“They’re your family, too,” I said.
“I know,” Van said quickly, unconvincingly.
“What if he keeps cheating on her?” I asked, repositioning my thigh off the sticky duct tape used to patch the red vinyl booth.
“He better not,” Van said with an I’ll kick his ass tone that under other circumstances, I would have teased him for.
“I want your mom to have everything she deserves,” I said, maybe a little too passionately. But I really meant it.
Van slid his hand toward mine on the tabletop, his long, elegant fingers stopping just short of making contact. “Me too.”
“You know that to the outside world, you guys look like the family everyone wants to be?”
“Ha. Nothing is ever how it appears, right?”
“Do you think we’re going to make all these same mistakes when we’re older?” he asked a few seconds later.
“No, not us. Not ever.” I smiled.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
FRIDAY, APRIL 15
How many days had it been since I’d slept through the night? I wished I could go back in time and appreciate that last good night’s sleep more. But now I was overflowing with endorphins instead of stress.
At school, the hallway smelled like enchiladas. I had taken a different route than usual to my car to avoid my friends. I wanted a break from hearing about prom, smiling politely and thinking about my double life while Izzie looked at me like she knew there was something I wasn’t telling her.
“Ingrid,” a lovely voice called out my name.
“Hey!” I said in surprise, feeling somehow caught. Why was my first instinct Oh, shit? Caroline lengthened her stride to catch up to me. I saw a paperback copy of The Sun Also Rises dangling at her side, two of her fingers wedged somewhere in the middle of the book.
“Did you get my text?” She was slightly breathless. She wore black gym shorts and a white T-shirt with a black sports bra visible underneath. Her blond hair was braided and wound into a bun.
“No.” I began to dig through my bag to search for my phone. Sure enough, there was a text from Caroline from hours before. Meet me at the library after school? How about some stairs?
Did she know about the nights Van and I had spent together? Was she going to confront me? But she didn’t appear to be acting any different than usual.
“Did Mike put you up to this?” I asked. “Is that why you’re not at practice?”
Caroline looked a bit alarmed. “No! We have a late start today because of the water polo team.” She tilted her head and shrugged one shoulder, signaling, Why not? “Come on! It’ll be fun. We’ll do the dryland workout here. You’re dressed for it!”
I berated myself for wearing workout clothes to school: black spandex capris and a large gray Adidas sleeveless T-shirt. I knew I always looked like an athlete but my wardrobe was made up of 75 percent gym clothes.
Mike had started emailing workout regimens directly on the heels of the accident. I’d thought it was a joke and ignored it. For no good reason, I’d kept ignoring them even once the staples came out. Even after he’d asked for a training log.
“We’ll go to the fields. Come on!” Caroline proceeded down the hallway and fully expected me to follow her lead. She slowed and waited, beckoning me. As if on their own accord, my feet began to move and I walked into Caroline’s open arm, which she curved around me. I could not figure out how to say no. Maybe she wanted to work out together because she had made me her project and her motive was entirely benevolent. I knew her free time was precious.
When we reached the fields, you could feel the spring fever energy. It was around seventy-five degrees, clear with a light breeze. A few kids sat on the sidelines and watched various sports, creating little villages. A boy and a girl showed off doing cartwheels for one another, both of their shirts riding up and neither one of them caring.
Of course the soccer team had to be on the field directly in front of the bleachers where Caroline decided we would work out. Caroline jogged up a few stairs and I skipped up after her. My limbs felt leaden. That was my first warning that my body wasn’t going to perform like normal. Now I wondered if I should be doing this. The doctor had said to start exercising slowly and build up. I racked my brain for the right excuse.
Hands on her hips, Caroline turned to face the field, her eyes scanning the players. I came to stand one step below her.
The boys’ soccer team stood in a loose grouping to listen to their coach. I spotted Wilson’s silky curls and then, of course, Max, who stood right next to Wilson, their shoulders touching like they were conjoined twins. Van was always right there, too, as if the boys had been raised in a litter and they were accustomed to close quarters. But Van wasn’t there. I finally spotted him on the opposite side of the group, where he stood with the seniors.
“Just wait,” Caroline breathed.
What was this? A ploy to get Van’s attention? To remind him of what he’d lost? Sure enough, after a moment, Van looked up. Caroline waved. Van hesitated, no doubt surprised to see us together, then held up his hand. Other players noticed when Van waved and took their attention off the lecture. Like a celebrity used to causing a disruption and then quickly skirting it, Caroline began to ascend the stairs. With the entire soccer team watching me—with Van watching me—I began to run.
Caroline was like a mountain goat in front of me and I was like an eighty-year-old. I’d always been the best at everything: arms, abs, legs, diving. It was because I worked so damn hard. And now, I had no idea why I’d let myself get out of shape. I’d had a concussion but it was also like I’d had a mini rebellion. After years of going nonstop, I’d gone on strike.
Within two minutes of jogging up the concrete stairs, close on Caroline’s heels, I knew I was in trouble. My chest tightened. When we started round two, my stomach cramped. But no one could know. It was too humiliating to be this winded.
Caroline gave a whoop when we started round three. This was a walk in the park for her. The beautiful day now felt too hot, the sun penetrating and mean. The entire exercise made me aware of how gross I felt physically—no energy, dehydrated, underfed. Insomnia had turned me into a zombie, a sickly nightwalker compared to Caroline, the picture of health. On the way down the stairs, I snuck a look at Van and spotted him running fast, his body at a slant as he stuck out his foot to stop the ball. How was he doing it? He kept the same hours I did and he didn’t look at all affected. I inadvertently stuck my shoe in a lump of wet, pink gum.
Every part of my body told me to stop. Every part of me burned. I heard Coach Mike’s voice in my head: You get to decide how to end this workout.
For at least thirty minutes, I shut down my body’s panic. I kept going, one beat behind Caroline’s path. At a certain point, I blocked out where we were in the workout and went on automatic pilot, not thinking, not talking to myself, just giving in to the rote torture.
When Caroline halted at the bottom and extended a foot up on a metal bleacher to begin stretching, I was almost senseless.
“That was awesome!” She barely had a sheen of sweat on her brow and her cheeks were light pink. “You okay? You’re beet-red.”
I nodded. “All good.”
Caroline examined me, making me uncomfortable. “Pain is weakness leaving the body,” she joked. “I better get to practice.” Caroline squeezed my shoulder. “See you tomorrow?” I noticed she didn’t spare another glance at the soccer field.
It was a countdown until the moment Caroline was out of sight. When she disappeared behind a rectangular, red-roofed school building, I walked as casually as I could manage down the stairs onto the field, willing Van not to notice me. Less than one second after I’d stepped out of view, I threw up beneath the bleachers.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
SATURDAY, APRIL 16
I stared at the madly buzzing phone, thinking it had to be a mistake that Van was calling me instead of texting. Van had never once called me on the phone.
“Are you awake?” Van used our usual greeting, but he didn’t sound like himself at all.
“Of course,” I said.
“I need your help.”
“What’s going on?”
“Can you drive me and Heidi to the vet?”
The clock said 3:45 A.M. For the past two hours, I’d thought tonight was shaping up to be the night Van broke our pattern. When one thirty faded into two, then 3:00 A.M., I’d flipped blindly through a magazine.
“Yes,” I said. I wanted to ask a million questions: What had happened? I knew his family was home because their cars were in the driveway. Why wouldn’t he wake Lisa? But his Can you do this or not? tone didn’t welcome any questions.
Van met me in the middle of the empty street. Front porch lights were lit but all the homes were dark inside. The street felt quiet and abandoned, like a set from a TV show about the rapture and we were playing the last two people left on earth.
Van held Heidi and she looked small in his arms. Her grayed muzzle rested on top of his forearm. When I drew closer, I heard the whimpers coming at regular intervals.
“Let’s go,” Van said. He passed me and began walking to my car in the driveway.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, trying to keep up.
“It’s time for her to be put to sleep,” he said. “She’s been crying all night. We knew it would be this week, probably.”
Van waited by the door to the backseat until I hopped to and opened it for him. Very slowly, he folded himself in, trying to jostle Heidi as little as possible.
I climbed into the driver’s seat, started the car, and began to back out slowly, reversing in front of the abandoned house. My headlights swept over the façade, making the two front windows look like glowing eyes. I put the car in drive and headed out of the neighborhood.
I glimpsed Van in the rearview mirror. He was gently stroking Heidi’s back, smoothing her black fur. Van caught my eye. His expression was stoic. I noticed now that he had wrapped Heidi in an old rainbow-patterned beach towel. It brought back memories of her on the greenbelt with us, off-leash, wet from the creek and tearing up and down the steep hills. We would all hug her and kiss her while Van’s mom warned us there might be poison ivy on her fur.
“Maybe she’s just sick?” I asked. Van still hadn’t given me any directions to where we were going.
“She has a tumor,” he said bluntly.
“Where’s your mom?” I finally asked.
“Asleep. I didn’t want to wake her.”
This seemed like a strange thing for Van to take on himself at almost four in the morning. But I didn’t think to question him. He was acting like this was completely normal, that he was so independent it wouldn’t surprise his mom that he’d taken care of this in the middle of the night. That, and Heidi’s cries were coming louder and closer together.
“Do you mind driving a little faster?” Van asked, managing somehow to still sound polite.
He directed me to the animal hospital, which was mercifully close, and a vet tech met us out front when she saw the car pull into the emergency parking space. She opened the car door for Van but let him continue to carry Heidi into the building. It was clear she and Van had spoken on the phone.
The vet tech asked if Van wanted to stay with Heidi. Van nodded and followed her out of the small lobby decorated with artificial flowers and pictures of cats and dogs and veterinarians’ diplomas. It smelled like a strong disinfectant. They disappeared into the back, leaving me alone in the waiting area.
I sorted through the dusty stack of magazines and waited. And waited. Through the wall, I smelled doughnuts frying at the bakery next door. Which reminded me that morning was near.
The vet tech eventually materialized. She stood in front of me in her scrubs and gently said, “Heidi’s passed. Van’s just going to sit with her for a few minutes.”
When Van appeared minutes later, he went directly to the front desk, pulled out a credit card, and signed the bill. He looked more adult to me than when he’d gone in. Heidi had been in the background of our entire childhoods. Now she was gone.
When Van turned to me, I saw his eyes were red.
We drove home in silence and neither of us mentioned that it was light out. My mom was going to beat me home.
When we pulled into the cul-de-sac, Lisa was out front, searching the yard, madly calling for Heidi. As I let Van out in front of his house, Lisa stopped yelling—surprised to see Van, whom she must have assumed was sleeping upstairs. I watched Van cross to his mom to tell her what he had done.
I pulled into my driveway and got out slowly so I could watch them across the street. I could hear the whole thing unfold. Mrs. Kaplan was dragging her trash cans to the curb and stopped in her tracks at the sound of yelling. The Loves, out walking their two cream-colored standard poodles, inadvertently slowed and the dogs raised their heads upright, at attention.
Lisa was almost hysterically pissed. I heard, “Why did you do that? Why’d you go without me? She was my dog, Van!”
Kevin came out and stood on the grass and began to take over, questioning Van. Van didn’t look like he was saying a word in response. Then Lisa walked over to Van’s side, the two of them facing Kevin. I heard her say in a Back off voice, “It was his father’s dog.”
“You didn’t have to do that alone. You’re not by yourself, okay?” I heard Lisa say to Van. She started to cry openly. Then she pulled Van’s head to her shoulder and he let her. Kevin walked back to the house while Lisa and Van held each other tight. Belatedly, I realized Heidi was their link to another time, an entirely different life.
“Ingrid?” my mom asked, framed against the open front door, holding herself straight even after a twelve-hour night shift. “What are you doing? Are you crying?”
I turned away from my mom and back to Lisa and Van, unable to stop watching how open they were with their grief and unable to understand why I was jealous.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
SUNDAY, APRIL 17
“Want to take a seat?” asked Dr. Garcia, who had introduced himself moments before.
“Thanks for meeting with me on a weekend.”
I’d been in the little meeting room in the swim center only once before, when a parent brought cupcakes for someone’s birthday. I sat down in a metal folding chair, across the long, faux-wood conference table from Dr. Garcia.
“Sorry,” he said. “This isn’t the ideal space.” Dr. Garcia had salt-and-pepper curly hair and soft brown eyes. He seemed like a nice enough guy, but I couldn’t have been more uncomfortable that Mike was making me speak to a sports psychologist. When I finally called Mike back, I agreed simply to get off the phone.
“I’m not sure how much Mike told you about why he thought we should meet. I use a treatment called EMDR. It stands for ‘eye movement desensitization and reprocessing.’ The basic idea is to help reprocess a traumatic event. Instead of addressing the memory through talk therapy, we focus on the memory itself and try to change how it’s stored in your brain.”
I didn’t like the words “traumatic event” at all. It made me seem tainted.
I must have looked skeptical because Dr. Garcia gave me a look that said, Young lady, and raised his eyebrows. “Hitting your head on a three-meter springboard and having a concussion would qualify as a traumatic event.”
He continued, “This is a nontraditional type of psychotherapy that’s gaining popularity, especially for treating post-traumatic stress. Obviously, you haven’t been in combat or a horrific car crash, but you had a serious accident. What we’re learning is that disturbing events can cause anxiety and stress because the memory wasn’t properly processed. These unprocessed memories are believed to store the emotions, and sensations that took place at the time of the trauma. When something triggers the memory, you reexperience the alarming parts as well as symptoms related to a traumatic event, like anxiety or depression.”
“Would insomnia be a symptom?” I asked.
“Defi
nitely,” he said. “Well, before I explain the therapy, if you’re willing, tell me a little bit about yourself. You’re a great diver, obviously.”
“I’ve worked really hard at it since I was young.”
“Mike said you have Olympians in your family?”
What else had Mike told him? “Just my uncle, but my dad was supposedly even better.” I realized I’d said that with pride. “But then he quit.”
“Why?”
There was nowhere to look in the windowless room. “He left to pursue music. He said he’d figured out everything he needed to know about the sport and was satisfied. One day, he was just done. He ‘came to the end of his quest,’ he used to say.”
“Wow.” Dr. Garcia kind of laughed. “He sounds like an interesting guy. Your father must be very proud that you’re carrying on the family sport.”
I gave him a nod and a noncommittal smile.
“Your parents are married?”
“No. Divorced.”
He wrote something down. “I don’t know too much about diving. What do you like about it?”
I smiled. “It’s pretty thrilling. It’s really fast.”
“You’re a thrill-seeker?”
I shrugged one shoulder. “I think every diver has to be.”
“But you also have to have a lot of control?”
“Yes, it’s both. You’re going so fast but you can control it. It’s like you’re in this zone, a thrill zone, but you operate it, if that makes sense.”
“So the thrill zone and the control zone are sort of the same thing?”
“I’ve heard it compared to race-car driving. You’re going over one hundred miles an hour but you have control and you are also improvising on the spot and relying on your instincts.” I was talking more easily to Dr. Garcia than I had to anyone else about diving. Until Van recently, people rarely asked me details about the sport, but I was finding I loved to talk about it.
The Insomniacs Page 17