Girl on the Ferris Wheel

by Julie Halpern

  Huh. I guess not.

  “Go away!” comes a shout from the other side. I know it’s Ellie, but it doesn’t sound like Ellie. It kind of freaks me out.

  “You have a visitor!” Ava shouts, carefully pronouncing each syllable in “visitor,” making sure her own voice permeates the wood. For such a little kid, she’s loud.

  The door opens and there’s Ellie.

  After everything Janina told me, and after not having talked to Ellie—other than the text about needing space—I don’t realize I’m holding my breath until I exhale. I see Eliana. Sad, beautiful Eliana. I want to wrap her in a hug and never let her go.

  I don’t.

  The look on Ellie’s face tells me she was expecting someone else.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Hey.”

  “Look, Dmitri, I don’t care that you looked at another—”

  “Janina told me everything,” I interrupt. This stops Ellie in her tracks.

  “Everything about what?” But I can see on her face she already knows the answer to her own question.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Ava is still standing there, listening to us go back and forth, like she’s watching a teen drama on television she doesn’t really understand. “Ava,” Ellie says, “privacy, please.” Ava shrugs her shoulders and skips out of the bedroom, closing the door behind her.

  “Ellie,” I say, “I love you.” A long, low breath escapes through her lips, and her shoulders drop.

  “Sit down.” She flops down and nods to the mattress for me to join her. It’s covered in dirty clothes; Ellie doesn’t bother to move them, which I take as a bad sign. Her computer is open and frozen on a scene of Daniel Radcliffe in the owlery at Hogwarts. “Look. This isn’t about you. I don’t mean that to sound mean, but it’s the truth. Yes, I’m hurt you think that Meg girl is prettier than me—”

  “I don’t.”

  “But this has nothing to do with you or her or anyone else. This is just who I am. It’s pathetic. It’s sad. It’s ridiculous. And I never wanted you to see it.”

  “Ellie,” I say again, this time taking her hand. She bristles when I do, but doesn’t let go right away. “I love you.” I put emphasis on the “love.” “Let me help you.”

  “It doesn’t work like that, Dmitri.”

  “Work like what?”

  “Love doesn’t figure into this equation. And you can’t help me. Only I can help me, and I don’t know how.” Her voice chokes.

  “Then let me help you help yourself.”

  I can actually feel Ellie shrivel in front of me. I want so badly to reach forward and hug her, but she pulls her hand back and now it’s like she’s surrounded by a force field.

  “Did Janina give you the song I wrote?” I’m not sure what else to say and this just sort of pops out. It makes Ellie groan; she flops back on her bed.

  “I’m the one who’s sorry.” I don’t understand her answer until I realize she’s talking about my lyrics. So she did read it. That, at least, gives me some hope.

  “You’re sorry? About what?”

  “About not telling you. About being this way. About not being good enough.”

  “Ellie, you’re more than good en—”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  “Then what do you mean? Tell me. I want to help.”

  Ellie puts her forearm over her eyes. I think she might be crying, but I can’t be sure. I don’t know what to say or do next, and I’m thinking of going to get her mom, when I remember the flyer in my back pocket.

  “Hey!” I blurt out. It must startle Ellie, because she moves her arm and props herself up on her elbow.

  “What?”

  “This!” I thrust the flyer at her. She reads it and looks at me.

  “Winter carnival?” she asks.

  “Yeah! They even have something called the Frozen Ferris Wheel!” I try to give her my best smile. “We should go.”

  Ellie lies back down and is still for a very long moment. For a second I worry she’s passed out, or gone catatonic, and I start to think again about getting her mom. “If I promise to go,” she finally says, “will you give me some space?” Her eyes stay closed while she’s talking. “Like starting now?”

  On some deep level I feel like it’s a bad idea for me to leave, but I’ve secured a future date and figure I should take what I can get.

  “Deal,” I say, and get up to go. “And El,” I add, “just know that I’m here, always. Okay?”

  She opens her eyes, looks at me, nods, and pulls the closet door closed.

  Eliana

  Mom was so thrilled I made it through my day back at school that she didn’t mind at all when I locked myself in my room-hole the instant I arrived home. I failed to mention that I pretty much spent the entire day hiding out with a balding, middle-aged man. I know exactly what my therapist would tell me: This was your first step, and tomorrow you will make an even bigger stride when you go to your classes. Easy for her to say. Not only do I not want to go to my classes, I don’t want the stress of running into Dmitri in the halls. Why doesn’t his family just move to a faraway city and make things easier on me? We could have long-distance conversations that slowly dwindle when we realize that we’re too young for this level of commitment, and he should move on without me and allow me to wither away under my blanket for my remaining days.

  I’m all cozy-wozy on my futon, having finished all my schoolwork and homework in Mr. Person’s office (really, can’t I just go straight there from now on? I’m so much more productive when I’m not distracted by other people). My laptop, my friend, plays Goblet of Fire, and I slowly relax from having to leave my sanctuary for a whole day. Then my phone buzzes. Of course. I’m hopeful it’s Janina, so I can quickly tell her I’m watching GOF (she knows this is a sign that I am trying to get out of my head for a while) but it’s someone unexpected. It’s Nicky. He texts me occasionally, usually looking for Dmitri.

  NICKY: Hey, El. Checking in.

  ME: Dimmi’s not here.

  NICKY: No. Checking to see how you are.

  ME: Why? What did D say?

  NICKY: Nothing. Just haven’t seen you at our house since Xmas. Hope the aunts didn’t scare you off.

  ME: Nah. Your aunts are great. I’m just a little low.

  NICKY: Want to talk about it?

  ME: Thanks, but not really.

  NICKY: Well if you ever need to, I’m here.

  ME: Cool.

  NICKY: No problem.

  ME: I’m going to go now.

  I throw the phone to the corner of my room, as though that will stop it from receiving texts. It buzzes again, probably with some kind of sign-off from Nicky. It was nice of him to check in, but it also feels like now I have another person to answer to for feeling shitty. Which just adds another layer of shitty.

  Goblet of Fire, take me away. I need the break after the home invasion from Dmitri.

  I know he was here to apologize, again, about Meg, but I didn’t want him to think that she has so much power over me. It’s not Meg that drove me to this state; it’s my messed-up brain. I stopped him, but then he stopped me. He found out about last year, and then went all sappy on me. I think he told me he loves me more times than both of my parents combined. And now he wants to save me, as though just his presence and his professions of love are enough to lift whatever plague I have. Doesn’t he realize that’s like believing that merely telling someone with diabetes “I love you” will cure them, instead of having them take insulin and manage their foods? Depression is not a choice. It’s not something I can drop like, say, a film class. It comes. It goes. Sometimes talking helps, sometimes drugs do, too, but sometimes it hangs around even when I should be happy. Even when I should be living my stupid teenage life like all of the other stupid teenagers around me.

  It makes me hate everyone. But no one more than myself.

  And then Dmitri handed me this flyer. He wants to take me to a carnival. Becaus
e nothing cures depression like a winter carnival. I guess it’s sweet. I can’t even tell anymore. To appease him, to get him out of here, I told him I’d go. Really, though, I can’t imagine standing outside in ten-degree weather, watching artists hack away at ice sculptures as smiling children fly down hills of snow on cafeteria trays. I used to love the winter carnival. My parents took us because it was free and got us out of the house during the winter.

  Who knows? It could be fun.

  Fun.

  Fun.

  Fun.

  Say it enough times and it doesn’t sound fun at all. Or even like a real word. Maybe if I go and pretend I’m not a real person, it will be fun. Maybe if I pretend I am going to Hogwarts instead of Walter Mondale Preparatory High School, tomorrow won’t be so bad. I can pretend that math class is transfiguration, and that after school I have Quidditch practice. Sometimes I replace one of the Weasley twins as beater when they’re having an off day.

  Yeah. That doesn’t sound crazy at all.

  Dmitri

  The feel of a drumstick hitting a snare drum is hard to put into words. The skin on the snare is stretched so tight the little plastic tip at the end of the stick literally bounces off it. It’s how you do a drumroll; you force each stick into a controlled and repeated bounce in successive hits. In isolation, that little bounce is like a hop in your step, an encouraging punch on the shoulder; it’s filled with promise and opportunity.

  I’m completely losing myself in rehearsal today, letting my arms and legs carry me to a place that’s safe and apart from everything else.

  We finish the song with a crisp, sudden stop; Kyle and Drew deadening the strings of their instruments, and me hitting and then immediately catching and holding the crash cymbal while kicking the bass drum at the same time. Ending songs like this is a great way to showcase how tight Unexpected Turbulence really is.

  “Fucking A!” Chad shouts.

  “Fucking A?” Kyle looks both confused and amused.

  Chad stares at the rest of us and shakes his head, overemphasizing his disbelief at how stupid the three of us must be. “It’s from the eighties, dumbasses.” The eighties. Ugh. Nostalgia should be a thing of the past. “Anyway,” Chad continues, “I got us another gig.” He pulls the mic out of its stand and flings it right at my face before pulling it back by the microphone cord at the last second. It’s a trick he likes to do—sometimes aiming at Drew, sometimes at the audience, sometimes at me—and why he insists on never using a wireless mic. It makes me flinch every single time, including today. He lets loose a throaty laugh at seeing me twitch. What a dick.

  “Fucking A,” Kyle says. It’s dripping with sarcasm, but he laughs to break the tension and says, “No, seriously, that’s great. Where and when?”

  “Friday night. Battle of the bands at a high school out in St. Louis Park. They’re expecting a couple of hundred people, and top prize is five hundred dollars.”

  Even though Chad is a douche, he does do a good job of lining up shows for us. The idea of a gig, especially one with a prize and a nice-sized crowd, brings a smile to my face. Same for Kyle and Drew. Feeding on the energy, Kyle plays a riff to start another song. I’m playing the drum fill that pulls the rest of the band into the groove when it hits me.

  Friday night.

  The winter carnival.

  Shit.

  Eliana was back at school today but didn’t say two words to me. I tried to catch her in the hall, but she bolted every time she saw me, and she wasn’t in PE. And, of course, my texts—sixteen of them—went unanswered. It left me with a sense of being in deep water, and being too tired to swim to shore.

  Playing the drums at rehearsal today has been a kind of cleanser, washing all those feelings away.

  Until now.

  My sticks slide right off the mounted toms and fall to the floor. Everyone stops playing and stares at me.

  “Really?” Chad barks. Like I said, dick.

  “Did you say Friday?” I ask.

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “I can’t make it.”

  “Why not?” Chad actually smiles when he asks this, like no matter what excuse I offer, he’s going to give me shit.

  I think about lying. I mean, if I tell them I have a date, they’re all going to laugh at me. But what would my lie be? That I have some family thing? Some church thing? I’m going out of town? Besides, I learned a long time ago that lying almost always backfires.

  In the third grade, the vice principal of our elementary school caught me peeing on the side of an equipment shed by the playground. Other boys were doing it, so I joined in, wanting them to think I was cool. The school sent an email home and my father sat me down and grilled me about it.

  “It wasn’t me,” I told him. “I wasn’t one of the kids who peed. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “Demetrios.” My dad only used my full name when I was in trouble. “I not care so much about peeing. But if you lying at me, we have bigger problem.”

  Stick with the lie, I told myself. “I swear, Dad, it wasn’t me.”

  “Dimmi.” He hung his head in disgust, or shame, or frustration, or something. “Did school not tell you they have security camera all over playground?”

  There was a long pause during which neither one of us moved. Someone watching the scene from outside might have thought time had stopped. I was busted; there was nothing left to do but own up and apologize. Which I did. My father sent me to bed without any supper and I cried myself to sleep.

  The next day I looked all around the equipment shed for cameras and couldn’t find a single one. I’d been played. My dad’s little traps stopped working after that, mostly because I just took the easy route and told the truth. Which I guess was his point. Score one for Papa Smurf.

  “I have a date,” I tell the band.

  “A date?” Chad laughs. “Are you fucking kidding?”

  I don’t know why that question gets under my skin, but it does. “No, Chad, I’m not fucking kidding. I have a date.” My answer is laced with venom.

  “Can’t you postpone it?” Kyle asks. “I’m sure Eliana will understand.” And now I’m trapped. I can’t tell them about Ellie and depression and missing school and last year and our relationship being on the brink of annihilation. As far as they know, it’s just like any other Friday night date, and that’s all they need to know.

  “Not this one,” I say, and leave it at that.

  “Well, Demetrios,” Chad begins, knowing how much I hate it when anyone uses my full name, “seems like you have a choice to make.” He leans forward and points the microphone right at my face. “This band or that girl. It’s up to you.”

  I glance at Kyle and Drew, but each is looking at his shoes.

  This band or that girl.

  Shit.

  Eliana

  I never know how to feel on one of these days. I mean, it’s the feeling piece that’s all messed up. When I wake up and don’t hate the world. When I look in the mirror and things aren’t that bad. When I eat breakfast without the cereal boring an uncomfortable hole into my stomach. Is the fog lifting? Is my depression on its way out again? Or is it just a short reprieve? Sometimes it tricks me. Sometimes I can feel almost normal, and I laugh along with a joke, and I listen in class like a good student, and I live as though the moment is all there is. I stop thinking about how much I hate life, how much I wish I were anywhere but here, how much I hate me.

  Aside from being confusing to myself, it seems to really freak other people out. My mom looks at me with great suspicion, as though my good mood is all a fake-out in order to steer her away from the fact that I plan to do something really horrible later in the day. She told me this once, which adds an extra layer of weird to an already out-of-the-ordinary good mood. Just another way depression screws with you. I can’t just live my life and feel the way I feel, like a normal person who may be having a good day or a bad day. All of my days are defined to the extreme. My emotions are examined tenfold
with a gigantic microscope and an expectation that whatever mood I’m in could come or go at the slightest trigger.

  Fun times.

  “You sure you don’t need a ride to school?” Mom stalks around the kitchen, eyeing me but trying to look like she’s not eyeing me.

  “I want to walk. I like walking.” I dip my spoon into my cereal bowl and retrieve the last softened piece of Alpha-Bits.

  I watch as Mom argues with herself, nodding her head, opening her mouth to say something, then holding it in. She can’t deny that I enjoy walking, that I’ve been a walker since before, during, and after depression.

  “Walking is good for me, Mom. It’s exercise. It’s endorphins,” I remind her.

  “It’s fifteen degrees out.”

  “I’ll bundle up. School is less than a mile away. Please?” Mom considers. “What happened to parents spinning yarns about back in their day having to walk to school in zero degrees uphill both ways? I am practically begging you to let me walk to school. There is something wrong with this picture.” I’m jokey, but it sucks. I have to convince my mom to let me walk to school. What other kid has to do this? Why can’t I just be normal for a day at least?

  “Okay. But you’re wearing that scarf-hat thing your grandma bought you.” She refers to a faux-fur leopard-print hat, connected to a scarf, complete with tiny leopard ears. It’s not exactly my style, but it is warm. And I look kind of cute in it for sure.

  “Okay.” I act like this puts me out, but it’s a small victory toward normalcy.

  Bundled up so my eyes peek above the fluff of the scarf, I trek to school. By the time I arrive, my eyelashes are frozen and my nose has leaked all over the fur. My lungs burn, but in a good way, a way that tells me I did something productive. I don’t feel bad, even if I look it.