After I Wake (7 page)

Seeing everything from a drunken point of view, though, was nothing short of splendiferous. I kept babbling about the forest and other inane things, and I loved every second of it, up to and including the part where I punched a frozen river. Of course then, I didn't know what was going to happen after.

 

 

Now: 8:12 a.m.

Tuesday, August 6th

 

D
ESPITE
THE
awful things Brittany said to me on previous days still weighing on my mind, I find myself in fairly positive spirits. It's weird, but I feel well rested and calm. I imagine there is a metaphorical storm coming. I should tell Jordan, my therapist, that later at my appointment. He's likely to have some advice on it.

I start the morning staring at my journal, the handwritten one, much to my chagrin. The entries take place in a red spiral-bound wide-ruled notebook. In the top right corner, there is a mostly intact price sticker advertising the need of a whole ninety-nine cents in order for it to be mine. I have a pencil with a rubber grip to accompany it. I write my thoughts on the metaphorical calm down before I eat and leave it on the kitchen table while gathering supplies for a bowl of cereal. The writing still sucks, but it's gotten easier to decipher.

When I turn around to return to the table, there is a cereal box tucked under my left armpit and a spoon shoved in my elbow. A forearm and a wrist hold the bowl to my chest and the milk dangles off of my right hand. I still hate it, but I'm doing Darwin's adaptation thing. It's still a bitch to shower, though.

Like Darwin's animals, it is essential for the stronger to survive and reproduce. I'm not totally a fan of the reproduction part, but for now I am focusing on being the strongest so that I can survive and keep going.

My mom is seated at the table, reading through the journal. I heard her come in, and I greeted her. I don't complain about the journal because Jordan, my therapist, reads it too. It's supposed to help me get better. I'm feeling fairly open to the idea of recovery at this point. Everything they're doing is supposed to be a good thing, and nothing's hurt me yet.

My mom looks up at me when she's done reading and grins slightly.

“Metaphorical calm before the storm? Why?” I cannot say anything; my mouth is full of cereal. The marshmallow-to-crunchy ratio is way off, and I am too distracted by that to think about anything else for a moment. The cereal is too crunchy, and within a minute it is soggy and the marshmallows are bloated. I shovel it down quickly because breakfast has become gross.

I have not told my mom about the bitch encounter—as I've chosen to call it—in full detail, and I have no intention to. I'm trying to move on. I don't want to create any drama. Because honestly, Brittany was right about one thing. I love the spotlight. I'm not a theater person. The stage has never epically called my name, but the shine of being the center of attention is alluring. But she-wolf does enjoy the spotlight too, being the pack leader of the drama elite at school.

I clear my head and go about cleaning up. Everything is systematic now, and it all has its place. I put the milk away first, popping the door open with my left shoulder and putting the gallon in its proper place in the door. I open the cabinet across from the fridge next before returning to the table for the box. I stow it and close the cabinet before going to the table once again, putting the spoon in my bowl and then carrying it to the sink.

I rinse it off quickly, putting the bowl in the basin before turning on the spout, removing the spoon from the bowl first and rinsing it off before putting it down. I pick up the bowl next, letting it fill with water and swirling the milky concoction around before dumping it down the drain. In the water-milk swirling, a marshmallow has become glued to the side of the bowl, so I put the bowl down in the corner of the sink and press my left forearm against the rim to keep it steady while I attack the marshmallow with a sponge, scrubbing at it until I can pry the stupid thing free.

Once that is done, I turn off the water, open the dishwasher, and put everything away. The last thing I do before going off to get dressed is grab my napkin off the table, swat at my face one final time, and throw it out.

My mother, who has watched the whole time, finally opens her mouth to talk to me. I turn around at the sound of her voice.

“That was fairly efficient,” she says. “You're getting a lot faster at the little things. I'm impressed.” I smile a little, because I feel like everything is going well for me today.

“Thanks,” I mutter quietly, heading for the stairs.

“Wait, Carter, have you taken your medicine today?”

“Nope.” I wheel around and head to the cabinet above the cereal cabinet, opening it and taking out the little orange pharmaceutical bottle. “I forgot.” I sit down on the floor and squeeze the bottle between my knees while I maneuver the top off. I rise slowly with the bottle in hand and put it on the counter so I can get a glass. I press it against the button in the fridge door so I can get fresh water and swallow the little pill. I repeat the sink process and put the glass away so I can get dressed.

Later that day, I practice texting with Emmett's speed in the car while my mom drives me to visit Jordan, my therapist. I must thank the autocorrect function, because it's fairly challenging with a single hand. But I manage to send a text in a decent amount of time.

Me:
So, how are you?

Emmett, being the speedy little demon he is, replies with an extreme amount of speed.

Emmett:
What?

Me:
What?

Emmett:
You don't really ask how I am, kind of ever.

Me:
I haven't?

Emmett:
No, but I'll gladly tell you.

Me:
I'd like to hear it :-)

Emmett:
Well…….

Emmett:
OKAY!

He then launches into an incredibly long explanation of how he is so incredibly satisfied with the fact that he has made puberty his bitch in the space of two days and that he wants to purchase ratty band shirts to impress his new type because he's pretty sure he has a new type, and thinks he needs to feed his goldfish and then gives me more details on his rugged crush that is so blessed with cheekbones and ratty band shirts. It makes me laugh out loud, literally, and I tell him so. He is very pleased with himself. I tell him he should listen to the bands before getting their ratty shirts, and that not all band shirts are ratty and some are in fact quite nice.

I do have to sign off with Emmett temporarily and go into the shrink's office. I spend my allotted forty-five minutes talking with Jordan, my therapist, and I wonder what the metaphorical storm will be. He is supportive of the oncoming storm because he thinks it will be a breakthrough that will lead me on the steps to the rest of my life. I chuckle and admit that the rest of my life seems daunting.

My mom comes in for a minute at the end and talks about my morning routine and how she thinks it's going well because I'm getting much more efficient. Jordan, my therapist, says he thinks I'm going to be just fine. I grimace the tiniest bit because it sounds so cliché and normal, and I've never been a fan of normality because it seems so boring. But being boring and normal every once in a while sounds enticing for some reason.

As I leave, he tells me that he thinks I am making incredible progress and that he has every confidence in me to succeed. He says things like that a lot; he's full of inspirational quotes and such. While it sounds kind of cheesy, I flush with an interesting happiness. It isn't happy, though, as much as content.

It is hard to believe in true and real happiness sometimes, but this contentment, it is warm, and inviting. It makes me feel pretty damn good. This content, I think it may be something to believe in. Happy seems like a challenge. It's hard to believe in something that's been so absent in my life for so long. It's a weird, foreign ideal, and at this point it just seems like a tease. I'd rather be content because there is comfort in contentedness.

I make sure to write that in the journal the minute I get home. I hate that I've been forced into right-handedness, but it's getting easier. Slowly but surely. Maybe it might make others feel content too, or happy, because they're better seasoned with it.

 

 

D
IFFERENT
PEOPLE
feel depression differently, and for me, I alternated between periods of sadness so extreme that any other emotion seemed unreal and unattainable and periods where I couldn't feel any emotion at all. No matter what time it was, nothing could hold my attention, and I had no motivation to do anything that was even remotely human. I wasn't bothered by it because the nothing weighed me down. It was just a normal thing that I got used to. It felt like the nothingness had always been there, so there was no use taking it away. It was a part of me.

I spent hours staring at the four walls of my room, absently petting the dog if she wandered in for a nap or attention. Thinking back on it, there is nothing to elaborate on, that previous sentence contained what remained of my life, after the new hobby I picked up.

I spent so much time in the days that wafted by while I paid no attention to them, celebrating my ritual of attempting to feel anything. In a very short amount of time, my left arm was circled with the lengthy scabs that were ripped open again and again as I shredded at them until I finally let the battered skin rest and scar over, letting the skin toughen itself against attack while I moved on to fresh skin.

I don't know when I discovered it, but somehow, I had started cutting my body. I loved every minute of it. It was just as freeing as that single night of drunken stupidity. I yearned for my blades constantly and missed them when I couldn't be near them.

I started with my thighs. Nobody checks thighs, nobody sees them in winter. Once there was no room left on my legs, I moved on to my arms. I stocked up on long sleeves, at first to disguise my lack of hand, but the sleeves were beautiful and helped me master the art of disguise. I really only cut on one arm, because I couldn't get at my right arm without a left hand. But soon enough, my arm had its own bracelets etched into place while tally marks danced across my thighs, gathering strength as I kept at it, a small army of depression fighters.

I hid them from prying eyes: wearing full-length jeans—which were a challenge to get on and rubbed mercilessly against the wounds on my legs—and long sleeves that covered my stump of a hand as well, keeping myself pure in the eyes of others. I always thought that if anyone else saw the scars, they would consider it evil. See no evil, hear no evil, do no evil. I was the queen of secrecy. I kept everything about me pure, basking in the glow of unknowledge, which was for the best.

The cutting itself was nice, all of the times I had done it. If my mom went out, and I was home alone, I would blast music, letting the walls vibrate with pure sound, and put on clothes without sleeves. Or I would wait until it was dark and there was literally nothing stirring in the house and my mom was deeply asleep. Every time I pressed my blades to the soft flesh of my arm, drawing it across until droplets of blood spurted to the surface. It never hurt. But for the brief moments while I stared, fascinated by the red liquid that circulated through my body slowly seeping free, I thought that I could feel again, just for a moment.

I was coping. I hadn't yet come to terms with the situation of my missing hand. But I was making do. It wasn't the best way to try and feel better, but it was my way, and I felt successful again.

 

 

M
ORE
DAYS
of doing schoolwork and homework and hanging out with Emmett have passed, and I find myself once again seated in the office of Jordan, my therapist. I've only been there a few minutes. I wait in the reception area while my mom sits in his office and talks about everything that I have done, from her perspective, in the past week. It's nothing besides working, food, Darwin-esque adaptation, and more hanging out with Emmett. He practically lives at our house. In a few more minutes, I'll go in and Jordan, my therapist, will listen as I retell everything my mom has just told him, but from my point of view. Then we'll go over the red journal tucked between my side and the arm of the chair, my mom will come back in, and we'll all three of us talk about things before being dismissed to go home to whatever dinner we're cooking.

It's an established system, albeit kind of a dull and monotonous one. I relieve the waiting room boredom by reading whatever book I most recently downloaded into my phone while my mom observed my Internet usage.

The earthman is putting a fish in his ear while his alien friend tries to keep them alive and out of the void of space when my mom walks out and motions me in. I place an electronic bookmark and saunter into the office with the red journal clutched to my side.

Jordan, my therapist, points out to me ten minutes in that I've developed a habit in these past meetings of running my fingers over my scars while I talk. Of course he would notice something like that; the professionally dressed man is trained to. I'm surprised that I haven't. I nod thoughtfully before realizing my fingers are on the biggest scar on my wrist, and I put my arms on the armrests of the black leather chair.

“I think I have a bad habit of naturally diverting everything to myself,” I blurt, interrupting whatever Jordan, my therapist, is saying and further proving my point, now unable to contain my thoughts in a rational fashion. Now he leans forward, intrigued.

“And why do you feel this way, Carter?” His deep voice is reassuring, and I find myself calming down at the same time I realize I'm panicking. So I tell him an abridged version of the bitch encounter, and basically point out how right she is, even though it hurts to admit it, while also talking about how I realized with Emmett that I always talk about myself and that I don't really know much about him. I start to sniffle the smallest amount. Emmett puts up with so much bullshit of mine, and I never know anything about him other than his ex-boyfriends and fleeting crushes.