CHAPTER 9
Mom and Dad,
Thanks for the bug spray.
Z
After a week of camp, Dori decides to drop the bomb in group share-apy that she tried to kill herself once.
“It was a few years ago, right after my mom got remarried. I locked myself in the bathroom and ate a bottle of pills. I just grabbed the first thing I could find and downed it,” she says.
“Oh my God,” Hannah speaks up.
“It wasn’t that bad.” Dori shakes her head. “I was crying so hard I couldn’t see the label on the bottle. Turns out I downed a bottle of Beano. Nothing even happened.”
Cassie bursts out laughing. “Well, your first mistake was taking pills. What a sissy fucking suicide.”
Dori ignores her. “In the end, it was a good thing. I realized I didn’t really want to die. I was just being dramatic.”
“Dori, that’s so scary,” Madison says. “What if you had really hurt yourself?”
“You don’t think I registered that?” Dori snaps. “I would have left my mom alone to live with her Neanderthal husband.” She rolls her eyes at Madison, but Madison doesn’t seem to let it get to her.
She touches Dori’s leg and says, “Thank you for sharing.” Madison turns to the rest of the group. “Has anyone else ever thought about going to dramatic lengths with their lives?”
“That’s a stupid question, Mads. Of course we have. We’re here.”
“I’ve never tried to kill myself,” Hannah says.
“No. You just mutilate your body. I’d say that’s dramatic, Razor Blades.”
“I don’t cut myself with razor blades.”
“You want to judge Dori because she tried to off herself with Beano, but you’re just as bad as she is,” Cassie scoffs.
After that, the rest of the session goes flat.
The next day, I sit on the end of my bed, my foot tapping on the ground in an even rhythm. It always helps if I keep a beat.
“Devenir, Revenir, Monter, Rester, Sortir,” I whisper to myself, my toes slowly becoming numb. “Venir, Aller, Naître, Descendre, Entrer, Rentrer . . .” I stop blank. My foot hangs above the ground ready to pound out the next beat, but the word isn’t there. “Dr. and Mrs. Vandertramp” verbs are my French mnemonic device specialty. I know them like I know the smell of my own house.
I run my hands through my hair, but the moment before I pull a few strands free, I pause. My fingers feel around my scalp, inspecting the density. I would have more hair if I could just stop pulling on myself so hard. It doesn’t help me. It hurts me. I drop my hands, rest my head in my palms, and look around the cabin like the French verb I can’t seem to find in my brain is hiding somewhere in here.
“What the hell comes next?” I whisper.
Dori enters the cabin a bit later with a stack of letters in her hands. She holds one out to me.
“Mail delivery. Also, Madison said to meet in the Circle of Hope in fifteen minutes.”
“Thanks.” I take the letter and recognize the handwriting and return address. Nina Osborne.
“Aren’t you gonna open it?” Dori asks.
“It’s from my mom.”
She waves one of her letters in the air. “I get it. My mom just told me she’s pregnant. In a letter. Which means she’s having sex with my disgusting stepdad. I want to puke.” Dori plops down on the bed next to me. “I can’t believe some of my genes are going to mix with his and create a person. I hate him.”
Some afternoons Dori will say she’s going to an activity, but I’ll find her sleeping in the cabin. I never wake her up.
“I’m sorry your mom is having a baby with someone you hate,” I say.
“That’s okay.” The skin around her mouth hangs low, like it’s heavy.
When Dori is about to leave the cabin, I blurt out, “How do you know you’re depressed?”
Dori stops and touches the lock on the door, circling her finger around the metal. “Because some days I don’t think there’s any point to this.”
“To camp?” I ask.
“No, Zander. To life.”
Dori quietly shuts the door and leaves. I flip the flimsy letter around in my hand a few times. I contemplate burning it, but with the humidity from all the rain, I don’t think it would light.
So I open it instead.
Dear Zander,
It sure is quiet around here without you. Your father formed a “podcast club.” I’m not sure you could call it a club since the only two members are he and I, but I don’t tell him that. He makes me listen to TED Talks and Freakonomics Radio and a whole bunch of other stuff that you would find horribly boring. It’s not as bad as I thought, though. I think I’m actually learning something.
That’s what I’ve decided this summer is all about. Learning. You’re learning in Michigan and your father and I are learning here at home. I’m not sure I’ll ever learn to get used to the silence of not having you around, though. I still wish the camp had made an exception on the “no cell phone” rule for you. We’ve been through so much, it just seems cruel to keep me away from my daughter.
Anyway, I hope you’re enjoying yourself. I can’t tell by your letters. They’re so short.
I saw Cooper working at the grocery store last week. He looked too busy to come say hi, but I waved. I hope they’re feeding you well at camp. I just listened to a podcast about the overabundance of sugar in our food. Yellow foods in particular. Stay away from yellow. And orange. Nothing is naturally orange unless it’s an actual orange or a carrot. You can eat those.
I miss you.
Love,
Mom
I stare down at her pointed handwriting, like the words have thorns on the end. Each mundane sentence pricks me. I ball up the letter and I grab a piece of paper and a pen from my duffel bag.
I write:
Devenir
Revenir
Monter
Rester
Sortir
Venir
Aller
Naître
Descendre
Entrer
Rentrer
My foot taps to the beat as I say the words in my head again and again, but every few seconds my eyes drift to the balled-up letter sitting next to me.
When I can’t stand it anymore, I throw my mom’s letter away and start searching the mound of clothes on Cassie’s bed. I know they’re here somewhere. I shake a pair of shorts and hear something rattle—Lemonheads. I pop three in my mouth like pills. Sweet, sugary, yellow pills. My cheeks water as I crunch down on the candy. I fold up my unfinished French mnemonic device and put it in an envelope addressed to my mom.
On my way to the Circle of Hope, I detour to the outgoing mailbox by the mess hall and drop the letter in the slot.
“Breaking up with your boyfriend?” Grover says from behind me.
My heart rate jumps in surprise. “No. It’s a letter for my mom.”
“Did you tell her about me?” he asks.
“No. I told her about me. She won’t get it, though.”
Grover nods as silence hangs over us. I can’t think of what to say because it’s never just talking with Grover. His big eyes always look like he’s about to cry. It makes every word he utters seem like it’s his last, and I want to grab him and make it all go away. And Grover’s hair is wet right now. He’s wearing soaking-wet swim trunks and a “Having fun isn’t hard when you have a library card” T-shirt.
He leans in toward me. “Is that?”
I back away. “What?”
He looks at my lip. “Sugar.”
I cup my hand over my mouth and smell my own breath.
“Don’t tell Cassie,” I say.
Grover smiles and presses his lips together. Neither of us moves.
“I hate the way my mom says things without really saying things,” I finally blurt out.
“Like what?”
“She hates the letters I send home, but she won’t actually say that. She’ll just say they’re too short, but what she really means is that they aren’t enough. There’s a difference.” Grover’s eyes do the almost-crying thing and my stomach gets tight, like I want to burst open. “It’s like she wants everything to be long and drawn out because it’s better to have noise than nothing. But you could write a thousand words and it still wouldn’t equal the power of ‘I love you.’”
“I love you,” Grover says.
“Exactly. ‘I love you.’”
“You better tell your boyfriend.”
“Wait. What? I was making an analogy,” I say.
“I think it was more like an acknowledgment.” Grover winks.
I groan and start to walk away, shaking my head. Damn his overactive eyes.
“Wait,” he says, catching up to me and touching my arm. I yank it away.
“I told you. I hate waiting,” I snap.
“And I told you that sometimes waiting is inevitable. So stop fighting it.”
“I’m not fighting anything.”
“Yes, you are,” Grover says.
“No, I’m not.” I hold his stare. The watery sheen on his skin makes the sun reflect off of his nose. I notice that the tip of it is perfectly round and smooth. “What about you?” I say.
“What about me?”
“You never acknowledge anything.”
“Yes, I do. In fact, I’d like to acknowledge right now that you smell good. Sugar suits you.”
“That doesn’t count.”
“Sure it does.”
“But it’s not about you,” I say.
“People are too selfish. Did you know that if given a choice more people would rather win the lottery than cure AIDS?”
“Forget it.” I start to walk away.
“You’re just as bad as your mom,” Grover hollers after me.
I whip around. “How can you say that?”
He makes up the space between us. “You say she likes to drag things out. So do you.”
“No, I don’t.” I move again, but Grover moves with me.
“Yes, you do. You’re doing it right now.”
I take another step back and I run into a tree. My head knocks against the bark with a small thud and I’m pinned.
“Is your head okay?” he asks.
“Obviously not. I’m here, aren’t I?”
“I meant this head.” Grover touches the tender spot on the back of my skull. And then he backs away from me, so far that the air gets cold, like when the sun goes down in the desert. “I’m sure your mom will appreciate the letter no matter what. She’s probably been waiting for it.”
He walks away and I slump down on the tree, pulling my knees to my chest to bury my face. My eyes get tired as I sit on the ground, my energy waning. I contemplate pulling a Dori move and skipping group share-apy to take a nap. But the more I think about Coop, the more the fatigue fades and anger replaces it. I want to call him and scream at him for not talking to my mom at the grocery store. My mom may not like to see reality, but even she must know he wasn’t too busy to talk to her. Coop avoided her.
On my way over to the Circle of Hope, I pass the tetherball court. Without hesitating, I smack the ball with as much force as I can, sending it high into the air. The ball wraps around the pole quickly, making a ding sound when all the slack in the rope is gone. I smack it again with the other hand.
“Durga, Durga, Durga,” I say through tight teeth. It’s clear my tetherball skills have greatly improved, though this place hasn’t stopped me from talking to myself.