Whisper to Me

by Nick Lake

  It’s nice to have a friend. That sounds like the lamest, most bland thing anyone has ever said, but it’s true.

  And anyway:

  This is who I am.

  So.

  So I lost myself for a long time, and I did some terrible things to you and told you some terrible lies. But this is me now, okay? This is my real voice, my one true voice, which I am sending to you through the ether, over the wires and the wireless, so that you can hear it.

  I’m like Echo, speaking to you when you can’t see me, I’m like the voice that came to whisper to me and insulted me and made me hurt myself but in the end, right at the very end, became my friend.

  But now I want to be a real girl, not just a voice, I want my body back, and I want you to be the one to hold it; I want to hear my name on your lips.

  I want you to be the one to whisper to me.

  SEND.

  Author’s Note

  I have only heard voices once. I was babysitting at a house where I would often spend the night if the parents were going to be out late. The children were asleep, the parents were still out, and I was lying in bed, and I could hear people, in the room, discussing me. Discussing me in very cold, contemptuous tones. “Look at him. What an idiot. He can’t even see us.” It was so profoundly disturbing—a precisely accurate term in this case—that it bubbled up years later in this book.

  I can only imagine though what it would be like to hear voices more often. And that’s what I have tried to do in Whisper to Me—to imagine it, and imagine how it could be conquered.

  Because these kinds of illnesses—or traumas—can be conquered. That’s something I don’t have to imagine, since for a number of reasons and in a number of ways I have had close and direct experience of mental illness for a large part of my life. And I know, for an absolute fact, that people can get better. Things can get better. Life can get better.

  Estimates vary, but statistics reported by the Mental Health Foundation put the proportion of teenagers suffering from some kind of mental problem at around 10 percent. It’s not unusual, it doesn’t make you weird—it’s very common. And it is extremely important to know, if you happen to be one of those teenagers, that help is available—and it works.

  Never listen to any kind of voice inside you that says things will not get better.

  Things can get better, and with help, they will.

  In the United States:

  National Alliance on Mental Illness (www.nami.org)

  The Hearing Voices Network USA (www.hearingvoicesusa.org)

  In the United Kingdom:

  MIND (www.mind.org.uk)

  Hearing Voices Network (www.hearing-voices.org)

  The techniques used by Dr. Lewis in this fictional work are similar to those employed by the Hearing Voices Network, a support organization inspired by the academic research of Professor Marius Romme and Sandra Escher. They have coauthored several fascinating books on the subject, including the seminal Accepting Voices.

  In real life, as in the novel, there is some tension between this approach—which stresses the roots in trauma for much voice hearing and the practical tools that can be employed to deal with it—and the psychiatric one. However, this is Cassie’s story: it isn’t intended to present my or anyone else’s view on that debate, and I hope that it gives as balanced a perspective as possible. It also goes without saying that Cassie, Dr. Lewis, Dr. Rezwari, and all the characters in this book are figments of my imagination and any resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Acknowledgments

  I am deeply grateful to psychiatrist Dr. Martine Lamy, MD, PhD, and psychologist Dr. Michelle Madore, PhD, for their assistance in reading an earlier draft of this book and making comments. Any errors that remain are, of course, mine and mine alone.

  My wife, Hannah; my editors, Cindy Loh and Rebecca McNally; and my faithful Second Reader, Will Hill, all made invaluable suggestions that helped me in the shaping of this story. It was a hard one to marshal, and without all of them it would be a mess. Thank you.

  ALSO BY NICK LAKE

  In Darkness

  Hostage Three

  There Will Be Lies

  Copyright © 2016 by Nick Lake

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  First published in the United States of America in May 2016

  by Bloomsbury Children’s Books

  www.bloomsbury.com

  Bloomsbury is a registered trademark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 1385 Broadway, New York, New York 10018

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Lake, Nick, author.

  Title: Whisper to me/by Nick Lake.

  Description: New York : Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 2016.

  Summary: Told through letter-writing flashbacks, Cassie is a New Jersey shore teen who over the course of one summer experiences the exhilarating highs of new love, the frightening free-falls of personal demons and family tragedy, and the bumps along the way to forgiveness, acceptance, and self-discovery.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2015022934

  ISBN 978-1-61963-456-5 (hardcover) • ISBN 978-1-61963-457-2 (e-book)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Letters—Fiction. | Love—Fiction. | Self-realization—Fiction. | BISAC: JUVENILE FICTION/Love & Romance. | JUVENILE FICTION/Social Issues/General (see also headings under Family). | JUVENILE FICTION/Family/General (see also headings under Social Issues).Classification: LCC PZ7.L15857 Wh 2016 | DDC [Fic]—dc23LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015022934

  Book design by Colleen Andrews

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