“You needed me to be okay.”
“I didn’t know. . . .” Mom hugged me again, and this time I hugged her back. I tried to be strong, I tried to hold myself together, but I couldn’t do it anymore. I told her everything. About the sluggers and the end of the world and the button and Marcus and my guilt over Jesse’s suicide.
“It’s my fault Diego’s in trouble,” I said. “All of this is my fault.”
I expected my mom to tell me that it wasn’t my fault and that nothing was broken we couldn’t mend, but there were lines on her face I’d never seen before, like she’d aged a decade overnight. “Tell me why you didn’t press the button.”
“Who cares about the button, Mom? Diego’s in jail because of me!”
“This is important, Henry.”
“Mom!”
“Henry.” Mom’s bottom lip trembled. “Do you wish you were dead?”
We slammed doors in my family. We beat each other up and we asked questions we didn’t want answers to and we wielded silence like a dagger. I wasn’t sure how to respond to her blunt honesty except with honesty of my own. “I don’t want to die, but I don’t want to live, either. I don’t know why anyone would. This world is so fucked up, Mom, I think we’d all be better off if I didn’t press that button. Everything, everything just hurts too much. And I miss Jesse, and I tried to be okay. I thought Marcus could help me forget, and Diego could replace Jesse, but I miss him so much.”
Mom was quiet for a long time. Her silence stretched across the morning and led me back through the past hundred days, and I knew what she was going to say before she finally said it. “I think you need help, Henry.”
“I don’t need help.”
“Then answer me truthfully: Are you okay?”
I was confused and woozy from the pain medication. I didn’t have time for doctors or therapists; I needed to know what was happening with Diego. He was still on probation, and I didn’t know what being arrested for beating up Marcus would mean for him. All I had to do was tell my mom I was okay, and she’d believe me. I could go to the police station and explain everything. All I had to do was say three little words, and I could fix all that I’d broken. But I was broken too, and I didn’t know how to fix myself.
“I’m not okay.”
19 January 2016
Miranda, one of the moons belonging to Uranus, features a patchwork of ridges and cliffs, grooved structures called coronae, and massive canyons up to twelve times deeper than the Grand Canyon. Some scientists have theorized that Miranda’s piecemeal structure is the result of a massive impact that broke the moon into several pieces that—held together by her gravity—were reformed into something entirely unique. I feel as broken as Miranda, but I can’t begin to guess at what’s holding me together.
Audrey and I walked through what passed for a garden at the Quiet Oaks Inpatient Treatment Facility. Most of the plants were stunted or dead, and cigarette butts poked out of the dirt like signposts. There wasn’t much for the patients to do between therapy sessions other than smoke or write or fuck with the nurses.
“You should see what happens when I try to take a pudding cup out of the kitchen. One step off the linoleum, and Katy starts screaming about breaking the rules. That sets Matthew off. All he ever does is drone on and on about how cruel we are to eat in front of him. And I have to wear socks around Brandy, or she tries to molest my feet.”
“Sounds . . . fun?” Audrey laughed. I wondered if the hospital she’d been at was like mine, and if she’d been afraid they’d never let her leave.
“It’s really not.”
Nurse Curtis watched us from the door to make sure Audrey wasn’t sneaking me contraband. They took my shaving razors and my shoelaces. The only thing I was allowed to keep was a pencil so I could keep writing in my journal. “Are you doing . . . better?”
Better was such a relative word. I wasn’t even sure what the baseline to measure better against was. “Dr. Janeway put me on antidepressants. They take time to work, I guess. I think she wants me to let Jesse go, but I haven’t figured out how I’m supposed to do that yet.”
Audrey sat on one of the faded plastic patio chairs, and I sat across from her. “Is that progress?”
“I don’t know. I mean, how am I supposed to say good-bye to Jesse?”
“You don’t,” Audrey said. “Not really.”
I shook my head. “Dr. Janeway and I talk about the aliens a lot. Jesse too. Sometimes we talk about Marcus, but I don’t really like to, and she’s cool about not pushing me.”
“Speaking of Marcus. Principal DeShields expelled him.”