Detached (14 page)

“But I don't want another chance.”

A hot sensation at the back of my eyes surprised me.

“You haven't been thinking right, Anna. We've been putting a lot of stuff together and the doctor thinks you've been … suffering from depression. You need to be on medication.”

“That's ironic,” I said. The joke was new to him, but he didn't appreciate it at all.

Joe frowned. “Yeah, I guess.”

A nurse came into the room and checked the machines around my bed. I was hooked up to a bunch of equipment through all sorts of probes and patches.

“Ah, you're awake!” she said energetically. “It's nice to see you with your eyes open. Just ring if you need anything.” She pointed at a buzzer attached to my bed.

When she left it took us a minute to look at each other again.

“So what happened?” I asked.

Joe took such a long breath in, I thought he might blow up like a balloon and float away.

“I mean, after I swallowed the pills. I know that part already.”

“Well, Sherlock started barking. I guess he knew you were in trouble. The doctor said there's a chance you had a seizure and it might have triggered him. I guess he barked so much the Rodman's got worried and came over. They heard the TV on and the phone ringing, but they couldn't get you to answer the door so they used the spare key. When they found you unconscious, they called 911. It was the paramedics who figured it out when they saw the empty cough syrup bottles.”

So Sherlock was the hero. Somehow that didn't seem so bad. At least he wouldn't be all over the news for the next three months.

“That's all?”

“Once you got here there was a bunch of other stuff. They pumped your stomach and gave you something to reverse the effects of the pills. You were on a respirator for a while because you weren't breathing on your own.”

“I guess you're wondering why I did it?”

“A bit. But mostly I'm concerned about making sure you don't do it again.”

I turned away. I was afraid he was going to try and extract a promise.

“Anyhow, Dad really wants to get in here and talk to you too, so I'll come back later.”

They must have all been briefed by the same shrink because Dad said the same things as Joe and Mom. He said they could never be angry, just grateful I was alive, and we were all going to work together to make sure I got the treatment I needed. I would have peed myself when he said
treatment
if I wasn't hooked up to a catheter.

“When do I get to go home?” I asked after he'd stood looking at me for a few minutes without saying a word. There's nothing worse than someone standing above you, watching you lie in a hospital bed when you'd planned to be dead.

“I'm not sure, honey.”

“Am I going to be okay?”

“The doctors say your body is recovering. Luckily they got to you before there was any permanent damage. Your brain seems to be functioning normally and they're confident your liver is okay.”

“So, then probably pretty soon?” I asked hopefully.

The news of Anna's suicide ripped across Facebook faster than a tornado across the prairies. Kyle contacted me a couple of hours after I talked to the neighbour on the phone. Somehow I'd managed to finish watching
Thelma and Louise
with my mother, which in hindsight was not a good choice of movies. Then I'd taken myself to bed in a show of sleepiness and turned off my light while my mind raced and my heart shattered, in the dark, in slow motion.

Have you been on Facebook?
he texted.

Yep

It was after midnight and I hadn't taken my eyes off my phone even for a second. I was trolling Facebook, email, and text messages for information, for updates, for hope. Nothing had turned up on Joe's profile, but there were text whispers among Bachman students about an ambulance and an overdose from someone who knew someone who lived on Anna's street.

Do you think it's true?

Dunno
,
I lied.

I couldn't have this conversation by text with tiny words and insufficient emojis that had no connection to reality.

Probably just someone wanting to trash her reputation. Wouldn't be the first time someone was supposedly pregnant or dead.

Can you get out of the house? Like now?
I felt desperate. I needed to see someone real, someone alive who I could talk to and who loved Anna as much as I did. I needed to be near someone who wasn't my mother sleeping five feet away in the next room, oblivious to the fact that my best friend was in the hospital, at best, or in the morgue, at worst.

I knew I looked like crap in my baggy PJ pants and an old sweatshirt of my mother's, but I crept through the living room and looked at myself in the hallway mirror. My eyes were beyond puffy and as red as tomato juice. I looked like I should be in bed, like I had a contagious disease, maybe pink eye or Ebola.

“Are you sick?” Kyle asked when he found me at the
twenty-four
-hour doughnut shop sipping on a hot chocolate. I had one waiting for him as well. He sat down and fiddled with the plastic lid, but he didn't take a drink.

“I'm not sick,” I said and wiped my nose with the sleeve of my mother's sweatshirt.

The place was practically empty, just a couple of loud, blinged-out cougars eating apple fritters at a table in the corner, and some sort of construction worker in an orange vest paying for a tray of takeout coffees. The girl behind the counter looked like she wished she was in bed.

“It's true?” Kyle said in a voice so stunned and quiet it was almost a whisper.

That's when I watched reality crash into Kyle. He looked like he did the time he missed his back flip in the Christmas recital and landed on his stomach instead of on his feet. For a second he couldn't breathe.

“It's true,” I squeaked. “I'm so freaked out I can't stop crying. I think I'm losing it.”

“She's dead?”

I don't think he actually said the words aloud, but I must have read his lips, or his mind.

“I think she's still alive.”

“She's in the hospital?”

I nodded and rested my head against the wall.

“When did you find out?”

“I read her Facebook status earlier and thought it was weird. Something about Cherry Coke and Skittles. I tried to Facebook and text and email her, but she wasn't online. Then I tried to call the house and the neighbour picked up, thinking it might be her parents. I think he called the ambulance.”

“Have you talked to her parents?”

“Nobody's answering at home and her brother hasn't been on Facebook all night. I called the hospital, but all they would say was that she was admitted to the CCU. I had to pretend to be her cousin to get that much information.”

“What did she do?”

“Neighbour didn't say.”

“I don't get it,” he said.

“I can't believe I didn't do something sooner.”

“What do you mean?”

“I had a feeling something was wrong. Remember I told you guys she was acting weird? But you all thought I was being a drama queen.”

“I'm sorry,” he said, “I really didn't think …”

Talk about too little too late. Kyle lowered his face to the table. I saw his shoulders start to tremble so I shifted to the seat beside him and wrapped my arms around him.

“You want to get out of here?” I asked.

He nodded and sniffled. “Let's go to the hospital.”

“They won't let us see her, but at least we can be nearby.”

Kyle and I walked out of the doughnut shop a few minutes later. I figured if my mom woke up and noticed me missing, I'd deal with it later. Kyle texted Sam and begged him to run interference with their parents, which was an easy ask since Sam owed him about a hundred favours anyway. Then we caught a late-night bus downtown.

When we arrived at the hospital we got cups of coffee from the cafeteria and sat together in the far corner of the waiting room. We didn't say much, but being there felt like the right thing, at least at first it did.

I've met Anna's parents hundreds of times and her brother enough times to know he has a birthmark the shape of New Zealand on his back and that one of his ears is lower than the other. I've slept in their house and done cannonballs in their pool. I've eaten dinners and breakfasts and lunches in their kitchen, and sat at their table so many times I have my own place-mat. But that night, I didn't recognize her mother or her father, or even Joe. I saw three people huddled on the opposite side of the waiting room. I registered fear in the set of their shoulders and the tremble of despair in their hands. But it took me by surprise when I finally heard Joe say her name and start to sob.

I nudged Kyle.

“That's her parents and her brother, Joe.”

“Should we go say hi or something? At least ask how she's doing?” he asked. He sipped his coffee and stared straight ahead with a freaky intensity.

“I don't know. I'm trying to decide if they'd feel better knowing we're here or if they'd rather be left alone.”

“What if they have bad news?”

“It can't be totally bad if they're still here,” I pointed out. It was a grim observation, but at the moment I had my mind wrapped tightly, like the arms of a terrified child, around hope.

We watched them while we decided what to do. The only time Joe sat still was when he cried. Then he got up and paced the room. Then he left altogether. Then he came back. Then he sat down to bury his head in his hands again. Every atom of his being was in utter agony and he never once glanced our way or looked at any of the other people hunched miserably in the waiting room. Anna's father looked as stunned as I felt. Sometimes he left the room and Anna's mother would shadow Joe. She was pale. In fact, she had so little colour she looked almost transparent. Her skin seemed to glow with fear. Maybe I was reading too much into it, but I've never seen anyone look as much like a ghost as she did. I hated being there watching them, but I didn't know what else to do either.

Finally a doctor came to the edge of the waiting room, but he paused too long after he confirmed they were Anna's family, then pulled them around the corner, just beyond where Kyle and I were sitting. I strained to listen but all I heard was silence while he searched for the right words. If he'd ever had to deliver bad news before, it sure didn't seem like it. Or maybe there is no good way to deliver bad news. Either way, my blood pressure soared while he took a deep breath. I thought I was going to pass out and had to put my head between my knees.

“I think there's been a misunderstanding,” Anna's mother said quickly, before the doctor could muster the courage to speak.

“There's no misunderstanding,” he said quietly. “Based on the contents of her stomach, it's obvious what happened. We've done what we can, for now, but she's in critical condition.”

The word
critical
came out like a whip and I shrank into my shoulders.

“All we can do is wait and see what happens. And hope she has enough fight in her to get through the next few hours.”

His last line knocked me completely off balance. I felt like I'd dropped from the edge of the planet and was free-falling through space.

Kyle and I sat there for a few more minutes, and cycled up and down through our emotions so fast I think we used up a decade of energy. You know how they say your life can change in an instant? I get that now. Nothing is ever going to be the same for me, ever. Nothing is ever going to be guaranteed again: not the ground I walk on, not the fact that I will wake up in the morning with nothing more to worry about than my next exam, and especially not the fact that my friends are happy, safe, and just a short bus ride away. The cup of coffee I brought into the waiting room was like something I'd never tasted before. I'd probably sucked back forty gallons of it in the last year alone, and yet the bitter taste on my tongue was suddenly unfamiliar. Everything felt lopsided, like in one of those funhouses you see at fairs. Nothing lined up and the pieces didn't fit together. I couldn't get within a thousand miles of a reason why my very own best friend would want to hurt herself. I felt like I was being punished for something I didn't do.

After a while Kyle stood up and paced a circle in front of me. I thought he was just jittery from the coffee. But then he said, “We've got to get out of here. Let's go.”

“Why?”

“I dunno. I just feel like we shouldn't be here suddenly. I've got a bad feeling.”

I didn't understand, but I was too scared not to follow. I knew Kyle needed me more than Anna did at that point. When we got outside, Kyle sat down on a bench and took a huge breath of fresh air.

“I wanted to say something. Just to let them know we're thinking of her or something. But I couldn't think of what to say. Nothing seemed right. I mean, what if I said the totally wrong thing?”

I knew what he meant. It felt as if my brain had quit working. I couldn't find the right words to say, or think of the right things to do either. I felt numb with disbelief. Nothing made sense. The harder I tried to think of a good reason why Anna might have wanted to kill herself the more I realized the world was a random place, and it scared the crap out of me.

 

I begged them not to put me in the loony bin. I even managed a few tears. But they both looked at me and Mom said, “We love you too much to get this wrong.”

“I've changed my mind. It's okay now,” I said. “I think I was just upset about Granny and Gramps. I mean, if that stupid drunk hadn't been speeding …”

“We can't take a chance. It won't be for long. Once the medication takes effect and they think you're stable enough, they'll let you come home.”

I was being transferred later that day. My new best friend, my shrink, was going to escort me because nobody thought Mom and Dad would have the guts to go through with it. If I didn't change their minds in the next five minutes, I didn't stand a chance.

“I promise. I won't try it again. I promise!” I said over and over.

“We know about the other times, sweetheart. We've been piecing things together. This wasn't an isolated incident. I hate to think where we'd be right now if just one of those five times …” She couldn't finish the sentence.

I sat stunned. I knew they didn't have to be Einstein to figure out the river incident and perhaps even the hanging. But how could they have pieced together my walk across suicide bridge and the time I scoped out the busy highway? I didn't know what to say. I wanted to defend myself, say that the bridge and highway didn't count, but I wasn't sure how much they knew and I didn't want to give anything away.

“We found your list, Anna,” Dad said. He has a way of boiling things down. This time reality crashed down like a tsunami. I felt the weight land on me and threaten to flatten me to the ground. Mom finally cracked and started to cry.

“I'm sorry. I promised I wouldn't cry. I'll come see you next week and you can call us once a day,” she said, then gave me a short, tight hug and left the room.

I stared at Dad. I couldn't very well throw a fit and accuse him of invading my privacy, but still, I was shocked they'd found the list and I wondered what else they'd found. Dad was pulling out all of his psychic tricks.

“We found Granny's ring too. Actually, Joe found that. And he did something with your laptop so we could see the websites you'd been to. That's what convinced us to talk to your friends, and I'm glad we did. It helped us put everything together.”

I slumped into a plastic chair and buried my head in my hands.

“This is only going to make things worse. I know it. At least I had some sort of routine before. I won't be able to handle it in there with a bunch of psychos.”

“They know what they're doing,” Dad said firmly.

From the tone of his voice, I knew he was about to leave too.

“I love you, honey. I really do. Maybe I should have said that more …”

“It's not about being loved or not being loved,” I said sullenly. It was the first time I'd let myself consider what it
was
about.

He didn't answer, but he kissed me on the cheek and then lingered a moment with his chin on the top of my head. I heard his breath catch in his throat before he turned to leave. He didn't dare look back as he went through the door.

Maybe this is rock bottom
, I thought.

The loony bin was like a hospital and a jail rolled into one. There was no privacy and I didn't have control over anything. I got told when to wake up, when to wash, when to exercise, when to eat, when to take my medication, when to sleep. When I wasn't in group therapy or talking to the shrink, I was basically eating or sleeping or trying to avoid the other crazy people who actually belonged there. The place made me feel like I was nuts, and if I wasn't depressed before I arrived, I was a prime candidate after one day. But there was no way to hide or make excuses and there was definitely no way to kill yourself. We were supervised while we ate so we couldn't construct weapons from our cutlery. There were no knives and the dishes were made of some heavy-duty unbreakable plastic. They didn't let us wear jewellery, scarves, or belts and we couldn't wear clothing with any sort of strings or ties. I couldn't even wear a bra or underpants. And they definitely didn't let us have shoelaces, so everyone sort of shuffled and clomped around in sloppy running shoes. The noise was enough to drive me mad. I had to be supervised even when I went to the washroom. I don't know what they were afraid of me doing. There wasn't enough alcohol in my acne wipes to kill a fly and I doubt I could do much damage with a toothbrush, which was about all I was allowed to have.

When Mom and Dad came to visit the first time, I freaked out. I told them the antidepressants weren't working.

“They make me feel more desperate,” I cried. “I've never felt this awful, ever.

“We'll tell the doctor, but you have to have a bit of patience. It'll take time before they build up in your system,” Dad said. He sounded like a robot when he spoke. There was nothing of my actual father in the room with me other than his body. He must have had to check his emotions at the door with any sharp objects.

Mom could barely talk. When Dad stopped talking, she handed me a couple of letters she'd been holding. They felt warm and damp from her hands. She looked like a frightened rabbit. I think she was relieved when our visit was over.

The last thing I yelled at them as they left was, “It's like jail in here. You have no idea.”

Then the nurse, or guard, or whoever she was, took them to see my shrink. They probably needed serious counselling after seeing me there.

The letters were from Gisele and Mariam. They were careful and short and mostly said how much they loved me and missed me, and that they would be there for me when I got home. They said I didn't have to do it alone. I appreciated that they bothered to write, but it didn't cheer me up to read them. It especially didn't cheer me up to think about having to go back to school. I knew I'd never be able to look Kyle in the face again.

I used one of my calls that week to talk to Joe. I only had ten minutes so I had to get to the point.

“I can't believe you ratted me out,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“You snooped through my room. And my computer!”

“Anna, get serious. It's not like you ate the last cookie or broke your curfew.” His tone was biting and it threw me off. He'd been so understanding at the hospital.

“You're mad at me,” I said. It wasn't an accusation.

“I'm not mad. But I don't understand. I want to, but I don't. I don't know what was so terrible that you wanted to kill yourself.”

“Does everyone hate me?”

“Nobody hates you. We all love you. That's the point. You're my sister. The thought of losing you is — well, it's unimaginable. If you can't understand that, then you'll just have to believe me. The same way I have to believe you felt like you had a reason to do what you did. Okay? I don't want to argue. Let's just focus on getting you back to normal.”

“Whatever normal is.”

“It'll happen. They said in a few weeks you'll be more like your old self.”

“I don't want to be my old self.”

“Okay, your younger self then.”

“I don't want to be any version of me.”

The next week I called Joe again. Somehow it was easier talking to him than my parents. He didn't analyze every word I said, he didn't keep his tone of voice under control. I got a better sense of what he was thinking and feeling.

“Man, the people in here have some serious problems,” I said.

“Like what?”

“This one girl used to get locked in a kitchen cupboard when she was a kid, while her parents went drinking. She's so messed up she literally eats the flesh off her fingers.”

“That's awful.”

“And this other guy is basically a paranoid schizoid. If anyone gets near him he accuses them of trying to implant probes in him. He keeps screaming that we're all part of the conspiracy and to keep away from his ears.”

“Weird.”

“I swear, everyone's certifiable. I don't belong at all.”

“No you don't,” he said.

I hadn't seen that one coming.

Every day in the loony bin was the same. They, the counsellors, forced us to talk about our feelings and we, the patients, did everything we could to avoid talking, or at least we avoided saying too much. It was like an unspoken contest to see who could say the least and get away with it. I thought I had the system all figured out, but it turned out they were just letting me settle in. Sometime during the second week they zeroed in on me. They kept asking for my opinion about things the others were saying, kept wanting me to talk about my feelings. They picked and prodded until I thought I was going to seriously lose it on them. When I couldn't stand it a second longer, when I couldn't swallow another pointed question about my stupid feelings, I screamed, “If I had feelings I wouldn't be in this freaking place!”

Nobody flinched. Either they were too caught up in their own foggy dazes or they were used to more drama than just a bit of harmless screaming.

The counsellor didn't miss a beat. He said in a deadpan voice, “So you are saying you don't feel things.”

I slumped in my stinky vinyl chair. “I guess.”

“That sounds like progress,” the counsellor said and then turned to the cupboard girl and asked her how she felt about what I'd said.

“Fine,” the cupboard girl whispered.

The following week Mom and Dad brought me a plastic container. Inside was a piece of homemade chocolate cake.

“Joe came over for his birthday last night and we saved you a piece. I know it's your favourite.”

She handed it to me with a plastic fork and they watched while I devoured it.

“It's good,” I said. “Thanks. The food here is worse than at the hospital.”

“I guess we should have sprung for the deluxe package,” Dad said and tried a tentative smile.

I nodded, then smiled back at him. “That's okay. We get popcorn every night for a snack.”

Every week after that they brought me a little something, a small treat like a bag of
salt-and
-vinegar chips or a chocolate bar. One time they brought me running shoes with Velcro fasteners like I had in kindergarten. They were the ugliest shoes I've ever seen, but at least I didn't have to worry about kicking them off by accident if I lifted my foot off the ground.

“I know they're awful,” Mom apologized. “But I thought they'd be better than what you have now.”

I pulled them on and threw my old runners in the garbage can.

“They're good, thanks.”

There were also more cards from Gisele and Mariam and a couple of times there were letters from Aliya. Aliya was more upbeat. I knew she was trying to cover up how she really felt, but still I laughed when she accused me of going too far to get out of our math exam. It was probably an inappropriate comment and I was sure it wouldn't have been approved by my counsellor, but it was better than everyone pretending I had the plague.

One day when we were outside for our mandatory march, which is how I thought of exercise time, I noticed it was spring. There were tulips in the flower beds and an apple tree in bloom. The petals had fallen on the ground and made a carpet of white. I sat down and picked up a petal. It was cool and soft and I rubbed it between my finger and thumb, then smelled the perfume.

“Pretty day,” one of the nurses said when she came near.

“I like spring,” I said.

She raised her eyebrows at me, but kept walking.

“What was that about?” I muttered. Then it came to me, slowly, like a flower yawning open in the sunshine. I was enjoying sitting on the grass among the flower petals. I was actually enjoying myself.

When Mom and Dad came the following week, I had letters for them to take back to Gisele, Mariam, and Aliya. They were short and trivial because I insisted on using a pen to write with, rather than the crayon I was allowed in my room, which means I had to write during supervised free time. That also means I didn't have much time to fuss over them.

“I'm sure the girls will be happy to get these,” Mom said. “They call and ask about you a lot.”

“Did you tell them when I get to come home?”

I wasn't brave enough to ask the question straight up.

“Not yet, but the doctors say you're doing really well.”

“Yeah?”

“They said Joe can come and visit if you'd like.”

“Does he want to?”

“Of course he does.”

Joe was there next visiting day. He signed me out and we went for a walk outside. More and more I wanted to be out in the fresh air instead of breathing all that crappy institutionalized air. It was worse than the hospital, because instead of just smelling antiseptic, it was stale too. You'd think they could open a few windows now and then, especially since it was spring. But I guess they were afraid one of us would figure out how to dematerialize, squeeze through the metal grates covering the windows, and jump to our deaths.

“They don't let us out here enough. An hour in the morning and afternoon, and if you can find someone on staff to come out with you then you can manage another hour during supervised free time,” I said to Joe when we got to the outside door and flung it open. I took in a huge breath, tried to get the smell of the place out of my nose.

“Supervised free time? Isn't that an oxymoron?” Joe asked.

I laughed, “I guess you're right. The whole place is an oxymoron if you ask me.”

“So what's the rest of the time?”

“You mean, if it's not
supervised
free time?”

“Yeah.”

“We have to be in the common room quite a bit. That way only a couple staff have to be on duty to watch us. We eat. That takes about fourteen minutes, three times a day. Then there's a lot of talking about our feelings in groups and
one-on
-one. We go to bed pretty early.”