Chapter Nineteen
At seven the next morning I’m at the living room window, staring out at the Jeep parked in the driveway, trying to talk myself into driving it. My upper lip is cold with sweat.
“What are you doing in here in the dark?” Dad asks, switching on the light.
“Nothing,” I say quickly, turning away from the window. “Is it okay if we go early again this morning?”
Dad nods. “I’ll go with you,” he says. “But you drive.”
“I can’t,” I say automatically.
“Yes, you can, Bear. But the longer you wait, the harder it’ll be for you to believe that.”
I start to shake my head.
“The accident wasn’t your fault, Jessa. It had nothing to do with your driving. The other car ran that red light because the driver was looking at her phone.”
“That could happen again,” I point out.
“Sure it could,” Dad says. “Just like you could get hit by a bus crossing the street. That doesn’t mean it will happen, sweetheart. Or that you should live your life in fear that it might.”
“I’m just not ready,” I say quietly.
“Neither am I,” Dad says. “You think I like having my teenaged daughter out there in the world in a car? You think my first response after your accident wasn’t ‘okay, she’s never driving again’?”
“So why are you pushing me to do it?” I ask.
“Because there’s something I want for you even more than safety,” he says. “I want you to be free. Free from the panic and worry, free from all that terrible self-doubt I see in your eyes and blame myself for. But you have to want it, too, Jessa. You have to decide not to let fear win.”
Tears spring to my eyes. he’s right
i’ve been letting fear win
Not just since the accident. For years, ever since my first panic attack. And I can blame my brain for some of it — generalized anxiety disorder is no small dragon. But I’m the one who gave that dragon the throne. Not because I didn’t know how to fight it, even though that’s what I would’ve said. But because I was afraid of what fighting it would cost me. Of what being honest would do to the image I’d built. All I had was that image, the facade I’d built to keep the dragon in. It felt like a shield. I couldn’t see that it was a cage.
“Okay,” I say finally. Shaky, but strong. “I’ll drive.”
A smile spreads across Dad’s face. “That’s my girl.”
After breakfast we walk out to the Jeep together. In my mind’s eye, horrific scenarios play out, versions of my accident with new images subbed in. Dad’s Jeep instead of Mom’s Lexus, the stoplight at the end of Dad’s street, a school bus plowing into my side. Not the accident I had, those images are gone from my head, but the one I could have, will have, it’s going to happen again. My breath gets shallow. My skin starts to crawl.
“We’ll take it slow,” I hear Dad say. “You’ve got this.”
unlock the door
climb inside
turn the key
I tell myself that I don’t really have to do this now. That maybe Dad was wrong, that maybe I should wait longer before driving again, that maybe I shouldn’t ever drive again. But that voice in my head isn’t looking out for me, not really. Fear isn’t a kind ruler. Avoidance doesn’t keep me safe.
The engine rumbles to life, and immediately it’s a different experience, because my mom’s hybrid barely made a sound when I started it, and the doors didn’t creak when they shut.
I shift into reverse and slowly back out of the driveway, heart drumming in my chest, Shel Silverstein on a loop in my brain.
here i go down circle road strong and hopeful hearted through the dust and wind up just exactly where i started here i go down circle road strong and hopeful hearted through the dust and wind up just exactly where i started
Except I don’t want to end up where I started, I want to end up somewhere else. The words in my head abruptly stop.
I drive at the speed limit, gripping the wheel so hard my hands cramp. The intersection at the end of the street is up ahead.
red light stop
Somewhere inside a soundtrack is playing on a loop. Screech of brakes, crunch of metal, thud of impact, again and again. My lungs feel like they’re about to explode.
“Bear?” Dad says, as the car behind me lays on his horn. The light is green.
“I can’t,” I whisper.
“Yes, you can,” Dad says calmly. “You’re already doing it. Press the gas. Go through the intersection. You can pull over up ahead.”
The car behind me honks again. Rattled, I punch the gas pedal and the Jeep jerks forward. My heart is ping ponging in my chest.
“But your blinker on,” Dad says. “You can pull off into the shoulder here.”
don’t let fear win
White knuckles on the steering wheel, I shake my head. “No,” I say. “I’ll keep going. It was the intersection. I’m better now.” This is a lie. I’m not better. But somewhere inside I believe that I could be, I will be, if I just finish this drive.
I exhale slowly, try to force the fear out. Foot on the gas pedal, speed back up. i can do this. Through the intersection, second right, i can do this i can do this.
“You’re doing great, Bear,” I hear Dad say. I want to burst into tears. I’m not doing great. Every second of this is agony, my hands are sweating, my shoulders are so tight they’re starting to cramp.
“Thanks,” I murmur, not taking my eyes of the road. An eternity later, the rec center comes into view. Seeing it, my muscles let go just a little. I can almost breathe like a normal person as I come through the last intersection and make the turn into the parking lot.
“You did it!” Dad says brightly, as I pull up in front of the building. “See? That wasn’t so bad.”
I wish I felt his enthusiasm. All I feel is relief that it’s over and dread that I will at some point have to do it again.
“I don’t want to drive home,” I say quietly. Then I grab my bag from the backseat and get out of the car before Dad can turn this into a whole thing. “I’ll see you after school,” I call just before the door shuts.
I walk to the front door without looking back. Behind me, I hear a door open, and I expect Dad to call out to me but he doesn’t. Just the sound of his shoes on the pavement as he walks around to the driver’s side, the rev of the engine as he leaves. I try to imagine the disappointed look on his face, but my mind’s eye still isn’t taking orders yet. It works when it wants to. So far, only when it feels like freaking me out.
There’s a paperback on the bench in front of the building. It’s lying face down but right away I know it’s Dr. I’s Descartes book. I look around for its owner but he’s nowhere in sight. I’m oddly touched that it’s here, that he’s here, somewhere. The he came early to check up on me. Then again, I didn’t tell him I was coming today. He must’ve just assumed after our conversation yesterday that I would. Or maybe he’s here for someone else, another bruised soul, another kid with a dragon. Either way, I’m glad he came.
Inside the lobby it’s quiet, which means that everyone is in the room already. I slip in the room just before the girl in the green jacket pulls it closed.
“I’m glad you came back,” she says.
I smile, and it doesn’t take the effort it usually does. “So am I.”
As I sit, I catch Ayo’s eye across the circle. The gash is still on his forehead, but it’s not any worse than it was, and he’s here. That feels like something. It feels like enough. And maybe if it’s true for him then it’s true for me, too. I can’t drive without panicking yet, and I’m in this awkward place with Hannah, and my brain may or may not be completely effed up, but despite all of that, and maybe actually because of it, I’m better than I’ve ever been.
Dr. I’s book is still lying on the bench when the meeting is over. I grab it to return it to him before the bell.
“Dr. I isn’t seeing students today,” his secretary says when I come through his office door. She doesn’t look up from her screen. “He’s on vacation until Monday.”
“Oh.” I look down at the book in my hands. “I have his book.”
“You can leave it with me if you want. Or keep it ’til he’s back.”
“Um. Okay. I’ll keep it I guess.”
“Great,” his secretary says. She couldn’t possibly care less.
“Where did he go?” I ask, when what I really want to ask is why didn’t he tell me he was leaving town?
“Wyoming,” she says, just as the phone on her desk rings. I duck out of the office as she picks it up.
I feel oddly thrown by Dr. I’s absence. Not that I needed him for anything particular today, but it’s weird to me that he didn’t mention that he’d be out. And weirder still that his book would still be on that bench if he left it there last week. It dawns on me that he probably loaned to another student to read, the way he tried to pawn it off on me. Now I feel bad for taking it; whoever he gave it to is probably freaking out that they lost it.
There are still a couple minutes before the bell, so I head downstairs to find Hannah. She’s hunched over her calculus textbook and doesn’t hear me come down.
“Hey,” I say.
She doesn’t look up. “I can’t talk right now,” she says.
“I just wanted to apologize for yesterday,” I say awkwardly.
She doesn’t respond.
“Hannah.”
“I accept your apology. Now can you go? I need to concentrate.” She still hasn’t looked at me.
“Do you still want me to come over on Saturday morning and do your makeup?” I ask.
“If you want,” she says flatly.
I make my way back up the stairs, tears stinging my eyes, wishing I could press rewind and take back everything I said to her yesterday. Wishing I could go back to the moment before everything went to crap.
i miss my friend
I try to tell myself that I have Marshall, that he’s my friend, that he’s enough. But this doesn’t ease the aching in my chest. Because he isn’t and he shouldn’t be. If dating Wren taught me anything, it was that.
At lunch I skip the cafeteria and head out to the bleachers, top row, our spot, Marshall’s and mine, and pull out Dr. I’s book. Principles of Philosophy by Rene Descartes. It even sounds boring. I open to the beginning of Part One, “The Principles of Human Knowledge.”
1. That whoever is searching after truth must, once in his life, doubt all things, insofar as this is possible.
I’ve never really sought after anything. Except maybe quiet in my head. The doubt part I’ve got covered. Particularly when it comes to myself.
I shut the book and stare out at the practice field.
Truth. I’ve never thought that much about it, really. Not until Dr. I started bringing it up. But the last couple days I keep going back to it, brain buzzing with half-formed thoughts. Wondering if maybe I’ve been missing the point. If maybe the truth isn’t so much the opposite of a lie, but something different, bigger. Harder to nail down, even harder to see. Maybe truth is whatever’s permanent. Whatever’s left when you take the rest away.
I hear the bell ring from the building. I haven’t even touched my lunch.
In fifth period we’ve moved onto Picasso, but I’m still stuck on Van Gogh, thinking about his very last words before he died. Our teacher wrote them on the board yesterday, and I can still see them there in smeared chalk. “The sadness will last forever.” It makes me think about Truth again. It makes me wonder what is true about the world. If sadness is the truest thing about the world, then, yeah, Van Gogh was right, it won’t ever go away. But if there’s something more true than sadness, there has to be, then darkness isn’t all there is. There is also light.