The Bridge

by Bill Konigsberg

  She’s able to get him home with a minimum of words. He hands her the key and he lets her lead him into his bedroom, where he numbly gets into bed without taking off his clothes or his shoes. He lies flat on his back, staring at the ceiling. She pulls over his desk chair and sits with him in silence.

  She texts her mom:

  Her mom texts back immediately.

  They sit in silence from 7:00 to 8:00 to 8:29, when she hears the door opening. She yells, “Mr.—Aaron’s dad?”

  Footsteps quicken to a run.

  “What’s—what’s happening?”

  “I’m Tillie. I’m Aaron’s friend. He’s not okay.”

  “Okay, okay. Thank you. Hi. Aar—Aar—?”

  Aaron doesn’t stir.

  “Aaron,” his dad says, his voice calmer than her mother’s would be. “Talk to me, kiddo. I’m here. I’ll help you however is possible. Please just say something, kiddo.”

  Aaron mumbles something. Neither Tillie nor his dad hears it. They both move closer.

  “I don’t deserve to live,” Aaron says, and his dad reaches down and envelops his son, who doesn’t move, and Tillie stands and gives them room.

  She gives them so much room that she can’t hear the rest of the conversation, but she knows enough so that when there’s a pause, she says, “So. Do you need me? I can stay—” She tells his dad a little bit more about what happened, how Aaron froze on the platform. She doesn’t mention the bridge, and doesn’t mention cutting school—those are Aaron’s things to tell. But she has to help with what’s going on right now. She tells Aaron’s dad she thinks this happened to Aaron in class yesterday, too, that this isn’t the first time.

  “Thank you so much,” his father says, offering her a sympathetic smile. “You have no idea how grateful I am to you. I can take it from here.”

  She says, “Bye, Aaron. I love you, okay?” There’s no answer, and she walks out of the room and the apartment, thinking, I don’t know but I think I may have just saved a life. Which should feel great. But all it really feels is exhausting.

  Tillie’s mom is waiting by the door when Tillie gets home. She wraps Tillie in a breath-stealing hug, takes her hand, and leads her to the couch.

  Britt is sleeping over at a friend’s house. Dad is who knows where. In his office, hiding? Asleep? What would it be like to have a dad who cared? Who came out at a time like this and soothed her?

  But he doesn’t, so when Tillie’s mom asks her what happened, Tillie just tells her. Everything. Even the bridge.

  Tillie’s mom is a cryer, and the story makes her sob.

  “Till!” she says. “What am I going to do with you?”

  Tillie doesn’t have an answer to that.

  “Do we need to put you somewhere?”

  “No,” Tillie says, too fast. “I mean, I should probably see Dr. Brown, like, pronto.”

  “I’ll see if I can get you in tomorrow. Whatever it takes.”

  Tillie rubs her tired eyes. “I know you won’t get this, but hanging out with Aaron the last couple days has actually really helped. I know I probably won’t see him for a bit, but I needed a friend, Mom.”

  “I get that. Sweetheart? Can I ask you one thing?”

  “Sure, Mom.”

  “Will you promise me you’ll tell me if things get that bad again? Can I have your word? I simply would not be able to live with myself if you … I can’t even say it.”

  Tillie is so glad her mom says this. A few days ago it might have bugged her. But something about her reawakening with Aaron makes it the perfect thing to say.

  “I promise,” she says.

  CHAPTER 4D: APRIL 20

  By the time Aaron wakes up on Saturday morning, his dad has already organized everything. There’s an appointment with a shrink named Dr. Laudner. There’s a plan in place to get Aaron on meds for depression. And Aaron has no idea how this happened, but there’s a summit with Tillie Stanley and her mother set for Aaron’s living room at four p.m.

  “Is this like the G-Four?” Aaron asks, playing a role, really, because he just doesn’t have a lot of humor in him this morning. “Are we going to discuss nuclear disarmament with the Russians, Chinese, and Germans?”

  Aaron’s father turns the blue rocking chair in which he’s sitting to face Aaron’s bed. It squeaks against the floor angrily, like it needs an oil change.

  “Well, if keeping you and your friend safe is nuclear disarmament, then yes,” Aaron’s dad says. “Not sure the Germans will be there, however. How’s your head?”

  “Medium rare,” Aaron says, and his father has no follow-up questions.

  Tillie and her mother curl up on the couch on Saturday morning and watch some terrible old movie on TCM about a cop guarding a gangster on a train ride. Tillie’s mother’s face is more lined than usual, and mostly Tillie wishes she could just say, You’re released, you’re free, and let her mom go and be a happy person without the burden of the disaster that is her older daughter. And she knows that if she said that, her mom would tell her to stop it, and that she’s loved so much, and there are lots of things Tillie can take right now, but with her dad still not around and her sister sleeping over at Carly’s like a regular kid, hearing that she is so loved and so normal is not one of them.

  “They don’t make movies like this anymore,” Tillie’s mom says.

  “All white and all male?”

  Her mom laughs. “They still make plenty of those.”

  “I wish I could make a movie.” Tillie puts her head in her mother’s lap.

  Tillie’s mom strokes her shoulder. “What would it be?”

  “It would be about the awfulness of people.”

  “Sounds like a real summer blockbuster.”

  Tillie goes on. “Aaron is, like … You know when someone’s heart is so tender that they probably can’t live? It was like that. He sang in the subway, Mom. It was, like, he just put his pure heart out there and he so wanted everyone to, like, love him. And they didn’t, because people are the worst. It broke my heart.”

  Her mother bends down and kisses her ear. “I certainly don’t know any teens with that sort of tender-heart problem,” she says.

  Dr. Laudner’s office is on West End Avenue and Ninety-First. He’s a blond, bearded guy with kind eyes and thinning hair, and he sits in a room filled with too many plants, like maybe his doctorate is in horticulture or something.

  The doctor asks Aaron all sorts of questions and Aaron gives minimal answers, not wanting to piss the doctor off but also not really feeling up to a lot of conversation.

  “So on a scale of one to ten, Aaron, with ten meaning as happy as ever and one being as despondent as ever, where are you today?”

  Aaron looks out the second-story window. The newly green leaves of flowing trees blow tranquilly in the early spring wind. “Is negative six an option?”

  “Oh dear,” Dr. Laudner says, making Aaron wonder if he’s gay. He hopes so. If he had a sex drive, Laudner would definitely be fantasy material. Aaron really doesn’t, though. Not at the moment, thank you very much. It would just be nice to talk to an adult gay male once in a while, maybe.

  Aaron is given a test to take with multiple choice answers, about just how depressed he really is. He takes it as honestly as possible.

  “Seventy-six,” the doctor says.

  “Is that good?”

  The doctor smiles sympathetically.

  “Anything above fifty-four is severely depressed.”

  Aaron closes his eyes. “A fine time to start getting C-pluses,” he says, and this makes the doctor laugh a bit, at least.

  Tillie’s appointment with Dr. Brown is at one. Tillie considered asking her mother if she could see someone else, someone not so … stick-in-ass. Dr. Brown is the kind of skinny blond lady who probably sends her kids to Spence. Whose kids probably are still laughing about Molly’s cow video. But in the end, she decided not to make a big deal about it. She’s high maintenance enough, after all.

  “So what
’s going on under the hood?” the doctor asks.

  Tillie wants to dramatically study her own shell and report on her lack of a hood. But she knows any such action will not help her right now.

  “I’m fine, basically.”

  “Your mom told me about the bridge.”

  “It was stupid.”

  “Stupid? How do you mean?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, if you did know.”

  This is Tillie’s least favorite of Dr. Brown’s greatest hits. It’s like a cute way of saying, Bullshit.

  Tillie shrugs and starts pulling at a strand of brown fabric sticking out from the couch upon which she reclines. She imagines unraveling the couch while sitting on it, so that at the end she’s sitting in a pile of unwound brown fabric and cream-colored cushion.

  “Please don’t do that,” Dr. Brown says, pointing.

  “Sorry,” says Tillie.

  Aaron fires off a quick text to Tillie an hour before the upcoming tête-à-tête.

  At the door to Aaron’s apartment, Aaron and Tillie give each other a sort of awkward side embrace that makes them both want to die a bit. Aaron shakes Tillie’s mom’s hand. Tillie says hey to Aaron’s dad as if they’ve known each other for more than two awkward minutes last night.

  The two families sit opposite each other on two peach couches in the living room. Tillie sees the view of New Jersey and the Hudson from the twelfth floor and can’t help but wonder how many times Aaron has stared out at it, maybe from the window seats right against the huge picture windows, wondering whether life is worth living. She also can’t help but imagine the coldness of the water that, just three days ago, she almost jumped into.

  “So this is maybe a little strange, but I set this meeting up as a chance to discuss what’s been going on this last week,” Aaron’s dad says. “I don’t mean to speak for Mrs. Stanley, but I know I’m really concerned and thought the best thing we could do is put everything out on the table.”

  Aaron tenses. He looks at Tillie, who looks back at him. She looks tense, too, around the jaw.

  Aaron’s dad continues. “I first want to say how glad I am—”

  He swallows, and he averts his eyes, and then he wipes them, though they are dry. But not for long. The wetness comes, and then the redness, and Aaron wants to die, because he’s made his father cry, and his father is the kind of dad who would cry in front of others, and yeah, he would, too, and that should be something to be proud of, but at the moment he just wants to disappear.

  “Tillie. I am so sorry you were there, because it must mean you’re really struggling. But I am so forever grateful, too, because you—saved my boy’s life.”

  At this point, Aaron’s dad begins to bawl, and Aaron steals a glance at Mrs. Stanley, and she, too, is crying, and Aaron imagines taking Tillie by the hand and running down all twelve flights and out into the street and into the world and never looking back because this is too real, too awful, and it’s his fault, totally his fault, or half his fault, anyway, and he could just disappear forever.

  Tillie, too, ducks her head, as if by staring at her lap and blinking several times, she might magically extricate herself.

  Tillie’s mom dries her eyes, blows into a Kleenex she’s pulled from her purse, and takes over.

  “So the big thing here is that we need to have a plan. And it’s not clear you’re both in the same place, but you’re both battling right now. So. Can we ask a few questions?”

  Both kids nod. The parents look at each other. They share a subliminal nod, too.

  Tillie’s mom continues. “So the only rule here is this: You have to be totally honest with us. You’re not in trouble. The opposite. This is about helping you however we can, okay?”

  Aaron and Tillie nod again.

  Tillie’s mom turns to Aaron. “Aaron, are you right now a danger to yourself?”

  He thinks about it. “Um. Not at this moment, no. It’s better when I’m not alone, I guess. I’m scared of the next time I go back to being alone.”

  Aaron’s dad says, “Okay. Thank you for your honesty. Tillie?”

  “Uh. No.”

  The four of them sit in silence for a while.

  Finally, Mrs. Stanley speaks. “Aaron, what would you do if you were together and Tillie suddenly was in danger?”

  “I’d … um. Do anything. I wouldn’t let her—”

  “Could you be one hundred percent trusted to call me? Even if Tillie said ‘don’t’?”

  Aaron looks at Tillie and he realizes that yes, he’d absolutely do that, no question. “Yes,” he tells her mom.

  “Same question, Tillie,” Aaron’s dad says.

  Tillie doesn’t hesitate. “I’d do what I did yesterday.”

  “Okay. Good.”

  Tillie’s mother says, “I think for right now, obviously you two need us to be close and available, and you need each other. I think we’re both afraid.” She points to Aaron’s dad when she says that. “But less afraid when we’re with you or when you’re together. So this is all to say that we’re around and we’re here for you, anytime. You’re our priority. And also, if you need a break from us, you have each other.”

  Tillie and Aaron share an openmouthed look. Like, what?

  Tillie’s mom keeps going. “But we need to know everything. Where you are when you’re not with us. Where you’re going. If you need us. If school isn’t safe, you tell us and we’ll take care of it, but no secrets, got it? We will release you both into each other’s care, but we will be aware of your whereabouts at every moment. How does that sound?”

  Tillie feels as if she’s been sent to the principal’s office and praised instead of disciplined, which has never happened but if it did, it would surely feel like this. Something about her mother accepting that she’s not fully okay without trying to fix it all sets Tillie free.

  For Aaron’s part, it’s as if their parents have spent time lamenting behind their backs that their kids are such lost causes that they’ve decided to pair them up, see what happens, and hope for the best. But at the same time, it’s also really, really good.

  “Sounds okay,” Aaron says.

  “Yeah,” Tillie says, and they both crack up at the same moment, because something about this is so awkward and funny and neither can describe what it is, or why.

  CHAPTER 5D: APRIL 21

  Released into each other’s custody, on Sunday Aaron and Tillie meet at the Seventy-Ninth Street bus station on Broadway and wander aimlessly downtown, walking the whole way despite Tillie’s not-so-subtle hints that Ubers are fun and educational and might be a good idea.

  “You know what would be so cool? If there was some sort of car you could take, and it would, like, pick you up and drop you off at the movie, or wherever you’re going. They should invent that,” she says as they pass Lincoln Center.

  “What’s the rush?” Aaron says. “The movie doesn’t start for another hour.”

  “I’m just saying. Could be fun. On an unrelated topic, my feet are ever so slightly tired.”

  He stops short. “Oh. Okay. Is it bad? We can. Sorry.”

  She thinks about this for a bit. “Nah. I’m just being whiny.”

  He laughs and starts walking again. “That’s sort of my thing,” he says. “Don’t be co-opting my things.”

  “I will try not to,” she says.

  The silence is awkward as they walk through the fashion district and then Chelsea, and Aaron wonders if it’s possible that they’ve permanently misplaced their conversational groove.

  Tillie is thinking that it’s weird that they chose a dark, artsy movie, because for all of her weirdness and darkness, she tends to fall asleep at artsy movies. But when Aaron asked what she liked to do, she felt like her options were to say the truth—I have no idea, because I hate most people and I’m going to be a female hermit and I have exorbitantly limited social experience—or make up some shit. She chose the latter.

  The movie is Chinese with English subtitles, and
the somber mood and monochromatic colors of the desolate Manchurian landscape deepen the rut both of them feel after their awkward walk. Then, about an hour into the endless film, there’s a huge-ass elephant, filling up the screen. The camera stays on it for a painfully long time.

  Aaron cracks up, and Tillie is momentarily annoyed by the outburst, but then she cracks up, too, because here they are, two depressed kids, watching a motionless Manchurian elephant.

  They eye each other and Tillie motions with her hand that they need to be serious. Aaron sucks in his cheeks and nods.

  And the elephant. Just sits there. Not moving. For an eternity.

  This time it’s Tillie snorting, and it’s like when you’re at a funeral, and you know laughing is the last thing you should do, but simply having that thought makes the laughter creep into your throat and suddenly you cannot breathe, you cannot move, because if you do, you’re going to cackle, and you can’t just cackle, except that’s exactly what you do and then your family hates you for the rest of eternity. And Aaron snorts, and Tillie snorts again, and then they are both bent over in hysterics, and every “Shh!” that comes their way makes it worse and finally Tillie is the one who just bellows out a laugh, and it’s like everything held in for the past however long just shoots out her mouth, and Aaron, too, lets go, and it’s not that long before the usher, who is their age and a total hipster who looks like every other hipster ever, escorts them out, and they laugh and laugh and laugh until they run out of gas in front of the Quad Cinema.

  “Woo,” says Tillie. “Whose fucking shitty idea was that, to go see a sad foreign film when we’re both, like, at death’s door?”

  “Yours,” Aaron says, and they laugh some more, and finally Aaron adds, “Pact: nothing but fun stuff the rest of the day?”

  “Pact,” Tillie says.

  Tillie buys them each a Lucky Charms cookie and a glass of milk at Chip NYC. Aaron’s eyes get wide when he sees that this behemoth, muffin-size cookie is covered in vanilla glaze and Lucky Charms marshmallows. Before they dig in, he excuses himself to the restroom.