

  “I want you to keep thinking about this,” Dr. Cooper says. “If you can think of anything even if you don’t think it’s significant I want you to let me know. We’ll talk about it. We’ll try to figure it out. I’m here to help you, Noah.”

  After a half hour on the phone he tells them he’ll call in a new prescription. I go back to bed. I stay there until Mom comes back from the pharmacy. I’ve traded up it seems. I’ve gone from Xanax to Paxil.

  There’s a nice long list of possible side effects that the doctor warned my parents about when he decided to try this medication. Some of the side effects are the same as the symptoms I already have. I don’t have any idea what the point is. I’m supposed to immediately tell them if my depression worsens or if I have thoughts of suicide. Like, who would admit to that anyway? I’m actually a little afraid of this medication and I tell them so. We call Dr. Cooper again.

  “If this stuff is going to make me want to kill myself why am I taking it?” I get right to the point.

  “It’s not going to make you want to kill yourself,” Dr. Cooper reassures us. “It’s going to help with your anxiety and depression. In some cases in teenagers these drugs can exacerbate feelings of hopelessness, depression and suicidal thoughts. It’s not going to happen but it’s something you need to be aware of so you know what to look for. If I didn’t think you needed this I wouldn’t prescribe it but you need it, Noah. The bene
fits outweigh the risks.”

  After another long phone conversation on speaker phone my parents seem mollified. I’m not convinced. I fail to see how a drug that could possibly make me depressed and give me suicidal thoughts is going to help me. I’m a little frightened to be honest.

  I go back to bed but I don’t really sleep. I just stare at my wall and wait for the drug to do something. The doctor said it could take a couple of weeks before I see any benefits. It seems the only good thing about this drug is that I only have to take two doses a day, one in the morning and one at night. I don’t have to sneak off to the nurse’s office for drugs at school.

  My door is closed and I hear a soft knock before my mom opens it. I look at the time and see that it’s after four. I spent an entire afternoon staring at this wall in my bedroom.

  “Sweetie, Max brought your homework for you,” Mom says from the hallway.

  “Come in,” I say. The door opens but I don’t roll over to see them.

  “Dinner in an hour,” Mom says. “Would you like to stay for dinner Max? Oliver made meatballs and homemade sauce.”

  “Yeah, sure, I’d like that,” Max says. Mom leaves us alone and Max closes the door. He puts my books on my desk. I feel his weight as he climbs onto the bed next to me. He pulls up my shirt and runs his hands over my back then he gently rolls me over and does the same thing to my front. It’s not until he’s done and I roll back onto my side that I realize what he was doing. He was looking for bruises. He’s still halfway convinced that all of my troubles stem from abuse. He lies behind me and pulls me close, spooning me like we lay when I stay overnight. I tense up and he notices.

  “It’s okay. I locked the door when I closed it,” he says. “Relax.”

  “You shouldn’t have locked it. They don’t like when I lock it,” I say quietly in a bit of a monotone.

  “I’ll take the blame if anyone says anything. Are you okay?” He brushes my hair back and tucks it behind my ear before kissing me lightly on the cheek.

  “I will be. I had a rough night last night,” I tell him. I relax and sink into him. “You’re staying for dinner? I thought dinner was a big deal at your house?”

  “You’re a bigger deal, honey.” The name makes me smile. He calls me mon Coeur (my heart) a lot and he still uses No as a pet name but this new term of endearment sounds nice. I’ve never called him by any kind of pet name. Nothing seems expressive enough to encompass how I feel about him.

  We don’t talk. He holds me and runs his fingers lightly up and down my arm, strokes my hair and plants light kisses on my cheek and ear and neck but we don’t speak. I wish I could freeze this moment in time and live here forever. Eventually there’s a light knock on the door and Mom tells us it’s time for dinner.

  “I’m not hungry,” I say. She doesn’t try the door but she doesn’t excuse me from dinner either.

  “You’ve barely eaten today, Noah. Be at the table in five minutes.” I hear her footsteps retreating down the hall. I roll out of bed begrudgingly. I stretch and yawn. Max rolls off the bed and puts his hands on my waist.

  “She’s right, you know. You need to eat. I can practically put my hands around you,” he demonstrates this by putting his hands on either side of my waist and pinching to show me just how thin I am.

  “I thought I was reed thin or some such nonsense. Or what was that other term? Willowy? Delicate?” I laugh and it’s the first real laugh that’s come out of me in a while.

  “You were reed thin. You’re starting to be scary thin. You’re still beautiful but now you look like you could break.” He pulls me into his arms and hugs me tightly as if he actually wants to break me.

  “You won’t let me break,” I tell him and I feel very confident about that. He kisses me for the first time since the other day in the library and God I’ve missed his lips. I’ve missed his mouth on mine, the way he gives little pecking kisses, the way his tongue always searches my lips asking to be let inside instead of forcing. I feel butterflies for the first time in ages and I sigh into his mouth.

  “We better go before your mom comes looking for us,” he whispers and his voice is rough. I steal one more kiss before we unlock the door and leave my room.

  At dinner I do my best to eat. I’m quiet while Max and my parents talk. My parents really like Max and they think he’s intelligent and he can charm them. I wish I could tell them what he means to me. I’m pretty sure if I did though they’d probably chase him from the house and never allow us to speak again.

  “I was wondering, and I haven’t asked Noah yet but I guess I should ask your permission first anyway,” Max starts when there’s a lull in conversation, “My family is going out of town this weekend and I’ll be staying home. I was just wondering if it would be okay for Noah to spend the weekend with me. It gets kind of lonely knocking around that house by myself when they go out of town.”

  Mom and Dad look at each other. I know what they’re thinking. They’re going to say no because of what happened last night.

  “Well if you think you’ll get lonely why don’t you just stay with us for the weekend? You’re always welcome here, Max,” Mom says. Now that I know about this I really want to stay with Max, alone. I remember New Year’s Eve and I smile.

  “I really do appreciate the invite but my dad really likes when I can stay home and keep an eye on things. I don’t think he completely trusts the alarm company,” Max laughs. “I’ll be doing some recording on Saturday while the house is empty and I kind of wanted to show Noah how all of that works.”

  “We’ll think about it,” Dad says and Max has the good sense to leave it at that. He taps my foot under the table and I tap back and smile.

  “Is that a smile on your face, Noah?” Mom says in amazement. It’s been a while since she’s seen an honest smile from me.

  “The spaghetti is really good,” is my response. Max and I clean up after dinner and we do our chemistry homework together at the kitchen table. We have another big project coming up and since I missed today Max has to get me up to speed. When we’re finally done it’s after eight and I’m getting sleepy again. Maybe Paxil makes me sleepy or maybe I’m getting caught up on all of that missed slumber.

  I walk Max to the door. My dad has retired to his office. He has a meeting in New York in like two weeks and he’s in crunch mode over the book. I can’t be helping him with that. Mom is in the kitchen going over lesson plans. I risk a quick kiss.

  “Will you be in school tomorrow?” Max asks. I nod.

  “I’ll work on my parents about this weekend,” I tell him. He smiles.

  “Meet me in the library in the morning. I’ll go in early.” He gives me another quick kiss then really looks me over. “You’re really okay?” he asks.

  “I’m really okay,” I say because right in that moment I am totally okay.

  “Love you, No,” he says and then he slips out into the night.

  I start working on my parents that night before I go to bed. I tell them I’ll be fine at Max’s house. I’ve slept there plenty of times in the past. The new drug is going to work and I won’t have any panic attacks. I assure them that Max is totally anti-drug and anti-drink and there’s no way he would have a party while his parents are out of town.

  “I think I want to tell him,” I finally say. I don’t know if it’s a lie to get them to say yes or if I really mean it. It just kinda came out. “I want to tell Max the truth about why I’ve missed school and what I’m like and…I don’t know. He’s my best friend and I think…I KNOW I can trust him and Dr. Cooper wants me to tell people and I just want to tell Max all of it. I don’t think I can do that if I know you guys are in the next room. I think…can I just spend the weekend there so I can do this?”

  My parents share a look. It’s a private, unspoken conversation. I wait growing more and more anxious. Am I really going to tell Max? Right in this moment I think I am. I imagine the relief I’ll feel when I don’t have to worry about having an attack in front of him. I think Dr
. Cooper may just be right in his theory that my fear of having an attack often causes my anxiety.

  “We’ll let you know tomorrow. We have to think about this some more,” Dad says. I know not to push them. At this point they’ll talk and make their decision and there’s nothing I can do to change that. I go to bed feeling hopeful for the first time in weeks.

  I meet Max in the library early as promised. We go to the very back corner where the stacks hide us. If the librarian or anyone else would come back here we’d hear them before they could see us. At least I hope so. When Max kisses me like that I lose track of the world around me. He nuzzles that spot where my shoulder and neck connect and I squirm and rub against him.

  “You like that don’t you?” he whispers against that very spot.

  “Yeah, it’s my sweet spot,” I pant as he licks and bites and kisses me in that spot. “Where is yours? You have one don’t you?” I ask and he continues to kiss my neck then my ear and my ears are almost as good as my sweet spot.

  “I have one. Everyone has one. I’ll let you know when you find it,” he says it like it’s a challenge.

  “Oh I’ll find it,” I promise.

  “What happened to my shy, stuttering Noah?” Max asks incredulously.

  “He’s still here. You’ll probably see him at lunch later,” I say as I kiss his neck, his ears, his throat and anything else I can reach. Where is it?

  The warning bell for homeroom sounds and we fix each other’s hair and Max rights the collar of my shirt. It’s so obvious we’ve been making out and we both laugh quietly. When we agree that we’re presentable we leave the library separately.

  The day flies by and I haven’t felt this good in a while. I got more than eight hours of uninterrupted sleep last night. I managed a whole bowl of soup and half a sandwich at lunch without feeling like I was going to puke as soon as I’d eaten. I’m feeling hopeful about talking to Max this weekend. I’m thinking Saturday after he’s done recording is when I’ll do it. Dr. Cooper said it may take a few weeks for the Paxil to have any effect on me but after only three doses I swear I feel better.