More Happy Than Not (24 page)

I teach myself how to say and read and write
happy
in Spanish, German, Italian, and even Japanese but I would have to draw that last one out.

I discover the happiest animal in the world, the quokka. He's a cheeky little bastard that's always smiling.

But it's not enough.

The memories are still rattling around my head, twisting into me like a knife. I don't want to wait around to see what comes next for me in this tragic story I'm living. I open up one of my father's unused razors and cut into my wrist like he did, slit in a curve until it smiles so everyone will know I died for happiness.

I was expecting relief but instead it's the saddest pain I've ever experienced. I never once stop feeling empty or unworthy of anyone's rescue, not even when the thin line on my wrist makes everything go red.

I don't want to
die and I didn't.

I spent a few days at the hospital where I met with this therapist, Dr. Slattery, who was the worst. I thought it was just me who couldn't stand him, but I read his reviews online and saw I wasn't the only one who thought the man was a joke:

“Dr. Slattery drove me crazier.”

“Dr. Slattery wouldn't shut up about his own problems!”

And on and on.

Genevieve is taking much better care of me than that clown did. My mom finally let me out from under her watch, and Eric's watch, too—both of them missing a lot of work as I stayed home from school. They let me out to celebrate my one-year anniversary with Genevieve.

She must've thought we'd run around the city having fun to keep my mind off of things, but instead I'm stretched out on her couch crying with my head on her lap because of all the pain I can't reach. Pain someone else
can
remove.

“I don't see how a Leteo procedure would really help you,” Genevieve says. “When my mother died, it was brutal, and—”

She doesn't understand. She didn't have to find whatever was left of her mother's body on the plane's crash site like I had to find my father dead in the bathtub. “I would forget finding him. That's gotta be fucked up enough for Leteo to scrub out.”

“Yeah
. . .
” Genevieve says, crying too. “It's gotta be.”

The TV's volume is raised high so Genevieve's dad can't hear me cry. I'm not embarrassed, but I think it makes him uncomfortable. A commercial for this new movie,
The Final Chase
, comes on and it's like a punch in the gut when I think about all the new movies I won't see with Collin, all the comics we won't read together, and how he's basically acting like I never happened.

He's undoing himself and I need to do the same.

(
AGE SIXTEEN—MAY, TWO MONTHS AGO)

After an hour with
Dr. Slattery, where I cried and cried out of frustration, I decide I want to spend some time outside—even if it means my mom has to sit out here with me. There's a moving truck parked in front of Building 135. When I go to check out the new neighbor, I see Kyle wheeling a shopping cart of boxes into the back of the truck. I still half expect to find Kenneth right behind him, minding his own business.

One of the boxes falls out of the shopping cart. I pick it up and hand it over to Kyle, who won't look me in the eyes. “Going somewhere?”

Kyle nods and drops the box into the truck.

“Where?”

“Doesn't matter. Just can't be here anymore.”

Brendan, Baby Freddy, Nolan, and Fat-Dave all come over. Brendan nods at me while everyone else looks at my bandaged wrist. He looks into the truck, sits down on the ramp, and asks, “What's up, guys?”

“Kyle's moving,” I say, throwing him under the bus because I'd really like an afternoon off from talking about my problems. “He won't tell me where.”

“Because where I'm fucking going doesn't fucking matter! I can't go to Good Food's anymore without Mohad calling me Kenneth. I can't play Skelzies with you guys without making tops for Kenneth he'll never use. I can't even look at you, Aaron, because you get to live after trying to throw away your life and meanwhile Kenneth is nothing but bones by this point.”

Kyle's parents come out of the lobby, and he snatches a box from his mother and throws it over Brendan's head into the truck; we hear something shatter. “Just forget about me.” He heads back into the building and we all go into the third court before he comes back out.

Baby Freddy says, “That was awkward.”

Brendan shrugs. He turns to me and says, “You good?”

I nod, though really I feel like shit.

“That Collin kid coming to check on you?”

“No. And I don't want him to,” I say, and we all drop it. Brendan even pats me on the back. We hang out for a bit like I never stopped being part of the crew, but then my mom calls me over and I run over ready to argue for more time to stay out.

“Dr. Slattery called,” Mom says, still clutching the phone in her hand.

“Is he giving us all the money back you've wasted on him?”

“He knows someone at Leteo.” Her eyes are closed, like she can't face me. “He's spoken with this woman, Dr. Castle or someone, and he'd like to refer us to her to discuss possibilities.”

Holy shit.

I look back at my friends. I know how to make everything right so they'll never hate me again. I think about how I won't have to think about Collin anymore.

“I want to do it.”

(
AGE SIXTEEN—JUNE, ONE MONTH AGO)

It only took one
session with Dr. Evangeline Castle for me to admit the root of my problems: my liking guys. She still made me sit through some sessions before approving me for the procedure, but the day is finally here. Mom can't come with me because she's missed too much work after everything and her boss's sympathy could only go so far. Someone has to pay for our apartment and this procedure, after all, but at least I'll have Genevieve with me.

“You're going to be okay, my son.”

She once promised me that nothing bad would ever happen, and then I grew up and everything went wrong, but I believe her this time because the worst thing that can happen is that nothing will happen at all. “I know.”

“Aaron, you understand I'm signing off on this procedure for you, right? It's not because I want to change you or think you need changing. I believe this will be a fresh start for all of us. I really want my son back, the boy who didn't hurt my heart by using Genevieve and didn't try to leave me.” She keeps hugging me, and what she says stings. Luckily I won't ever have to remember being a complete disappointment to her and my father.

(
AGE SIXTEEN—JUNE 18TH)

I trace the smiling
scar and I feel like mirroring it. I'm insanely happy.

I qualify for the memory-relief procedure. The operation is scary-sounding and pretty extreme—it is experimental brain work, after all—and the doctors are cautious about administering it to those under the age of twenty-one. But I'm a danger to myself so they're letting me shake the old ways and days out of my head.

The waiting room is crowded like usual, the complete opposite of the hospital where I saw Dr. Slattery. People aren't exactly lining up outside for hours to meet with him. But at least the guy got us a pretty big discount with his referral. Silver lining.

Genevieve won't stop shaking her leg. She can't keep her hands still. It's partly why I wanted to do this solo, but she and my mom wouldn't take no for answer. I consider reading something from the table littered with mental health magazines and booklets and forms, but I know all I need to know already.

They turn away potential clients who only want a procedure to forget spoilers of
Game of Thrones
or someone who broke their heart. But this isn't that movie. Leteo helps people who hurt themselves because of harmful memories—you won't die from heartbreak but you'll die from, well, killing yourself.

Like this elderly Hispanic guy who won't stop reciting the winning lottery numbers he lost to; he'll likely get sent home without a chance to forget.

I recognize some of the patients from the group therapy sessions they forced me to attend, just to see if time was enough to resolve my problems.

Fun fact: sitting through those sessions only made me want to hurt myself even more.

A middle-aged woman banshee-wails from her seat, rocks back and forth, and punches the walls. An orderly rushes to her aid and tries calming her down. I know who she is, not her name or anything, but she's constantly reliving the memory of her five-year-old daughter chasing a bird into a busy street, and yeah, it's pretty fill-in-the-blank from there.

I try to keep my eyes low and ignore her screams, but I can't help but look up when another orderly approaches with a straitjacket. They carry her away through the same door I'm about to walk through. I wonder how much of her life she'll have to forget to live without a straitjacket—and maybe a muzzle if she doesn't keep it down.

The waiting room is silent now. Any chatter has stopped. Lives depend on this procedure.

This really obese dude—Miguel, I think—told our therapy group that he could stop overeating only after he forgets his childhood traumas. He's here now, the ketchup stain of his last meal on his shirt. I almost want to hug him. I hope he's deemed unfit enough to get the procedure so he can be healthy again, physically and mentally.

Like him, I'm here because I don't want to be who I am anymore. I want to be so happy that bad memories aren't following me around like unwanted shadows.

Dr. Castle encouraged me to give her a list of happy things
I should think about whenever I started thinking about things I shouldn't. During sessions, I always faked smiles while unhappily answering because she was so nice. She was trying to help.

I hold Genevieve's hand to calm her down, which seems pretty backward if you ask me. There's blue and orange paint crusting around her fingernails. “What were you working on?” I ask her.

“Nothing good. I was playing around with that idea I was telling you about, the one with the sun drowning in the ocean instead of setting behind it. I didn't know how to finish it though
. . .
”

I have no idea what she's talking about. Not surprised.

She reaches across me and stops me from tugging at my sleeve, which I didn't even realize I was doing. She knows all my signs and I can't even pay attention to her when she talks. “You're going to be okay, babe. You have to be.”

Empty promise. No one ever thinks they'll get cancer. No one expects a gunman to open fire at the bank. “I'm more nervous that nothing will happen instead of something going wrong.”

Some of the risks include severe memory loss, anterograde amnesia, and other shit like that. But a small part of me thinks I would be better off brain dead than waking up the way I am.

Genevieve looks around the waiting room with its stark white walls and crazies and patient employees. I bet she would consider painting something Leteo-related if it weren't for the signed nondisclosure agreement that allows her to be with me today provided she never discusses her presence here with another human being unless she wants to pay a zillion-dollar fine.

“I wouldn't worry,” she says. “We read through all those brochures a thousand times and watched a marathon's worth of post-op videos and everyone seems fine.”

“Yeah, but they probably wouldn't show us the patients who have to be spoon-fed for the rest of their lives.” I fake a grin for her. I'm tired of faking, which is ridiculous considering the circumstances about to unfold. But at least I won't know I'm faking, and that's honest enough for me.

Genevieve looks behind me and immediately tears up. I turn. Dr. Castle is standing by the door. Her sunken-in sea-green eyes are always kind of comforting, even now as she stares at me, but her tousled mass of red-orange hair reminds me of living flames. I fight back panic. She probably hasn't announced herself so I could have a few more minutes with Genevieve—maybe even myself.

I pick up Genevieve by her waist and spin her around a couple of times. Getting dizzy before someone plays with my brain is stupid, I know. Before I can ask, Genevieve holds my hand and says, “I'll walk with you.”

The closer we get to Dr. Castle, the more it feels like I'm marching to my death, and I know I sort of am, at least the part of me everyone is better off without. The panic melts away.

“I'm ready,” I tell Dr. Castle with zero doubts.

I turn back to Genevieve and while I'm kissing the girl who has been keeping my secret without knowing it, I wonder again if maybe she's known all along. We've never gone as far as saying we love each other in the year we've been together. It's simple, I know, but she's smart enough to never admit loving someone who can't love her back.

I never thought I would say anything like this to her, that I would rather hold this secret in my tight fist until the day I die, but I go ahead.