As the screen cut to black, all that was left were Margaret’s words.
It’s a strange occurrence, walking a tightrope into the night. I once believed that opening my eyes would be scary, a dreadful awareness that my journey would inevitably reach a close. Never did I realize that looking forward was only frightful when I refused to also look to the side, to observe not only the abyss that surrounded me, but the people walking their tightropes alongside my own. And now I know why they say it’s better to open your eyes than to blind yourself. If we are all destined to fall into the darkness, at least we’ll fall together.
Chapter Twenty-Six
THAT AFTERNOON, WE MET CARLA AT the park. The moment we arrived, she scooped Preston up in her arms and kissed his forehead. Snake leaned against the metal bar, a burp cloth slung over one shoulder and a diaper bag on the other. I took the swing beside Carla, digging my shoes into the mulch.
“Snake, does this onesie really say LADIES’ MAN?” Carla asked, rocking Preston back and forth. He was awake and flashing red gums, his Snake-blue eyes taking it all in.
Snake smiled at me from the corner of his eye. “I may have put that on him after I changed his diaper.”
“How about you leave his fashion choices to me.”
He glanced at me and frowned.
“And you better be coming over tonight,” she added, doing a complete 180 from Mommy Carla to Nagging Carla. After all this time, the different Carlas still popped up so quickly they made me do a double-take. “My stepmom’s insisting on some big family dinner so you can bond with my dad. You can come too, Reggie.”
“I’m not family,” I reminded her.
She laughed. “You’re my best friend, who’s also dating my son’s dad. If that’s not family, I don’t know what is.”
“On what planet am I your best friend?” I motioned to Snake. “And since when am I dating this jackass?”
“Oh, we’re totally dating,” Snake said, his smirk growing into a full-on smile. “And you two are definitely best friends. Just embrace it.”
He slid to the ground, his back against the swing set. I watched him unfasten his camera, the familiar light blinking red. I opened my mouth to protest, but realized the lens wasn’t aimed at me.
“Again with this?” Carla said, exasperated. “You filmed me breastfeeding last week.”
“How was I supposed to know you were breastfeeding?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because my boob was out of my shirt?”
“Please tell me I got footage of that.”
I cut him a knowing look I knew he’d recognize. “The Sheer Uselessness of Our Condition: Part 2?”
He moved the camera away from his face and stared up at me. I didn’t want to look away. The only thing more useless than our condition was pretending that it didn’t have extraordinary possibilities.
“I guess we’ll have to see,” he said.
Smiling, I closed my eyes and kicked my legs in fast propelling motions. All that remained was the air, and my desperate need to breathe it. I opened my mouth and let the warmth fill my lungs. There was a time when I would have done this alone. When I would have lifted, torn, clawed my way to the sky inside a bubble. I could return to that life if I thought it was worth it. If feeling pain, even the good kind, proved too frightening. But as I climbed higher, the vibrations of laughter and distorted voices and wind circling my body, nothing had ever been as terrifying as it was necessary. Suddenly, I wasn’t tethered to the blackness. I wasn’t being thrashed about by the earth. Nothing slowed me down, and nothing stopped me.
I was completely alive (see: happy) and completely aware of it.
WHAT DEPRESSION MEANS TO ME
For: Dr. Rachelle
By Reggie Mason
It’s been said that humanity exists in what is called the circle of life, a continuum of time that is characterized by the give and take of a phenomenon that never ceases to exist. However, I choose to liken our experiences to a line. A tightrope, if you will. Humans tread this fine strand, always one misstep away from tumbling into the darkness. This darkness indeed is death, but not merely death of the body. It is death of spirit. Death of hope. Death of heart. Death of wishing to escape the temporariness of time. Whether a person walks alone or alongside another, they are unsuccessful in their attempts to be more than what they are. We are all decay. We are all chaotic. We are all hopelessly flawed. We are all incurably human. And we, all of us, have monstrous hearts.
Some choose to numb their realities with medication or seclusion. We call these people depressed. But what is depression if not an extension of human fatality? What is depression if not a painful awareness of the imminent abyss? What is depression if not a mode of self-preservation?
Nothing on the tightrope can be explained, much less wholly defined. But every indefinable thing has a beginning, and the beginning of understanding depression is simply this:
You’re never as alone as you think you are.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Margaret Raymo for believing in this story and giving me the incredible opportunity to share my words with the world.
Thank you to my agent, Maria Vicente, and the entire team at P.S. Literary for being champions of my work and seeing this novel through every step of the process.
Thank you to my Pitch Wars mentor, Erica Chapman, for being the first person in the writing community to take me under her wing. I can’t express how much your wisdom, support, and kindness have touched my heart and given me the confidence to keep writing.
Thank you to Brenda Drake and the Pitch Wars family for welcoming me with open arms. I would have given up on this story years ago had it not been for you all.
A million thanks to my big sisters—Haley, who just may be my soulmate; Kasey, who takes unparalleled pride in my accomplishments; and Jamie, who calms me down when I’m convinced my antidepressants are sending me into anaphylactic shock. I hate you all in the best way.
To my parents, Buster and Danilynn, who keep me sane, spoil me like a queen, and love me for no reason. Thanks for never trying to tame my wild imagination. Thanks to everyone who read the manuscript for this story in its early drafts—Natalie Cook, Natalie Williamson, Kayla and Michael Humphreys, and Maureen Lovell—you all are the reason I’m holding this book in my hands.
And to Betty Phelps and Jessica Phelps, my second mother and my adopted sister, thank you for your unconditional love. Without your warmth and snuggles, I would have never survived the path to publication.
ONE
THERE’S A SWEET burnt-jelly smell in the air. When I enter the kitchen, Ivy’s standing by the toaster.
“Hey, Ives. Making a snack?” I stick a mug of water in the microwave and get a tea bag out of the cabinet.