We walk around a corner, across from my old elementary school, the one where Stevie goes now. Funny how miniature everything looks these days—like the whole place shrank to doll size and I stayed the same, when really it’s me who became a giant. I know this street. I walk it in my dreams.
“I know what you’re doing, Journey,” Marisol says.
“Walking?” I ask, staring at my sparkly flats.
“Sometimes I think you’re so convincing you even convince yourself.”
“Of what?”
“You know exactly what,” she says, flicking her gaze to the street sign.
I shrug. But she’s so onto me. Damn best friends.
I was trying to shove it out of my mind, that we were headed his way, but deep down, I knew where the magnet of my unrequited love pulled me: right back to Jonah’s doorstep. And now here we are, one house away. My heart races at the sight of his SUV in the driveway. He’s probably home.
There should be a word for this mix of hope and dread that pricks my eyes with preemptive tears. It’s not Weltschmerz, a German word meaning “world grief” that describes a romantic but gloomy outlook on life often specific to privileged young adults. Something more like dor, the Romanian word for sadly yearning for someone or something—but that’s not quite it, either.
“Are you sure this is wise?” Marisol asks.
“We’ll just say hi and let the girls trick-or-treat. What? It would be more awkward to skip his house.”
Marisol pulls my sleeve. “JoJo . . .”
Stevie and Ruby seem blissfully unaware as they head up the walkway I’ve walked a thousand times, the one lined with rosebushes Jonah’s dad cuts all weekend long, the one with the porch decorated with Jonah’s mom’s wind chime collection. As soon as they see the wind chimes, Ruby turns around with a look of doubt on her face.
“Wait, isn’t this . . . ?” she asks.
But Stevie’s already rung the doorbell. The door opens. And there he is, standing in his band shirt and adorable tight jeans with a bowl of candy.
“Happy—” he says, and then his stupid, beautiful eyes widen in surprise at the sight of us and he forgets to finish his festive greeting. He gives me a nod and meets my gaze like he hasn’t been avoiding me since he texted asking for more space ten days ago. And come on. Ten days is space. “Hey.”
“Hi,” I say.
“Jonah!” Stevie says.
“Hey, kid,” he answers, giving her a fist bump.
Stevie’s always had a sorta obvious crush on Jonah. It’s adorable. She almost cried when I broke the news that Jonah and I were no longer a thing.
“Nice costume,” he says dryly to Ruby.
“I’m dead,” she says.
Palpitations. My nose stings and I want to start bawling. The whole terrible night we were on the phone, the suicide attempt, everything rushes back to me in a tsunami of shame and pain.
“Can we talk?” I ask, throat tight. “Have I given you enough space?”
“Um,” Jonah says, looking down at his socks.
There’s a long silence.
“Well, this is awkward,” Ruby says. “Can I at least have some candy?”
“Come on, girls,” Marisol says, putting her arms around Stevie and Ruby and ushering them back to the sidewalk.
Now it’s just me and Jonah and a bowl of peanut butter cups.
“Can I come in?” I ask.
“My parents are home, Journey,” he whispers. “Can we talk soon?”
The humiliation burns my face, tears blur the scene. I can’t help it. I spill over. “Why? Why are you ignoring me? You weren’t just my boyfriend, you were my best friend. So much has happened, I—”
He comes out onto the porch and pulls the door shut behind him. “I know. I really wish I could invite you in, but . . . but my parents had a talk with me and they told me they think we should give each other a break.”
Of course they did. All his parents care about is good grades—appearances. They’ve always thought I was too unstable, too wild.
“I’ve been so stressed out lately, Journey,” he goes on, eyes shiny. “You have no idea because you’re so worried about yourself all the time. But I don’t know how to help you. And that hurts me so bad.”
“You can help me,” I say. “You make everything better.”
“It’s scary loving you,” he tells me, fighting tears. “I just—I just want to be a normal guy, you know? School and guitar and . . . skateboarding.”
“Who said you couldn’t skateboard?”
“I don’t want to have to worry that the person I love the most is going to kill herself,” he says.
“This makes no sense,” I tell him.
“I’m not saying this is forever, I’m just asking for space.”
“Space,” I repeat.
That word—that absence of a word, that nothing of a word. I hear the leaves skittering behind me and think Waldeinsamkeit, a German word for the feeling of being alone in the woods. Lately, it’s like I have that feeling all the time. The whole world is deep, dark woods I am lost in.
“Can you give me that?” he asks.
“Don’t talk to me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m three.”
This is one of those moments. I wish I were dead. I try to focus on my breath but it’s useless. I want that hole to open up and swallow me. I want to not be here. I want to be gone, to hurt him with my gone-ness, I wish I never was.
“Journey,” he says, all exasperated.
I walk away before I start screaming at him. What he’s saying . . . I get it. I just wish he wanted to save me instead of saving himself.
I join Marisol and the girls at the next house. Marisol’s got a worried look behind her glasses as I approach and the girls finish up their latest trick-or-treat. I’m trying to wipe my tears away but they come so fast.
“What’s going on?” Stevie asks, her face a mirror of sadness in the middle of her unicorn onesie. She’s so pretty and perfect. She has no idea about things like heartbreaker boys and wanting to die.
I want to scream, run, light a fire. I’m dull all day, and then when I most need help, the medication does nothing. I still feel too much. A little Frankenstein’s monster runs by, drawn-on crude stitches railroading along his forehead.
Where’s my lobotomy?
I wipe my eyes quick, blame allergies, force myself to smile.
Kill yourself, the voice whispers.
But an ever so slightly louder voice says, Shut the hell up. You’re what got me into this mess.
It’s kinda startling, that louder voice.
“You okay?” Marisol asks.
I nod, suck in my breath, hold my sisters’ hands, and keep on walking.
“Yeah. I think I am.”
Present
It’s February, second week of city college. I’m sitting in philosophy class. Our teacher is a bald guy with a monotone whose last name is Sacks. I text Marisol this fact and get an immediate !!! in response. He lectures about egoism versus altruism, chicken-scratch chalk on the board divided like a pros and cons list. I try to take notes but find myself staring out the window at the glowering gray clouds that hover over the green trees, the wind shaking them helpless.