The bench on the steps of the chapel was bathed in the slanted rays of morning sunshine. We held steaming cups of Commons coffee in our hands. I’d delayed as long as I could. My pulse felt too quick and erratic, despite having taken a small dose of something to calm me. I remembered how angry he’d been when he’d found out about my Columbia interview. How was he going to react now?
“There are a couple of things—hard things—I need to tell you,” I said.
“That doesn’t sound good.”
A V of geese flapped and honked overhead in the pale blue sky.
“First,” I said, “is about me.”
I kept my eyes on the birds as they receded into the distance.
“Ever since my parents split up, I’ve been on meds. You know, psychotropic.”
I paused, took a sip of coffee. The steam fogged up my glasses.
“It started as a regular prescription thing. But then my doctor said it was time for me to stop. So, I got in the habit of finding other ways to get pills. From my parents, other people. I don’t use them every day. Just when I’m stressed, or anxious. I know it’s not ideal, but I’m really careful. And … I know it’s wrong, how I get them. I do feel bad about that.”
I rolled the warmth of my cup between my hands.
“I didn’t want you to find out,” I continued, “because I know you don’t like meds, and I thought you might think it’s a problem for me. But it’s really not. I’m not addicted or anything. Not at all. They just, they just make things easier. Like, emotional aspirin.” I bit the inside of my lip. “I know you might not think of me this way, but I can be really … unproductively emotional. Like, when my parents split. And other times … It scares me.”
Silence. Heart hammering, I forced myself to meet his eyes but couldn’t read their expression.
“Is this what that chart you made is about?” he said.
“You saw it?” I said, surprised.
“I found it on the floor of your room, when you were sick. With so much else going on, I haven’t asked you about it.”
David had the paper this whole time? I couldn’t believe it. “I know you probably think it’s really irresponsible,” I said. “But I always do research. About dosages, drug interactions. That’s what the chart is for.”
His gaze moved to his coffee cup. “The thing that makes me sad,” he said, “is that you feel you need to do it.” He paused. “And, I guess, it makes me wonder if I know the real Leena.”
“Of course you do,” I said. “I only take really low doses. Just to even out. It’s not like I walk around in a haze. And I only use them when I need to, like I said.” My chest was beginning to hurt. “You do know me, David. You do.”
Sun brought out the reddish strands in his dark hair. He was quiet. I hated that I couldn’t tell what he was thinking.
“Are you mad?” I finally said.
“Mad? Of course not. I think you should stop. I think maybe you have some stuff you need to work out. But I’m not mad.” He reached over and stroked my cheek with the back of his hand. Then he smiled. “Let me be your antidepressant, baby. How’s that for a song lyric?”
“Incredibly cheesy.” I leaned forward to kiss him on his cheek, overwhelmed by how well he’d taken it. I’d underestimated him.
“Was there something else?” he said. “’Cause we’ve got class in about ten minutes.”
Something else. Right. I took a sip of coffee as a momentary delay. Then began.
“This is the much, much more serious thing,” I said. “It’s Celeste. She wasn’t upset about your father yesterday.”
“Did she give you a hard time about being there?” he said. “I thought she was being more mature about—”
“No. David, I …” It was difficult to talk past the brick in my throat. “I’m really worried about her. More than just worried.”
“Worried?”
“You know how she’s always acted weird about the dorm? And how she switched rooms. And now she won’t use the bathtub either.”
“I know,” he said. “She told me that tub is dangerous, with her cast.”
“That’s what she told me, too, at first. But that’s not it.” I reached over and took one of his bare hands between my mittened ones. “Okay. There’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to say it. She thinks … she thinks the dorm is haunted.”
David’s mouth curled into a questioning smile. “What?”
“She thinks it’s haunted, and that there’s some sort of evil spirit trying to hurt—trying to kill her.”
“Wait.” David pulled back his hand into his lap, tilted his chin down, and looked up at me, eyebrows raised. “What? ”
I went on and told David the whole story—everything she blamed on the ghost, from the ripped skirt to the bruises.
“I did a little research, and it’s possible most of the things were caused by her,” I said. “I mean, not on purpose. Subconsciously. These poltergeist-type things tend to happen in houses with intense girls living there. So she really doesn’t realize that it’s in her head, because it’s actually happening. But it’s being caused by her in some way. I don’t know how this all would tie into delusions and hallucinations. I actually don’t think she has hallucinations, unless the feeling that she’s being physically hurt or whatever, unless that’s some sort of physical hallucination. But the bruises could definitely be self-inflicted. There’s a correlation between … between mental illness and self-harm.”
David’s left cheek twitched as I spoke. Maybe I should have printed out some of the articles I read. It’s what had affected me most—the idea that Celeste could have unknowingly done these things herself. It’s what had filled me with that strange combination of relief and terror.
“I know this is a lot to hear,” I said. “I felt sick all night, knowing I had to tell you. Well, that and worrying about her.” I reached for my coffee cup, but the heat had drained away.
“Why didn’t she tell me herself?” he said. “Why did she tell you?”
“I think … well, she knows how much you worry about her. That scares her. She assumed you’d think she was … you know. Sick. She thought I might believe her.”
David shook his head. “No,” he said. “I’d know if she was sick.” He rubbed his palms back and forth on his knees.
I took a minute to consider his choice of words. “What do you mean?”
“I’d know if she was sick,” he said. “I’d be able to tell.”
“Oh-kaay,” I said. “But you haven’t talked to her about this stuff. You haven’t heard the way she talks about it.”
“No. But still.”
“So, then … what’s the alternative?” I said. “If she’s not imagining stuff?”
“I don’t know. Maybe there really is something … weird in there.”
“Like, something evil?” I said. “Something trying to hurt Celeste? Is that what you mean?” He couldn’t.
“I don’t know. Do you really think we can understand everything about this stuff?”
“No, I guess not. But—”
“There are plenty of documented stories of hauntings.”
“David. Are you serious?” I studied his face. His stubble-covered jaw was set.
“Well, there are,” he said.
“Maybe,” I said to avoid arguing over that side issue. “But you have a history of psychosis in the family. And Celeste has the paranoid impression that someone—something—is trying to kill her. I mean, statistically—”
“I’d know if she was sick, Leena.”
I pushed my glasses up my nose. He was a mathematician; how could he be so illogical?
“Are you really saying it’s more likely that the dorm is haunted than that she’s had a psychotic break, something she’s genetically predisposed to have?” Now I couldn’t take my eyes off his profile, waiting for some sign that I wasn’t hearing what I thought I was.
“You make it sound as if having a father like ours means it w
ill happen,” he said. “It’s a pretty low percentage, you know.”
“But, David. Are you seriously listening to yourself? Haunted. You believe the dorm is haunted.”
“I don’t know. But I’m not going to assume that she’s lost it. She would tell me if she felt not right, mentally. We have a pact.”
“People don’t know!” I was having trouble keeping the frustration out of my voice. I needed to remember how hard all of this would be for him to hear. It shouldn’t have surprised me that his first response would be denial. “Don’t you see? It all seems real to her because her brain is perceiving it as being real. People don’t know when they’re delusional. I live there, David. That house is not … haunted. If such a thing even existed.”
“Since you don’t believe it can be, maybe you’re just not open to seeing it.”
“David!” I said too loudly. “I’d know if there was something wrong in the house. I’d certainly know if something was trying to kill me. And nothing bad has happened to any of my stuff, you know. Nothing.” I paused. “We have to tell the dean about this. Or maybe not the dean first. Maybe your mom. Would that be better? It should be your decision.”
He finally turned to face me. The blue of his eyes glowed radioactive in the strong sun. “And then what? They send her to some horrible place and shove her full of meds?”
So now he was throwing that back at me?
“Well, somewhere she can get help,” I said. “Of course. And yes, meds can help.”
“God! You’re not a doctor yet, Leena. Even if you treat yourself. How many psychotics have you even met? My father was probably the first, right? And he wasn’t even having an episode.”
“Yeah, but—”
“But what? I know psychosis. I’ve lived with it. Celeste is not acting at all like my father ever acted. I’d be able to tell.”
This conversation had strayed so far from what I had anticipated. I had no idea what to say anymore. “But, David. If you listen to what Celeste is saying—”
“Celeste is rational. She doesn’t have any other symptoms.” He held out his hand and counted off on his fingers. “She’s doing her schoolwork. She’s already got all of her college apps in—did you know that? She has good personal hygiene. She hasn’t withdrawn—”
“Of course she has,” I said. “We barely ever see her anymore.”
David shook his head. “That’s because of us, because she doesn’t know how to deal with our relationship. And I see her on my own, when you’re not around.”
“I can’t believe we’re arguing over this,” I said. “If she’s not sick, then it won’t hurt to tell someone, right?”
“Leena. I’m going to talk to Celeste. Until then, don’t do anything. Anyway, waiting won’t make a difference. If you are right, if she’s sick, what’ll it matter? A few days won’t change anything. Right?”
“It’s just, if she’s sick—”
“If you are right,” he interrupted, “if she’s sick, then I promise, a day or two won’t make any difference. Nothing will change the fact that Celeste, the Celeste I know, is gone.”
Chapter 37
GOING TO MY CLASSES WAS NOT AN OPTION. David’s completely irrational view of the facts had thrown me for almost as big a loop as Celeste’s revelation. There was only one place I could safely process the information.
I fumbled a round yellow pill into my mouth. I needed clarity. Too much emotion and confusion battled in my brain. I breathed in the closet’s comforting smell, traced my finger over Cubby’s feathers, and tried to think.
Was the power of denial so strong that it could completely prevent David from seeing the truth? Maybe the drive for self-protection trumped logic, rationality. When David talked to Celeste, though, when he heard the paranoia in her voice, he’d have to come to terms with what was really happening. He just needed some time to let it sink in.
And where would that leave us? The loneliness that lay ahead of him made my chest ache. It made me want to tell him that I’d be there, in whatever way he needed. Did he know that? I couldn’t believe how strongly attached I’d grown to him in such a short time.
You know that can only hurt you. Once he doesn’t want you.
“No,” I said. “He’s going to need me. He’s not going to have Celeste anymore. He’ll need me.” I rubbed my temples. More and more I’d been getting these deep, throbbing headaches.
Don’t you see? He’s sick, too. He’ll never want you the way he wants her.
“Why do you say that? That’s awful.”
In here is the only place you get the truth.
I’d had enough of the truth these past couple of days. I was exhausted from it all—the revelations, confrontations. And though usually I loved the way I felt in here, right now, I couldn’t handle any more insights into my sometimes ugly subconscious.
It took an enormous amount of energy to push myself up and out into the blinding light of my room. And the minute I was out there, I almost went back in. Somehow the open space of the room was overwhelming. Not contained enough. I needed an activity. Something to occupy me until David got in touch. Something physical—there was no way I could concentrate on homework. The furniture was happy in its arrangement. No space on the walls to hang more pictures. Maybe the garden needed something.
I crossed the room to look outside. The angle of the light coming through the window brought out the layers of dirt that had built up on the pane. Ugh. How had I not noticed this before? I ran a finger down the cold glass. Dirt stuck to the tip.
I got a pile of newspapers from the common room and the Windex from under the bathroom sink. I started at the far right window—just as dirty as the other. I sprayed the cleaner and began wiping with a wadded-up clump of newspaper.
I breathed in and out with the strokes of my arm. Okay. I didn’t need to think about David’s part in this. About his strange reaction. Or what was going to happen to us. No good could come from dwelling on the possibility of losing him, the way I always seemed to do in the closet.
I rubbed circles of streaky liquid round and round the next pane. My wad of newspaper bumped up against the wood frame that had splintered when I’d been hanging the blinds with David. It had been ready to fall apart, that piece of rotten wood. But it took me drilling into it for the large chunk to splinter off. What had happened to Celeste, to make her mind splinter like it had?
I thought back to the beginning of the semester, to the bad things that happened to her right off the bat—the ripped skirt, the broken vase. One possibility, of course, was that she had unknowingly caused these things to happen herself. But maybe she hadn’t. Maybe someone else had done these things, and that had been part of what had instigated Celeste’s paranoia. She thought someone was out to get her because, in a way, someone was out to get her. Was it possible that a mental disorder could be set off by something like that? Or had the mental disorder itself caused the things to happen? Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
I didn’t hear from David until late that afternoon. I was about to lose it, wondering whether he had talked to Celeste yet, when my phone finally flashed his name.
“Can you have dinner at Tonio’s?” he said.
“Tonio’s? Sure, why?”
“I’m hungry.” I thought I heard laughter in the background.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll pick you up in half an hour.”
I was surprised that David was hungry at all, let alone in the mood to go to a romantic, off-campus restaurant. I was even more surprised when I picked him up at his dorm and found Celeste there with him. He slid in the front, Celeste and her crutches in the back.
“Where should I drop you off?” I asked her.
“I’m coming to dinner,” she said. Even in the small reflection in the rearview mirror, I could see that despite the dark bags, her eyes sparkled like they hadn’t before. Her whole expression was entirely different from yesterday’s.
David’s face was more serious than hers, but not
nearly as morose as when I’d left him. A disturbing new idea wiggled its way into my brain. Was it possible—at all possible—that this whole thing had been a joke? Or some kind of sick Lazar family test? Well, if it was, there was no question—I was done with both of them.
I got no clues from their conversation on the drive to Tonio’s. Celeste spent the whole time talking about the upcoming student exhibition her photos were going to be in, and soliciting our opinions about what she should wear to the opening. If this wasn’t a joke, had David even talked to her?
At Tonio’s, the maître d’ gave us the polite but tired smile Barcroft students always get and led us to a small, velvet-upholstered booth at the back of the dark restaurant.
Celeste immediately grabbed a breadstick from a ceramic jar. David opened the stiff, gold-embossed cover of his menu.
I opened mine, but the words didn’t coalesce into meaningful phrases. I shut it. “So, why are we here?” I said. “It’s not your birthday, is it? That’s in a couple weeks.” A ludicrous guess; of course this wasn’t a birthday party.
“We wanted somewhere private,” David said.
“Aren’t these booths great?” Celeste ran a hand over the tufted, burgundy velvet. “Old-school glamour. I’d like to have one in my house.”
A waiter in black pants and a white button-down appeared at our table. “My name is Cliff and I’ll be your server this evening. May I take your drink order?”
“Diet Coke, please,” I said, then added, “Actually, just water.” I didn’t need any caffeine.
“Club soda,” Celeste said. “With one maraschino cherry, and a slice of lime.”
“Sam Adams,” David said.
“May I see some ID, sir?” Cliff said.
David looked surprised, then embarrassed. He began patting his pockets. “Oh, sorry, I don’t think I brought … That’s okay. I’ll just have a Coke.”
“Why somewhere private?” I said, once we were alone again.
“We have a plan,” David said. “Well, the start of one.”
“Okay …”
David placed both palms on the table and leaned forward. “Here’s what we do. We convince the school that Frost House isn’t safe to live in. That way, you all get to move out, no one knowing the real reason you need to.”
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