INTRODUCTION THE BEGINNING OF THE STORY OF THE END OF SARA MALVERN
Introductions are hard, so let’s just start by punching something.
I was six years old, but I remember that day perfectly. Especially the lavender. The smell of lavender used to remind me of toilets. Now it reminds me of blood.
My mom was taking me dress shopping for her cousin Bethany’s wedding. That sounds nice, except I didn’t like shopping, or busy places, or dresses. I didn’t like lots of things. Still don’t. Mom always told me I was a “problematic child,” but I was about to give her some fancy new labels to use.
My dad walked into my room the night before and sat down on my bed.
“Sara, try hard for me tomorrow,” he said. “Okay?”
I used to sleep like a vampire, so I was staring at the ceiling with my arms folded across my chest. It was a simple precaution: No self-respecting vampire would prey on one of their own.
“Okay,” I said.
“Promise that you’ll try your best to behave yourself. This means a lot to your mother.”
“I promise.”
Stupid Sara. Promises always cause problems.
The next day my mom combed my hair and put a navy blue bow in it and took a picture. I didn’t complain once on the drive, even though she talked the whole time about how a green dress would match my dark eyes. She kept talking all the way to a store called Elleries’. The windows were full of poof-y dresses, and remember, everything smelled like a toilet. Mom took my hand and led me to the counter.
“We have an appointment for a dress for my daughter,” she said proudly.
A lady with white hair looked over the counter. “What a dear! I have some set aside.”
Before I knew it, I was in a dressing room with five dresses and a mirror. I could hear my mom talking with the saleslady. Her name was Anne and she was the living epicenter of the lavender. She wanted to help me change, but my mom said, “It’s okay, she is a big girl, she can do it.” I do enjoy a vote of confidence, but really she just knew I would scream if Anne touched me.
I put on the red dress and stepped out, eyes on the floor. They cooed and clucked and wanted to see another one. I didn’t like being stared at—another one of the many things I don’t like—but I went back inside to change anyway.
“You made a promise,” I reminded the impatient girl in the mirror.
There was pink. Then blue. I put on a green one and tried to stay calm. I was starting to feel warm and more strangers were looking when I came out and I could hear my mom talking.
“This is very good for her,” she whispered. “She has … some challenges with new things.”
“She seems lovely,” Anne said.
I rubbed my forehead because it seemed like everything was getting louder. It did that sometimes. Voices bounced around my head, or maybe my brain just said them back to me like an echo in a cavern.
She. She. She. My name is Sara Malvern, toilet lady. I am not lovely when I scream.
“Thank you for saying that,” my mom said. “It can be difficult.”
“Is she … ill?” Anne asked.
They were still whispering, but quiet people are experts at listening.
“No, no. Some behavioral things. It’s hard with strangers.”
“Oh. She’s very shy, for sure,” Anne said. “Not a peep out of her this whole time.”
My mom laughed. “You have no idea.”
I tried to calm down. The voices were still ricocheting around and the dressing room felt smaller now. The green dress was pooling on the floor like a moat and I was drowning in it. I was wondering why I had behavioral things and why Mom made me come here if I was so difficult. The thoughts flowed one into another until they became a flood.
I hate dresses. I hate strangers.
But as I stood there looking at myself in the mirror, afraid, I realized:
I hate Sara Malvern most.
“I’m finished,” I said loudly.
“Well, let’s see it, then,” my mom replied.
“I want to leave now.”
There was a long silence.
“There’s only two more dresses,” she said.
The room is shrinking I am so hot I can’t breathe I can’t breathe. I tried not to scream.
“Can we leave?” I asked again in my most polite I-am-losing-my-temper voice.
“Just try the blue one.”
It turns out that when I am panicking, I do not compromise well.
But I wasn’t really mad at them. I was mad at the girl in the mirror.
I slammed my fist into the mirror and maybe I had pointy knuckles or maybe it was a cheap mirror because it shattered. I screamed as my knuckles bled. I shrunk down into the corner and started crying because I had made such a mess, and I didn’t know if I had punched the mirror or the girl in it. Mostly I knew that I was not normal and if there had ever been a normal girl in the mirror, she was in a thousand pieces now.
I had locked the dressing-room door even though they said not to, but Anne had a key and they found me bleeding. Anne gasped and my mother cried. Mom used her credit card to pay for the mirror. Anne brought paper towels and Band-Aids. Mom put them on and cried while she did it. We didn’t speak in the car. When we got home, my mom went to her room and she didn’t come out again until dinner. My dad came into my room later that day.
“You promised me, Sara,” he said, looking over my bandaged hands.
He was disappointed and that hurt worse than glass.
The next day my parents took me to a child psychiatrist. I guess technically he was the one who gave them those fancy new labels. He wasn’t shy about handing them out either.
After a few sessions I had all kinds of them:
Bipolar Disorder: dramatic mood swings, emotional instability
General Anxiety Disorder: difficulty relaxing, panic attacks, trouble breathing
Mild Schizophrenia: distorted reality, paranoia
Depression: a constant sense of dread, unshakable sadness
He gave me my first pills and now I take four every day. I also realized something after the punch, besides the fact that green was not my color. Sometimes I hear people say, “It must be hard to be crazy.” And it is. But they should also say, “It must be hard to love someone who is crazy.” They have to see the pain, but they never hear the whispers.
Oh, I’m sorry. I told you introductions were hard. Let’s start again.
My name is Sara Malvern and it’s very nice to meet you.
CHAPTER 1 MY HAPPY FAMILY
Five years after breaking the mirror, I was sitting on the stairs like a gargoyle. I do that a lot. I hunch forward with my arms around my legs, and even though I don’t have wings, I lean precariously far over the steps.
“—you have to admit that it isn’t working.”
That’s my mom. She is still embarrassed that she has a crazy daughter.
“She’s fine, Michelle.”
That’s my dad. He loves me.
“Fine? Her teacher said she panicked today and wouldn’t eat—”
“It can be stressful at school—”
“It’s normal to be in school,” she cut in sharply. “She’s in seventh grade. This is not normal.”