“So you’re just going to run away?”
“Why not? I’ve seen my mother do this over and over again. When a relationship gets tough, she takes off.” He paused. “Well, first she makes a tapestry about it. Then she takes off.”
We were quiet and the reality of what he was saying hit me.
“Look,” he said after a few moments. “I’m coming back. At some point. But I need time to figure stuff out.”
“Everything’s messed up for me, too, Camden. Here. I can’t face it without you.”
He drew in a quick breath.
“Sure you can. You don’t need some fuck-up like me. You’re stronger than you think you are.”
“Okay, maybe I can. But I’d rather not. Camden . . . I love you.”
Another sharp intake of breath, like I kept jabbing him.
“Don’t,” was all he said.
“Too late.”
“I’m not the guy from last summer. I’m not Azor Ray. Hell, I’m not even a youth hotline volunteer anymore. I quit that because clearly I can’t handle a real crisis. I’m not any of these people you think I am.”
“I only see who you are. Not who you’re not.”
He was quiet. “I see that, too. In you, I mean.”
Say you love me. Say you love me, and it’ll all be okay. You’ll see.
Instead, he said: “Maybe things will be different in a few weeks.”
No. No, no, no. “Summer will be over by then. And then, with school . . .”
Even saying the word school, even thinking about it, made me feel cold. Was he even going to come back to Dashwood?
I felt anger rise up in my chest. “I don’t understand you. All summer you’ve talked about breaking away from your mother’s way of life, and now you’re jumping into it when you don’t even have to.”
Camden’s eyes met mine. “But it feels like I have to.”
“Then fight that feeling! And while you’re at it, grow up. If you want to belong to something, you have to commit to it. You have to let it belong to you, too.”
He stood there, completely still, and there it was again: the anger. My anger, I should call it, because I was ready to own it then. But I had to keep it tamed this time.
“I’m sorry, Ari,” he said, moving forward and reaching out. I stepped away from him.
The alley door to Millie’s opened. “Ari?” called Richard. When he saw the two of us, he looked alarmed, but I couldn’t worry about his worry.
I turned back to Camden.
This boy. This boy who had been everything in one way last summer, then everything in another way this summer. Who had shown me so many foreign things that had been right there, knowable all along.
This boy was shaking his head again. “Don’t hate me,” he gasped.
Then he turned and ran.
21
Over the next three days, I did the chores and errands my family asked of me. I didn’t complain or cry or pout. I did them while smiling, talking, and joking.
Every minute of it was a big, fat fake.
If I faltered for a moment, Mom would see the signs. I knew she was watching for them. I couldn’t let her know that underneath the pulse of these days I was back in the place of everything hurts. Perhaps I’d always been. Maybe this was where I lived for good, and all that appeared to be normal life and happiness was only a fleeting illusion, a mirage when you’re desperate in the desert.
Richard was watching, too. I could tell he wanted to ask about what he’d seen in the alley but also respected my privacy. It was such a fine line, being concerned without being invasive. It bought me some time.
The thing that hurt the most was this: I didn’t know who to be more angry at. Camden, for not being the person I thought he was? Or me, for not protecting myself?
My therapist, Cynthia, had often urged me not to push away memories of what the depression itself felt like but rather, get inside them. That way, she said, I could begin to understand and, eventually, begin to win.
I knew I should call her now. But she’d want my doctor to increase my dosage or switch drugs completely, and that would mean I’d lost again. I wasn’t ready to concede, so in the solitary safety underneath my bedcovers early each morning and late each night, I answered the question she’d asked so many times.
What does it feel like, Ari?
Well, it felt like this:
Like there was always something incredibly awful that I needed to try and forget about.
Like some of my cells were somehow dead, injected with a serum that made them heavy and numb.
Like I had no idea what I wanted to do when I wasn’t being told what to do or following the paved paths of my day. Work at the store, go somewhere with Dani, come home, help with dinner. Work, go, come, help. Those were the only things that made my body move.