Landry lowered the book. “Are you having further thoughts of suicide?”
“I was referring to the nuts,” Eureka said, exasperated. “I was putting myself in opposition to a nut who … Never mind.” But it was too late. She’d let the s-word slip, which was like saying “bomb” on a plane. Warning lights would be flashing inside Landry.
Of course Eureka still thought about suicide. And yeah, she’d pondered other methods, knowing mostly that she couldn’t try drowning—not after Diana. She’d once seen a show about how the lungs fill with blood before drowning victims die. Sometimes she talked about suicide with her friend Brooks, who was the only person she could trust not to judge her, not to report back to Dad or worse. He’d sat on muted conference call when she’d called this hotline a few times. He made her promise she would talk to him whenever she thought about it, so they talked a lot.
But she was still here, wasn’t she? The urge to leave this world wasn’t as crippling as it had been when Eureka swallowed those pills. Lethargy and apathy had replaced her drive to die.
“Did Dad happen to mention I’ve always been that way?” she asked.
Landry set her notebook on the table. “Always?”
Now Eureka looked away. Maybe not always. Of course not always. Things had been sunny for a while. But when she was ten, her parents split up. You didn’t just find the sun after that.
“Any chance you could dash out a Xanax prescription?” Eureka’s left eardrum was ringing again. “Otherwise this seems to be a waste of time.”
“You don’t need drugs. You need to open up, not bury this tragedy. Your stepmother says you won’t talk to her or your father. You’ve shown no interest in conversing with me. What about your friends at school?”
“Cat,” Eureka said automatically. “And Brooks.” She talked to them. If either of them had been sitting in Landry’s seat, Eureka might even have been laughing right now.
“Good.” Dr. Landry meant: Finally. “How would they describe you since the accident?”
“Cat’s captain of the cross-country team,” Eureka said, thinking of the wildly mixed emotions on her friend’s face when Eureka said she was quitting, leaving the captain position open. “She’d say I’ve gotten slow.”
Cat would be on the field with the team right now. She was great at running them through their drills, but she wasn’t brilliant at pep talks—and the team needed pep to face Manor. Eureka glanced at her watch. If she dashed back as soon as this was over, she might make it to school in time. That was what she wanted, right?
When she looked up, Landry’s brow was furrowed. “That would be a pretty harsh thing to say to a girl who’s grieving the loss of a mother, don’t you think?”
Eureka shrugged. If Landry had a sense of humor, if she knew Cat, she would get it. Her friend was joking, most of the time. It was fine. They’d known each other forever.
“What about … Brooke?”
“Brooks,” Eureka said. She’d known him forever, too. He was a better listener than any of the shrinks Rhoda and Dad wasted their money on.
“Is Brooks a he?” The notebook returned and Landry scribbled something. “Are the two of you just friends?”
“Why does that matter?” Eureka snapped. Once upon an accident she and Brooks had dated—fifth grade. But they were kids. And she was a wreck about her parents splitting up and—
“Divorce often provokes behavior in children that makes it difficult for them to pursue their own romantic relationships.”
“We were ten. It didn’t work out because I wanted to go swimming when he wanted to ride bikes. How did we even start talking about this?”
“You tell me. Perhaps you can talk to Brooks about your loss. He seems to be someone you could care deeply about, if you would give yourself permission to feel.”