When the Truth Unravels

by RuthAnne Snow

  I glanced over at my friends. The three of them were staring at me, their eyes locked on my face. “So he called my parents after. To apologize, I think, for not saying something earlier. That’s why I’m not allowed to go to your house unless your mom is there.”

  “What? Why?” Rosie asked, her eyebrows knit together in puzzlement.

  I shrugged, my cheeks flushed in the cold air. “My mom and dad keep saying the best thing will be to just move on, think positively, but what they mean is to pretend it didn’t happen. When Will called, they unleashed all their anger about everything on him. I heard my dad on the phone. ‘What kind of grown man is so interested in teenage girls.’”

  Rosie’s eyes widened and Ket sucked in a breath. “Will never said anything,” Rosie said softly.

  “They don’t talk to my parents, either,” Jenna said suddenly, her arms wrapped around her knees, eyes wide. “But my parents aren’t being any better about it. They’re so pissed.”

  “At my parents?” I asked, my eyebrows raised.

  “Yeah,” Jenna said. “I mean, at first I think they wanted to help, but when your parents got mad, they got mad back. They think … you know, that your parents should have known that you were upset. Why you were upset.”

  I shook my head. “It’s not their fault,” I whispered.

  The four of us sat in silence for a long moment. “What happened?” Ket asked finally.

  “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” Rosie said quickly.

  “No.” Jenna stared at me, her jaw set. Ket and Rosie looked at her, but she stared at me. “You really do have to talk about it, E,” she said.

  I glanced down. “It’s kind of a long story,” I said finally.

  “We’ve got all night,” said Ket softly.

  48

  Elin Angstrom

  April 19, 2:20 AM

  When I woke up in the hospital, after, my mother was holding my hand. She was gripping it so tightly that, for a long moment, I didn’t even notice I was strapped to my bed.

  My dad was behind her, asleep on the stiff, small couch, his feet wedged into a corner, his bent knees hanging off the edge, his head laying on an armrest at an awkward angle. I wondered how he could be sleeping. I didn’t even feel bad for him; I was just puzzled because it looked so terrible.

  I found out later it was because the nurse had given him a tranquilizer.

  My mother studied my face. Usually when my mother looked at me—when anyone looked right at me, really—I glanced away. I don’t know what I thought they would see written in my expression, lurking in the depths of my eyes, but this time I held still. My mother’s eyes, red-rimmed and shining, darted from my eyebrow to my chin to my nose to my ear. Memorizing me.

  I didn’t know what else to say, so she was the first person I told the truth. My voice felt thick and raw from disuse, but I got the words out. “I wake up sad.”

  My mom burst into silent tears, her hand clapping over her mouth, her shoulders shaking as the sobs ripped through her body. I stared at her, knowing I should feel sad or guilty, but feeling nothing.

  I didn’t know if she believed me, or understood what I meant, but in that moment, I felt like she had heard me and would try to understand.

  I lie to myself a lot.

  I lie to my friends more.

  Around me, their faces lit by the cold blue-white light of the lantern, the three of them stared at me. Waiting. Their perfect hairstyles undone, their dresses looking wilted, like they’d spent their night surviving a natural disaster and not a dance.

  But still beautiful. My beautiful friends.

  I cleared my throat, swallowing against the dryness in my mouth. My doctor says that you have to admit the truth to move forward. So …

  “I have depression. I have … for a long time, I guess.”

  Since elementary school.

  It got bad this year.

  “I didn’t realize it. The thing about depression is that it creeps in so slowly, you don’t even realize that all you ever are is … sad.”

  Sad is the wrong word, but I don’t have another. I was sad, then sadder, and then something deeper than sad, so dark and thick the word sad doesn’t begin to cover it. Anxious, tired, lonely, hopeless—none of them are quite right. I was so sad that I couldn’t feel anything else—and then, eventually, I didn’t even feel that anymore.

  I felt nothing.

  And one day, I realized I thought more about dying than I thought about my future.

  “But … you didn’t seem depressed,” Ket said.

  She, Rosie, and Jenna were staring at me, all wearing similar expressions.

  Puzzled.

  Disbelieving.

  They were just like my family. Their memories of me—joking around, cheerful, happy, always so damn happy—did not match with what I was telling them was the reality.

  I shrugged helplessly, wishing there was an easier way to explain this.

  That there was someone else who could explain it for me.

  “I put on a good front,” I said finally. “I’d gotten so good at pretending everything was fine, it was second nature. To act happy, even when I wasn’t. Usually, even when I was at my worst, I didn’t even have to think about the fact that I was faking.”

  I stared down at the folds of white fabric. The silver beading sparkled dimly, the stars on a misty night. I couldn’t look up at my friends, watch their expressions slowly change as they realized I was telling the truth. As they mentally catalogued every giggle, every inside joke, every conversation, sleepover, study session, and party.

  Trying to figure out what was real.

  What was fake.

  Not that I could even begin to figure it out myself.

  I couldn’t imagine they would want to be friends with me after this, but they deserved to know what had been going on.

  I cleared my throat, anything to break the silence. “My therapist says it’s called ‘smiling depression.’ People with it seem fine. But one of the big symptoms is, like, anxiety about other people finding out, so they—I mean, I guess, I—work really hard to cover it up. And then the anxiety about people knowing can feed the depression, and … things can … spiral. Things were fine junior year, but I guess that was just the calm before the storm. This year … it just got harder and harder. I wanted to sleep all the time, but I couldn’t sleep. I’d stay up all night watching TV. I didn’t ever want to have sex, but I couldn’t tell Ben that.”

  I heard a choked gasp and glanced up involuntarily. Rosie was staring at me, her eyes wide, and I knew that Rosie had reached the conclusion that I dreaded her reaching.

  Be honest.

  That I wanted her to reach.

  Because it made it easier on me.

  My stomach churned, but I knew I couldn’t stop now. “That’s another thing my therapist told me. Depression … it messes with your sex drive. I just thought I was crazy, liking tons of sex and then suddenly hating it for no reason. But I never told Ben how I was feeling, because I didn’t want him to think something was wrong with me.”

  I glanced away from Rosie’s frozen expression. I forced a smile, a self-deprecating giggle, twirling a piece of hair around my finger.

  Old habits die hard.

  Like me, I guess.

  Ha.

  “It’s so weird, when you think about it,” I said, making my voice lighter. Familiar. Less real, but more comfortable. “I thought I was crazy because I didn’t like having sex with my boyfriend … but I didn’t realize I was crazy when I couldn’t ever get out of bed. It was like I lived in a fog. I thought the fog was normal, so when it got thicker I didn’t … I didn’t even realize what was happening. All I knew was that it was getting harder and harder to act happy when all I felt was this overwhelming, crushing sadness.”

  I trailed off.

  The last piece was always the hardest to explain.

  I guess that’s why it’s last.

  I stared at my nails. Shel
l-pink, a perfect gel manicure. My mother took me two days ago, an appointment my dad set up for us last week. He calls me every day at lunchtime now, texts me constantly. He never asks me how I feel, but it’s obvious he’s checking to make sure I haven’t run into oncoming traffic or something. So I tell him about my classes and he tells me about work, and we make plans to go see movies … in a few days.

  I don’t have the heart to tell my dad that if I wanted to try to kill myself again, it wouldn’t be the idea of seeing a romantic comedy with him next weekend or a spa day with my mom that would keep me from doing it.

  He is comforted, knowing that he is doing his best to keep me safe.

  It would be wrong to tell him that his best is … not pointless, exactly.

  Beside the point.

  There is nothing my parents or friends or boyfriend could have done.

  Because there is no reason.

  It’s worse, somehow, when you have to admit that you tried to kill yourself because you were sad. There was no triggering event—no big trauma.

  Embarrassing.

  I didn’t have a pregnancy scare or a sketchy abortion, my boyfriend didn’t hit me, no one date-raped me, nobody died. My grades were terrible, but I didn’t care. Whenever I tried to sit down and complete an assignment, I just got so anxious that I had to give up. I quit track, thinking that with more free time I would feel better, but the hopelessness just got worse.

  Some people can point to something and say, “Look, that’s where it was. The moment that sent my life off the rails. If that hadn’t happened, I definitely wouldn’t have done what I did.”

  But all I can say is that my brain chemistry makes me this way. I’d been in the fog before, but it always lifted after a while. But this year, it just felt like it would never lift. I couldn’t pretend it wasn’t there. I couldn’t smile my way out of it. And I … I couldn’t stand it anymore.

  “I’m sorry I let you guys think there was a reason,” I choked out finally. “There … there isn’t a reason.”

  But if I had told Rosie that it wasn’t Ben’s fault, if I had told Ket that it wasn’t a whim, that I planned it for weeks and held on to my plan like it was a dream, the dream I traded college and Ben and prom and everything for … I’d have had to admit that there was no reason.

  Just my brain. Being legit crazy.

  And to say anything to Jenna …

  There is nothing I can say to Jenna.

  I stopped. Jenna’s lip was trembling.

  Rosie and Ket stared at her. “What’s going on?” Rosie said, glancing back and forth between the two of us.

  Jenna stared at me. For one moment, it’s like I remember every version of her I have ever known.

  Five-year-old Jenna at swim lessons, telling the instructor that she didn’t need the float board.

  Struggling not to cry after she fell roller skating and split her lip at my ninth birthday party, my mom holding a carton of melting ice cream to her face.

  First-day-of-middle-school Jenna standing next to me in the cafeteria, clutching her tray and pretending she wasn’t scared. Spying a pretty Indian girl with thick bangs, a short boy with curly dark hair, and a girl with glasses too large for her face and saying, “Let’s sit over there.”

  Eighth-grade Jenna, the only one of us who stepped forward to hug a screaming, raging Teddy after his mother checked herself out of rehab early without saying goodbye.

  Sixteen-year-old Jenna, coming over to my house to tell me everything about her first date with Miles. Swooning as she fell backward onto my bed.

  Beginning of senior year Jenna, giggling helplessly as she struggled and failed to shut her locker door with her backpack, gym bag, and tennis racket inside.

  End of senior year Jenna, avoiding looking me in the eye.

  I pretended that I didn’t know why Jenna doesn’t come over to my house anymore, but that was just me lying to myself again. I knew why, but I was too big of a coward to say, I am so, so sorry you were the one who found me. I am so sorry you were the one who had to save me.

  Except that sounds wrong, too, since if Jenna hadn’t saved me, no one would have. And I guess I am glad that someone did. Really, I’m just sorry I was such a bitch afterward.

  “Why didn’t you tell them?” I ask her finally.

  Jenna shrugs. “I don’t know. I didn’t want to think about it. They just … assumed.”

  “What?” Ket demanded, her voice rising.

  “Jenna saved me.” I smiled faintly. A real one.

  2:40 AM

  I explained everything that happened that night.

  For a moment, none of them said anything. Jenna fiddled with a torn piece of tulle on her skirt and Rosie’s mouth hung open, her forehead wrinkled with concern. Ket’s arms wrapped around herself, like she didn’t want to hear any more, as she glanced back and forth between me and Jenna.

  I glanced down at the bracelet encircling my wrist. “I never … thanked you, Jen,” I said finally.

  “I don’t want to be thanked,” Jenna whispered, her voice rough. “You’re my best friend.”

  “Best friends can save each other and be grateful, too,” Rosie pointed out. “You’re like Han Solo and Chewie.”

  Jenna sniffled, wiping tears off her cheeks. “That’s actually just kind of a racist trope.”

  Ket smiled, that half smile of hers that managed to dazzle brighter than most people’s full smiles. “That’s our Jenna.”

  Jenna cracked a smile of her own. “Damn straight.”

  I couldn’t help it—I laughed.

  That was real, too.

  And just then, I remembered something Dr. S had told me. Something I hadn’t really understood at the time.

  I lie to myself a lot.

  But there’s a funny fact about lies.

  Last week, as I waited at the curb for my mother, Dr. S took a seat on the bench next to me. Eloise-Katherine-Whatever Her Name Was That Week had already left, and he sat right in the spot she usually occupied. I tensed involuntarily, wondering what he was doing.

  This isn’t working for you.

  He’s going to send you back to the hospital.

  “Do you know why she picks a different name every session?” Dr. S asked suddenly.

  We were both staring straight ahead, people walking by on the sidewalk, but there was no doubt that he was talking to me. Not asking me why—asking me if I knew why.

  Which meant he knew.

  And I desperately wanted to know.

  But I couldn’t open my mouth.

  “It’s a reminder,” he went on, as if I had answered. “Something she started doing after I told her what I am about to tell you. I think it’s working for her. Either that, or she really likes jerking the other girls around.”

  I smiled faintly.

  “I know it can be hard to admit the truth about yourself sometimes,” Dr. S continued softly. “But Elin, no matter how hard things get, I need you to remember one thing.”

  The pause stretched out for an eternity, and I knew this time he wouldn’t say any more unless I spoke. I swallowed. “What?”

  Dr. S exhaled softly, and I realized he’d been holding his breath. “That no one, not even you, will ever lie about you like your depression will.”

  Neither of us said anything after that, and my mother pulled up a few moments later. She nodded curtly at Dr. S, and he smiled as if she’d been friendly, and I opened the passenger door and got in.

  And as she pulled away from the curb, I thought, That’s it?

  That’s the big secret?

  That my depression lies to me?

  But suddenly, like a clap of thunder in a silent night, I got it. Got it down to my bones.

  My friends looked for me all night. They ditched dates and broke into buildings, made deals with douchebags, missed the last dance of high school, and realized it was all for a crazy girl who was camping out in her treehouse.

  And they’re still here.

  I can tell my
friends anything.

  They will love me anyway.

  “The first week on anti-depressants, I didn’t notice anything particularly different, but my therapist said I needed to give it time,” I said, my voice steady and soft. “My parents checked me out of the hospital. About a week after I came home, the pills started to do the trick. My emotions came back, bit by bit, though some of them were mixed up. Amused and lonely and hungry and disappointed, all put in a blender and coming out at the wrong moments. My doctor promised me they would stabilize soon. And then … I came back to school.”

  I went to bed at night, and I could sleep. Strange, vivid dreams like I’d never had before. Supposedly that was normal. I could focus in class. I could sleep at night.

  The fog was gone. Gone so completely I was almost scared that I’d imagined it before.

  “The hard thing is, now that my emotions are mostly back to normal, I am sort of … confused.”

  Why had I wanted to do what I’d done? I remembered the feeling—all I had to do was think about it and I remembered, muted but there, rushing back over me like a wave. The crushing blackness, the overwhelming anxiety. The numbness. The need to escape.

  But on the pills, I couldn’t understand the reason.

  I was just sad?

  That was all?

  That made no sense.

  And if I couldn’t understand why I did what I did, how could I expect anyone else to?

  “You can’t tell anyone this next part,” I said suddenly.

  Rosie took my hand. I blinked, surprised it was Rosie, not Ket, who voluntarily reached out to squeeze my fingers between her own. “We won’t,” she promised. I squeezed her hand back.

  “I’ve only made one friend in therapy. Fisher. She’s the only one who gets it. The not-getting-it part. But I wouldn’t even be friends with her if it weren’t for group therapy, and we just don’t talk about that stuff outside of the group. We kind of just … pretend we were always friends.”

  Fisher got it, but Fisher’s problem was still different than mine. Fisher’s brain kept reliving a bad episode of her life, no matter how hard she tried to focus on other things. She was on medicine for an anxiety disorder, and she was supposed to work on her therapy goals every week, but I understood enough of Dr. S’s psychiatry talk to understand that Fisher would one day move past what had happened to her.