My mother immediately turned on the waterworks. She said she’d come upstairs and seen blood all over the floor. She said at first she’d thought I was playing a practical joke on her, and she’d laughed even though she thought it was a mean thing to do. When I didn’t respond, she apparently totally freaked out, because my father heard her screaming and ran up to see what was wrong.
I’m not saying she was lying or anything, but I do want to point out that she’s always said that if she hadn’t become a lawyer, she would have been an actress. Seriously. A couple of years ago she even performed in this completely tragic community theater production of Fiddler on the Roof. She was actually pretty good, which is why I wouldn’t put it past her to make things sound more awful than they really were. I mean, finding your kid almost dead is bound to ruin your night, I get that. But it’s like she was trying to make me feel even worse about it.
My father didn’t cry, but he said that seeing me on the floor like that was the most horrible thing that’s ever happened to him. Then he described how he’d made these tourniquets using some torn-up sheets from my bed and held me until the paramedics got there. He said he kept telling me how much he loved me, over and over, in case hearing it helped me stay alive.
That got to me way more than my mother crying. My dad never says sappy stuff to us. He’s the kind of guy who can sit through a movie that has everyone else bawling like babies and all he’ll say is, “Can you believe how big Julia Roberts’s mouth is?” I’m serious. Nothing gets to him. He’s like one of those cowboys in an old western.
Listening to my parents talk about that night, I thought about the time Sadie asked me who had saved me. She was right that it was my mom and dad and not the paramedics. If my mother hadn’t come up to see me, and if my dad hadn’t known what to do, I really would have died. Three weeks ago, that’s what I thought I wanted. Now things seem different. Not totally different, but different enough that I guess I’m glad they did what they did. But I wasn’t about to tell them that.
Then Cat Poop asked me how I felt about what my parents had said. What are you supposed to say to something like that? Gee, I’m really sorry I freaked you out, and thanks for making sure it didn’t work out? It just sounds so stupid, like the big moment in one of those cheesy made-for-TV movies where the kid who ran away from home and became a hooker does a giant boo-hoo after her mother fights off her pimp with an umbrella to get her off the street. I couldn’t say those things, even if I was thankful for what they did. And I was. I mean I am. Thankful. Sort of. On good days.
What I did say was that I was sorry for making them worry. That seemed like a good compromise, right in between the stony, uncommunicative teen-ager and the cry-till-your-nose-runs breakdown I could have gone with. I said I was sorry that they were afraid for me and reassured them that everything was okay now.
I should have left out that last part about everything being okay now, because that’s one of those statements the doc jumps on like a cat on a mouse.
Sure enough, he said, “What’s different about how you are today from how you were that night?”
Oh, man. He pushed me right into that one. Here we were back at the big Why? I was supposed to show how much I’d learned about myself, and they were supposed to get some answer to explain it all. But like I keep saying, there is no big reason.
I had to say something, though, so I said, “I guess I’ve learned that no matter how bad things get, there are always people who love you.”
I won’t blame you if you stop to go throw up right about now. I know I would. But it sounds pretty good, right? If you were my parents, you’d buy it. And they did. I felt a little bad when I saw the look on my mother’s face. She seemed really relieved, like she’d been worried all along that the reason I tried to off myself was because I thought she didn’t love me. But that was never it. I know she and my father love me. This was never about them.
I think Cat Poop knew I was handing them a big pile of crap and calling it a present, because he pushed me even further and said, “How would you handle things differently now, Jeff?”
What I wanted to say was, “I’d lock my door.” I was getting tired of having to make everyone feel better. I’m sorry I freaked everyone out. I’m sorry my parents are sad about it. But it’s over. Can we all move on?
I thought for a minute or two until I wasn’t quite so steamed, then I said, “I’d talk to somebody.” I didn’t say who. I just said I would talk to somebody. That way they could each think I meant them.
It was the right answer, I guess, because Cat Poop finished with the third degree and moved on to some other stuff. It wasn’t anything exciting, so I won’t go into it. Basically, he talked to us about better ways to communicate. Blah. Blah. Blah.
I was really thrilled when it was all over and my parents went home. I was even more thrilled to go back to my room. Let me tell you, writing a report on Lord of the Flies, which is what I was doing for my English class assignment, is way better than spending an hour with the doc and my parents. Given a choice between discussing the symbolism of a pig head on a stick and discussing my feelings, I’ll take the pig head every time.
Day 23
Something totally weird just happened. I’m not even sure I want to write about it, but if I don’t I’m afraid it will just stay in my head, and I don’t want it in there.
It’s about three in the morning. I woke up a while ago and had to pee, so I walked down to the bathroom at the end of the hall. The guys’ bathroom here is like the ones at schooclass="underline" sinks and toilets and showers all in one big room. When I walked in, I heard one of the showers running. That was kind of strange, because people mostly shower in the morning, and we’re really not supposed to be running around at night except if we have to, you know, go.
Still, it wasn’t really a big deal. I mean, we’re all in here because we’re a little bit off in the first place, so someone deciding to shower in the middle of the night is pretty tame on the scale of things. So I started to pee, and that’s when I heard it. And by it I mean this groaning sound.
I made myself stop peeing—which is really, really hard to do when you have to go, by the way—and listened, thinking that maybe I’d just heard noises in the pipes or something. But there it was again, definitely human, and definitely coming from the shower. Now, besides me the only guy here is Rankin, so I knew it had to be him, unless one of the night attendants had suddenly decided to practice some personal hygiene. And judging from the noise, Rankin wasn’t feeling too well.
I wasn’t sure if I should ask if he was okay or just leave him alone. Then the groaning got a little louder. My bladder was about to pop, so I finished peeing and walked toward the shower. I didn’t want to scare Rankin, so I didn’t say anything. If you’re taking a shower in the middle of the night and not feeling too well, the last thing you need is someone pulling a Psycho and yanking the curtain open.
The thing about those curtains is, they don’t really cover the opening to the shower totally. There are gaps on either side, almost like the steam from the showers has made the curtains shrink. It’s not like you’re flashing the whole world when you take a shower, but you can definitely see around them.
What I saw through the crack was definitely Rankin. Too much of him, actually. I didn’t mean to, but what I saw was his hand moving back and forth somewhere around his waist, if you know what I mean. Even with all that steam, it was pretty obvious what was going on. Suddenly the groaning made sense.