Although the truth is, talking to Curtis isn’t going any of this easier for him. Probably you should just go inside. It’s going to be getting dark soon. You should walk inside and go stand in front of the sink and let that razor blade do its job. Sure, some people are going to be hurt. Curtis. Mom. Becky. But eventually they’ll heal. They’ll all get over it, with time.
Of course, Heather’s dad probably thought the same thing.
The thought ruffles your sense of peace. You try to smooth it back down, try to breathe deep and recapture the silence of a moment ago, but that sound from outside is scraping the air around you. So you sit there for you don’t know how long, breathing too fast, staring at what’s left of the vine-covered old fence that lies along the property line between your house and Curtis’s; a few weathered old posts in varying degrees of decay and uprightness, held in their positions by a couple of rusted coils of wire, the whole thing covered with blackberry vines.
You and Curtis used to set empty cans on those posts, throwing rocks at them for target practice. That was long time ago, but now you’re remembering how, when all the cans were knocked off, you and Curtis would walk over to reset them and end up taking a break every time, filling up with blackberries, talking and laughing about nothing in particular while the afternoon shadows grew longer and longer.
You and Curtis always tried to stretch the days out, because no day was ever long enough, back then.
You get out of the cab. Everything had stopped, inside your truck—but now that you’re out, you’ve got make choices.
Choices, it seems, have fingers reaching out in every direction. To the future. And the past.
That’s why you follow the sound over to the Hightowers’ house. And find Curtis scraping paint off the front porch railing as if this is a day like any other.
“Hey,” he greets you, not pausing in his scraping.
“Hey.” Then, “Getting ready to paint?”
Stupid question. Curtis, of course, doesn’t bother to answer.
You walk over, sit on the front steps. These are same steps you and Curtis used to leap off when you were little, seeing who could jump the farthest. Only problem was, neither of you ever marked where you landed, so neither ever knew who won.
The scraping stops. Curtis brushes paint flakes away, smoothing the wood with his hand. After a few moments you remember today’s football practice.
“Where’d you go?” you ask him.
Curtis just shrugs.
You already know, anyway. He didn’t want to there anymore—so he undid his chin strap, dropped helmet on the ground, and walked away.
Now, sitting here, you realize something else, because of Curtis and his dad; because Curtis has never gone visit his father in the whole five years since his dad left. Never called him, even. And he never will.
When you think about that, you understand that Curtis made a decision when he walked off the field this afternoon. He’ll never go back—not to sit on the bench, not to play, not even to watch a game from the stands. That’s the way Curtis is. For him, this football season is over.
All because of you.
Curtis is scraping again, pressing the razor’s edge along the wood in rhythmic strokes.
“I’m sorry, man,” you tell him.
“Why?”
“If I’d been able to hold on to the ball—”
“Forget it. Couldn’t stand one more second of that beer-bellied Nazi asshole.”
“Yeah, but if—”
“Doesn’t matter. Whole thing gave me a bad taste in my mouth.” He frowns a little, then scrapes harder.
A large flake of paint has landed on your knee. You pick it up and break it in half. Then you break it in half again. And again. Finally, when it’s so small it’s disappeared on the end of your finger, you clear your throat. “Heather and I broke up,” you tell Curtis.
The thought of what that means—aimless hours, nobody to get out of bed for, nobody who can make you real—leaves one big unshed ache in your chest.
“You okay?” Curtis is asking.
You start to shrug, but your eyes sting with sudden and somehow you’re shaking your head no.
Curtis rasps steadily away at the railing. Just when you think he’s not going to comment, he says, “I Hurts like hell.”
You’re remembering how you wanted to leave, that morning in the tack room long ago, but didn’t. Curtis won’t leave either—whatever you choose to tell him.
“Actually,” you hear yourself say, “I’ve been kind thinking about killing myself lately.”
The scraping stops.
“How?” Curtis asks, after a moment, and even though you can hear a little worry hovering at the edge that one-word question, for one crazy split second actually think you might laugh.
Anybody else would have asked why.
You should have known Curtis is too practical that. Curtis always starts at the outside of a problem and works his way in—like peeling an onion.
Sitting there in his presence, a bare possibility stirs; the possibility that letting go of the cliff’s edge may not mean that you have to fall.
The words are more than ready. They rise through the catch in your throat and tumble out into raw, jumbled piles: Heather and her father; heaviness, football, and razors. After a few minutes, Curtis quits pretending to scrape paint; he comes around with the still in his hand and sits beside you on the steps.
And you sit there talking: Curtis, flicking the button on the scraper, clicking the razor in, then out, then again, thinking hard, interrupting with a question once in a while; you, picking up flakes of paint, splitting them smaller and smaller, feeling your way into the future that you hadn’t been able to see.
Millions of people suffer from depression or know someone who does. If you want to know more about depression and what you can do to get help, contact the following organizations for information:
American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP)
3615 Wisconsin Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20016–3007
(202) 966–7300
(800) 333–7636
www.aacap.org
American Psychiatric Association
1400 K Street, NW
Washington, DC 20005
(888) 357–7924
www.psych.org
American Psychological Association
750 First Street NE
Washington, DC 20002–4242
(202) 336–5500
(800) 374–2721
www.apa.org/psychnet
Center for Mental Health Services-Knowledge Exchange Network (KEN)
P.O. Box 42490
Washington, DC 20015
(800) 789–2647
www.mentalhealth.org
National Institute of Mental Health
NIMH Public Inquiries
6001 Executive Boulevard, Rm 8184, MSC 9663
Bethesda, MD 20892–9663
(301) 443–4513
www.nimh.nih.gov
If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, seek help immediately. The following hotlines are answered twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week:
National Hope Line Network: (800) 784–2433
Girls and Boys Town National Hotline: (800) 448–3000
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Jeff Jenkins for sharing his knowledge of football (any errors or exaggerations regarding that sport lie solely at the feet of the author) and to Rachel Safko for her help in preparing this manuscript. Also, many thanks to the members of the Four Star Coffee Bar critique group and the YAWRITER list, for putting up with my writerly angst; I’m especially grateful to Cathy Atkins, Lisa Firke, Adrianne Fitzpatrick, Judy Gregerson, Shirley Harazin, Denise Johns, Kathy Lay, Ann Manheimer, Melissa Russell, Andrea Schulz, Shelley Sykes, Melissa Wyatt, and Lidia Zenida, and would like to thank them for their insights. I owe a tremendous debt to Martha Moore, Jan Peck, and Laura Wiess, for opening their hearts and helping me to
write as honestly and deeply as could. And finally, this book would not be here without Steve Malk, who took an enormous burden from my shoulders and offered to carry it for me, and Alix Reid, who believed in and cared for Austin from the moment she met him.
Praise for DAMAGE
“A brave, truthful, stylistically stunning young adult novel.”
—School Library Journal (starred review)
“It’s rare to find such an unflinching, powerful depiction of depression. Jenkins evokes the lumbering overwhelming emotional burden with vivid accuracy.”
—ALA Booklist (starred review)
“Intense. This is both a nuanced exploration of a complicated relationship and a sensitive treatment of a young man struggling against a strong and frightening tide.”
—BCCB (starred review)
“Engaging. Readers will be riveted.”
—Publishers Weekly
“There is a gritty truth in this book not often found in YA novels. A grippingly realistic novel.”
—KLIATT (starred review)
“Seductive, chilling, and ultimately satisfying.”
—Kirkus Reviews
A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist
A New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age
An ALA Best Book for Young Adults
An ALA Booklist Editors’ Choice
Books by A. M. Jenkins:
Breaking Boxes
Damage
Out of Order
Copyright
DAMAGE. Copyright © 2001 by A. M. Jenkins. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Adobe Digital Edition July 2009 ISBN 978-0-06-196456-5
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