As such, it is my pleasure to announce that the student body treasurer-elect, Justin Mitchell, will be the new Westing High student body president.
Please join me in congratulating Justin, and feel free to e-mail any questions or concerns you may have concerning this matter.
Sincerely,
Mark M. Maynard
Folder:
Drafts
To:
[email protected]
From:
[email protected]
Date:
March 29
Subject:
The opposite
Dear Rachel Maddow,
If there is joy in the suffering of others, is there suffering in the joy of others? There must be. And there must be a German word for it.
Man, did the shit ever hit the fan after the election. I don’t know what happened to Sarah. But even though Adam is in a ball sack load of trouble, he is still coming out ahead. He is transferring to a fancy boarding school near the city. Apparently his dad has connections.
This didn’t bother me. Much. You know I would lose my mind without the blue room to keep me sane, so I wasn’t going anywhere near Adam’s new digs. Justin would be in charge next year, too, and I had high hopes that he would undo Adam’s legacy of suck. I was one weekend away from the legal freedom to sell underwear and live in a tent next to Erin and Leigh’s trailer if I had to. It was all good. I had done my part to try to keep Adam from taking his first step toward running the world. The sisterhood may not have prevailed, but the failure wasn’t as epic as I first thought.
I still didn’t know who sent those e-mails about him. Mr. Maynard said he was still looking into it. And Sarah was disqualified from her office for some reason. Rumor had it that she was with Adam and the other kids who set the War Memorial on fire, but I doubted that. I couldn’t ask her. Hopefully Justin and the intrepid staff of the Westing High Gazette could break that story.
I basked in this schadenfreude so much it kept me from paying attention as I was crossing the street in front of the school. A shiny blue hybrid nearly mowed me down.
“Whoa, watch it, asshole,” I said, reeling back on my tiptoes before I stepped off the curb.
“I’d be careful if I were you,” said Adam from the driver’s seat.
“Oh, you. It’s always you. Why can’t you just drive into a ditch?” I stepped away from him. “Or better yet, get expelled or flunk at your new school, or go to jail or something.”
Adam laughed. “No, I’ll leave that to you, thanks.”
“Do the world a favor and explode. Thanks.”
“Oh, Brynn, I’ll miss our witty repartee, really. Maybe one day we’ll meet again.”
“Only if Space hell is real,” I muttered.
“What?”
“Nothing. Don’t you have to go ruin someone else’s day? Leave me alone.”
“I don’t ruin things. I just take care of what I need to. I’m still going to go to Princeton. Will actually be better prepared, since I’ll be going to the sweet boarding school my mom’s brothers went to. This whole thing finally made the old pops cough up the dough to send me. I’m going to be just fine. You’ll still be in trouble for sending that shit out about me, even if I don’t really think you were smart enough to do it. I think you were played, too, and you don’t even know. That’s actually the best part of this.” He laughed. A real, genuine, “I think this is funny” laugh. At my life.
With that, he put his car in gear and drove off. A bit of oily water splashed on my jeans.
I thought about that while on the walk home. While I sat next to my bed, staring at the wall. While eating the burned steak Mom threw in front of me. While staring at the ceiling from Nick’s sleeping bag as I failed to sleep. Adam was right. Maybe someone else had “won” this time, but that didn’t mean Adam had lost. He still had everything now, and everything in front of him. The crushing weight of inevitable reality forced itself onto my rib cage. My lungs tried to rise but couldn’t. All I could try to choke in was failure and disappointment and chances lost.
So often politics and power trump compassion and reason, right? Even you can’t deny that. Why can’t Congress pass anything? Why do even the most horrible candidates rise to the top of the heap in real-world elections?
Because the Adam Graffs of the world win in the end.
The Brynns … not so much.
So what’s the point of trying? Honestly, what?
Sincerely,
Brynn
Folder:
Drafts
To:
[email protected]
From:
[email protected]
Date:
April 1
Subject:
April Fools’
Dear Rachel Maddow,
Happy birthday.
Sincerely,
Brynn
Folder:
Sent
To:
CONTACTS
From:
[email protected]
Date:
April 2
Subject:
Finished
Dear Rachel Maddow,
Yesterday I left. I had nothing to pack, nothing but the clothes on my back, and my backpack with my laptop, really. I had brought it home because I didn’t intend to go back to school. Mom and Fart Weasel didn’t even look up when I came into the room. If Mom remembered it was my birthday, she didn’t let on. I went over to Leigh and Erin’s. I still had a key to their place. I let myself in and no one was home. I went to the room I stayed in and noticed that it seemed distinctly occupied by someone else. The bed was messy, and there were clothes strewn around the floor. The stuff that I had left there was neatly packed away in two boxes in the closet labeled “Brynn.” My heart sank. I couldn’t expect them to wait for me. I couldn’t expect anything, from anyone. I hadn’t done anyone any favors in this life. Space God had moved on, hopefully to the hopes and dreams of starving children or something. A couple of bras on the floor caught my eye. Deep plum. Oh, Aerie. I actually kind of missed it there. Erin must be running some sort of halfway house for wayward stock people. I sat down on the bed. I ran my fingers on the soft quilt. I lay down, tired. So tired. Of life and guys like Adam and of being too much and not enough all at once. Just like Nick.
I stayed there for what felt like hours. I slept part of the time. Once, I got up to go to the bathroom and steal food from the refrigerator. Eventually it got dark. Maybe they were off to Europe together. They joined a circus troupe or started a band. Or maybe everyone was just at work. I didn’t know. I looked out the window into the dim street. Out there were more Adam Graffs and more Nick Harpers. The Graffs were lucky. They had cars and houses and careers and nice things. And power. All the power.
The Nicks wanted to be that other guy, but they were stuck in dead-end jobs and punches for marriages and shit. I was a Nick. I always would be.
I realized something then. If I was a Nick, I should really be a Nick. His supplier probably still squats at this abandoned warehouse down by the Monongahela.
So, that’s where I’m going. Nick always repeated something about living in a van down by the river. I could try that. Maybe,
Maybe.
Maybe?
if only …
why not?
because.
Rachel, I want to thank you. I appreciate you keeping me company and telling me about the world all these years.
It occurs to me now that I’m back here, I could watch your show. They have fucking satellite now, and their DVR shit has been recording you. It looks like they’ve forgotten to get rid of them for weeks. Maybe I will watch. Once more, for old times’ sake.
I look at all of these e-mails I’ve written to you. There are probably at least a hundred pages of them here. For what? Nothing useful. Nothing good. Just words alone with no one to read them. I’ll finish this last letter and then delete it with the rest of them. They are easy enough to get rid of.
Like a person. Like a life. Like Nick and me and everybody like us. A few stupid moves, and we all go away.
But not Adam. No.
Eventually he will win.
Love,
Brynn
Folder:
Inbox
To:
[email protected]
From:
[email protected]
Date:
April 2
Subject:
RE: Finished
Dear Brynn,
I am not sure what you sent me. I thought it was your school assignment from way back in the fall, but it looks like your journal?
I’m sorry I read some. I didn’t understand what was going on. I scrolled to the end when I figured out what you had done. Did you mean to send this? Write me back, please. I had no idea how you were feeling. Let me know if you are okay or if there’s anything I can do. Please don’t do anything to hurt yourself, Brynn. A lot of people would miss you.
Love,
Lacey
Folder:
Inbox
To:
[email protected]
From:
[email protected]
Date:
April 2
Subject:
RE: Finished
Dear Brynn,
Where are you right now? I don’t know if you meant to send this to me or not, but I am actively worried about you. Please get back to me as soon as possible. Call my cell: 570-555-0198.
Thanks,
Evan Grimm
Folder:
Spam
To:
[email protected]
From:
[email protected]
Date:
April 2
Subject:
(no subject)
Brynn?!
Jesus Christ, are you still at home? Or somewhere else? Is your phone still off?
I can’t leave Gram alone. Let me see if my uncle can get off work early.
Please just be okay.
Folder:
Sent
To:
[email protected]
From:
[email protected]
Date:
April 4
Subject:
Please disregard
!This message was sent with high importance!
Dear Rachel Maddow,
You may have received numerous e-mails from me recently. They were an extension of a school project I never meant to send. Please disregard them. I’m sorry I basically spammed you with my life story.
Sincerely,
Brynn Harper
Folder:
Drafts
To:
[email protected]
From:
[email protected]
Date:
April 7
Subject:
Inpatient
Dear Rachel Maddow,
I have learned several valuable life lessons over the past few days. I think the most important one was that you should keep a journal offline, not in your e-mail drafts folder. Because if you choose to put every thought in your head in an e-mail, and then save that e-mail to a folder, and then try to delete that folder, it is possible to accidentally send the entire thing to everyone you know. You will then have to live knowing that you did that.
Whoops.
I also learned that, upon finding several six-packs in a friend’s refrigerator, a girl should not down it all out of self-loathing and despair. Actually, no one should ever drink that much for any reason, as even doing it out of sheer joy can lead to potential alcohol poisoning.
After I thought I deleted all my stupid e-mails (something I failed to do even stone-cold sober), I tuned in to you. But being alone with only my own head, even with you there, drove me bonkers. That’s when I went fishing in the fridge. I’ve never been a big drinker, and frankly Leigh apparently favors beer fermented with cigarette smoke chased by ass. But I drank it all anyway. I quit tasting anything after three or four beers.
You prefer fancy mixed cocktails. Are they better? Because holy fucks that beer was awful.
Anyway, I didn’t know my stomach could fit that much liquid, but after a few, I was thirstier and thirstier to escape my own head, so I just kept downing them. Your voice softened, the lights softened, the pounding in my chest slowed to near oblivion. It wasn’t that I wanted to die. Just wanted to feel something other than loss for a change.
Erin beat the police I guess Michaela called by a few minutes, I’m told. Like four ambulances showed up for Brynnie “Never a Dull Moment” Harper. I earned myself an ambulance to the ER for nearly choking on my own puke.
The next thing I remember was gagging on a tube in my throat. That’s what they do now; that whole “getting your stomach pumped,” isn’t technically true anymore. Mom was there. I wasn’t dead. Thanks, Space God.
The moment my eyes cleared, the first thing I saw was Mom’s look of sad disgust that before this point had been reserved especially for Nick. But now I was the new Nick.
“You forgot my birthday,” I croaked after they removed my tube.
“That’s why you did this?” she asked.
“No,” I said.
“Then why?”
I didn’t have an easy answer for that. “Because life sucks,” I said.
A nurse who had just walked into my pod overheard that. She turned and walked right back out. Mom shook her head. Her scrubs were the same pale pink as her skin.
“Am I at your hospital?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“They didn’t bring me here on purpose,” I said, meaning Erin and probably Leigh. Mom turned and looked at the wall. I noticed a blurry person-shape in the direction of her gaze.
“I know.”
“Is that why he isn’t here?” We both knew who I meant. The person-shaped smudge over by the wall neither reeked nor yelled, so I knew it couldn’t be that Guy Mom Chose Over Me. The smudge had more of an Erin-like form.
“I didn’t tell him you were here. I just said I was called in to cover someone’s shift.”
“Are you going to tell him?”
“You are still on my insurance. And this is my hospital. So I’ll straighten out the bill without him. Shouldn’t be too bad.” She sounded almost proud about that.
“Okay.”
“But then we’re done.” Her game face shifted back into place. “You’re on your own now, Brynn.”
She seemed to think this was new information to me.
“Yeah.”
Mom got up and left. The blurred shape moved to me. Before Erin could speak, the nurse from before came back with two doctors.
“Sweetheart, we’re here to ask some questions,” she said.
“Do you know how much you drank?”
“Your blood work came back okay, but did you take anything? Did you plan to take anything?”
“Do you have any further plans to harm yourself?”
“How…”
“Why…”
“When…”
“How much…”
“Will you…”
Truth be told, Rachel, I don’t know if this is how it went down. I don’t remember much. Overwashed sheets scratched my legs. My feet couldn’t get warm, even when Erin sat on them. My throat hurt, my eyes burned, Mom gave up for good. White coats purred sympathetically with invasive questions. I reconstruct it now for your sake.
That’s not the truth, either. Technically I’m reconstructing it for the shrink. Erin brought my laptop so I can “journal my feelings.” I tried to journal but found it impossible to write a word if it wasn’t to you.
“That’s weird,” said Erin as she watched me talk to my computer on day two of my inpatient stay in the unlocked psych unit.
“Which part?”
“That you can’t talk about your feelings unless you are pouring them out to Rachel Maddow.”
“You don’t know her. She’s ver
y easy to talk to.”
“You have never met her,” Erin said.
“I have spent hundreds of hours with her. I’ve seen her talk to other people. How different is it really?” I yawned and shifted in the spectacularly uncomfortable bed. Erin sighed.
“You scared the shit out of us,” she said.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”
“I know,” she said. “I’m the one who should be sorry.”
“What?” I asked.
“I thought maybe you needed some space to figure things out after you had to quit Aerie. But when you never texted or anything after that, I realized I shouldn’t have left you alone. I should have come to the school or shoved a carrier pigeon down your shirt or learned skywriting or some survivalist shit. I knew it. Leigh knew it.”
“I was a hostage. You would have lost. You can’t negotiate with terrorists.”
“I guess.” Erin studied the cracks in the wooden table.
“You saved the Rachels for me.”
“Leigh did that. We both tried watching, but Leigh got bored after she talked for like twenty minutes straight about primacy.”
Dear Rachel Maddow Page 20