“We’re the illest!” I got up.
“What are you on?” she asked.
“Zoloft.”
“That’s for wimps.” She stuck her tongue out. She had a ring. “The really messed-up people are on Prozac.”
“Do you see a therapist?” I wanted to say “shrink,” but it sounded funny out loud.
“Twice a week!” She smiled.
“Jesus. What is wrong with us?”
“I don’t know.” She started dancing. There wasn’t any music on, but when Nia wanted to dance, she danced. “We’re just part of that messed-up generation of American kids who are on drugs all the time.”
“I don’t think so. I don’t think we’re any more messed up than anybody before.”
“Craig, like eighty percent of the people I know are on medication. For ADD or whatever.”
I knew too, but I didn’t like to think about that. Maybe it was stupid and solipsistic, but I liked to think about me. I didn’t want to be part of some trend. I wasn’t doing this for a fashion statement.
“I don’t know if they really need it,” I said. “I really need it.”
“You think you’re the only one?”
“Not that I’m the only one . . . just that it’s a personal thing.”
“Okay, fine, Craig.” She stopped dancing. “I won’t mention it, then.”
“What?”
“Jesus. You know why you’re messed up? It’s because you don’t have a connection with other people.”
“That’s not true.”
“Here I am, I just told you I have the same problem as you—”
“It might not be the same.” I had no idea what Nia had; she might have manic-depression. Manic-depression was much cooler than actual depression, because you got the manic parts. I read that they rocked. It was so unfair.
“See? This is what I mean. You put these walls up.”
“What walls?”
“How many people have you told that you’re depressed?”
“My mom. My dad. My sisters. Doctors.”
“What about Aaron?”
“He doesn’t need to know. How many people have you told?”
“Of course Aaron needs to know! He’s your best friend!”
I looked at her.
“I think Aaron has a lot of problems too, Craig.” Nia sat down next to me. “I think he could really benefit from going on some medication, but he’d never admit it. Maybe if you told him, he would.”
“Have you told him?”
“No.”
“See? Anyway, we know each other too well.”
“Who? Me and you? Or you and Aaron?”
“Maybe all of us.”
“I don’t think so. I’m glad I know you, and I’m glad I know him. You can call me, you know, if you’re feeling down.”
“Thanks. I actually don’t have your new number.”
“Here.”
And she gave it to me, a magical number: I put it with her name in all caps on my phone. This is a girl who can save me, I thought. The therapists told you that you needed to find happiness within yourself before you got it from another person, but I had a feeling that if Aaron were off the face of the earth and I was the one holding Nia at night and breathing on her, I’d be pretty happy. We both would be.
At home I got through the bad episodes by lying on the couch and drinking water brought from my parents, turning the electric blanket on to get warm and sweating it out. I wanted to tell people, “My depression is acting up today” as an excuse for not seeing them, but I never managed to pull it off. It would have been hilarious. After a few days I’d get up off the couch and return to the Craig who didn’t need to make excuses for himself. Around those times, I would call Nia to tell her I was feeling better and she would tell me she was feeling good too; maybe we were in synch. And I told her not to tease me. And she would smile over the phone and say, “But I’m so good at it.”
In March, as I had eight pills left of my final refill, I started thinking that I didn’t need the Zoloft anymore.
I was better. Okay, maybe I wasn’t better, but I was okay—it was a weird feeling, a lack of weight in my head. I had caught up in my classes. I had found Dr. Minerva—the sixth one that Dr. Barney and I tried—and found her quiet, no-nonsense attitude amenable to my issues. I was still getting 93’s, but what the hell, someone had to get them.
What was I doing taking pills? I had just had a little problem and freaked out and needed some time to adjust. Anyone could have a problem starting a new school. I probably never needed to go to a doctor in the first place. What, because I threw up? I wasn’t throwing up anymore. Some days I wouldn’t eat, but back in Biblical times people did that all the time—fasting was a big part of religion, Mom told me. We were already so fat in America; did I need to be part of the problem?
So when I ran out of the final bottle of Zoloft, I didn’t take any more. I didn’t call Dr. Barney either. I just threw the bottle away and said Okay, if I ever feel bad again, I’ll remember how good I felt that night on the Brooklyn Bridge. Pills were for wimps, and this was over; I was done; I was back to me.
But things come full circle, baby, and two months later I was back in my bathroom, bowing to the toilet in the dark.
fourteen
My parents are outside hearing me retch up the dinner I just ate with them. I look at the door; I think I can hear Dad chewing the last bite he took when he got up from the table.
“Craig, should we call someone?” Mom asks. “Is it an emergency?”
“No,” I say, getting up. “I’m going to be all right.”
“Um, hey, yeah, I told your mom not to make the squash,” Dad jokes.
“Heh,” I say, climbing to the sink. I wash out my mouth with water and then mouthwash and then more water. My parents pepper me with questions.
“Do you want us to call Dr. Barney?”
“Do you want us to call Dr. Minerva?”
“Do you want some tea?”
“Tea? Give the man some water. You want water?”
I turn on the light—
“Oh. He had the light off. Are you okay, Craig? Did you slip?”
I look at myself in the bathroom light. Yes, I’m okay. I’m okay because I have a plan and a solution: I’m going to kill myself.
I’m going to do it tonight. This is such a farce, this whole thing. I thought I was better and I’m not better. I tried to get stable and I can’t get stable. I tried to turn the corner and there aren’t any corners; I can’t eat; I can’t sleep; I’m just wasting resources.
It’s going to be tough on my parents. So tough. And my little sister. Such a beautiful, smart girl. Not a dud like me, that’s for sure. It’ll be hard to leave her. Not to mention it might mess her up. Plus my parents will think they’re such failures. They’ll blame themselves. It’ll be the most important event in their lives, the thing that gets whispered by other parents at parties when their backs are turned:
Did you hear about their son?
Teen suicide.
They’ll never get over it.
I don’t know how anyone could.
They must not’ve known the warning signs.
But you know what, it’s time for me to stop putting other people’s emotions ahead of my own. It’s time for me to be true to myself, like the pop stars say. And my true self wants to blast off this rock.
I’ll do it tonight. Late tonight. In the morning, specifically. I’ll get up and bike to the Brooklyn Bridge and throw myself off it.