“That’s not funny. It’s important, Brooke. We want to keep you safe, so there are rules you need to follow. For one”—she looked from me to Duckie—“straight to school and straight back. No stops along the way. Are you listening, Ronald?”
Swallowing a mouthful of breakfast, he nodded and said, “Yes, ma’am.”
She placed a napkin beside my plate, as if this were any other day. But it wasn’t. And we all knew it. As she took my phone from her pocket and set it in front of me, she said, “And if you don’t answer right away when your father or I text or call you, we’ll come looking for you.”
I shook my head. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something pink and then remembered that it was my hair. Funny the things you can forget when you’re in the midst of getting seriously pissed off. “That’s insane. What is this? Alcatraz?”
“This is serious.” She gave me one last this-is-the-end-of-this-conversation look and then turned to rinse off the breakfast pans.
It was crazy. But when you’ve just been released from a mental hospital, people don’t put much stock in what you think is crazy or not.
Duckie ate in silence for a bit, as if he was waiting for the storm to pass. Once Mom had finished cleaning up, she turned back to us and smiled cheerfully. “Now, I have to get the towels out of the dryer. You two enjoy catching up.”
I didn’t say anything in response. Not after she’d just told me I’d be under constant surveillance in my own home. Besides, there was a reason I’d told her yesterday that I didn’t want to see Duckie. It wasn’t because I was mad at him or anything. It was because I wanted to be alone. Because if anybody would be hurt by what I’d done, it would be Duckie, and I didn’t want to see that hurt in his eyes when I looked at him. I couldn’t deal with it, and she’d just flat-out ignored me. He was here now, eating breakfast in my kitchen, like today was any other day. I didn’t know what to say to him.
But Duckie knew what to say. He always had. “I know you didn’t want to see me yet. But I had to pull a friendship card and show up anyway. Because I missed you. And if that makes me selfish and makes you hate me, then so be it. I just needed to see your face.”
I stared at my plate, not hungry at all.
“And your hair, apparently. Pink?” Duckie raised a sharp eyebrow. He knew me too well. “You hate pink.”
I picked up the fork beside my plate and poked at the scrambled eggs. My throat felt dry, but I wasn’t sure why. “I wanted something completely different. Something absolutely not me.”
“Me too. Which is why I’m switching to dating girls.” He paused, and I looked at him. After a moment, he waggled his eyebrows, cracking my stony exterior in the way that only Duckie could.
I laughed—a false laugh, one that felt brittle and too forced to be believed—and shoved his shoulder gently. “You are ridiculous.”
“And your best friend. So if you think you can get rid of me, you’re wrong. Just suck on that, lady.” His tone was joking, but a hint of no-nonsense lurked beneath. I didn’t want it to be there, that almost parental tone. I wanted Duckie to pretend with me for a little while that nothing had ever happened—that I hadn’t tried to take my own life. That the worst things in front of us were pop quizzes and unrequited crushes.
Attempting to keep things light, I said, “That’s what he said.”
“Now who’s being ridiculous?” He scooped up a forkful of eggs and smiled at me. There was no hesitation in his gaze, no expectation. Just that same adoring friendship that had always been there. “I-L-Y, Brooke.”
We never said the actual words. We never told each other “I love you.” Something about the words themselves would make it feel icky and strange. But we’d been saying those letters to each other since the third grade.
I smiled again, and this time I meant it. “I-L-Y too, Duckie.”
Duckie chowed down on his food for a bit. I mostly moved mine around on my plate. Every once in a while, I’d jab a bit of scrambled egg and stick it in my mouth. I wasn’t hungry at all, but I also didn’t want to pass out from low blood sugar.
Duckie wiped his mouth on his napkin and spoke without looking at me. His tone was careful and quiet, as if he understood that I was much like an animal in the wild now—skittish and afraid. He said, “We don’t have to talk about it, okay? What happened. Not unless you want to. I just have to ask you one thing.”
“What’s that?” Every muscle in my body tightened. I didn’t want to talk about what I’d failed to do, or why I’d tried to do it in the first place. I didn’t want to talk about the stupid pills I had to take now, or the fact that every smile I attempted resembled a lopsided painting hanging on the wall. Much like before the moment I jumped, I wanted it all to go away. Everything. Forever.
But that was going to be so much harder since my parents had been appointed as my personal prison guards. Seriously, who locked away kitchen knives? Were the scissors hidden too? It’d be tough going, but they could work in a pinch.
Like always, Duckie seemed to know when to toe the line and when to cross it. Switching gears, he said, “Are you gonna eat that bacon, or . . . ?”
It was sweet the way he looked after me. The way he didn’t want to hurt me any more than I was already hurting. But we both knew that conversation was coming, and that it would be coming soon.
Just not today, Duckie. Not today.
I nudged him with my elbow again. “I thought you were watching your girlish figure.”
Rolling his eyes, he stole my remaining slice of bacon and shook it at me in a chastising way. “Honey, you’ve been gone six weeks. That diet has passed. Back to bacon and real life. Speaking of real life . . . when are you coming back to school? Your mom seems to think you need a week at home first.”
I took a sip of orange juice. I was hoping it would be sweet, but it tasted sour. Bitter, even. “I’m going back tomorrow.”
“You should probably tell her that.” He gave me a sidelong look. “Why the rush?”
I shrugged as nonchalantly as I could manage. “Like you said . . . back to bacon and real life.”
“At times they are one and the same, my friend. One and the same.” A good, honest laugh escaped me. Duckie was so absurd. He had a way of making sense of the senseless and the exact opposite too. There was little wonder why we were friends.
“It’s good to hear you laugh. Maybe the medication is working after all, eh?” My mom walked back into the room with the exact wrong thing to say. It was almost like feeling clouds roll in before a storm. My laughter stopped immediately, caught in my throat, almost choking me.
If only.
I wanted to tell her that depression doesn’t work that way. That just because you have a moment of laughter and smiles and fun doesn’t mean that you’re not depressed. But I didn’t say anything. Instead, I thought about scissors and X-Acto knives, and how accessible such things would be at school.
CHAPTER THREE
Whoever decided that teenagers should have to function and focus on math and grammar so early in the morning was clearly a sadist. My morning routine was brutal and took longer than I remembered, but after I showered, I dressed in two layered skirts that just barely reached my knee-high socks. I wore a baggy button-down shirt covered by a baggier cardigan sweater and fingerless gloves. The outfit was meant to cover my scars—which it did, quite successfully. The color palette was meant to blend in with the walls. Cream and various shades of gray. If I was lucky, no one at school would really notice me.