Honestly though, Rudy, even when you were underselling it you gave me such a false idea of what high school would be like. You told me how it was for you, not how it would be for me. Shiny people don’t experience things the same way as the rest of us. That’s what being shiny is. So let me tell you what it’s like for me.
While I was eating my yoghurt today I had to listen to the story of how Monobrow Ryan made out with a girl at an open house party on the weekend, after the whole party had seen her throw up in the pool. She wouldn’t let Ryan go any further than that, even though she was incredibly drunk. She made the right choice, obviously. And then Freckle Ben was paying him out about it. He said she was ‘busted’, ‘hanging’ and ‘buckled’. Dee says all of those words mean ugly, as if Ryan or Ben are anything but. Ryan was laughing along as if he agreed. So even if they were good looking, they’re rotten on the inside, which is worse. Charming, right?
As if I don’t already find names and faces hard enough to remember as it is, there are ten Jessicas, eight Kates, eight Ryans and eleven Bens in our year level. I know it’s probably a coincidence but I think it explains so much. Kind of like how I use ‘different wiring’ to explain my brain, the crazy number of same-named kids represents how the same this place is to me. It’s like there hasn’t been an original thought between an entire generation of parents in a ten-kilometre radius, and the sameness has been bred into their offspring. At this rate the entire next generation at Cleveland College will all just be called Jessica or Ben. Then everyone will need to implement my nicknaming system.
The only Jessica I’m really friends with at the moment is Jessica Rabbit. You know, Jessica Doyle. I gave her that nickname because she has big boobs and she dyed her brown hair bright red and she talks in a low voice whenever guys are around like that cartoon character that no one really knows outside of costume parties and GIFs. It’s strange because any other time her voice is high and normal. No one else seems to notice, but Dee said it’s all she can think about when she talks to Jessica, since I pointed it out. Jessica Rabbit has this habit of taking other people’s food, and, all credit to her, she has the method down pat. It starts with a question about what you are eating. She’ll say, ‘What have you got for lunch? That looks great.’ She says it sweetly, never taking her eyes off the food in your hands. You reply with whatever it is—chicken sandwich, salad, a muffin. It really doesn’t matter. And then she’ll say how incredible it sounds, and that she’s never tried the tuckshop’s chicken sandwich/ salad/muffin, urging you to offer her a taste. The set-up means you would seem rude not to offer her some, even though she has definitely had a chicken sandwich from the school tuckshop before. I know for a fact she has, because I’ve seen her have one more than twenty-eight times in the last three months alone. And she always has her own food—I think she just enjoys convincing others to hand over half of their lunch. It makes her look as happy as if she was talking to a cute guy in her strange, deep voice. And if anyone else ever forgot their lunch, she will be so heavily engrossed in her phone it causes her to temporarily lose all hearing until someone else shares with them.
I started buying two sandwiches just so I could eat mine in peace. Mostly I end up eating them both though, because Jessica Rabbit doesn’t seem to want something if you’re willing to hand it over from the outset. That’s why I think it isn’t actually about the food.
My stomach is funny about eating; I can’t let myself get too hungry or too full. Dad calls me fussy, but that’s not it. If I get too hungry my stomach pangs turn to queasiness and I throw up. It happens at least once a week. What kind of ridiculous reaction to hunger is that? And if I eat too much I definitely throw up. I wouldn’t have survived long in hunter-gatherer times. Men would be out hunting, women would be cleaning their caves, or whatever it was they did, and I would just be in the corner somewhere throwing my guts up. Eventually they’d probably eat me. Donuts are the only food that bring me joy, and that’s not even really because of how they taste. They’re like the stuffing from the inside of a teddy bear, keeping it shaped properly. They make me feel like I am here.
The rest of the day went exactly to schedule, and my cringe list was only at ten by the time I got home. I’m happy with ten—it’s a nice even, manageable number. I’ve been as high as thirty-two this year, which is really bad. I’ll try to beat my score every day until I get it down to three. I’d be asleep in less than an hour at night if I only had three cringe list things to think about. I haven’t been as low as three in the last year, though.
Dr Lim told me to stop using my cringe list, but it’s not that easy and anyway I think it’s a better tool for managing outbursts than writing to you has been, so far. How is it even that different anyway? They both make me reflect on difficult moments and address how they can be fixed. I have a target and I’m working to beat it every day—what is wrong with that? I’ll talk to her about it on Wednesday, and maybe I can negotiate one for the other. Even if she says I have to stop my cringe list, how would she ever know if I kept it running? And how would I even know how to turn it off?
I’ve written too many questions, so I’m finishing this letter now. I hate reading letters that are all questions, so sorry about this one. But you don’t have to answer the questions; they’re mostly rhetorical.
Hurry up and write back, Rudy. Tell me something about where you are, anything. Just tell me about the weather. Is it nice? It probably isn’t as nice as it is here at the moment. The jacarandas will bloom soon. Just saying.
Love, Erin
17 August
Dear Rudy,
Did you go to therapy, when you were having that dark time? I know you were on antidepressants because I saw them in the bathroom cabinet, right there next to my face wash. It’s strange, but I don’t think we’re the kind of family that talks about therapy out loud, even though I think we all actually go. Maybe not Dad, even though he probably needs it most of all.
I knew things weren’t okay, but I didn’t know how to ask you about it so I didn’t say anything at all. I wish I did, just so you know. I wish a lot of things. I tried to make things easier on you, like choosing shows to watch on TV that I knew you’d like, and letting you have first shower. That doesn’t seem like much written down, but it was all I could think of. And when you dumped it all out that day in the car, I remember smiling and then thinking you probably thought I was a jerk for smiling at your pain, but I was happy to be worthy of hearing it. It sucks that you left as soon as things started to get better for you, for us. I would have liked to do more listening, more sharing. We’ll get that again one day, though. And there will be a lot to say.
My session with Dr Lim went for two hours this afternoon, which I know means she and Mum are worried about me. We never talk for more than an hour unless I’ve had a bad outburst or Mum has yelled more than twice in a week. Dr Lim is helping me to ‘retrain my brain’ and giving me exercises to practise at home. She calls it cognitive behavioural therapy, which sounds like some kind of torture done in an old mental asylum, but it’s actually just a way of thinking about things. Did your doctor ever get you doing that kind of thing? Dr Lim says I need to be more mindful of how I talk to myself, but I don’t feel like I really have a choice about that. I’m working on it though. When she looks at me over her notebook and asks a question with her eyebrows raised, I compulsively start talking to fill the air, even if I don’t know what kind of answer I’m going to give.