Girl on the Line Read online

  “When was the last time you looked in the mirror and said, ‘I am a hero and/or heroine’?” the I-had-four-cups-of-coffee-too-many narrator asks.

  “Heroin sounds nice,” I say.

  “Shhhh,” Dad says. “Stop joking and listen.”

  I flip down the visor, look at myself with my frizz-puff of a hairdo and my dark eyebrows and my cracked, chapped lips and think, If that BS is true, the word hero and/or heroine has lost all meaning. Flip the visor back up. I stare out the window and tune the audiobook out.

  Back to Goleta: land of citrus groves, purple hills, and one glittering, cold ocean. Where neighborhoods are quiet and lawns are close-clipped. Where people smile and say hello and houses have multiple stories. We pull into the driveway of the home I grew up in with its brown, drought-thirsty lawn, the mailbox shaped like a lantern, the flat stump where a violet-leaved chokecherry tree used to be and now the sun shines, relentless.

  “Thanks for the ride,” I say, unclipping my seat belt. As I reach and pick up my backpack from the back seat, I notice an unfamiliar purple sweatshirt—too big to be Stevie’s, too colorful to be Ruby’s.

  “My friend Gary’s,” he says when he sees me looking.

  “I’m going to go lie down,” I tell him.

  “Is this your new pharmaceuticals?” he asks. “Are they making you sleepy?”

  “I don’t know anymore.”

  Really I just want to be left alone. Ever since I failed to kill myself (which is how I think of it now. “Attempted suicide?” Come on, I failed) I haven’t had a moment. The house smells weird when we walk in, a mixture of garlic in the air and lemon cleaner and windows that haven’t been opened. Like someone else’s house.

  My room is at the end of a hall, a rectangular room with a long closet and a canopy bed I’ve had since I was six that has since gone from pink with violet mosquito netting to black with red lace. There is crap covering my love seat, my desk, my dresser top, and most of my floor. Clothes, papers, schoolbooks, paperbacks, some weird painted baby dolls that Marisol gave me for my birthday, makeup, purses, scarves, pens. Basically, gaze upon my living quarters and behold my wreck of a psyche. Jonah used to say we needed hazmat suits to hang out in my room. Though usually, strangely enough, the sight of my beloved mess makes me feel calm. It might look like a “sea of garbage” to my dad or hazardous waste to my (ex-)boyfriend, but to me it makes perfect sense. I know where everything is. It’s mine.

  Today, though, the room feels small. I see trash I should throw away. Food wrappers. Flattened cardboard boxes. I push a pile of shoes off my bed, climb under the rumpled comforter. Plug in my phone and turn it on for the first time since I tried to kill myself a few days ago. I’m just checking messages. Not from anyone in particular. But my throat goes dry when I see nothing from Jonah. I scroll to our last texts to each other.

  Call you in a minute? I wanna talk “in person,” he said.

  One of Jonah’s only flaws is his tendency to put quotation marks around phrases that warrant no quotation marks.

  Oh dear I don’t like the sound of that, I responded.

  I didn’t know that was the end. My eyes hurt looking at it. I scroll back, swallow the lump of pain in my throat.

  Twenty-seven texts from Marisol beginning with her asking if I saw the latest episode of a reality show about people with weird obsessions that we are obsessed with. The last one, apparently, is about a guy who is in love with a finger puppet. Then there are texts asking why I am not answering. THIS IS THE GREATEST TELEVISION THAT HAS EVER TELEVISIONED, she writes. Have I lost interest in the show, how could I, it’s OUR THING!

  Then she asks me if I’m okay, what kind of food poisoning did I have, the puke kind or the poop kind? Was it salmonella? Botulism? Did I want soup?

  I have a lot of Sometimes Friends: folks I know through shows I go to now and then or who I’ve known throughout years of being corralled together in public school. Their numbers are in my phone, we text and talk online, maybe eat lunch together or hang out after school. But Marisol’s a Forever Friend. An adopted sister. Two hearts, one heartbeat.

  Me: Who told you I have food poisoning?

  Her: She lives!!!

  Me: “Lives” is being generous.

  I snap a picture of my tired-as-hell face and send it.

  Her: Poor bb

  Me: Have you talked to Jonah?

  Her: No, y?

  Me: I tried to off myself. Was at a psychiatric hospital. Good times. Oh yeah, also he dumped me.

  Shit. I probably shouldn’t have broken the news to her like that. If only there were an unsend button. The text sits there for about a nanosecond before my phone starts ringing. My ringtone is a cat meowing.

  “Is this just your way of getting me on the phone?” she asks.

  Because it takes an emergency to get Marisol on the phone. She is strictly a texter.

  “Not a joke,” I tell her.

  “On my way right now.”

  Before I can respond, she hangs up. Less than ten minutes later, my doorbell rings.

  I can tell she’s already been crying as she leans over and hugs me, kind of lying on me, more like. I inhale an aromatic burst of cinnamon gum and fruity shampoo. Marisol has the thickest mop of shiny, curly hair she dyes red over the dark brown. She calls her fashion sense Pajama Couture, as she somehow manages to live in Ugg boots, yoga pants, and long sweater things and still seem fashionable. She’s also a brilliant writer and speaks three languages fluently. Her mother is French, her father is Puerto Rican, she has dual citizenship to the EU and the US. Not that I’m bragging or anything.

  It’s just that I have the best friend in the world.

  Sometimes I think I don’t deserve her.

  We sit up and I tell her the whole damn story while her hand pets my arm. I tell it all out of order. It may or may not make any sense at all. Marisol knows it’s been rough since my parents split up, and then the accident happened. She gave me many long hugs when I had tears and helped me breathe when I almost had panic attacks. But since school started in late August almost two months ago, I haven’t told her much beyond the diagnosis and that I’m medicated. She was deep in SAT and college prep world. I was busy losing my mind. When we hung out, we let silences expand between us—we shopped, or we saw movies, and I apparently hid my struggles well. So I have a lot to explain right now, starting with the ugly thoughts that have taken residence in Casa Journey’s Brain since the school year started and ending with trying to die. As I yammer on, every once in a while she says, “Stop.” Or “You did not.” Or just “Journey?!”

  It’s the first time I’ve told the whole story out loud and it’s served with a heaping side of shame. Even though I know it’s true, I can’t believe I tried to kill myself just days ago.

  What’s that word I’m looking for? For something you know is true but you still can’t believe?

  “Oh man,” Marisol says, rubbing her eyes behind her ruby plastic frames. “I am the worst friend in the universe.”

  “What? No.”

  Seeing her cry physically pains me. I should have kept this a secret. This is why I never told her my stupid suicidal thoughts in the first place.

  “It has nothing to do with you,” I tell her.

  “I should have seen this coming,” Marisol says. “I’ve just been so busy—and since the accident, you’ve been so . . .”

  “Insane.”

  “I was going to say volatile. I’ve been worried, JoJo, not going to lie. But then you went to a psychiatrist and got your diagnosis and I . . . I don’t know. I thought things were going to get better. And I’ve been so in my own world, researching colleges and studying for SATs.” She wipes her eyes behind her glasses. “I feel so selfish.”

  “It wasn’t up to you to save me.”

  “I didn’t need to save you—but I should have been a better friend.”

  “You’ve been working so hard for school—I was not about to come and distract you with my ridiculous
ness.”

  “I could tell something was wrong with you. I’m used to you being dramatic. But you’ve been so dark and so quiet. I don’t know. I dismissed it. Selfishly. I didn’t think you’d . . .” She lets out a sob and grabs my wrist for a second like I’m a balloon about to float away.

  “I didn’t think I would, either, at first.” I hug my knees, lay my head on them, breathe deeply to quiet the stabbing feeling in my chest. “It was almost like . . . like I dared myself to. I dared myself to die.”

  Marisol just shakes her head.

  “Believe me, I know I sound crazy. I guess I am crazy. I came home with a fresh batch of crazy pills.” I watch her, waiting for a response. Waiting for her to agree or disagree. Because I honestly don’t know if I’m crazy or not anymore.

  I never feel crazy inside myself—someone else has to come along and see it, name it. Crazy is always something someone else defines.

  Marisol gets up, blows her nose loud as a trumpet. She sits next to me on the bed again, watching me like I’m something astonishing. Not the good kind of astonishing, either.

  “Hon, you scare the living crap out of me.”

  “Why?” I ask, a crack in my heart.

  “Just . . . you oscillate so wildly,” she says. “Maybe that’s why I’ve backed off since the year started and our conversations mostly revolve around reality TV. I’m sorry. I’m just . . . exhausted sometimes.”

  “Explain.”

  “Like that time last year you showed up at my house joyriding your dad’s car. You told me to get in, like it was nothing. I mean, yeah, it was one of the funnest nights of my life. But you don’t have a license. And, like, I was terrified.”

  “He showed me how to drive it. He was out of town. I’d never do that anymore, anyway, after the accident.”

  “Or like that time last spring you called me and said you thought maybe there was a guy with a knife outside your house. My mom and I showed up and looked around your yard. Do you remember? We were freaking out. I still don’t know if you really saw a guy with a knife or not. That truly scared the crap out of us.”

  “There was a shadow, and I’d been watching that true crime show—”

  “Or Jonah. Like he was your whole world. Your whole. World. You barely talked about anything else the past year. You kind of pushed me to the wayside and girl, you know I love you, but what the hell is this?”

  Marisol points to the corner of my room, where a small pile of three infant-sized sundresses sit in a corner.

  “Baby clothes.”

  “For who?”

  “My baby someday.”

  “This is what I mean. You are just so . . . much,” Marisol says. “It’s why I love you. Why everyone does. You’re such a damn flame, we all want to be around you.”

  I smile weakly, eyes welling up.

  “Keep the flame, but please, JoJo,” she says, holding my hand. “Don’t burn the goddamn world to the ground.”

  After she leaves, I bawl into my pillow so badly it’s soaked. Feels good, in a way, letting it go, like bad weather doing its thing, washing the skies clean. The old refrain circles back in my brain like a hellish nursery rhyme—I don’t know how to live. I wish I were dead—even though I know, I know it’s a lie. What I really want is to get past all this.

  Dear future self,

  How did you survive?

  How did you do it?

  Are you even there?

  Do you even exist?

  If only there were a pill I could take to stop me from thinking about Jonah.

  I haven’t been back to school since it all happened last week. Usually Jonah would have been messaging and coming over. He called me twice, asking how I was, but seemed distant, made excuses for having to get off the phone. He didn’t laugh at my dark jokes. At the end of phone call number two, he told me I was his best friend, but asked me for space. He said it would be good for me, like he was doing it for my benefit. He sold it to me so well I believed him, until I got to thinking later, and decided, wait a second, I don’t want space from him. I want the opposite of space.

  Hey . . . can we talk?

  I don’t want space.

  Really? Two hours and not even a response? I can see you read my text.

  Never mind, fine, you’re right, we’ll have space.

  Sigh.

  Space is stupid.

  He said he still loves me when we last talked. I know he still loves me. I don’t want to screw up any hope I have of us getting back together. So I don’t send any more texts after that, even though I really, really want to.

  Texts I didn’t send:

  Last I checked “best friends” text their friends back.

  That was a proper use of quotation marks by the way, WHICH YOU SUCK AT USING.

  Remember when you ghosted Carla after dumping her in ninth grade? Don’t even think about pulling that crap with me.

  Saying you want space from someone is just a nice way of saying you want nothing.

  I wish I had succeeded in killing myself.

  No I don’t. I know I don’t. I remember vividly the panic right before the world went black, and I was so scared to die. But why does my mind keep going there; why does it keep thinking these “screw it all” thoughts? Lithium dulls the feelings maybe, but it seems like it does nothing for thinking the thoughts. It tires me, it makes my brain a snail, it makes me sleep longer. And is it me or are my hands trembling?

  I’ve been home from the hospital two days. I tried to kill myself on a Friday. I spent a lovely weekend getaway at the lie that calls itself View of the Sea and came home yesterday. It’s only Tuesday. I feel a decade older than a week ago.

  Since I got home, Dad shuffles around me somber as a monk, accommodating as a butler, observing heavy silences in my presence, ordering me whatever food I request, suggesting hot baths. It pains me to see him like this, but his sympathy for me is so loud. I do appreciate the quiet of his house, but I miss my sisters. Mom took them for the week and it’s weird to be here without them. I’ve been texting with my mom since I got here. She asks me how I am, tells me we should sit down and talk about the future soon, sends me pictures of the dog, fills me in on boring details around my makeup homework she emailed me, asks me how I am again. I can tell she doesn’t know what to do with me. It’s like she wants everything to be fine so bad she will insist fineness into existence. I tell her I’ll return to school Monday, November 1, which is in thirteen days. I argue I need this much time to let the medication stabilize. Thirteen days seems an eternity away right now. Thirteen days, a mini forever. The whole world could be gone by November.

  In truth, I wish I never had to go back to school. It’s such a charade at this point. I’m knee-deep in senior year; I’ve received warnings from three of my teachers that I might not swing Cs. Before I decided to off myself I was planning to take a gap year, get a job, maybe travel, find myself, figure out what’s next. Going back to high school and faking like I care sounds like such a pointless endeavor. But I won’t think about it now. I can avoid the world for thirteen more beautiful days.

  I check my phone again. And again. No text from Jonah. But there is a text from Marisol. It’s the longest text I’ve ever seen. It says I LOVE YOU so many times I get bored of scrolling.

  Now I’m worried for YOUR mental health, I text back.

  “Watch some TV with your old man?” Dad asks, poking his head in the doorway of my room. He’s asked me to keep my door open these first couple days back, and, humiliating as it is, I oblige.

  “Sure,” I say, putting my phone down with a clack.

  I sit wrapped in an afghan on the couch in the living room, watching nature in HD, Sprinkles perched between Dad and me. Right after my parents separated, both of them went out and adopted their dream dogs. They each claimed the other had been the one standing in the way of their dream dog for years. I have no dog in the dream dog fight, nor do I care, but I do find it amusing that we now have two dogs in our lives. Sprinkles, the
one on my lap currently, is an older three-legged chow, and I would amputate a leg of my own for him. Mom and Levi’s dog, Chewbacca, is a Newfoundland, one of the world’s largest breeds, and dumb as a brick of cheese. Dad sits brushing Sprinkles’s fur, eyes glued to the nature show. The man is a live-action thesaurus of complimentary adjectives.

  “Marvelous,” he says when a giraffe outruns a lion.

  “Brilliant,” he says about a snake that finds solace from the blistering desert inches below the sand’s surface.

  “Isn’t it so breathtaking?” he asks me when the bird of paradise performs its ridiculous mating dance. He watches me for a reaction so eagerly.

  All right. Okay. I get where this is coming from. Dad’s trying to get me to join the Life Is Good Club. And I see it, I see what he sees. A bizarre, full-color splendor of creatures and landscapes so unique they transcend imagination, and yet are real. But what I see much more clearly is a bleak, never-ending game of predator versus prey; weather that is downright unlivable due to man-made climate change; and a boring, pathetic song and dance everyone and/or everything does in the name of sex.

  But the last thing I want to do is bum my dad out. This is the first day since I came home that he hasn’t cried.

  “It is . . . breathtaking,” I say.

  Not a lie, either. Technically life does take your breath away. Eventually, it takes it all.

  That’s what Wolf told me to focus on during my first day of therapy with him: my breath. It’s Friday, my one-week suicide attempt anniversary . . . and yes, I have a new therapist now, named Wolf. I tried to call him Dr. Baumgartner but he said, “Call me by my first name, Wolf.”

  “Wolf?” I asked, leaning forward in my leather armchair.

  “It’s my first name,” he insisted.

  He looked very . . . square. Especially for a person with a moniker so lupine. Like some guy who stepped right out of a Life magazine from 1958. Buddy Holly glasses, a corduroy sports jacket, graying, slicked-back hair. A Dennis, maybe. A Norman. A Henry.

  But Wolf? No.

  “I would think if anyone could fail to be surprised by my name it would be someone named Journey,” he told me.