Chapter Seventeen
The library is empty when I get there the next morning, early, almost forty minutes before the bell. Dad’s printer was low on ink, so I emailed my paper to myself to print here. Two thousand five hundred and eighty words that actually seem to make sense as I re-read them now, one last time before I hit print. The thoughts connect, the thesis builds on itself. It’s the best essay I’ve ever written, which doesn’t say a lot, but says something at least.
I went to bed after midnight, exhausted from the mental effort of writing it, and then dreamed for the first time since my accident. Wild, vivid dreams that disappeared as soon as my alarm rang, mental images evaporating into fog, leaving me with vague memories of people and portraits and wounds. Canvas rectangles where heads would otherwise be, strange half-people with portraits for faces, gruesome wounds in bright oil paint. I woke up creeped out but hopeful, because if I can dream, then my mind’s eye still works.
The images are gone but the dream has stayed with me all morning, the idea of it, anyway. Souls captured on little canvases, not hidden in attics, but held out for the world to see. I keep thinking, what if we had that? What if we could see how people are on the inside, the real, invisible truth, literally painted on their faces? Some people would look hideous, like Dorian. Awfulness telegraphed as ugliness in paint. But most of us would probably just look damaged. Broken in places. Bruised and cut and scarred. In a way, it’s what I was afraid of, when I first saw myself in that hospital bathroom. That my messed up face would give me away. Different than Dorian, but kind of the same.
“Jessa,” a voice behind me says. I jump a little, startled from my thoughts.
I see the gash on his forehead first. Shiny red on torn black skin. Open and bloody and raw, like someone took a chunk out of his flesh with a knife. It’s not actually bleeding — the wounds I see never are — but the cut looks fresh. I hear myself suck in a breath.
“I thought that was you,” the guy says, and that’s when I see his eyes, the same eyes I saw yesterday morning at the support group, the ones that were blue and happy and bright. They’re still blue, but a dull, somber shade. The light has completely gone out. “It’s Jessa, right?”
what happened to him?
“Ayo,” he says, because I haven’t said anything. “From group.”
I nod. “I remember,” I say. My voice sounds funny. I feel funny. The thoughts he interrupted are still fresh in my mind, and right now I feel as if I’m living my dream. Like this wound I’m hallucinating — am obviously hallucinating, no one would walk around with a gash like that on his head — means something. Like it’s real.
“Something happened,” I hear myself say, and for a second Ayo looks concerned, because he misunderstands. “To you, I mean. Something happened to you. Since yesterday.”
Ayo blinks.
“Uh. What?”
“You seem sad,” I say dumbly, realizing how moronic I sound. “I thought—,” i thought the wound i’m hallucinating on your face meant that you were really hurting inside. “Never mind,” I say quickly. “Sorry. I don’t even know y—”
“No, it’s okay,” Ayo says. “To be honest, yeah, I’m having a shit day.” He pulls out the chair next to me and sits down.
“Is everything okay? I mean, obviously it’s not.” I’m staring at the gash on his head.
“My girlfriend broke up with me last night,” Ayo says. “Out of nowhere. Things were great between us. At least, I thought they were great.”
i know how that feels
“You mentioned her yesterday,” I say. “At group.”
He nods. “Yeah. She’s the reason I turned my life around. She’s the reason I wanted to. But she said it’s too much for her, how dependent I am.” He rubs his forehead. The wound doesn’t budge. The blood doesn’t smear. All of a sudden it doesn’t look real anymore. It looks like wet paint. I bring my eyes back to his and see desperation there.
i know how that feels, too
He’s waiting for me to say something. But what can I possibly offer him, this kid who’s older than I am, whose life is so different from mine, whose story I barely know?
“I sucks to be blindsided,” I say, because this one thing I know. “To lose the thing you were counting on not to change. And to lose it out of nowhere, when you aren’t prepared.” I’m talking about my dad, my friends, Wren. I’m talking about the face I took for granted for seventeen years. “It makes you doubt everything. Especially yourself.”
“No shit.”
We’re both quiet for a sec.
“But maybe it shouldn’t,” I say finally. “Because maybe we’re more than the people we date, or the way we look, or the grades we make.”
“What the hell are we, then?” Ayo jokes.
I smile a little, half shrug. “Whatever’s left, I guess.
Hannah’s waiting for me in the hall after first period. “Hey,” she says. “You weren’t under the stairs this morning.” She’s all fidgety, almost twitchy, here foot bouncing at lightning speed. how much coffee has she had?
“Sorry. I had to print my paper in the library. Is everything okay? How’s Marshall?”
“He’s fine. I’m fine.” She brushes her hair out of her eyes and I notice red, raw patches on the inside of her wrist. She catches me staring. “I haven’t been picking it,” she says, as if I’ve accused her. “It’s just getting worse by itself. Stress probably. Which is really awesome, since the admissions committee will be watching my hands.” Her voice is rushed and choppy, and her eyes are pinging around the hall, like they might bounce out of her head.
“Are you sure you’re alright?” I ask, lowering my voice. “You’re acting kind of . . .”
“What?” she demands.
weird, I want to say. “Agitated,” I say instead.
“I am agitated,” she says. “I have disgusting eczema on my wrists. It’s agitating.”
I think back to the first bruise on her face. The little quarter moon beneath her eye that became a half moon, then exploded into a dozen purple splotches across her cheeks. It seems weird, suddenly, the specificity of it. The uniqueness of each injured face. Not just scars and bruises, but gashes and scrapes and burns. If I’ve been “projecting” like the shrink in the hospital thought, then why hasn’t everyone had the exact same injuries that I had? That would make sense. Instead I’ve been seeing random wounds on random people, wounds that have no connection to my own. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t connected to something else.
My mind goes back to my dream, to all those little canvas faces, covered in painted wounds. It occurs to me now that the faces around the circle yesterday were painted, too, in a way. Scars on the girl who’s come through her darkness. A mosaic of bruises on the boy who’s still climbing out. Faces that looked like they belonged to trauma victims. Not the kind of trauma that breaks bodies, maybe, but the deeper kind, the kind that fractures souls, leaving wounds beneath the surface that no one can see. But what if we could see them?
How might a soul look if we could stare it in the face?
i’m hallucinating, I remind myself. because of my accident. because my head broke into pieces and my brain couldn’t deal. not because i can see people’s souls.
I give my head a little shake.
Hannah is looking at me funny. “What?” she asks.
“Nothing,” I lie. “I was just thinking about your audition. What does a person wear to a music school try-out?” It’s the dumbest question ever but it was the only thing I could think of on the spot.
“Concert attire,” she says. “Plain black dress and flats.” She looks down at her wrists in disgust. “I wish I could wear gloves.”
“Why don’t you put make up on it?” I suggest. “My mom bought me this hi-tech foundation when I was in the hospital, to cover up my scars. It’s made of silicone, I think, and it’s super soothing and protective. It’s basically like painting on a second layer of skin. It doesn’t wipe off unless you use their remover.” I see her eyes flick to my scars. “I never used it,” I say, because I know what she’s thinking. if it works so well why does your face look so bad? “Mostly to piss my mom off. But also because the idea of trying to hide them gave me heart palpitations.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because I was hiding so much already. Sometimes I’d look in the mirror and not recognize myself.”
“Your appearance changed that much?”
I shake my head. “I meant before that. Pre-accident. I was such a mess on the inside, and then I’d look at myself in the mirror and not see any of that. And I’d feel relieved. But never happy, because it meant I had to keep pretending, you know? But then the accident happened, and I couldn’t pretend anymore. It felt pointless in a way, to even try. Or maybe I just gave up.” I force a smile. “It’s hard to hide the mess when your face is the mess,” I joke.
“Hey.” Hannah touches my arm. “You’re not a mess.”
“So, anyway,” I say, shrugging her off because my throat is going tight and I don’t want to cry. “The make-up. I could come over Saturday morning and help you put it on your wrists, if you want. Not that you need to cover it up,” I add quickly. “I just thought maybe it’d be one less thing to think about, you know?”
“No, definitely,” Hannah says. “And one less thing for the admissions committee to think about, too.” She links her arm through mine. “Thank you.”
“I asked your brother out on a date,” I blurt out. “I’m telling you because I told you that Friday wasn’t a date, and it wasn’t, but then yesterday I asked him out.” I look over at her, trying to gauge her reaction. “Oh. You already knew.”
Hannah rolls her eyes. “It’s my brother we’re talking about. You think he didn’t mention it the first possible second he could?”
The bell rings. Hannah drops my arm.
“Okay,” I press. “And?”
“And I’m fine with it. I told you I was fine with it.”
“I just don’t want it to be weird between us,” I say.
“Then don’t make it weird,” she says. Her eyes jump around my face like water bugs on the surface of a lake.
“Hey. Are you sure you’re okay?” I ask, catching her hand.
She shakes me off. “I’m fine,” she says, flashing a smile that’s meant to reassure me but has the opposite effect. Her lip twitches against her teeth. It’s the bruises, though, that’re the most unnerving. YOU ARE SO NOT FINE! my brain shouts. “I’ll see you later, okay?” She grabs her bag and heads off down the hall.
I’m distracted through the next three periods, until lunch, until I can go find Dr. I in his hiding spot on the bench by the teacher parking lot. I feel bad for interrupting his lunch break, but he doesn’t look all that surprised to see me.
“Hello,” he says, and puts down his book.
“Hi,” I say. “Do you have a minute?”
He scoots over to make room for me on the bench.
“How’s your friend?” he asks when I sit.
“He’s great, actually,” I say, and feel myself smile. “The procedure went really well.”
“That’s good news. And how are you?”
I hesitate. “I’m not sure,” I say finally. Then I’m quiet for a few seconds, struggling for words that won’t sound crazy. “I think the paper I wrote last night messed with my head,” I say finally.
“Messed with it how?”
i think i’m seeing souls
hurts telegraphed on faces, painted on skin
“The wounds I’ve been seeing. My hallucinations. I’m starting to think that maybe the shrink at the hospital was wrong. He said I was projecting my injuries onto other people because I couldn’t deal. Which made sense at the time. But now . . . it just doesn’t. For one thing, the wounds are different. I don’t have bruises or burns or scrapes or gashes. I just have scars. So why does Hannah have two black eyes and a face full of bruises? Why did this kid I met in group yesterday have a giant gash in his head this morning? I never had a gash in my head. And then he tells me that his girlfriend broke up with him and he’s really hurting inside, and I’m looking at this cut on his head, which obviously isn’t really there, but in a way it is there. On the inside. On his soul.” It made sense in my brain but now that I’m saying it out loud it sounds completely nuts. I squeeze my eyes shut. “Uh. I don’t even know what I’m saying.”
“You mentioned that you’ve been having some trouble with your mind’s eye,” Dr. I says.
My eyes pop open. “Yeah. But that’s separate from this.”
“Maybe not.” He hands me his book. “Remember the other day when I told you that Descartes believed that the brain was where the soul interacted with the body?”
I nod, turning the book over in my hands.
“Well, he had this whole theory about the pineal gland — it’s this little pinecone-shaped gland in the very center of the brain. He thought it was the place where soul and body touched.”
“Weird.”
“It is a little weird, isn’t it? And the idea’s been completely debunked. But hang with me for a sec. Descartes also believed that the pineal gland was where the mind’s eye resided. Modern medicine tends to focus on the imaginative aspect — the ability to visualize, the thing you’re missing — but Descartes had a much grander view of what it means to ‘see with the mind.’ A view quite a few philosophers still take.”
“Grander how?”
“He thought that the truest things about reality could only be perceived by what he called the ‘eye of the mind.’ Never by the senses alone.”
“So I’m screwed, then,” I say flatly. “Because I’m not perceiving anything with my mind. I’m seeing things that aren’t there.”
“Wait a second. You just said that the things you’re seeing are there. You’re seeing wounds on people who hurt. The fact that the bruises and scars aren’t physically present doesn’t necessarily mean they’re not real. And the fact that it may feel like you’re seeing them with your eyes doesn’t mean that you are.”
I stare at him in disbelief. “Wait, you’re saying it’s possible? That I’m literally seeing people’s souls?”
“Well, not literally,” he says. “Souls are invisible, and psychological wounds don’t bruise or bleed. All I’m saying is there’s no reason to assume that what you’re perceiving isn’t true.”
“But how am I perceiving it? That’s what doesn’t make any sense. How could a car wreck do this to my brain?”
“That’s a question for a neurologist,” Dr. I replies. “I know what Descartes would say, though. He’d say that if you’re seeing what you think you’re seeing, then it has nothing to do with your brain, because your brain – the organ of soft nervous tissue in your skull – can’t perceive Truth. Only your mind can. And your mind wasn’t injured in that accident.”
I stare at the sidewalk, static in my head. I don’t know what he’s getting it. Why it matters if it’s my brain or my mind or my left thumb.
“Don’t shut down,” Dr. I says gently. “Stay with me.” And in my joints there is a flash of recognition, of deja vu. stay with me jessa stay with me
The man from the accident.
He said exactly that.
“These are complicated ideas,” I hear Dr. I say. “And maybe all this is more than you need right now. But try to stay with me here. There’s a point I’m trying to make.”
stay with me jessa just another few minutes okay?
I blink, hard, pushing the memory away. I nod.
“You want an explanation for this,” he says gently. “You want a ‘how.’ But the invisible world doesn’t work the way the visible world does. There isn’t concrete evidence. There isn’t physical proof. All you have to go on is your own certainty, which takes some measure of trust. In yourself. In Truth itself.”
“And if I’m wrong?” I ask hoarsely. “If I’m just hallucinating randomly and it doesn’t mean anything at all?”
“I think the better question is what if it does.”
My mind goes to Hannah. All those bruises. All that hurt. My heart clenches in my chest.
“I should go,” I say, and hold out his book.
“Borrow it. See what you think.”
I shake my head. “No, thanks. I think I’ve had all the philosophy I can handle for today.”
Dr. I smiles as he takes the book. “Fair enough. But I haven’t given up. I’ll make you a philosopher yet.”