Elizabeth sighs and shifts from one foot to the other. Kevin and Tommy nod. “Fine,” says Elizabeth. “Let’s go.”
The four walk side by side to the woods’ entrance, where Ms. Diaz takes the lead and walks without haste. She carefully pulls aside or steps over any branches in their way. She turns around often to make sure the others notice the obstacles.
They walk past the area where Elizabeth fell. They continue deep into the trees to reach the clearing.
Tommy leaps atop a downed tree trunk and walks across it. Kevin walks the area’s perimeter. He looks down and sees remnants of autumn and winter. Layers of dried-up leaves, buried for months by ice and snow, cake the ground. Ms. Diaz pats him on the shoulder as she strolls by. The branches above her sprout new life—young, strong, green leaves that hold on tight as the spring wind whistles through them. The sun shines almost directly above them in the clear blue sky.
Elizabeth inches toward the area in the center, the small clearing where a few trees didn’t grow. She stares at the spot where Emily swallowed a handful of pills.
Ms. Diaz calls to Tommy and Kevin and moves toward Elizabeth. She stands next to her and looks down, too.
“Let’s sit,” she says.
Elizabeth snaps her head up. “Right here? Seriously?”
Ms. Diaz lowers herself to the ground and crosses her legs beneath her. She plucks a nearby dandelion and tucks it behind her ear.
Kevin and Tommy sit opposite Ms. Diaz. Tommy gently tugs Elizabeth’s hand, inviting her to join them. She sits in front of him, inside the “V” of his legs, and leans back into him. Tommy rests his chin on her shoulder.
Ms. Diaz rips open the envelope and removes the letter.
“Do you want to hear it?” she asks.
“Yes,” Kevin and Tommy say at once.
“No,” says Elizabeth. “I mean, she wrote it to you. You should read it first.”
Ms. Diaz reads the letter silently.
Dear Ms. Diaz,
I’ve been home for two months after being in the hospital for a little while. I can’t get into that right now. I don’t have enough time or paper. I won’t be coming back to school this year. I was going to write sooner, but I wasn’t ready. Even now, I’m stumbling over my thoughts, so I’m just going to spit it out: I’m sorry for choosing you to find me. It wasn’t fair to do that to you. I also want to say thank you for finding me in time. I know Elizabeth was there, too. Please thank her for me. I have so much more to say, but I can’t right now. My mind and hand freeze up whenever I try to get it out.
The one thing that keeps popping into my head is a dream I had recently. I know you’ll understand it since you read my journal.
I was on a plane, the skydiving propeller kind. It glided over the ocean. The nose started to dip. I wasn’t sure if it was going to crash or not, and I didn’t want to wait to find out. The side door was open, and no one else was aboard. I walked to the edge and dived into the ocean like an Olympian.
The ascent toward the bright light above the surface was easy since I pushed hard with my arms and kicked my legs. I broke through the water’s surface and inhaled the fresh air. I flipped on my back and floated, surrendering to the push and pull of the waves. The water moved me gently, here and there, while the sun warmed my face. I closed my eyes and smiled. When I woke up, I was still smiling.
I’m okay … not great … not yet, but I’m getting better. I want to get better. I wanted you to know that.
Love,
Emily
P.S. Please tell Elizabeth, Kevin, and Tommy not to feel guilty. What I did wasn’t their fault.
P.S.S. Tell them, too, that I choose them as my society. They’ll understand.
“She forgives you for hitting her,” says Ms. Diaz.
Elizabeth covers her mouth with her hand. Tommy holds her tighter.
“She says none of you are responsible for what she did, and she chooses you as her society.”
They all smile at each other.
“So, is she okay?” Elizabeth asks.
“She says she’s okay … not great … not yet.”
“Not yet,” says Elizabeth.
She looks at a small bush nearby covered with buds. Like a zoom lens, her eyes zero in on one that’s green, tight, and closed off on one side. On the other side, small white petals push their way into the world. With a little more sun and water, the bud will bloom.
“So, there’s hope,” Elizabeth concludes. She squeezes Tommy’s hands and considers Kevin’s tears and the dandelion peeking through Ms. Diaz’s hair. Elizabeth nods and says, “There’s always hope.”
Emily sits in the oversize chair in front of her window, knees pulled to her chest, hugged by thin arms. Sunlight flickers through the trees’ waving branches. She closes her eyes and holds them there for a moment, like she’s taking a mental picture, and then rises from her chair and moves to her desk.
She pins a picture on the new corkboard that hangs on the wall above her desk. She had ripped down the old one when she first came home. Most of the pictures were of her, Abby, and Sarah. On her new corkboard, she displays one picture of the three of them—her favorite one. She stands between Abby and Sarah, arms wrapped around their shoulders. Abby flashes a peace sign, and Sarah leans her head against Emily’s. She has a wide, genuine smile on her face. They all do. Emily’s working her way back to being that girl.
She pins up other things, too: the picture and card Elizabeth sent her and her safety plan, a signed promise to take any prescribed medication, remain in counseling, and tell someone if she ever feels hopeless again. She won’t keep the plan hidden in a drawer; she wants it to stare her in the face.
Emily sits at her desk and opens a new journal with a marble-design cover. She writes out two phrases from Emily Dickinson poems in large, black letters so she can see them easily from anywhere in the room. Turns out, Dickinson also wrote a lot about life and beauty and joy and love. These are the poems she reads now. She rips the pages out of her journal and pins them to the corkboard.
She walks across the room to see if the letters are large enough to read from a distance. She reads the first one out loud: “Unable are the Loved to die / For Love is Immortality, …” She reads it again and again. She lets it sink in.
She reads the other quote: “Live – Aloud!”
She repeats it:
Live – Aloud!
Live. Aloud.
Live.
Live.
Live.
Author’s Note
Unfortunately, suicide is the third leading cause of death among US adolescents, and Latina teens are at an increased risk for depression, thoughts of suicide, and suicide attempts. If you or anyone you know is struggling with depression or having suicidal thoughts, please seek help. You are important. You would be missed.
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
National Hopeline Network: 1-800-442-4673
The characters in When Reason Breaks represent pieces of the iconic American poet Emily Dickinson. My hope is that this story is compelling regardless of the reader’s knowledge of Dickinson. At the same time, I hope it sparks an interest in teens to explore Dickinson’s life and work.
My own interest in and knowledge of Dickinson developed during an author-centered graduate class at Central Connecticut State University. While writing this novel, I often returned to Cynthia Griffin Wolff’s Emily Dickinson and the Emily Dickinson Museum website for information. Here are the connections between Dickinson and the novel.
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was a middle child born on December 10, 1830. Her older brother was William Austin Dickinson, and her younger sister was Lavinia Norcross Dickinson. Their father was an attorney and politician who served in the Massachusetts legislature and as a Whig in the Thirty-third Congress. A stern conservative, he traveled often but, when home, his word ruled. Dickinson loved and respected her father immensely but frequently felt ignored or underestimated by him. She had a stra
ined relationship with her mother, who was often emotionally distant and physically ill.
Dickinson was an intellectual who had a sharp wit and great passion for her work as a poet, having written close to 1,800 poems. Only ten of her poems were published during her lifetime, probably without her knowledge. Along with her poetry, Dickinson is famous for her reclusive lifestyle in her later years; even then, though, she maintained ties with a tight circle of friends and family. An avid reader and letter writer, she was a fan of Shakespeare and Thoreau, and the Brontës were her literary contemporaries. She was an artist, a keen observer of her surroundings, and a lover of nature who often pondered life, death, and immortality.
Emily, Elizabeth, and Ms. Diaz share Dickinson’s first name and initials. Emily Delgado’s father is a lawyer and politician and her mother is detached and ailing. She has an older brother, Austin, who attends Amherst College. Like Dickinson, Emily Delgado initially has a normal social life as a young person, including crushes, but ultimately pulls away from most of her friends. Emily Delgado writes the letters to Ms. Diaz and reads Thoreau as an escape at the party. In the end, her need for space and privacy causes her to retreat from her society, and her written work—her journal—is found after her attempted suicide. There is evidence that Dickinson experienced depression, but none that she was suicidal; this is particular to Emily Delgado as a character. Emily Delgado wears white in the clearing. Dickinson was buried in white.
Elizabeth represents Dickinson’s darker, bolder poems. Many have an angry tone and some are Gothic. Like Dickinson, Elizabeth is a poet and a visual artist. Elizabeth’s poem is published in the student newspaper without her approval; it is written in the 8/6/8/6 syllable pattern often used by Dickinson. During the novel, Elizabeth reads Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë and Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. Elizabeth is fascinated by the local cemetery and the gravesite of Sophia Holland, in particular. Emily Dickinson was distraught when her cousin and friend Sophia Holland died at a young age. Elizabeth’s sister Lily represents Dickinson’s younger sister, Lavinia, and her father’s affair represents the famous affair between Dickinson’s brother, Austin, and Mabel Loomis Todd, both of whom were married.
Ms. Diaz is an intellectual and a writer who reveres nature as Dickinson did. She’s passionate about her work and adorns her classroom with posters of Shakespeare and Thoreau, two of Dickinson’s favorites.
Tommy Bowles represents two important men in Dickinson’s life: Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Samuel Bowles. Higginson was a mentor to Dickinson and coeditor of the first two collections of her poems. Bowles was the owner and editor in chief of the Springfield Republican and a close friend. Of the poems that were published in her lifetime, five were published in the Springfield Republican. Some scholars argue Dickinson may have had a romantic interest in both Higginson and Bowles.
Suzanne Gilbert, the guidance counselor, represents Susan Huntington Gilbert Dickinson, Emily’s sister-in-law and longtime friend. Their relationship was at times loving, and at times contentious.
Some researchers say Dickinson was upset when Susan started to date Austin. Also, her letters to her female friends were so intense that scholars question if she had romantic feelings for any of them, Susan Gilbert in particular. This is represented by Emily’s reaction to Abby’s relationship with her brother and the suggestions that she might be attracted to Abby or the freshman, Sue Huntington. Two of Dickinson’s close childhood friends were named Sarah Tracy and Abby Wood.
I continue to admire Dickinson’s life and work. Like others, I am grateful that her brilliant words were found and published, making the poet and her work immortal and poem #1212 ring true:
A word is dead
When it is said,
Some say.
I say it just
Begins to live
That day.
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to everyone who helped to turn my ideas and dreams into reality. Thank you to my awesome agent, Laura Langlie, for taking a chance on me and for being so supportive and persistent. Thanks to my editor, Mary Kate Castellani, and everyone at Bloomsbury USA Children’s who helped to bring When Reason Breaks to life. Mary Kate, your brilliant comments and insights helped to shape this story into its best possible version. A huge thanks to my family and friends for all their love and support. You were always willing to babysit, read drafts, offer words of encouragement, and whatever else I needed. I couldn’t have done this without you: Mom, Dad, Tía Mercia, Marcel, Mimi, Niko, Tyler, Saryna, Dean, Alyna, Evan, Melody Moore, Matt Eagan, my Glastonbury critique group, and all my friends and colleagues in West Hartford and online. A special thanks to Dr. Melissa Mentzer from Central Connecticut State University for introducing me to Emily Dickinson’s poetry, and to Dr. Katherine Sugg for encouraging and supporting me as a writer during and since graduate school. Thank you to Kimberly Sabatini, who introduced me to a great group of people at my first SCBWI conference, and thanks to my new writer friends from the Fearless Fifteeners, the Class of 2K15, and Latin@s in Kid Lit. Finally, thank you to my daughter, Maria Luisa, for putting up with me throughout this process. I love you and I hope Mommy makes you proud!
Copyright © 2015 by Cindy L. Rodriguez
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First published in the United States of America in February 2015
by Bloomsbury Children’s Books
This electronic edition published in February 2015
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rodriguez, Cindy L.
When reason breaks / by Cindy L. Rodriguez.
pages cm
Summary: Elizabeth Davis and Emily Delgado seem to have little in common except Ms. Diaz’s English class and the solace they find in the words of Emily Dickinson, but both are struggling to cope with monumental secrets and tumultuous emotions that will lead one to attempt suicide.
[1. Emotional problems—Fiction. 2. Family problems—Fiction. 3. High schools—Fiction.
4. Schools—Fiction. 5. Hispanic Americans—Fiction. 6. Goth culture (Subculture)—Fiction.
7. Suicide—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.R618833Whe 2015 [Fic]—dc23 2014009109
eISBN: 978-1-61963-413-8
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