Maybe in Paris

by Rebecca Christiansen

  And I suffered through losing sight of Jacques after just a few minutes of the actual party, then walking into the girls’ bathroom to find him making a hickey on Selena Henderson’s neck with her perched on the counter, pressed against the mirror. I got their bashful, but unashamed looks as a reward for making it through the horrible night so far.

  “It’s not like you guys were dating,” Selena said, panting hard. “You’re not even his type, Keira.”

  Jacques nodded and admitted, “Trop grosse.”

  Too big.

  I took one look at him, with his hands clutching her skinny thighs, and walked out. Out the door, through the parking lot. I would have walked home, along the freeway if I’d had to, but one of the chaperones caught me by the arm and called Mom to come pick me up.

  Jacques is dead to me now. When I think about him—aside from the huge cloud of pain I tamp back down inside me—all I can think about are the months I wasted pursuing him. I could’ve been doing literally anything else, but I chose to pour countless hours into this douchebag, who only liked me as a chauffeur and lip service provider.

  When I went to bed that night, head sore and smeared makeup still all over my face, I thought the worst had already happened.

  I had no idea.

  CHAPTER THREE

  If you had asked me on prom night what I thought I’d be doing two months from then, I would have answered with two words: “Paris” and “Jacques.”

  My original summer plan had been to go to France with Jacques when he went home, and after a good couple weeks in Paris, the city of my soul, traipse through the streets of every European metropolis. But summer is coming to a close, and the whole time, I’ve been stuck in Shoreline, Washington, which is also known as Hell. Jacques wasn’t going to make or break the plan; I would still have gone without him. The loss of some jerk couldn’t destroy my ideal summer.

  The near loss of my brother, though … that could.

  We’re all drowning in the aftermath of what happened the night of my prom. Josh has become a silent warrior, going to work and taking care of the chores and errands that keep us afloat. I go to work at Safeway, come home, and head straight for my room. I ignore my friends’ texts and invitations to hang out, letting those relationships fade like they were bound to the minute we graduated high school. I dodge Mom’s attempts at lectures and conversations, cover my ears as she shouts information about Levi up the stairs. I sit up there all night, every night, wrapping myself in denial and watching Netflix until I pass out. Repeat it all the next day. It’s all a blur.

  All I really remember in detail is that I tried to write a poem the day after Levi was taken away. That used to help when I was being ignored by a crush, or turned down when I finally confessed my feelings to him. I pressed the pen against the page of my journal, but I couldn’t make it move. All I ended up with was one dot poking a hole through the page. I couldn’t make sense of my pain enough to describe it.

  Mom has taken time off from her legal assistant career to become a walking, talking bundle of nerves. She spends every day she’s allowed at Levi’s treatment center, including the day of my graduation. Josh and an empty chair witnessed me cross the stage in my cap and gown. Every day, Mom asks if I’ll go with her to see Levi, and every day, I have an excuse.

  At first, I wasn’t allowed to visit. The doctors said too many visitors in the first week could be overwhelming for Levi, and they wanted to minimize his stress. It was easy to say “okay, I won’t go” when it was what they wanted, but now that I’m allowed and even encouraged to go, I feel paralyzed. I am terrified to visit Levi, so scared of what I might see. The truth is, I’m still adjusting to a world where my brother almost stopped existing. In some alternate universe, some version of me has to face the rest of her life as an only child, drowning in guilt because she didn’t stop this, didn’t see it coming. Just imagining that world makes my palms sweat. This world, where Levi survived, feels fragile and liable to collapse. If I go and see Levi, what if it makes him worse? What if he tries to … leave again?

  But last night, after another screaming, tearful reprimand from my mom, I finally gave in. Today, I’m going to the treatment center where Levi has been since the morning after my prom. Since he wrote a good-bye note and swallowed three-quarters of a bottle of aspirin. My sixteen-year-old brother was mentally packed and ready to go, ready to blow a hole in our lives, ready to stop existing. Ready and wanting to …

  If I even think about it, my eyes fill with tears. I can’t cry in front of Mom, as a matter of principle. I think about the price of a ticket out of here instead. This morning: Seattle to Paris, one adult, one way, $564.

  “Levi might be grouchy this morning,” Mom says as we exit the freeway. Since we left home, she’s talked nonstop about Levi’s medical situation—the information I’ve been tuning out all summer. She’s really letting me have it now that she’s got me cornered. “He’s adjusting to a new medication. If you see him making any weird facial expressions, let the doctors know right away. This medication could cause him to develop muscle tics that could become permanent.”

  I wish I’d tuned this out, too. What the hell am I going to see, walking into that hospital room? Fear ties my stomach in knots.

  “Just talk to him,” she says. “Ask him how the hospital has been. See if you can get him to talk about the book he’s reading. He doesn’t like to talk about that stuff with me. But with you, maybe.”

  She talks about the tests they’ve done on him and the diagnoses they’re throwing around—“autism with signs of developing schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.” Those words, they’re so harsh. You picture Hollywood mental hospitals, patients drooling in straightjackets. My little brother can’t be that far gone, just can’t be. He took a downward spiral, I know that—dropping his friends, skipping school, then transferring to alternative school, then online school, then refusing to ever leave our basement—but my brain refuses to accept that he’s as broken as she says. If he is, when did he break, and where was I?

  I know that answer. Whenever Levi started to spiral, I was out the door and headed in chase of whatever boy I was besotted with that week. Hiding from Levi the Problem, deluding myself into thinking it was okay, he didn’t need me.

  Well, he wasn’t okay, and he did need me. Guilt has broken through my mental barrier and is seeping into my bones. It’s like I just woke up and saw the world for the first time. I don’t like what I see. I don’t like who I’ve become.

  But I’m not ready for Mom to rub my face in it.

  “I’m glad you’re finally coming,” she says as we’re stuck in freeway traffic. The word finally drips with emphasis.

  I swallow hard and watch the lines on the road creep slowly past. Wish I could escape the car as easily as they slip away.

  “You’ve been absent the past few months, Keira,” Mom says. “Your brother’s life has gone to shit, and you were off gallivanting with your boyfriend. Who, I’m sorry, didn’t even turn out to be worth your time.”

  My eyes well up with tears. “Mom, he—”

  “There’s no excuse, Keira. I’ve wanted to tell you all this for quite some time, so don’t interrupt me now.” She takes a deep breath and plunges deeper. “Romantic relationships, at your age, mean nothing. Family is everything. I know boys say nice things, and it feels like you’re the first girl to ever hear those things, but believe me, you’re not.”

  I blink and the tears spill over. Mom continues listing all the other ways I’m disappointing—choosing language and art classes over physics and calculus, deferring college, my messy bedroom, unfolded laundry. It all comes out, a tornado of hurtful words.

  “You were always such a nice girl, Keira,” she says with a sigh. “Even though you made some bad choices. I could forgive irresponsibility if you just kept being a good girl. You don’t know how disappointing it is to learn that your daughter would drop everything just because some boy complimented her. It’s a bit … slutty. I’m sorry, b
ut it’s true.”

  I’m full-on sobbing now. I feel like I’ve crashed against rock bottom. It would be one kind of pain if she was right. If my mother was calling it like it is on a set of facts, I could deal with that. Her being wrong, not even caring to find out the truth, makes it hurt even worse. Makes me want to hurt her back.

  “Mom, I’m a virgin,” I said through my tears. “I’ve never even been kissed. Jacques straight-up told me I’m too fat to be his type. But even if I had slept with him, or a million guys, I can’t believe you would throw that in my face.”

  She sits in silence, hopefully reeling from the shock, but I can’t make myself look at her to check. The windshield wipers flick back and forth, the engine rattles. We creep forward in the traffic. The thought of jumping out and walking home on the glass-strewn shoulder of the freeway is weirdly appealing.

  “Oh,” Mom says.

  I hold my breath, waiting for more, but nothing else comes. She’s not even going to apologize? Then again, I don’t think she’s ever apologized to me, so I don’t know why I’m surprised.

  “I didn’t say that to be mean.” Her voice comes out rushed—she’s thinking as she’s speaking. Never a good sign. “I just mean that you’re smart, Keira. You can really make something of your life. I’m scared you’re going to fall head over heels for some idiot, get pregnant, and end up struggling your whole life.”

  “Like you did?”

  I almost slap my hand over my mouth. I honestly didn’t mean to say it; it just popped out. Mom stomps on the brakes, but it’s her only reaction to my horrible, cruel words. I have a right to be angry—my mom straight-up called me a slut! And implied that I’d pick the wrong guy and ruin my life forever, because she apparently thinks I’m stupid, too—but I already regret saying that.

  “Actually, yes,” she says. “Like I did.”

  She probably thinks that’s the ultimate olive branch. Oh, Mommy, you compared me to your young-and-dumb self and implied that I have to be your vicarious wish fulfilment and live my life according to what you always wanted for yourself! All is truly mended between us!

  “Keira, I had big, big plans, but I threw them away because a boy said all the right things. I won’t let you do that, too. You’re already dangerously close, what with deferring college for this half-baked Europe idea.”

  I sigh. “It always comes back to college with you, doesn’t it? I’ve told you this a million times. I will go, eventually.”

  The traffic light ahead of us turns red. She stomps on the brakes again, a little too late—the nose of the car pokes into the intersection. “You don’t know how big of a mistake you’re making. Why can’t you wait to travel? Can’t you buckle down, get undergrad under your belt before you run off and play? You need work ethic to survive in the real world, Keira, and you’re not going to get that by screwing around in foreign countries.”

  Screwing around. My vision flashes red as we pull back into traffic. For a second, I imagine waiting to go to France until I had finished four whole years of college. I feel pain, literal pain, deep in my chest, and a wave of nausea. I can’t do it. I can’t wait four whole years to see Paris. It would be as impossible as waiting four years to eat. If I were to wait, the opportunity would slip through my fingers, maybe even disappear entirely. How often have you heard people say “I’m glad I waited until I was settled to travel!”? Never. I need to go, and I need to go as soon as humanly possible.

  And she calls that screwing around. My soul is screaming for something—I don’t know what, but I know Paris is the key—and Mom calls the idea of answering its call “screwing around.” To her, art, architecture, history, the pursuit of knowledge and the quest after beauty are trivial. Unimportant. Something you put off until your taxes are done and your suburban lawn is neatly trimmed. To her, plunging into life and adventure and my own heart is nonessential nonsense. She doesn’t understand the beauty of being lost, and the wonder of being found. I don’t either yet, but the difference is that I want to.

  And somehow, this woman raised me. I somehow rose up out of all her bad choices and banality and slut-shaming shallowness. Well, I’ll rise above all that. Like a phoenix or some shit.

  I bet nothing hurts phoenixes. I still have tears in the corners of my eyes.

  The traffic speeds up and we finally take our exit off the freeway. Mom’s silence continues. We turn off at a sign that reads MORNINGSIDE YOUTH TREATMENT CENTER and park in a big lot. Once she kills the engine, Mom finally tries to say, “Keira, I’m—”

  “Save it,” I interrupt. “If you’re not really sorry, don’t apologize.”

  My heart really breaks when she doesn’t try again.

  The treatment center is beautiful; even in my battered emotional state, I can appreciate it. Floor-to-ceiling windows let in light, nurses smile, colorful murals fill the walls. Mom says hi to a receptionist and walks in, knowing exactly where she’s going.

  Levi’s room is at the end of a hall.

  A few doorways away, I balk. Mom walks into the room like it’s no big deal. She knows what she’s going to see.

  When I think of Levi, I think of rubber boots, his footwear of choice since he was a toddler. Toy Godzillas, plural, because one wasn’t enough. Sweaty Xbox controllers, from when he and I would stay up all night playing games we knew were too stupid and juvenile for us. It wasn’t even that long ago—we were still playing Shrek and Lego Harry Potter games when I was fifteen and getting caught up in Henri, my first French exchange student obsession. Levi and I became separate entities instead of one-and-the-same. I abandoned him.

  What am I going to see, walking into his room now? My brother, or a ghost of him, haunted by medication and those words: mentally ill, autistic, schizophrenic.

  I finally take a deep breath, turn the corner, and walk in. I see Josh, focused on the TV in the corner. He’s sitting next to the bed. And then I find Levi.

  Levi slumps against his pillows. He’s wearing a zombie T-shirt (normal) and gray sweatpants (also normal). His auburn hair is messy and tangled (normal), but it looks clean (very abnormal). His glasses are their usual combination of crooked and dirty. He looks bigger than I remember, in every way: taller, wider, and much, much heavier. When did he get so tall that his clown feet dangle off the end of the bed? When did his shoulders reach linebacker width? When did his hands become huge mitts, and when did the stomach they perch on get so large? Where did the “little” part of “little brother” go, and how could I not have noticed it fading away?

  “I hate Deadliest Warrior,” Levi says in a deep monotone. “Why the hell would Napoleon and George Washington ever fight each other one-on-one? They’re generals, not fucking foot soldiers. Give them each a couple thousand men and a proper battlefield and then you could maybe call one of them the winner.”

  Mom laughs once, but it’s strained. She says, “Levi, your sister is here.”

  Levi looks up at me. He grunts once.

  “Hi, Lev,” I say. “How’s it going?”

  “Good, I guess.”

  Nothing else. I just nod. Mom and Josh look at each other.

  “Why don’t Josh and I go get something to eat?” Mom says. “You guys can make fun of this silly show together.”

  I sit in the chair Josh left empty. The Deadliest Warrior episode trucks on toward its stupid finale, and Levi watches it in silence. His hands are clenched in fists on his lap. I can’t stop staring at him. I should be talking to Levi, trying to cheer him up or whatever. Nothing more meaningful comes to mind than “How’s it going?”

  “I told you,” he answers. “Good.”

  “What have you been up to?”

  “Hospital stuff?” he says, like duh? But the irritation fades when he says, “I had an MRI the other day.”

  An MRI? Isn’t that what they do for people with brain tumors? I try to respond as though I’m not totally freaking out. “Oh, yeah? What was that like?”

  “Loud. Annoying. ’Cause you have to be completely
still.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  I chew the inside of my cheek. “Um, did they find anything?”

  “Dunno yet. But that room, where they had the MRI machine? It had these cool ceiling tiles.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. Probably the most interesting ceiling I’ve seen here so far.”

  I smile, feeling like I’ve stepped back in time. This is the old Levi. This is the kid whose bedroom I would sneak into in the middle of the night to secretly watch Austin Powers or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The poking and prodding under microscopes and MRI machines hasn’t erased him. He didn’t go anywhere.

  Now it really hits me that, two months ago, I almost lost him.

  “Oh, Mythbusters is on next.” Levi grabs the remote and turns up the volume. “Why do they even have shows like this on the History Channel, anyway?”

  I laugh, but my voice is full of almost-tears. I hope he can’t hear that. Crying pisses him off.

  We watch the opening minutes of Mythbusters in silence, and during the first commercial break, Levi says, “So when are you leaving?”

  “I thought I’d just stay until Mom wanted to go. Or if you want me to leave earlier, I could probably go home with Josh.”

  “No, like, to Europe.”

  “Oh! Um. I don’t have any plans yet.”

  His lips twist around and pucker into his mouth. He does that when he’s either about to lie, tell a joke, or deciding whether to say something. What’s it going to be?

  “I thought you were leaving soon,” he says.

  “I don’t think so. Not when you’re …”

  In recovery for trying to kill yourself. I swallow the words.