by Wesley King
“What do you have?” someone whispered.
I turned and found a girl staring at me. She had wavy red-brown hair and a lot of freckles. She had almost no eyelashes—just a few stray ones at the corners of her eyes—and her eyebrows were nearly gone as well, except for some stubble.
She was still waiting for an answer. I shook my head.
“I don’t get it,” she said.
I shook my head again.
“You don’t talk,” she said, grinning. “That’s so cool!”
That was news to me, but I nodded, hoping she would stop talking.
“I’m Erin,” she said, sliding her chair a little closer. “You? Oh, right. The mutism. Never mind. Is that your problem?” She slapped her forehead. “Why do I keep asking? I am going to have to work on my sign language. And by that, I mean completely learn it from scratch. How long do you think it would take? Ugh, I did it again. What if I wrote notes instead? Or like a code … one blink yes, two blinks no, three blinks maybe … Hmm. Could be a lot of blinking—”
“Erin?” Dr. Ring said. “Would you like to share?”
Erin sat up and tapped her chair thoughtfully. “Well, it was a pretty good week, I guess.”
“Why is that?” Dr. Ring asked.
“She still has eyebrows,” the boy said.
He had blond hair and small blue eyes that didn’t look very friendly. Even while he was talking, he was chewing on his fingernails.
“Peter,” Dr. Ring said with his calm voice. “We only make encouraging comments.”
“Well, it’s hardly a bad thing,” Peter muttered.
Erin had her hand on her face now and was forcing a smile. “I went shopping with my mom. Also got an A on a math test, which as you know is totally not my forte. That’s really it.”
“And did you work on our homework from last session?” Dr. Ring asked.
“Yes,” she said. Her smile was gone in an instant. “I focused hard.”
“Good,” he said. “We’ll get back to mindfulness later. Sara? Did you have a good week?”
He is always encouraging me to talk to more people, but a circle of staring crazies was not the time for a major lifestyle change. The whole group was looking at me. I shook my head.
“She doesn’t talk,” Erin offered.
“Are you shy?” Peter asked, but it sounded like he meant, “Are you stupid?”
I shook my head again.
“We only ask questions when they are invited,” Dr. Ring said. “But to avoid confusion, Sara does not speak very much. She is here to learn, as we all are. Strength in numbers, right?”
They were still staring. Erin and the mean boy and the others. I didn’t want to be stared at. I didn’t want to talk or listen or even be around more crazies. Wasn’t one of us enough? What if we made each other worse? What if I got mean like Peter or my eyelashes all fell out like Erin?
Hanging out with crazy kids seemed like a bad way to become normal. I wondered if I should add a rule on the subject. Too late now.
I tried to stay calm, but it’s hard once the bad thoughts start going. My body does strange things without me telling it to, and they don’t just stop when I say stop. My skin gets hot and prickly. My throat dries up. My chest goes tight, like someone is sitting on it, or maybe filling it up with concrete. And I say, “Stop!” but it just keeps going, and I can never explain that to my parents. It happens every day. It gets tiring.
But I didn’t want to show what I was to these strangers. Not if I could help it.
So I stood up and walked out.
I heard Dr. Ring calling after me and Peter asking, “What did I say?” but I ignored them and went into the waiting room. I sat down there because my mother wouldn’t let me leave until the session was over. At least I would be alone. I put my head into my hands and tried to breathe for a minute even as my lungs tried to squeeze all the air out. What were normal kids doing right now? Playing video games? At a sports game? Maybe just hanging out with friends. Normal friends. I was pretty sure they weren’t hanging out with crazy kids.
“You okay?” someone asked, dropping into the seat beside me.
It was Erin. I tried to act normal and nodded, but I knew I was breathing fast. I shoved my trembling hands under my legs. Dr. Ring was watching me from the doorway. I thought he might say something, but he just nodded at Erin and went back inside. He left the door open.
“It’s tough to start,” Erin said. “It’s all, like, ‘why are you crazy,’ and Peter is such a boy, and well, you know. But it gets easier. I barely used to talk. Don’t give me that look, I wasn’t always this loquacious. Anyway, take the night off. Come and try again next week. It’ll be better.”
I shook my head.
“Think about it,” she said, shrugging. “You want to hang out this weekend?”
I looked at her, confused. She picked up a magazine but kept talking instead of reading.
“Saturday night, maybe. I know it’s hard to believe, but I don’t have plans yet.” She put the magazine down. “Do you have a cute older brother? If not, maybe we could wear pajamas.”
I opened my mouth, and then just shook my head again.
“Perfect. Pajamas it is. What do you have anyway? Just the mutism? You on pills?”
I nodded.
“Same,” she said. “An antidepressant. Do I seem bummed to you? Well, I’m not really depressed. It’s for anxiety. This group is like a little anxiety party. Superfun. How many a day?”
I held up four fingers.
“Four different pills?” she said incredulously.
I nodded again and she whistled. “That’s a lot. What for? All that for not talking?”
I shook my head, looked around, and then pointed at the bathroom.
She followed my gaze. “Something for the bathroom? A stool softener?”
I nodded. Then I realized that may have been too honest and my cheeks got hot.
She just laughed. “Hey, no judgment. No one likes a hard poop.”
I smiled, which was strange because usually only Ms. Hugger and my dad could make me smile. I gestured to the open door to let her know she could go back into the session if she wanted.
Strangely, I wasn’t sure that I wanted her to leave.
“Nah,” she said, opening the magazine again. “I’ll wait with you. Now, about Saturday. Your place, for sure. Mine is a total pigsty. Army brat, so we always have unopened boxes everywhere. Plus I have an evil brother. Say … seven? What’s your number? Ugh, I am the worst. Just give me your phone. I won’t text you too much. Just joking. I’ll totally text you every day.”
She punched the number in herself, and then leaned back and put her feet up on the coffee table. I did the same thing because it looked normal. We stared at the far wall, and she talked the whole time and didn’t even notice when I chewed my nails or tried to breathe—and if she did, she didn’t seem to care.
When I got home, I read my list of normal rules before bed, whispering like usual so my parents wouldn’t hear. But it felt different today. I had plans for the weekend. Me. Sara.
My stomach did a little flop, but then I realized something. I jumped out of bed, turned the lights on, and grabbed my list. Flipping to the second page, I took out a pen and grinned.
19. Make a friend
CHAPTER 5 SEVERAL CONVERSATIONS (SORT OF)
At school on Friday I told Ms. Hugger about Erin. She was excited. We even talked a little about what girls did when they hung out and she gave me some ideas. Crafts. Movies. Gossip.
“What should we gossip about?” I asked, writing down some notes.
Ms. Hugger laughed. “Anything. We used to gossip about boys, mostly.”
“Boys,” I said slowly, writing that down. “Like, the anatomy?”
She coughed. “What? No … not the anatomy. I thought we had moved on from that.”
Oh yeah … remember when I mentioned the incident about the internet? That was one.
The school librarian, Mrs. Yeltson, caught me
researching the male anatomy once. I wanted to tell her I like to research everything equally, but she wasn’t on my talking list. So she just said naked men had no place in the library and put me on probation, which meant I couldn’t use the internet anymore without Ms. Hugger supervising. Mrs. Yeltson was not very friendly.
“I am sure Erin will take the lead,” Ms. Hugger said, turning back to the whiteboard. “But I think this is great. A friend your age is just what you need. Now, we were on to history—”
“Ms. Hugger?”
She glanced back, the marker halfway to the board. “Yes?”
“What do I do if a Game starts?”
Ms. Hugger walked over and put her hand on my shoulder. “Then you just take the time you need. Erin will understand. You couldn’t ask for a better friend than someone who gets you.”
I was still nervous, but I just nodded. “Okay.”
She squeezed my hand and started back for the board. I thought of something.
“If you ever want to gossip about Sven, I’m available. Just his personality. Not his—”
“Thank you,” Ms. Hugger said, biting her lip. “I will keep that in mind.”
* * *
I was lying in bed at two in the morning, still wide awake.
When I had gotten home from school, I already had six text messages from Erin.
Hey, bestie! How you doing? Can’t wait to hang tomorrow!
Ugh, my teacher is SUCH a pill.
What you up to? Lunch here. Tuna? I swear my mom wants me to eat alone.
Do you ever think that boys were created just to annoy you?
Text me back, girl!
Home finally. Can’t wait to hang! Be there at seven. What should I wear?
I just typed:
Learning, I don’t get it, eating and I like tuna, no, here I am, clothes.
I assumed that covered everything, but she was silent for a bit and then texted:
You are SO weird. I love it. See you tomorrow, bestie.
Of course, that confirmed that Erin really was coming over tomorrow night. My mom was happy about it too, maybe even more than Ms. Hugger. I had been excited too, but now I wasn’t so sure. I didn’t really know how to gossip. What kind of crafts did she like to do? What kind of crafts did I like to do?
“You can’t do normal things,” my brain reminded me. “You can’t go a day without a panic attack. You can’t go an hour without a quiet break. You can’t go a minute without being afraid.”
My thoughts started to pick up speed. It was true. What was I thinking, agreeing to this?
I stared at the shifting shapes on my ceiling—the shadows of tree branches like fingers that reached for me when the wind blew. I looked around the bedroom. Calm down. Calm down.
My room was an underwater library. It was literally designed to calm me down. The walls were blue and the trim was printed with orcas jumping out of the water. There were framed pictures of dolphins and even a great white shark beside my desk. That probably wouldn’t calm down most people, but from straight on they looked like they were smiling. One whole wall was bookshelves, with a few dusty stuffed animals beside it. There were 619 books in my room, spread across fourteen wooden shelves that my dad had built and carefully organized by category and then by last name. No dust.
Thinking about the books or the ocean sometimes helps. But it was too late today.
My thoughts were rolling together. I want to be normal I can fix this I can get better I can make a friend I can be an astronaut I can make Daddy proud I cannot breathe my stomach hurts I can be normal my throat is dry I cannot breathe am I dying am I dying I will never ever be normal. And the voice saying it got louder. Me, I guess. My brain.
I could feel the anxiety coming. I had taken my nighttime pills, of course. But they didn’t always work. If they did, I guess I would be cured. It’s part of the reason I want to stop—they aren’t a cure. Just a Band-Aid. But the main reason is that normal kids don’t take them. So if I want to be normal, I couldn’t take them either.
In fact, it’s rule number one on my list: Stop taking your pills. I hadn’t had the courage to try yet, but I would one day.
The pressure on the chest was building. Headache. Hot skin. Shallow breath.
I wanted to cry.
All I wanted was to be normal. Like the kids on TV, and at school, and in my books. That meant no pills. It meant no Games. It meant no mayonnaise, and no quiet breaks, and no cinnamon on my popcorn, and no this, and more that. All the things that everyone knew but me.
“It’s just a False Alarm,” I whispered to no one. “False Alarm. It’s not real.”
But my breathing still wasn’t working right. I tried to not have to think about breathing. That was a bad plan. I thought about it even more, and when I tried to make myself breathe normally, it seemed to stop altogether. I tried to remember that Dr. Ring said, “Your breathing can’t just stop, Sara. Humans can’t do that to themselves.” But that was easy for Dr. Ring to say. He wasn’t crazy.
Now it felt like I was breathing through a straw. I was sweating and tingling.
“Uh-oh,” I murmured.
My throat closed and went dry. My head spun and my brain cried out for help. It screamed, “Run!” and “Hide!” and “Freeze!” My stomach turned, and my heart pounded so loudly it was all I could hear, and I couldn’t shout because I had no air. So I lay there and got ready to die. And I was sad, but I was scared, too. Would dying be better than this feeling? I wondered. When the attack finally passed, it faded into a shadow, and I felt weak.
When it was done, I lay there, tired and spaced out and knowing that yes, it was just a False Alarm, and I wasn’t dead, and I shouldn’t have panicked. But yes, it would happen again.
Dad came home later. The front door opened slowly, and I listened as a bottle opened and he guzzled it. Creaking footsteps came up the stairs. He peeked in, a silhouette in the hallway.
“Hi, Daddy,” I said.
He came closer and knelt beside my bed. It was so dark I could only see his eyes.
“Hello, Princess.” He ran a hand through my hair. “You should be asleep. It’s late.”
“So should you.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right.”
There was something new in his voice.
“Are you okay?” I whispered.
“Fine.”
“You’re lying. If I could see you, I’d know. Your face, please.”
“Sara …”
“Face. We’re playing the Blind.”
The Blind was a game. You closed your eyes and felt the other person’s face to guess how they were feeling. I was a very good player. He sighed and leaned forward.
I used both hands, finding his face in the darkness. I ran my fingers over his cheeks and eyes and stubble like a sculptor, giggling when his fuzzy upper lip prickled my fingers. His eyes were the answer. They were swollen and puffy.
“You were crying,” I said.
He was silent for a while. “Daddies never cry.”
“What’s wrong?
“Nothing, Princess. I just wanted to say good night.”
I didn’t believe him, but Daddy was stubborn.
“Good night,” I said.
“I love you. You know that, right?”
“Yes,” I said, smiling.
“And you are perfect. You know that too, right?”
Like I said, I am not good with lying.
I didn’t reply, and he hugged me and walked out.
* * *
The next day I went to the park. It is just a block away, and my parents let me go alone to read on the grass. Erin was coming after dinner and it was making me nervous, so I was going to bank some quiet time.
Naturally, I was ambushed.
“Hello, Sara.”
I looked up and found James staring at me with his hands jammed into his pockets. I had forgotten how strange his eyes were. Big and brown and sad. His head was fully shaved now. It looked like an egg.
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br /> I stared back at him for a moment. It was not a yes-or-no question. It was a say-something-back kind of question, and I don’t really do those. But he just stood there. I nodded.
He smiled. “You’re a real talker, huh?”
I shook my head. Now he was getting it.
He sat down next to me and I frowned.
“That’s okay,” he said. “I don’t talk much myself lately.”
I looked at him with an expression that said, That is ironic, James, and he snorted.
“Well, not compared to you, I guess. Unless … are you deaf? Or mute?”
He tapped his ears, and I shook my head.
“Just shy,” he said, nodding. “Fair enough.” His hands were moving in his lap like he was building a tiny snowball. “I can leave if you want. I’m sorry to bother you.”
His eyes really were sad, and I didn’t want to be mean, so I shook my head.
“Cool. I was walking, and, well, I don’t know. Lonely, maybe. You live around here?”
Nod.
“Yeah, I’m a few blocks away. What grade? Oh, right. Umm … sixth … no … seventh?”
Nod.
“Eighth for me. I’m at St. Paul.”
Catholic. Made sense if he lived that close. I was in public school and wouldn’t see him.
“I play basketball. You play anything?”
I shook my head vehemently and he laughed.
“Fair enough. You been seeing Dr. Ring long?”
Reluctant nod.
He looked me over. “You seem normal to me.”
Ha. Nice crazy-gauge, rookie. I gave him a patronizing smile.
“Yeah, looks don’t mean much,” he said, staring out at the park. “Do I?”
I raised my eyebrows because I wasn’t exactly sure what he was asking.
“Do I look normal?” he asked softly.
I thought about that for a moment. The sad eyes. The tight smiles. I shook my head.
He laughed. “You don’t do the whole little white lie thing, do you?”
Shake.
“Good. Everyone else does. Can I sit here for a bit? I won’t say anything else.”
I hesitated. He really did look glum, so I nodded, and he smiled. We sat there and said nothing and stared at the grass. Then he just stood up, smiled at me, and walked away.