What Happens Now (31 page)

“Ari, I can’t talk about this while I’m consumed with regret. The specifics of what happened are still too weird.”

We were quiet for a moment. I could still hear Richard talking to the customer, but I knew we didn’t have much time. I wanted to tell her about the way James had looked when he watched her last night, what happened at the Barn with Camden. Where would I even start?

Suddenly, Kendall said, “Hey, I have to go, a van just parked and a ton of people are climbing out. It’s like a clown car.”

We hung up, then I started unloading the packages and breaking down the boxes. There was something really satisfying in making them flat again, removing a whole dimension.

I poked my head out into the store. “I’m taking some boxes to the dumpster,” I said.

Richard flashed me a thumbs-up. Was there something different about his thumbs-up now? Less affectionate, more formal? Could be. Dammit.

I grabbed the stack of boxes and opened the door to the alley. Somehow I made my way through, my cheek against this wall of cardboard that blocked half my field of vision.

“Hey,” said a voice that made me jump. I lowered the boxes and there was Camden’s face.

“Are you lurking?” I asked.

“I knew you were at the store. I figured you’d come out eventually.”

“How long were you prepared to wait?”

Camden leaned his forearms on the cardboard, each hand touching one of my elbows.

“A while,” he said, with an intensity I’d never seen in him before.

I stared at him, drinking him in. I felt an ache.

“I’m grounded,” I said. “I’m not supposed to see any of you until further notice. Or forever. Whichever comes first, I guess.”

“I’m sorry.”

I found myself tearing up. “Things are really messed up right now, at home. But we’ll have to find a way to see each other, until the dust settles.”

He stared at me, then said, “Let me help you with these,” taking the boxes and walking over to the dumpster.

“I leave them leaning against the inside wall, so people can take them. People always take them.”

Camden nodded. After he put the boxes away, more slowly and delicately than seemed necessary, he walked back to me. I
noticed he was not meeting my glance.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, swallowing hard.

Now he looked at me. “I’m going up to my mom’s.”

“Your mom’s.”

“In Vermont.”

“Vermont? The Vermont that’s like, four hours away?”

“Yes.”

“Is she okay?”

“She’s fine. But, like I told you. Lonely. I don’t want her to be lonely.”

Okay. Maybe a few days apart would be a good thing. A breather.

“How long are you staying?”

Camden simply shrugged. It was the most horrible shrug I’d ever seen.

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“Eliza came to see me this morning,” he said, as if that was remotely close to an answer. “She’s really upset. As bad as I’ve ever seen her. She wants me to break up with you.”

“I see.”

“Everything’s messed up. Who am I supposed to be loyal to here?” Camden drew in a sharp breath. “I’m terrified, Ari. I haven’t seen this kind of thing ever work out.”

He didn’t have to explain further.
This kind of thing
. It didn’t need a name, but it had one anyway: love.

“So you’re just going to run away?”

“Why not? I’ve seen my mother do this over and over again.
When a relationship gets tough, she takes off.” He paused. “Well, first she makes a tapestry about it.
Then
she takes off.”

We were quiet and the reality of what he was saying hit me.

“Look,” he said after a few moments. “I’m coming back. At some point. But I need time to figure stuff out.”

“Everything’s messed up for me, too, Camden. Here. I can’t face it without you.”

He drew in a quick breath.

“Sure you can. You don’t need some fuck-up like me. You’re stronger than you think you are.”

“Okay, maybe I can. But I’d rather not. Camden . . . I love you.”

Another sharp intake of breath, like I kept jabbing him.

“Don’t,” was all he said.

“Too late.”

“I’m not the guy from last summer. I’m not Azor Ray. Hell, I’m not even a youth hotline volunteer anymore. I quit that because clearly I can’t handle a real crisis. I’m not any of these people you think I am.”

“I only see who you are. Not who you’re
not
.”

He was quiet. “I see that, too. In you, I mean.”

Say you love me. Say you love me, and it’ll all be okay. You’ll see.

Instead, he said: “Maybe things will be different in a few weeks.”

No. No, no, no. “Summer will be over by then. And then, with school . . .”

Even saying the word
school
, even thinking about it, made me feel cold. Was he even going to come back to Dashwood?

I felt anger rise up in my chest. “I don’t understand you. All summer you’ve talked about breaking away from your mother’s way of life, and now you’re jumping into it when you don’t even have to.”

Camden’s eyes met mine. “But it feels like I have to.”

“Then fight that feeling! And while you’re at it, grow up. If you want to belong to something, you have to commit to it. You have to let it belong to you, too.”

He stood there, completely still, and there it was again: the anger.
My
anger, I should call it, because I was ready to own it then. But I had to keep it tamed this time.

“I’m sorry, Ari,” he said, moving forward and reaching out. I stepped away from him.

The alley door to Millie’s opened. “Ari?” called Richard. When he saw the two of us, he looked alarmed, but I couldn’t worry about his worry.

I turned back to Camden.

This boy. This boy who had been everything in one way last summer, then everything in another way this summer. Who had shown me so many foreign things that had been right there, knowable all along.

This boy was shaking his head again. “Don’t hate me,” he gasped.

Then he turned and ran.

21

Over the next
three days, I did the chores and errands my family asked of me. I didn’t complain or cry or pout. I did them while smiling, talking, and joking.

Every minute of it was a big, fat fake.

If I faltered for a moment, Mom would see the signs. I knew she was watching for them. I couldn’t let her know that underneath the pulse of these days I was back in the place of
everything hurts
. Perhaps I’d always been. Maybe this was where I lived for good, and all that appeared to be normal life and happiness was only a fleeting illusion, a mirage when you’re desperate in the desert.

Richard was watching, too. I could tell he wanted to ask
about what he’d seen in the alley but also respected my privacy. It was such a fine line, being concerned without being invasive. It bought me some time.

The thing that hurt the most was this: I didn’t know who to be more angry at. Camden, for not being the person I thought he was? Or me, for not protecting myself?

My therapist, Cynthia, had often urged me not to push away memories of what the depression itself felt like but rather, get inside them. That way, she said, I could begin to understand and, eventually, begin to win.

I knew I should call her now. But she’d want my doctor to increase my dosage or switch drugs completely, and that would mean I’d lost again. I wasn’t ready to concede, so in the solitary safety underneath my bedcovers early each morning and late each night, I answered the question she’d asked so many times.

What does it feel like, Ari?

Well, it felt like this:

Like there was always something incredibly awful that I needed to try and forget about.

Like some of my cells were somehow dead, injected with a serum that made them heavy and numb.

Like I had no idea what I wanted to do when I wasn’t being told what to do or following the paved paths of my day. Work at the store, go somewhere with Dani, come home, help with dinner. Work, go, come, help. Those were the only things that made my body move.

On the morning of the fourth day after Camden left, the
images returned. They popped like flashbulbs behind my eyes and I let them come, fast and forceful. They were the images of my bare arms, a razor opening the skin and relieving some of the pressure. Letting it out. Letting it hurt. Letting it bleed.

Then, images of the contents of the shoe box in my closet: a three-pack of cheap razors with two razors left, a bottle of rubbing alcohol, and a pack of cotton balls.

I started running the logistics through my mind. I couldn’t get any ice or frozen peas this time, not with Richard and Dani eating breakfast out there. But it would just be a small cut. Tiny, up high, so nobody would know. And I would still feel the release of it.

It wouldn’t count, not really, but it would help.

I went into my closet, then poked around in the back until I felt the corner of a shoe box lid sharp against my fingers. The comforting whisper-rustle as I pulled it out through my hanging clothes. I sat on the floor of my room and drew the box into my lap. Broke the tape on either side of the lid and popped it open, my hands shaking.

But the razors and alcohol and cotton balls were gone. In their place was a white envelope that simply said
Arianna
on the front.

I stared at it for a few moments, trying to process what it meant.

Then I tore the seal on the envelope.

The letter was handwritten on yellow legal paper, cursive swirls in blue ink.

Dear Arianna,

When I found this box, my first thought was to confront you. (I wasn’t snooping, I swear. I was looking for outgrown stuff to donate to the domestic violence shelter.)

But then I knew you had to be ready to hear what I have to say. If you’re reading this it’s probably because you’re feeling the urge to harm yourself again. Which means you’re ready now. Does that make sense? God, I hope so.

Ari, I need to say this: I have been there. I never got as far as you did. But I can say with certainty that I have felt what you’ve felt. I know you know this in a general way, and I’m sorry we never talked about the details. Maybe they would have helped you. Your therapist wanted me to, but I just couldn’t. I realize now that I was struggling more than I thought I was, and in denial about that.

It has been so painful to know that you inherited this burden from me.

But I have to say, seeing you dressed as Satina Galt did something to me. It reminded me that I gave you good things, too, like this role model. The way you (and Satina, and yes, sometimes me, too) want so badly to do your best, to make everything okay for everyone, that you’re not sure how to fit your own needs in there, too. The way you value strength and self-confidence—that was my wish for you. But I also know it’s hard to actually achieve.

I think you’re amazing. Maybe someday I’ll be able to show you.

If you are in pain, let me see it. If you found this letter because you were thinking of using the things in the box, call me. Wherever you are or wherever I am, I will come.

Love,
       

Mom
        

I read the letter twice. Then I wept. Then I read it again.

My mother.

Dabbing alcohol on the cuts on my arms, then wrapping them gently with bandages and gauze. Not saying a word. Sitting with her knees at perfect right angles beneath the Disney Princesses poster in the waiting room of my pediatrician’s office. Putting her arm around me as I stepped out, taking the prescription note from my hand. Filling it and leaving it on my bed.

It was the only version of her I wanted to think about. It was the only one that existed, right then.

I knew I should do what she requested, but I couldn’t call her. Not yet. In the meantime, I took the box and walked it outside and stuffed the whole thing in the trash.

“Sorry I’ve had them so long,” I said to Kendall the next day, handing over a pair of black jeans with patches on the knees. I’d borrowed them months ago and forgotten until she asked for them back so she could take them on her trip. We were standing in my driveway while Kendall’s mom waited in the car. They had a day’s worth of errands and I was first on the list.

“No worries. I have stuff of yours, too.” She produced a plastic grocery bag tied at the handles.

I took it, and burst into tears. I’d been on a bit of a hair trigger since I’d found the letter.

“It’s not like I’m going away forever!” said Kendall. “I didn’t want you to want any of this while I was gone and then be mad at me!”

I moved toward our front porch so Kendall’s mom couldn’t hear me.

“It’s not that.” I paused, wiped my nose. “Camden broke up with me.”

Kendall came closer. “What? When?”

“A few days ago. He ran away to his mom’s in Vermont.”

“And you’re just telling me this now?”

“I feel ashamed. I didn’t want to talk about it because that made it real.”

Kendall made a frustrated noise. “Ari. You have to talk about these things. And you have to talk to me about them. If we’re going to stay friends and you’re going to stay healthy, that has to happen. Understand?”

I nodded, almost crying again simply from the relief of being told what to do.

Kendall glanced back at her mom, who was drumming her fingers impatiently on the steering wheel.

“We’ll continue this,” said Kendall.

I hugged the plastic bag of whatever-I’d-left-at-Kendall’s and nodded again.

Max came into the store the next day, when Richard was out.

“Hey,” he said as the door swung shut, then came over to hug me across the counter. When we drew apart, he asked, “How are you?”

“Terrible.”

“Let’s come back to that. How’s Kendall?”

“She’s busy getting ready for her trip,” I said, knowing that didn’t really answer what he was asking.