Under Rose-Tainted Skies (8 page)

‘Right! That Amy. Queen Amy.'

‘That's her.'

‘All that French work has fried my brain.' I laugh off my faux pas. Then wait for him to elaborate on his and Amy's acquaintanceship/friendship/relationship. But he doesn't. I don't know if we're friends yet. I don't know if I can ask him.

Of course you're friends. He came over here to speak to you, didn't he?

Unless
. . . unless he only came over here to hide from Queen Amy
.

My heart beats against the back of my throat. Then I hear his leather jacket crunch again. Movement. He's standing up. I stand up with him. Palms pressed flat against the door, I almost crawl up the wood. He's leaving, and the thought is inducing panic. I didn't want him here, but now he is, and for the second time in two days, he has chased away the dark shadow that makes me drown my body in black and curl up in a ball when I think of friends.

‘Hey, Norah?'

‘Yes.' It hurts to talk.

‘Do you think maybe I could come by tomorrow and we can clear up this Transformers conversation once and for all?'

‘I've watched the cartoon but never seen the movies.'

‘Panic not.' He's talking in that fake-British-Swedish-possibly-French accent again. ‘I'll bring them over.'

Wait? What? That's not what I meant. Is it?

‘I . . .'

‘Luke? Where are you?' That voice again, shrill, shouting above the music and into the night. Queen Amy.

I cross my fingers and toes, secretly hope he'll ignore her and stay here a little longer.

‘I guess I better go. Goodnight, Norah.'

And then he's gone. I try but fail to count the steps I hear him take as he walks away.

I feel cold.

I
t starts the second I begin the Green Mile trudge back to my bedroom; so many thoughts, wrapped around my body like iron chains. I have to use the banister to pull myself up the stairs.

Musings, meanderings, conversations that haven't even happened run in one continuous loop around my head. With a texture like smashed glass, they're tearing my brain to pieces.

I stop in the hall and study my gangly reflection in the floor-length mirror. I want to see a svelte blonde with big blue eyes. I want to see that girl in my social media selfies, the one that smiles and never has to live up to anyone's expectations or explain why she is the way she is. But all I see in my real-life reflection are blunt smudges of shadow. Fragile. Upset. Weak. Thin. Afraid. Failing. And tired. Above everything else, tired of battling with my own mind.

They – the geeks that deal in brain stuff – call what I have an invisible illness, but I often wonder if they're really
looking. Beyond the science stuff. It doesn't bleed or swell, itch or crack, but I see it, right there on my face. It's like decay, this icky green colour, as if my life were being filmed through a grey filter. I lack light, am an entire surface area that the sun can't touch.

Luke can't come back tomorrow.

I've done a total 180. This is not uncommon. Especially when I'm given some time to think, to blink away the rose-coloured tint from my eyes.

I force a smile, think of Luke, think of cheesy ballads and toe-curling poetry. It was nice for a second. He made the crazy feel small enough to stamp on, but that's not enough. That is a fleeting feeling, easy to latch on to from behind a locked door. Unfortunately, I'm realistic. And I'm no James Bond. Eventually, he will want to step beyond the door or, worse, he'll want me to step beyond it. Or maybe he won't. Maybe Queen Amy will meet all his expectations, and then maybe he will forget about the weird girl that writes on windows and sits by her front door at the crack of dawn for no other reason than to watch the sky. If he comes back, if I let him in, as hard as I try, I won't be able to hide all the madness from him.

My body drops down on to my bed, the frame squeaks, and I wonder for a second if it's going to collapse. It holds out, and I pat my mattress like it's done me a favour.

My head is a ball of wool after it's been mauled by a kitten.

On the backs of my eyelids, every time I blink, I see me telling Luke about my weird rituals, my routines, my intense thought processes, and then I watch him recoil like I have the plague or some sort of tropical disease
that no one can pronounce. Uncertainty and caution is how you're supposed to respond to things you don't understand.

After some intense internal debate, I decide that his recoiling is something I think I could manage. But then there's the laughing. I mean, he can laugh. I laugh. My mind is ridiculous. The way it works. Like on the days I wake up and can't touch things with my hands because I happened upon news of a measles outbreak in the deepest, darkest regions of Outer Mongolia. Those are the days I have to use my feet to open doors and pick things up off the floor. It's humour that you'll never really be able to appreciate until you've spent an hour chasing a pen across the floor with pincer toes. But it is funny, the if-I-don't-laugh-I'll-cry kind of funny. It's the cruel laughing, the vicious-playground stuff I won't – can't – cope with. Like, what if he mocks me? I can imagine it, vividly, in glorious technicolour, like the way it happens in films, with all the pointing and name-calling to boot. If that were to happen, I think maybe all my pieces would come unstuck and I'd be broken beyond repair.

I
don't know when night turns into day. My room is still a fortress, light banished, all cracks concealed. I'm one Elizabethan gown away from being that princess trapped in a forgotten tower. There's something about the dark space that reeks of smug. It reminds me for the ten-thousandth time that letting my heart direct my head has amounted to an almost total loss of control. Or, in average-teenager terms, I left my room last night, and now Luke is coming by to loan me movies I'm not even sure I want to watch. I make a mental note: this is not a mistake I will make twice. Next time, I stick with the routine.

I grab my duvet, trip downstairs in the same drunken way a Slinky does when it picks up speed, take the last step twice, and crash on to the couch.

I'm not awake, not quite asleep, when there's a swift, sharp knock at the door and I almost fly through the ceiling. But instead of the usual
Who could that be?
, my head goes straight to
How do I look?

That's new.

And a little unnerving
.

I don't need a mirror to know I look like I've been dragged through a hedge backwards. To know my blue eyes have turned bloodshot and are undoubtedly framed by big, black bags. I feel like I'm wearing a hat, which usually means my hair is so piled up on top of my head, it's possible a couple of crows are already nesting in it.

My body weighs a ton. Moving is like hurling a lorry across the carpet. I'm sluggish, shoulders hunched, heading towards the window at the sort of pace you might expect from an overweight snail and scoring friction burns on the soles of my feet. I wonder if Luke is persistent. If I don't answer today, will he come back tomorrow? Will he keep sending notes? What if he starts asking around school about me? What if he thinks I'm horrible, just being rude, ignoring his knock for no good reason? I shudder. This is the least welcome worry, but it's the biggest and loudest, trickling into my brain and seeking out space like water. I'm not horrible or rude. It's just complicated.

I tiptoe to the window, take a peek from behind the curtain. I'm hoping I can manipulate my neck to an angle where I can see the porch without putting my face through the glass. Turns out, I don't need to. There's a car parked out front. A sleek, silver sports car with a red soft-top roof.

Thank God. It's not Luke knocking; it's Dr Reeves.

Wait.

What? I do a double take of the car. I completely forgot she was coming today.

I never forget about therapy.

Never.

This is brand-new too.

And even more unnerving
.

The doc knocks again, and I'm forced to abandon reflection. I make a dash for the hall.

‘Norah.' Dr Reeves startles when I whip open the door. The gust it creates sends her hair into a brown-fire frenzy. I snatch her wrist, pull her inside before any Lukes can jump out to say hi.

‘Morning,' I say, out of breath and straightening my shirt. The doc's eyes narrow and her head tilts a little to the left.

‘Everything okay?' she asks. My eyes home in on her mouth. Or, more specifically, on the clump of hair clinging to her lip gloss.

‘Everything is fine.' I nod until my neck feels like it might snap. Her lips are a burnt-orange colour. She doesn't wear this shade at the office. My fingers curl into fists and I pop a knuckle. I really need her to brush that hair away before it finds its way into her mouth.

‘Norah, where's your head at?'

‘Huh?' My eyes stay focused on her rogue tresses. Would it be rude to mention it? It probably would be, so I won't. But there is so much gross stuff lurking in hair, on hair. She might want to know. She must be able to feel it.

‘Norah.' The doctor snaps her fingers a bunch of times, and I adjust my eyeline to meet her concerned gaze. ‘Where's your head?'

‘Nowhere.' My knees turn in, touch, and I feel like I just got busted doing something I shouldn't. She takes a deep breath and opens her mouth but doesn't say a word.

Unfortunately for me, Dr Reeves didn't turn stupid in her sleep. She allows the silence to stretch, questions me with her stare instead.

‘Everywhere,' I admit. ‘I can't focus.' My eye starts to twitch. It tickles until I give it a scratch. Maybe this is it. Maybe this is what a breakdown feels like. ‘And you have some hair stuck to your lip.'

‘Better?' she asks, swiping it away.

I nod, feeling way more awkward than she ever has, ever will.

‘I'm trying this new stuff,' she tells me, pressing her lips together and making a
schmack
sound with her mouth. ‘The colour is Autumn Mist. The consistency is glue. I think the best place for it is in the trash. Anyway . . .' She smiles softly. ‘I know there is more on your mind than a slight make-up mishap. Spill.'

We make our way into the kitchen, her heels clip-clop-ping across the floor.

She makes a cup of coffee, the instant kind that sits in an unopened jar in the condiment cabinet. Then we both take a seat at the breakfast bar.

It all feels a bit tense, me on one side of the counter, her on the other. The space around us has somehow morphed into the shady interior of a police interrogation room.

‘Talk to me. Talk to me as a friend,' she urges.

‘There's this boy,' I say, voice shaking, words so dense they struggle to slide beyond my lips. The doc raises her eyebrows. Shock. That's fair. Nobody is more shocked by this development than me.

‘He lives next door. I resolved to avoid him, but our paths kept crossing, and now I'm not so sure I want to . . .
avoid him.'

My face feels how Botox abuse looks. ‘I might be in a little over my head.' I abandon my chair, stand up, and start pacing, which usually helps me think, but today it's just making me dizzy. I grab the hem of my shirt, search for a loose thread, and pull at it.

‘Norah, we're just talking right now. Who knows, I may even be able to help you figure this out. At least let me try.'

It's like smashing down a dam, opening floodgates, dropping a flame into a box of fireworks. My mouth opens and the words keep on coming.

‘It's my fault. I watched him a couple of times and he saw. And then the groceries got left on the porch, but Helping Hands was closed, and so he passed them to me. So he must be nice, right? And then he wrote me some letters. Not love letters; stupid stuff. He's funny. And I lied about going to the same school as him. And about having a cold.' Imagine Hamlet sauntering about the stage, hand to heart, delivering an epic monologue. That's about where I'm at right now.

Dr Reeves just lets me talk, doesn't even attempt to slow me down or stop me. She does this thing where she pushes a thumb up under her chin and strokes an invisible goatee with a hooked finger.

At first, I thought it signalled her tuning out my incessant ramblings, but then she explained that she was taking mental notes. She says she doesn't like to interrupt my stream of panic because she knows my mouth is directly quoting my mind and she wants to hear exactly what is going on inside my head. I think she's brave.

‘I can't tell Luke why I lied. Can I? How can I be his
friend? I'm afraid he'll laugh at me. He came over to talk to me about France.' Dr Reeves always smiles broadly when I mention France. ‘I couldn't tell him I can't go there. But when he talks, he doesn't think about the things that are wrong with me because he doesn't know. Which is bad, but I like it. I think I'm his friend. I think we're friends. And then he goes and invites me to this party. Obviously I can't go to that either, but not that obvious because I think something inside me wants to go to the party.' I slap a hand down over my heart and clutch at the skin because that's where I'm hurting right now. ‘I'm curious. And not just curious because my mind is trying to compute the millions of ways everything could go wrong. This is different. Persuasive. Powerful. It convinces me to leave my room. My room. My fortress. It talks me into getting closer to the music. And then he's at my door. Luke is. He writes me more notes. And suddenly he wants to come by today. He seems interested. So why does he leave when Queen Amy wants to talk to him? She's everything, and she's not hiding, so it makes sense that he would want to talk to her. She is probably normal. I'm so afraid he'll mock me.'

And then silence. Eardrums everywhere rejoice.

I'm shaking. I don't cry, but I want to. Instead, I take a breath, suck all the air right out of the room and fill my depleted lungs with it. It feels good. Cold, the same way eucalyptus does when you inhale it deep. And freeing, like my entire torso has been wrapped in a bandage that has suddenly unravelled.

‘I've spent all night losing my mind. Can you please help me?'

‘Of course, but first, let's get you something to drink,' she says, clip-clopping over to the fridge.

I watch pearls of condensation roll down my glass of orange juice as Dr Reeves takes a sip of her coffee. If it tastes bad, I can't tell. Beyond the slurping sounds, I can hear the wheels of her mind turning. I can't look up and meet her eyes because I feel all kinds of naked right now.

‘You remember when we talked about neural pathways?' She draws on the table with her fingertip. A tree with squiggly roots sprouting off in all different directions.

‘About how the brain learns and how it ties instances together so those things then become associated?' It's no coincidence that she's still drawing roots on the tree that I'm pretty confident we can now label Norah's Brain.

I nod. I remember this conversation. I remember breaking out in hives after hearing the conclusion. It's about changing the way I think. Which sounds so simple, but whether I like to admit it or not, anxiety has become my best friend. It's a crutch that helps me hobble through life. It's the brassy bitch at school that I don't like, but being her BFF makes me popular. Or the school bully that I don't really want to be around, but being his friend means I don't get beaten up. I don't know how to be safe without it. We're buddies. It's like they say: keep your friends close, your enemies closer.

‘We said we were going to try and change those pathways, right? Norah, the thing about cognitive therapy is, it relies on repetition. It would be fair to say that we can't create these new pathways, these new associations, if we're still clinging to the ideas that created the old ones, right?'

Of course she's right. Her brain's so big it's a wonder she can fit through doors that aren't double.

With two fingers, she starts rubbing away at the table-top, erasing some of the roots. ‘When we talked about how people perceive us, what was it we concluded?'

‘I don't remember.' I find a patch of skin on the back of my hand, start scratching, break flesh and feel blood, sticky, collecting under my thumbnail, but it doesn't hurt. I'm numb.

‘Take a deep breath for me,' Dr Reeves says.

She wants me to draw a parallel between myself and a story she once told me about a chick we've aptly named Perception Girl.

‘It's not the same,' I tell her, shaking my head. I can hear Luke laughing as I try to explain to him why I can't venture beyond the front door. Why I count. Why I wash my hands a hundred times a day. Why I go days without eating and sleeping. Why I haven't spoken to another teenager in almost four years.

‘What's not the same?' Dr Reeves pushes.

‘About the girl.'

‘What girl?' She's trying to pull words from my mouth and I've run out of ways to stall.

‘The perception girl!' I yell. ‘The one that doesn't get laughed at.' Perception Girl's job is to help me see what other people see when they look at me.

‘Remind me. Why doesn't she get laughed at?' Dr Reeves says, setting her cup down on the place mat. Except she doesn't get it central and I can see it tilting. It agitates me. I don't ask, just reach across the table and set the damn thing straight.

‘Because she's sick. And people don't laugh at sick people,' I tell her through clenched teeth.

‘And what are you?'

‘I'm sick!' I shout. But not because I'm angry. It's like I'm trying to make myself listen. No, not listen,
hear
. The same way a sergeant drills instructions into the heads of his platoon.

Or maybe I
am
angry. Angry that my mind can function so proficiently on one thing and remain completely obtuse on the next.

‘Norah, listen to me. The general population doesn't want to laugh at a seventeen-year-old girl whose life is being held hostage by her brain. As a rule, people don't laugh at those who are suffering. And Norah, you are suffering.'

‘How can I expect people to empathize with a sickness they can't see?' Tears sting my eyes.

‘You don't expect anything. You talk, you teach.'

I shake my head, pull back my chair, ready to sit down, but decide I'd rather stay standing. More control. That's what I need. Somehow, height gives me this feeling like I have an advantage.