When I see Ryan in the hall after class, I give him the letter to pass on. You two are like brothers—I know he’ll be seeing you at some point today or tomorrow. By the end of the day, we find out that you have been, for all intents and purposes, committed to a mental hospital. Birch Grove Recovery Center is where you go when you do stuff like try to kill yourself in your bathtub. Normally this isn’t the kind of thing that makes a girl swoon, but there’s something so dramatic and beautiful about a boy whose heart is breaking and my imagination latches onto that, elaborates on your suffering. You immediately reach mythical status for me, a Byron who’s given himself over completely to the ecstasy and agony of love. Van Gogh, cutting off his ear.
Of course I’m worried about you and sad, but there’s also this feeling of excitement, which I know is probably wrong, but all the same I can’t help feeling it. Suicide is taking matters into your own hands and to me that seems courageous, fierce. You aren’t just the rocker/actor everyone loves, the one we all think will for sure make it when he moves to LA. Suddenly, you’re Romeo shunned by Rosaline. Or Hamlet, suffering the slings and arrows of destiny: To be, or not to be, that is the question.
I’m taken with the morbid romance of it all, that someone in our world of drive-throughs and cow patties and evangelical churches has done the sort of thing we’ve only seen onstage. Something inside me echoes that refusal to participate in the awfulness of life. I admire the guts it takes to give up. Only tortured artists do that, and being a tortured artist is my most fervent longing.
I know what it feels like, the hopelessness you’re wrestling with. I feel it every day at home, when Mom treats me like her personal slave or when The Giant raises his hand just to watch me flinch. When Dad calls, drunk, teetering on the edge of surliness, making promises he’ll never keep, telling lies he believes. Sometimes I wish I could sit my life out. Like, Hey, it’s cool but I’m over it. Peace.
I understand …
I know right now it seems like …
You matter, even if you think you don’t …
You are the most talented person I’ve ever …
Later, you’ll tell me how you read and reread that letter—the only valentine you received. How my words had been a life raft. How—as impossible as it may seem—you fell in love with me when you were imprisoned in that stark white room at Birch Grove Recovery Center, your wrists wrapped in gauze.
I guess crazy is catching.
THREE
You haven’t been at school for a week and your absence never seems normal. It’s not something I get used to. It’s like someone turned down all the colors. Still, the rest of us have to go on with normal life, which for me means after-school shifts at the Honey Pot.
The mall is packed, so we’ve got a line. Since there’re only two of us on this shift and Matt, my coworker/ex-boyfriend is in the back mixing up cookie dough, I stay in front, rushing from the oven to the trays of cookies that are lined up behind the glass case. I use a long spatula to transfer the cookies into the customers’ bags, trying to be patient as they pick out the specific ones they want. A dozen for twenty bucks or one seventy-five each. Expensive, but worth every penny. My favorite is the sugar cookie—with or without sprinkles. You haven’t had a sugar cookie until you’ve tasted the buttery, sweet, soft delight that is the Honey Pot’s Sugar Daddy. Sometimes, when I’m really daring, I’ll put frosting on top.
I get to eat cookies all day and drink unlimited amounts of soda. I scoop up dough and pop it into my mouth when no one’s looking. I drop batches of cookies onto sheets of waxed paper using a tiny ice-cream scooper that gives me blisters. There’s a glass window in front of the ovens and it’s no secret that boys sneak glances at the girls as we bend over to put trays in the oven or take them out. I can’t decide if I like this or not.
When the line gets to be too much, I run into the back.
“Sanchez! Help, I’m drowning out there,” I say.
Matt looks up from the dough and it takes everything in me not to wipe the flour off his nose. We are so not together anymore and that’s a good thing, but sometimes I want to make out with him. Nat says this is totally normal.
He salutes me. “Aye, Cap’n.”
Matt and I went out for exactly two months freshman year. We were in the same English class and what started as a daily flirtation became a heady eight weeks of declarations and fights and awkwardness. He loves fantasy football and movies about funny dumbasses. I hate sports and love Shakespeare. It was never meant to be. Still, we stayed friends and I was the one who helped him get the job here at the Pot. Being with him was fun—not an epic love or massive heartbreak. But I’m ready for the real deal. A Serious Relationship. Love.
By dinnertime the line dwindles and we get a breather.
“Dude, that was insane,” Matt says.
“For real.”
The buzzer goes off and he crosses to the oven to retrieve the newest batch of cookies. The air fills with their warm, sweet scent: macadamia nuts and white chocolate. I’m about to go snag one when I see you out of the corner of my eye. You don’t see me. You’re following your parents into Applebee’s, head down. You’re wearing a long, thin cardigan, unbuttoned over a Muse concert tee. You’re pretty much the only guy other than Kurt Cobain who can rock a cardigan sweater. My eyes follow you. They take in how your dad pats your back, how your mom reaches out and grabs your hand. A lump forms in my throat.
“Grace? Chica, hello…”
I turn and Matt’s holding up a yellow cardboard box.
“That special order—how many macadamia cookies did they want?”
“A half dozen,” I say.
My eyes float back to the restaurant, but you’re already gone. I text Nat and Lys, tell them I saw you. They both respond with emojis. I can’t translate what a confused face, a party hat, and a palm tree mean.
I keep glancing toward the Applebee’s entrance throughout my shift, but you never reappear. I’m nervous. What if you think I’m a total freak for giving you that letter? What if you never read it?
I blush, thinking about how I’d said you were the most talented person I’d ever met. How obvious can I be about crushing on you?
“Excuse me,” someone snaps in front of the register.
I turn around, ready to be fake nice, but it’s just Nat and Lys.
“You bitches! I thought the horrible lady from last week had come back.”
Long story short: a customer called me uppity. It was a whole thing.
Lys crosses her arms and leans her chin on the glass counter, her eyes—which have glittery blue and pink eyeshadow—sympathetic. “Sucks being a wage slave.”
Though you wouldn’t know by looking at her, Lys comes from some serious money. She probably won’t have to work a day in her life unless she wants to.
“I like to tell myself it builds character,” I say. I point to the cookies with my spatula. “What’ll it be, ladies?”
“Chocolate. I’m on my period,” Nat says.
Lys scans the trays. “I’ll have my usual.”
I put brownie chocolate chip cookies in one bag and snickerdoodles in the other.
“If I worked here I’d be such a fatty,” Nat says. She’s reed thin and has perfect posture after an entire childhood spent in a ballet studio.
“Yeah, my mom told me she saw some cottage cheese—aka cellulite—on my legs the other day,” I say, “so I’m taking a break from the deliciousness.”
Lys stares at me. “Your mom actually said that?”
Nat rolls her eyes. “Are you surprised? That’s textbook Jean.”
Matt comes through the swinging door wearing basketball shorts and a tee. He gives us a little wave.