Aftercare Instructions

  Then I watch him walk away.

  Our coffee sits untouched, with the last few traces of steam floating over the black liquid.

  ACT V

  SCENE 2

  Back in the waiting room, my sister rushes up and wraps herself around me. We are all arms and tears. Ally is the one everyone wanted to protect the most. The little girl who didn’t ever know what was going on. The little girl who wouldn’t ever understand. Now, she’s not even the same age I was when Dad died, and she knows so much more than I ever did. I peel her off me, but keep her hand in mine.

  My grandparents are there too. They gesture for me to sit with them.

  My sister lets go of my hand. I sit two seats away from them.

  “Are you okay, Genesis?” my grandmother asks.

  There we go with that question again. And maybe all that’s happened hasn’t quite hit me yet. I’m pretty good at the delayed response, I guess. Are you okay? Is it okay to be okay when in the past week, this is the inventory:

  1. Abortion

  2. Breakup

  3. Suicide attempt

  4. Breakup, part two

  And somewhere within all that I met another guy? What universe is this? Where have I landed?

  “There was a note, honey,” my grandma says. I didn’t even think of that.

  “Where is it?”

  I fight the urge to stand.

  “The police have it now.”

  Police. There were policemen last night. Asking so many questions. Wanting every detail. There weren’t any details last night, though. Only instincts.

  “What did it say?”

  She looks down. Down down down into her lap, and she starts to shake and pull her sweater up on either side of her face. She’s fighting something. Fighting something in herself that looks like it’s trying to scratch its way out of her, the way she twists and jerks. My grandfather takes her hand with one of his and the other goes around her back. Embracing her until she stops. I hold my tears in my throat. Ally drops down onto the floor and buries her head into my lap.

  “I want you to know when and if you do see it, none of this is your fault. None of it.”

  “What did it say?”

  “It’s not your fault, Genesis.”

  Ally wraps her arms around my legs. She looks up at me, chin on my knee with eyes wide open.

  “She said that this time you would be ready to take things on. This time you wouldn’t need her so much.”

  This time.

  Grandma just said what none of us have said. Ever. What all of us kept in so tight and buried.

  This time means there was a last time.

  And everyone knew it.

  “The first time she went to the hospital, we should have gotten her the help she needed then. You were too young. The responsibility should not have been yours.”

  Grandma’s gray eyes are red, and there is makeup running through the creases in her skin and down the tip of her nose.

  “She needed me.”

  “And you needed us. More. We pushed to get her out of the psych ward. Probably too soon. We let it be something else for your sake.”

  I want to exit. Not stage right. Not stage left. Just straight through the audience, outside to breathe and let the sunlight hit me and remind me that sometimes you can break from the script. Sometimes you have to. But I need to be here now, in it. To the end.

  The script all along has been: not a suicide attempt, not a suicide attempt, not a suicide attempt, just a bad drug reaction. She didn’t want to leave us, but still we had to fight to keep her.

  “It’s our fault. We abandoned her so many times.…” She chokes on her words.

  Ally is still on the floor. Listening. Waiting.

  “Gran,” I say.

  “So many times. We made so many mistakes.”

  Some part of my stern grandmother has melted away and all I see is her heart. A giant heart, crying and bleeding in the waiting room.

  “When she was pregnant with you, Gen. We could have helped then. Who knows how things would have been different. All around.”

  I try to swallow, but there is no saliva, only air.

  Then I let all those words settle around us.

  * * *

  When the doctor finally comes in, hours later, we’re all asleep. Delilah is here now, and Aunt Kayla, and Will’s mom, Brenda. We all spring up. We all turn on. Our skin prickles in anticipation.

  She’s awake.

  And she wants to see me.

  ACT V

  SCENE 3

  My mom’s heart is beating. I can hear it on the monitor. Her arms are bruised from all the times they’ve drawn blood. Her body is full of charcoal to absorb the poison. She’s breathing on her own. She won’t eat food, but she’s hooked up to an IV.

  I push her hair out of her eyes, and she opens them. When she sees me, I watch her wilt. I’ve seen movies where people have crawled into bed with someone in the hospital, and that’s all I want to do. To press her frail body against mine. To push our heartbeats together. But I don’t. I pet her hair and cry, like I’m standing over her coffin.

  “Mommy.”

  “Gen Gen.”

  “Hi.”

  She smiles, but it comes out like a frown. I see the pain pulsating in her skin.

  She closes her eyes.

  When she opens them she says, “I feel him all the time.”

  My father.

  “Mommy.”

  “I do. And I miss him so much.”

  “I know. I do too.”

  She nods, closing her eyes again.

  I don’t know what she can handle right now. I don’t know what I can handle. I want to tell her everything. About where he’s taken me recently. As I look at my tiny purple mother, all I really want is for her to be well. I want her to want to breathe and beat and kick. I want her to see me onstage. I want to show her about letting go. I don’t ever want us to forget my father, but I want her to feel like it’s going to be okay. And somehow I think I’ve been on a crash course here, and I might be able to help. In a different way this time.

  So I just sit with her, and hold her hand, and watch her sleep. When Ally comes in, we both get into the bed with her. There isn’t enough room, but no one cares. I bring my attention back to the beep beep beep of her heart.

  READ THROUGH ALL AFTERCARE INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY

  Delilah gives me a ride to the city the next day. I try to cancel the first read-through so I can stay with my mom, but Delilah won’t hear of it.

  I haven’t heard from Seth since I ditched him at the party. He has no way of knowing what’s happened to me since I last saw him. I’m eighteen now. All thing’s considered, that seems the least exciting. Rose and I have been texting. She wanted to come to the hospital, but I asked her to wait.

  Delilah pulls into a bus stop to let me out. Then at the same time, we both say: “Look…”

  Then we both say:

  “I’m sorry.…”

  Then just I say:

  “What are you sorry for?”

  “I overreacted the other night. Then I didn’t let go. Then I … wasn’t there for you.”

  She chokes on the last part of that sentence.

  “Del, I acted like a complete reckless idiot at that party. You have every right to be upset with me. I know you were worried.”

  “I don’t know, Gen. It just all seems so petty right now, after everything.”

  “Your feelings are not petty.”

  “I know that. I just should have reached out. And I should not have missed your birthday.”

  “I don’t even care about that.”

  “The thing is—and this sounds so ridiculous to say now—but the thing is, I was really excited about something that night. Something I really wanted to tell you. And then we got swept away in your stuff, and you never even asked me how I was.”

  “I am a total asshole.”

  “You are not an asshole.”

  “I act like one a
lot.”

  “That’s true.”

  We both exhale a small laugh.

  “Also, just the way you showed up at my dorm, then disappeared. You didn’t even leave a note when you left. Or text me. I had no idea what was going on.”

  “It’s seriously been a week.”

  “I know.”

  Outside the car window, I notice someone cleaning up a stoop sale—putting away records and jackets and perfume bottles, and a painting of a flower in a vase.

  “So, what is it?”

  “What?”

  “Your good news. Please tell me.” And then add, “I need it.”

  Her face changes; the clouds part.

  “Well, I’m getting a poem published.”

  “What?! That’s so exciting!”

  “It’s just in the school literary magazine, but I’m only a freshman, so that’s cool. But saying it sounds stupid. It definitely was not worth getting so mad at you about.”

  “It is a big deal. I will want your autograph on my copy, please.”

  Delilah grins.

  “I’m so sorry, Del. I know that we add a lot to your plate. I guess what I really should say is thank you.”

  There’s more to say. But at the same time, some things are better expressed through looks and gestures and touches, and I know by looking at her that we are back on track.

  “We will do better this time.”

  “We will.”

  “She will.”

  “She will.”

  “Love you, cuz.”

  I hug Delilah and jump out of the car as a bus pulls up behind us. I watch her drive to the next corner and turn left, out of sight. The wind picks up, and reminds me to move.

  Now, to the theater. I have to think of this neighborhood not as what took my dad, but as what gave him life. Yes, this is where he would come for weeks at a time, leaving us behind. This is where he would come, and where he would slip. This is where he was when he slipped for the last time. But there was something he needed here, something he reached for.

  I soak in the winter sun as I walk. Everything seems quieter. Cabs aren’t honking at each other. Construction is done for the evening. Everyone is calm.

  Seth and I get to the bottom of the black metal stairway at the same moment. His mouth curves, and then he puts his smile away with his hands in his pockets.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey.”

  “Happy birthday.”

  “It was yesterday.”

  “I know.”

  Pause. We let the conversation fall into the cold concrete at our feet.

  Then he picks it back up. “I’ve wanted to call you all day, but I also wanted to make sure you had your space to figure things out.”

  Pause.

  “Have you?”

  “Have I what?”

  “Figured things out.”

  “Oh, man. Yes? No? Maybe so?”

  “I know the feeling.”

  “But if you mean with that guy who showed up, then the answer is yes. I finally figured that one out.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “I’m sorry you got dragged into this.”

  “Nothing I can’t handle.”

  Instead of making some remark about how he’ll never know everything I’ve been through, or never be able to handle me, I drop it. I’ll never know what he’s been through either, unless I ask. And he’ll never know unless I share with him.

  “Only time will tell,” I say instead. My eyes fill up with tears. Accidentally.

  We catch each other’s eyes, and then he wraps his arms around me, holding me until it stops. Until I can breathe.

  “I hope so,” he says, releasing me. “Your party kind of sucked, though.”

  “It sure did.” I laugh. Softly. “But maybe it got me here.”

  “Maybe it did.” He pauses and looks up to the sky. The bare blue of it. Then straight at me. “You ready for this?”

  “I am.”

  He touches my hand as we walk up the stairs, but doesn’t grab it.

  Inside, there’s a table set up in the middle of the room where we auditioned. We take seats next to each other and watch silently as the others file in. Toby arrives, and then the beautiful girl Seth did his audition with. The other teenager walks in and smiles at me.

  “They’re letting me be in the ensemble,” she says.

  “Right on, that’s what I am too,” Seth says, and gives her a high five.

  When everyone is there, Casper Maguire and Fire Lady, who is actually named Melina, enter together. Melina looks at me with her hard violet eyes, and I still wonder what she has to tell me about the past, but I figure there’s time to find out.

  “Thank you all for coming,” Casper says. His voice is low and smooth. “I don’t like to give much of a speech to start this stuff off. We’re not going to go around the room and say something cute about ourselves. We’re going to jump headfirst into the work. The next four weeks, your hearts and souls belong to this script and these characters. I might not even learn your real names. Are you ready?”

  Casper looks directly at me, which sets my face on fire, and maybe the tears are about to creep back up. But I hold tight, and they don’t come. And he says, “Are you okay?”

  I shouldn’t be.

  And it doesn’t come with any guarantees.

  But the answer is finally yes.

  EPILOGUE

  FOLLOW-UP APPOINTMENT

  I fold over myself and let my arms hang loose, swinging them around. As I inhale, I slowly rise up, one vertebrae at a time, with my eyes closed. The rest of the cast bend and stretch and breathe, but we are all silent. We’ve already warmed up our voices. We’ve already learned the lines, the blocking, the character dynamics. We’ve already sweat and bled into this script and now we are ready to present it to the world.

  The audience sounds are blocked by a thick velvet curtain. I say my lines in my head. I let the character of Gwendolyn fill up the space inside my skin.

  Seth squeezes my hand and whispers, “You’ve got this.”

  Then he gives me a short and soft kiss on my cheek.

  “Places,” the stage manager calls out.

  Seth lets go of my hand, and I walk out onto the black stage as the curtain opens.

  I’m the first one they will see.

  I stand on the stage, looking into the darkness and waiting for the voices in the audience to settle. They are a blur of shadows, but I know who sits out there, and who will wait for me after the curtain call. And I wouldn’t have made it here without her. Or any of them.

  I take another deep breath.

  The lights rise.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The truth is, every single person in my life contributed to the making of this book. This one. This first one. Every person who ever put up with me, listened to me, checked in with me when I went into the cave, took me out, got me drunk, made me laugh, made me cry, danced with me, sang with me, bumped into me, held a door open for me—every one. Because it has really taken my whole life for this to happen, for this to become real.

  There are some people who need to be singled out. I am sprinkling stardust and glitter all over the following people forever.

  Thank you, first of all, to my most marvelous and particularly ferocious agent, Emily van Beek. The one who took a chance on me and the manuscript before it was ready, and who worked me harder than anyone to find this story, to crack it open. Also, thank you to the magical Estelle Laure. You are brilliant, and so very important to me.

  Thank you to my editors, Sarah Dotts Barley and Caroline Bleeke. I am forever in awe of your magic-making. And patience. And extraordinary minds. For being the kind of people who jump around and dance in your offices when you’re excited, just like me! Thanks also to Amy Einhorn and the whole FABULOUS team of people at Flatiron Books. Thank you.

  I started writing this book at Vermont College of Fine Arts, under the guidance of four amazing advisors who all pushed me in different w
ays. Coe Booth, who let me run with ghosts and traveling theater troupes and whatever else I needed to as I found my footing. Alan Cumyn, who said that maybe it could be more haunting without the ghosts, and who challenged me to be precise with each word. An Na, who helped me find the heartbeat of this piece, and the romance and excitement. And Martine Leavitt, my rhinestone-hoop-wearing hero, who pushed me to finish, and was a safe place for my heart. Thank you, all.

  A very special thank-you to Tim Wynne-Jones, Rita Williams-Garcia, April Lurie, and Matt de la Peña. For being rock stars and friends.

  Thank you to the MAGIC IFs. I found these people one winter in Vermont and somehow, they became my family. My writing family. We’re a complicated and magical crew, and I want to know you all until the end. Special shout-outs to Jim Hill, Nina Nelson, Amy Maughan, Anne Bowen, and Courtney Gibson. YAM!

  And to my MAGIC-al counterpart, Tessa Roehl. What would I do without you? You are my partner in all things shit-talking, wine-drinking, over-texting, lampshade-dance-partying, and navigating this bananas writing journey. Thank you for everything.

  My friends. My champions. You got me here. You’ve stayed with me through it all. Thank you, Anjali Suneja, for all the read-throughs, all the conversations, and all the dreaming. This girl sat and listened to me read the whole book out loud. Every writer needs this friend. Every regular girl needs this friend too. And thank you to Ann Bowman, the other super friend who listened to the whole thing out loud—thank you for that most enlightening brunch and all your support. Thank you to Sarah Romney, who went with me on my first research trip to New Jersey because she is always down for an adventure, and is the best person to spend hours with in a Zipcar.

  Thank you to the following friend-warriors, in no particular order! To Mary Meyer—it’s show time! To Jessica Hobbs Alvarez, the Rose to my Genesis. To Stephanie Levy, for equal parts serious and silly. To Neftali Haskell, who always said, “Don’t take any shit from the army,” and so I never did. To Christian Serramalera, who lived with me and my crazy for most of the writing of this book and still wants to be my friend. And to all these people for their inspiring awesomeness: Tania Ryalls, Brittany Romney, Rogelio Ramos, Marissa Johnson, Dawn Mauberret, Kate Springer, Eric Springer, Gregor Goldman, Ralph de la Rosa, Emma Kadar-Penner, Jay Green, Aaron Harris, Lila Rice Marshall, Martin Cartagena, Jessica Marliese Planter, Kate Schlichter, Atty Ferry, Mathew Falkoff, Bertie Pearson, Ben Relf, Ben Cohen, Katie Robbins, Oak Laokwansathitaya, James Rickman. You all have my heart forever.