“Sunshine gives you cancer,” Ruby says.
Stevie whips her pillowcase around like a helicopter. “I think she needs Zoloft.”
“How do you know about Zoloft?” I ask, surprised.
“Commercial,” Stevie says.
“Maybe I need lithium,” Ruby says, finger-brushing her hair.
My neck prickles; heat hits my cheeks. I know she’s talking about me. She’s probably been peeking in my medicine cabinet. Ever since our chat when I stayed at Mom’s, I get the feeling Ruby despises me.
“God, let’s hope not,” Marisol says. “Remember last year when you were a witch princess for Halloween? How fun that was? And you spent all that time on your costume?”
“No one knew what I was,” Ruby reminds her. “The costume ended up at the Goodwill.”
“Just ignore her,” I tell Marisol.
Dad snaps a picture of us before we depart. He’s dressed in a button-up shirt and smells like cologne.
“Where are you going?” Ruby asks him.
“Meeting a friend,” he says.
“You have friends?” Ruby asks.
“Ha ha,” he says. “Have fun, girls. Be back by nine.”
He leaves, his cologne lingering in the air. We all look at each other.
“I was being serious,” Ruby says. “Who wants to be friends with someone who smells like that?”
“Man,” Marisol says to her. “Thirteen has hit you hard.”
We walk outside. The yard still looks so empty without the chokecherry tree. Sunset’s smeared the sky with color; moon is high and waiting. It’s windy and leaves scatter on the asphalt. Batman and a fairy ring a doorbell across the street. We walk from house to house and Marisol tells me everything that’s been going on at school, how so-and-so broke up with so-and-so and another so-and-so got in trouble for having fireworks in his locker and there’s a new so-and-so in her advanced French class who is totally hot. Some of the so-and-sos she talks about have messaged me or texted with well wishes.
I’m glad Marisol cares—good for her, that must be nice—but it’s like listening to someone prattle on about a TV show I’ve never seen. I have to go back to school tomorrow, and I wish I never had to go back there again. I’m not even excited to see anyone at all. In fact—what’s the opposite of excited? The circles we’ve floated in are circumstantial: fellow semi-punk music lovers we go to shows with on weekends sometimes, some folks from last year’s failed poetry club. We’re friendly, but I’m not sure we’re really friends. Not in the “hey, let me tell you about my nervous breakdown” kind of way. The lie is, I have mono. Nobody but Marisol knows about the whole trying-to-kill-myself thing. I’d like to keep it that way. In fact, if I could move forward and never think or talk about the fact I tried to kill myself again, I could die happy. Or not die happy. What a weird phrase that is, now that I think about it: die happy.
We walk past the entrance to the lake, surrounded by eucalyptus trees, and I can’t help but crane my neck to see if I can catch a glimpse of the top of the oak tree down the hillside where apparently a dog found me and saved my life. I say nothing, although I can feel Marisol tense up beside me. She must be aware of what we’re walking past. Stevie and Ruby are steps ahead, arguing about the merits of Almond Joys versus Mounds bars.
“When will Halloween be fun again?” I ask Marisol.
“In college, when we get to go to parties and have an excuse to wear sexy costumes.”
“Some of us aren’t going to college.”
“Stop talking like life is over when we’re just getting started.”
We’ve had this particular conversation before. Marisol refuses to accept I’m not university-eligible, and she certainly refuses to accept I don’t care. Next year, she’ll be somewhere cold and far away and full of tall buildings. I’ll probably still be here. She thinks somehow some glorious opportunity is going to present itself for me, because she has so many to futures to choose from, she can’t imagine what it’s like to feel like you have none. And it probably makes her feel less guilty for leaving if she thinks somehow I’m going to leave, too.
“Marisol,” I remind her, “I had straight Cs last semester.”
She doesn’t answer, shoves her hands in her Muppety (Muppetous?) pockets.
For the longest time, next year seemed so far away. But as I stand here, I realize . . . Halloween . . . end of October.
“Are you applying right now?” I ask.
“Yeah. I’m in the middle of my applications.”
With that one simple sentence, it’s like I’ve realized the world has turned beneath my feet. I’ve been stuck in this timeless, desperate place, a thing with feathers but broken wings. Meanwhile, my best friend plans to fly.
We stop in front of a house with a bougainvillea-tangled trellis and a birdbath. A white-haired man opens the door for my sisters and shouts, “A unicorn! Now I’ve seen it all.”
“So you’re really going to go to Seattle,” I say.
Marisol’s in love with Seattle. She went to camp there every summer, adores rain and gray skies, finds Southern California and its relentless sunshine horrific.
“I hope so. Or Chicago,” she says.
“Good for you.” Man, I hope that didn’t sound as bitter as it felt coming out of my mouth.
We go to the next house—a beige number with beige wood chips on the lawn and a beige woman in a beige dress answering the door for Stevie and Ruby. I hear Ruby say “I’m dead” again.
Marisol reaches out and gives me a half hug. A pity half hug. A my-friend’s-a-loser-who-will-probably-never-leave-her-hometown half hug.
“It’s going to be okay,” she says.
I sigh and blink away tears. “I’ve been so down in this hole I forgot about school, deadlines, college, everything.”
I kick a wood chip. We walk behind Stevie and Ruby as they pelt each other with candy-heavy pillowcases. I swear the only person who can evoke the kid in Ruby these days is Stevie. Ruby hates Stevie less than everyone in the world combined.
“Those new meds are kinda spacing you out, huh?” Marisol asks.
“It’s like I’m half underwater.”
“I know it’s probably not the right thing to say . . . but I miss you, JoJo. I miss you even right now when we’re together.”
We stop in front of a house with an overgrown lawn covered with plastic toys. I look up at the moon. Same old moon. Crazy, not crazy, medicated, unmedicated, suicidal, ecstatic—moon doesn’t care.
“I miss me, too, sometimes,” I say. “Here I am, all Sylvia Plath, and I can’t even write a freaking poem.”
“Maybe it’ll get better once they adjust your medication again.”
“Do you think I’m bipolar?”
“I’m not the person to make that call.”
“Your aunt is bipolar.”
“She’s a lot of things. Think of a disorder, she probably has it. Have I told you she’s in group therapy now for shopaholics? Those American Girl dolls. Her house is, like, filled with them.”
“We should try to get her on that TV show.”
“That would be mortifying but also amazing.” Marisol smiles. “Anyway, you’re not like her. But she’s not the singular representative for bipolar disorder. Neither are you. Neither is anyone.”