Chapter Ten
Jeremey
I don’t think people understand about suicidal thoughts. They act as if everyone who makes an attempt is looking for attention. There aren’t enough words in the English language for me to explain how untrue that is. It’s using the wrong language to talk about it at all.
To start, when someone is depressed, really depressed, their thoughts are messed up. There’s the dome I told Emmet about, keeping people out but sealing stimuli in. What I didn’t tell him was sometimes I like the dome. Sometimes it feels good, because nobody can get you. The problem with being left alone, though, is you’re in there all by yourself. You’re in there with your own brain, and a depressed person’s brain does some seriously crazy shit.
When I saw the Harry Potter movies and the dementors came on screen, I thought, that’s how I feel all the time, except I don’t have a Patronus and chocolate doesn’t do much to make me feel better. In fact, when I’m especially depressed, all food tastes dull and gross, and people have to yell at me to eat at all. Depression is having a crowd of dementors live in your head twenty-four/seven. They are always inside the glass dome, and they can whisper bad things at you whenever they want. Sometimes I can tell them to fuck off, but a lot of times I start to get confused about what’s real and what isn’t. Sometimes I don’t know if the whispers in my head were echoes of something I saw or heard or something the depression said. It feels so real to me that if I’m able to see I was wrong, sometimes I stand there and blink, freaked out over how badly I was fooled—by my own brain.
I don’t know why my brain says such nasty things to me, why it’s so incredibly mean, but it is. My brain is a bully who never leaves. My depression will tell me things are bad, really bad, and I can say I don’t believe it for a while, but at some point it’s the same as the game you play with kids, where you say “yes” and they say “no” and after a few rounds the adult switches but the child doesn’t catch on and ends up saying yes because they were tricked.
Sometimes my depression tricks me. The day Emmet’s mom called 911 on me, it tricked me so well that if she hadn’t called, right when she did, I would be dead.
Ever since my mom yelled at Emmet and kicked him out of the house, the voices in my head had been off-the-charts bad. Emmet texted me every day, sometimes several times a day, but basically if he wasn’t texting me, my personal brain bullies told me he wouldn’t ever text me again. He didn’t want to hang out with a loser who had a bitchy mom, a guy who couldn’t stand up to her. The bullies told me I was ugly. They told me my mom was right, except Emmet was fine and it was me who was awful. I tried to fight them. I tried to listen to Emmet. But the bullies live in my head, and Emmet could only talk to me in text. I became convinced Emmet was just making me feel better, that he didn’t like me, didn’t want to be with me and wished I would go away and leave him the hell alone.
My brain whispered, all day, every day, how I could make alone happen for good.
The sad truth is I think about ways to kill myself the same way Emmet counts things. I don’t tell anyone because they’ll think I’m weird or lock me up, but it’s true. Usually thinking about suicide is almost a game, like when people talk about where they’d store a body if they killed someone. They don’t mean it, and neither do I. Except I think of ways I could kill myself every day. I’ve researched them. I know not to use an overdose of Tylenol. It’s horribly painful and awful and long and impossible to correct. We don’t own a gun, and I don’t think I could handle the noise—which is dumb. Obviously done right I’d only have to hear it the one time. Blood squicks me out, so no wrist-cutting.
But the car in the garage. If my mom and dad knew how many nights I sat for hours in the car, the keys in my hand and my gaze fixed on the garden hose, they would have torn the garage down.
Of course, then I would have routed the exhaust into the basement and blocked the door to the upstairs so they wouldn’t die with me.
I’d decided long ago when I killed myself—in my head it was so absolute that it would happen eventually—I would do it by funneling the exhaust from the tailpipe and asphyxiating myself. That night, I climbed into the car with the garage door shut. I got the engine running, and I put the hose in through the driver’s side window. Even as I did it part of me was aware, like a match flare in the back of a dark room, that this wasn’t right. You weren’t supposed to kill yourself, no matter what the bastards in your head said. But I felt so miserable, and everything was so heavy, all I could think was I couldn’t do this anymore, and the next thing I knew, I was in the car.
I knew this time was real before I closed the door. Not just because I’d hooked up the hose—I’d done that before too—but because I brought my phone. When I texted Emmet goodbye, told him I loved him, it was the last flare of light. I cried while I texted him. I cried so hard I had snot running down my face. When I sent the last text, I almost wanted to change my mind.
But Mom would never let me see him again, and I was too weak to fight for him, and it made me feel sick. Emmet had only put off what I’d been planning to do since graduation. He’d be better off without me. He should get a boyfriend who wasn’t so fucked up.
I wished I could have had one last kiss. I gave him texts instead. Then I smashed my phone so I couldn’t get any messages, and I sat back to wait for the end.
I wasn’t quite asleep when the paramedics opened the door to the garage, but I was groggy enough I couldn’t respond to them when they called my name. I remember being dragged out of the car and put on a stretcher with a mask on my face. I remember being wheeled out of the garage and into an ambulance.
I thought I saw Emmet getting out of his car, maybe coming up to me, but after that I don’t remember anything until I was in the hospital.
I woke up feeling as if someone had made me crazy drunk. I felt flat and floating. I don’t want to say it was good, since words like good and bad were too descriptive. I didn’t feel as heavy as I usually did, and I didn’t feel like crying. I didn’t feel anything at all. When the nurse stuck a needle in my arm, I didn’t care about the blood. I just watched. She could take it all, if she wanted it. For a long time they had a mask on my face too, but at some point they took that off and put this nose thing in instead.
Obviously I was on drugs, which were handy when my mom came in all hysterical and weeping. For once she didn’t upset me when she did that. I was thinking how I wanted a box of this medicine to take home. But then after a few hours—I think it was hours, I wasn’t sure—Emmet came in, and I hated how flat I felt. Inside I jumped for joy and smiled at him, holding out my arms, but all I could do on the outside was stare at him like a zombie and blink and sort of lift my hand.
Though in a way it was funny. I understood, maybe, what it was like to be Emmet. He’d told me he felt more than his face showed, but now I got what it was to feel things and not be able to express them.
Except I had one thing I had to express to him. One important thing. I tried to say it, but I felt like lead. I scrambled for ways to talk to him, wishing for my phone. Then remembered I had one way to use our codes.
I made the American Sign Language letter T, and then the S. I did it over and over.
Thank you.
Sorry. So sorry.
“What’s he doing? What’s wrong?” That was my mother, but I ignored her, just kept signing to Emmet.
He caught my hand. “Not sorry. It’s okay.”
“What—what is he doing to Jeremey?”
God, Mom. I dragged my gaze to her so I could glare, but I was pretty sure I was still a zombie.
Emmet answered for me. “I’m not doing anything to Jeremey. We’re talking. He’s trying to tell me he’s sorry, but he doesn’t need to apologize. I don’t know why he’s thanking me, though.”
I thanked him because he’d helped save me, and I didn’t actually want to die, especially now that he was here. Especially not on these drugs. I didn’t think I wanted to feel this flat all the time, but if I could get a doggie bag of zombie meds, I was willing to stop thinking up ways to kill myself to pass the time.
Of course, the side effect of these drugs was that all I could do was blink at Emmet and keep saying thank you and sorry over and over again.
Wait. I had one more thing I could say. Needed to say. And I was high enough that signing I love you didn’t make me feel so nervous I wanted to vomit.
I knew Emmet-face well enough that despite his limited facial expression and me drugged to my eyeballs, I could tell I’d moved him. Even before he signed I love you back and held my hand tight.
“But what does he mean he’s talking to him?” my mom asked.
“We use sign.” Emmet stared at my mouth. I wondered if it was because it was as close as he could get to my eyes or if he was thinking about kissing me. “It’s difficult for Jeremey to talk sometimes. When we have our phones, we have shortcuts for words, but he’s using ASL now because he doesn’t have a phone. Also I think they drugged him too much to type.”
He looked over his shoulder at the wall near my mom. “Jeremey is sick, Mrs. Samson. He needs to have modifications. You have to stop trying to make him be normal. There’s no normal. You can ask Dr. North. He said I gave Jeremey good behavior and accessibility modifications. He said I was a good boyfriend. He has four degrees, Mrs. Samson. You don’t have four degrees. You should listen to Dr. North.”
My mom started to sputter angrily, and I laughed. Well, I would have laughed, but all I could do was smile. Right at Emmet, who smiled at me and squeezed my hand.
A nurse came and changed my IV, and everything got muddy. Time sort of floated around. There was a doctor, there was a nurse. Sometimes my mom was in the back of the room, sometimes she wasn’t. Once I thought I saw Jan, but I wasn’t sure.
Emmet was always right beside me, holding my hand. A few times he would lean close and tell me in his whisper which wasn’t a whisper at all that he had to use the restroom, or he had to let go of my hand to eat, and a few times the nurses needed my hand, but otherwise he was always there. It felt as if he was there for days, but when it got dark, I realized it was the first time it had been dark since I’d come to the hospital.
He leaned close to my bed, focusing on my ear as he spoke.
“It’s 9 p.m. I have to go home. I wish I could stay, but I can’t.”
I panicked. I should tell him to go home, but I didn’t want him to leave. When he was with me, I was still depressed, but I had an anchor in my big ocean of emotions. I didn’t want to sleep in the dark alone in the hospital on drugs. In fact, as I thought of it too much, I felt tears in my eyes.
Dragging his hand to my lips, I brushed a dry kiss against his knuckles as a tear slid down my cheek. “Please,” I whispered. “Stay.”
He squeezed my hand tight, and he hummed, and he waved his hands in front of himself, as if he were trying to shake off water. He stared at my lips. “I have to go home. It’s not okay for me to stay here overnight, and I don’t think my autism would let me. I’m sorry. But I can stay another few minutes.”
I wanted him to stay all night long. I needed him to stay, but I understood he couldn’t. Just a little more.
A hug.
A kiss.
I motioned to Emmet. Some of the heavy drugs were wearing off now. I patted the space beside me. Lie with me. Cuddle me.
He frowned and rocked on his heels. “There isn’t room. And you’re full of IV lines.”
I was too worn out to argue, so I pulled back the covers and waited.
After a little more rocking and a lot of humming, he got in. He fumbled with the rail and knocked the TV remote on the floor, and he grumbled, but he got in, nesting so close to me our bodies touched.
“They’re going to arrest us,” he murmured.
I draped the blanket over our bodies. I touched his face, a firm touch the way he liked, and I pressed my lips to his.
I opened my mouth over his, licked the seam of his lips. He jolted and murmured “You licked me,” but then he opened his mouth and let me inside.
I couldn’t get an erection with all the drugs, but I felt his pressing against my groin. His kisses were clumsy and tentative, but when I was bold, he met me stroke for stroke. He gripped my shoulders and breathed heavier and heavier until he pulled away. When he spoke, his voice trembled.
“Jeremey, if you keep kissing me, I’m going to get semen in my underwear.”
I smiled but didn’t kiss him anymore, only nuzzled his cheek. It had the finest bit of stubble, and it felt good. “Thank you. For calling 911. For staying.” For being you.
“It was my mom who called. But she used my phone.” He nuzzled me awkwardly. He wasn’t much of a nuzzler. “Please don’t do that again, Jeremey.”
I wished I could promise him I wouldn’t. I wished I could say as long as he was with me, I wouldn’t think about killing myself. That would be a lie, though, so I only brushed one last kiss across his lips, shut my eyes and snuggled against him.
When the nurse came in, she didn’t yell, but she did make Emmet go. I wept silently as he left, but before the sadness could take too much hold, the nurse gave me another injection of some drug, and I drifted off to sleep.
The next morning I woke up feeling much less groggy. It turned out I’d had a much stronger reaction to the sedatives than they’d anticipated, which was why I felt so woozy so long, but now, though I still felt flat, I was able to sit up and walk and move. After checking my oxygen levels, they took me off all the tubes and IVs, and they gave me a big breakfast.
Emmet got a breakfast too, because he was back as soon as I was awake. He ate in silence, and afterward he stood over me and all but spoon-fed me to get me to eat.
The nurses seemed to think we were cute, from the looks and smiles they kept giving us. Though several knew Emmet, which he explained was because his mother saw patients at the hospital.
Shortly after we ate our breakfast, our parents arrived—all four of them, mothers and fathers both. My dad kept holding my mother’s arm, rubbing it reassuringly as she dabbed at her eyes. Jan was with them, but she stood a little ways apart from them, rigid and blank. That’s how she always is with our family, but when we talked on the phone or were out together by ourselves, she was different.
I got tired thinking of how awful the day would be, how bad they’d make me feel for what I’d almost done. It made me wish, for a fleeting moment, I’d succeeded in killing myself. But then Emmet took my hand, and I didn’t wish for that anymore.
The lecture and scolding I’d anticipated, though, didn’t happen. As everyone was starting to get awkward milling around, a doctor came into the room. Emmet stood up, beaming. “Dr. North, are you Jeremey’s doctor?”
“I’m one of them, yes. Good to see you again, Emmet. Marietta, Doug—” He shook Emmet’s parents’ hands, then turned to mine. “Dr. Howard North. Pleasure to meet you.”
My mom and dad accepted his handshake, but they acted ashamed, as if they were embarrassed they had to call a doctor for me.
Dr. North didn’t notice, or if he did, he ignored them. “I’m going to have to ask you all to step out for a little while so I can talk with Jeremey alone. If you wait in the lounge, I’ll have the nurses’ station let you know when we’re finished.”
My dad stood straight, his mustache bristling as he pushed back his shoulders. “We’re staying. He’s our son. We have a right to hear what you ask him.”
Jan rolled her eyes but said nothing.
Dr. North addressed my parents calmly. “With all due respect, Mr. Samson, your son is an adult. If he wishes for you to come for part of the interview, you may, or if he consents to a follow-up afterward, I can give you that, but Jeremey is legally allowed to make his own decisions about his health care. Even if he were a minor, I would be quite firm about this interview being conducted at least in part in private. It is meant as no disrespect to you as parents, but is out of respect for Jeremey as an individual.”
This surprised me in a good way, but I immediately tensed as my dad looked at me, clearly expecting me to say yes, Dr. North could tell them everything, that I wanted them to stay. I didn’t, though, so I stared down at the blanket and let the doctor shoo everyone out.
The one person I wouldn’t have minded staying left without any complaint. All Emmet did was hook two fingers against my two fingers, a silent goodbye.
Then they all left, and it was only Dr. North and me in the room.
Smiling, he pulled up a chair beside my bed and assumed a relaxed but attentive position. “You’re looking quite well this morning. How are you feeling?”
I flexed my hands against the blankets—I didn’t want to talk about how I felt. It had dawned on me I might have screwed up so badly they would put me in an institution. The thought made me want to throw up my breakfast. “Thank you for arranging for Emmet to stay with me yesterday. I mean, I assume that was you. I appreciate it, and I think he did too.”
“You’re quite welcome.” He let a beat pass. “Is there a reason you don’t want to tell me how you’re feeling?”
My fingernails scraped the blanket over and over. I stared at my legs. “I’m fine. I’m sorry I scared everyone.” I started to say it won’t happen again, but I stopped myself, fairly sure this guy would see through the lie.
“You don’t have to be nervous, Jeremey. You have nothing to fear here.”
I had plenty to fear. Despite the drugs, I felt a panic attack trying to claw its way out. I couldn’t lose Emmet after just getting him back.
A cool, slightly weathered hand closed over mine. “Talk to me about what is making you anxious. Let me help you.”
I shut my eyes and drew a deep breath, trying to push the fear down. I didn’t want to tell him what I feared, but not telling him ensured a panic attack, which seemed more likely to land me in a loony bin. “I don’t want to go to a mental institution.”
“This interview isn’t a screening for such a possibility. We’re dealing with right now, Jeremey. How are you feeling right now?”
Confused, and scared. Also stupid. I’d felt so good before. When Emmet was here. “I want to see Emmet.”
“You will. But first I need you to talk to me about your feelings.”
I didn’t want to. “I want to go home.” I didn’t really, but it was better than this. God only knew what this guy would find in my head if he started poking around.
Dr. North didn’t touch me, but he leaned forward in a way that made me feel as if he had. “I need you to listen carefully, Jeremey. What I’m about to say might upset you, but I want you to listen. Can you do that?”
My stomach knotted into a ball. I nodded stiffly and stared at my lap.
“Good. Thank you. What you’ve done is serious. You aren’t in trouble—no one is judging you or scolding you or sentencing you. But going home isn’t an option right now. In fact, shortly we’ll be leaving Intensive Care for the psychiatric unit, where you’ll stay for a minimum of several days for observation.”
He might as well have poured ice into my veins. I felt too heavy to panic, though I tried anyway. This time he did put a hand on my arm—gently, but it kept me in place as he looked me in the eye.
“This is not a punishment. This is treatment. It’s important you understand this.”
His eyes were blue, but so faded and soft they were almost grey. They were kind eyes, like a young grandfather’s. Except even with all his kindness, I wanted to cry. “I—I can’t— I won’t—”
He kept a hand on my arm, but it was his gentle voice that held me in place. “Please understand this isn’t something I decided to do to you. By attempting to harm yourself, you’ve triggered a powerful public health system. Your actions have dictated you are not in control of yourself, and neither you nor your family get to make decisions about where you go and what happens to you just yet. Deep breaths.”
He paused and waited while I tried to obey, to stop hyperventilating. Then he continued.
“I understand this is difficult. It isn’t easy for anyone. But put out of your head Hollywood visions of bleak hallways and insane asylums. You’ll be going to the psychiatric ward of a private hospital. It’s two floors above where we are right now. It looks much the same as this room, but with less glass and machines. You’re being admitted there not to be punished but to be observed and aided.”
I was thinking of Hollywood. In fact I was thinking of a ghost-hunting show where they toured an old asylum from the turn of the twentieth century. No ghosts had appeared, but the decayed, isolated imagery of that place still haunted my mind.
The idea that they could put me away so easily—no choice, no discussion—made me cold. It made me wish I’d done a better job of offing myself.
Except it wasn’t true. I didn’t want to die. Not if I got to see Emmet.
Dr. North withdrew his hand from my arm. “You aren’t being moved right now. Right now, in this second, Jeremey, I am talking to you. I’m asking you how you feel. I’m your doctor and I want to know. I want to help you, because helping people who feel overwhelmed is my job.”
I understood what he was trying to do, but it all was pointless if this was only going to end in me never seeing Emmet. “You’re trying to see if I’m crazy. And if I’m crazy, you’ll put me away. Not here. Somewhere else, for good.”
“No one is putting you away. You’ll have to stay here for a few days at the very least while my colleagues and I make sure you’re no longer a danger to yourself. If you or your parents tried to argue with me, I would get a court order keeping you here until we determined the danger had passed. But committing someone to a mental institution is a step we don’t take lightly. It isn’t something I’m entertaining for you. What I would like is to begin working on your therapy so you can return to society strong enough to face what life brings you.”
My nostrils flared, and I stared down at my lap. “Then you might as well send me away now. I’m never going to be strong.”
“Do you mean you won’t try, or you don’t believe you’ll succeed?”
Self-loathing curled like smoke inside me, choking out hope. “I don’t believe I’m not strong enough for the world. I know I’m not. Everyone wants me to be stronger, be normal, to stop being sad and overwhelmed, but I can’t be. I can’t change who I am. I can’t like girls, I can’t be happy, I can’t go into a crowded store without having a panic attack. I can’t drive in heavy traffic. I can barely drive at all. I can’t be strong enough for life. I can’t change who I am. I should know, because I’ve tried.”
I thought I’d put it pretty plainly, but Dr. North only smiled, his blue-gray eyes glittering as if he had a secret. “But I never said I wanted you to change who you are. I want to help you find a way to be strong. To help you be strong, as you are. To modify the way you approach the world and possibly the way the world approaches you, so you are able to cope with it.”
Was he crazy? “That’s not possible.”
“Then this is my first job, to convince you it is.” He held out his hands and raised his eyebrows. “But first. Let’s have one success today. One small start. I’m going to ask you two questions, and I ask you to answer each honestly. Even one word will do. I’m going to ask how you’re feeling, and what you want. Today that’s being strong, answering those questions even if you don’t want to or are afraid to. And remember practicing being strong is how you get to go home, not simply to leave the hospital but to have a good, happy life. Are you ready to try?”
That wasn’t strong at all, answering two questions, but I nodded.
He sat forward. “How are you feeling right now, Jeremey?”
So many emotions rolled around inside me I didn’t know where to start. I didn’t want to say anything, because I didn’t want to say the wrong thing, but he kept watching me. He’d keep me here all day until I said something. So I swallowed against my dry throat and said, “Scared.”
“Very good, and an understandable emotion. I would feel scared too right now, if I’d undergone your ordeal of the past day. I’ll tell you how I’m feeling right now: proud of you, and sad for you. I wish I could make you not scared. In fact, I’m doing my best to make it go away. But I also know I can’t take it all. So I want to sit here for a second and practice feeling with you. I’m going to count to ten silently in my head, and we’ll sit here together, feeling. I don’t want you to try and stop your feelings, or fix them, or change them. Only sit and feel. If your feelings shift, that’s fine, but try not to direct it. Give yourself ten seconds to feel. Are you ready?”
I wasn’t. I nodded anyway.
“Go.”
It was weird. I don’t know how good a job I did of not directing my feelings, because I kept thinking about them. But sometimes I thought maybe I did what he asked and just felt. It was like sinking into water. Deep and blue and floating, but the sensation felt as if it could pull me down. Except the more times I let go, the more I wondered if I really could drown, or if I only feared I would.
“Ten seconds.”
I jolted, opening my eyes and blinking at Dr. North as if surprised to find he was there. He smiled at me.
“Very, very good, Jeremey. How did you find sitting with your feelings?”
I wasn’t sure how I felt about the experience yet. What did he want me to say? “It was okay.”
I kind of hoped we did the ten-seconds-of-feeling exercise again, though. I wondered if it was okay to do it on my own. Except how would I know when ten seconds were up?
“Now for my second question. Are you ready?” He waited for me to nod. “What is it you want, Jeremey? Right now? There’s no wrong answer. I’m not judging you for your answer. All I want is for you to practice identifying feelings and desires. What do you want right now?”
The question was so hard. Not because I didn’t want to tell him—though I didn’t—but because I didn’t know. I wanted out of here, but honestly, I didn’t want to go home. I wanted to go home, but to a place that didn’t exist. Somewhere soft and safe and good. That wasn’t my parents’ house.
I shoved the thought away and tried again. What did I want? I didn’t know. I started to panic.
He put his hand on my arm. “It doesn’t have to be complicated. You can tell me you want a bowl of ice cream.”
I didn’t want ice cream, though. I wanted something. I could feel it, almost see it. I shut my eyes and went back into the water of feelings. It felt horribly empty to not know what it was I wanted. I let go, let myself sink into the blue—and I knew.
Dr. North asked me again, “What do you want?”
I didn’t want to tell him, but down in the feeling water, it turned out, my worrying couldn’t reach me. “Emmet.” By speaking out loud, the spell broke, and I glanced at him nervously. “I…want to be with Emmet.”
I wasn’t sure what I expected from him, but it wasn’t softness and a smile that made my insides feel warm. “Excellent. And much better than a bowl of ice cream, I should think.” He rose, patting my arm. “Even more, it’s something I can give to you. Possibly very soon.”
I almost corrected him, to explain I didn’t mean I wanted to see him but that I wanted to be with him, like, with him, but my censors were all back in place now, and I stayed silent.
The way he winked at me made me think he understood what I’d meant anyway.