In his old room there had been a picture of his wife on the wall, which I found to be a bit creepy. It was not so much guilt as the odd feeling of being watched, as if the real version of Amanda would be able to perceive what was happening before the glossy eyes of her ink-and-photo-paper clone. He never seemed to mind, though. He found it amusing at worst and a turn-on at best.

I once asked him (in the course of perfectly normal conversation) what his deepest, darkest sexual fantasy was. He became strangely quiet. He was driving, so I had to lean forward in the passenger’s seat to get a clear read of his face and catch the tell-tale smirk.

“Oh, it’s me, isn’t it?” I asked with complete innocence.

His laughter gave me my answer and crinkled the corners of his eyes with genuine affection and amusement.

I was glad to discover that the photo was absent in their new room.

“It’s nice,” I intoned politely as he led me in. Positioned at the front of the house, two large sliding-sash windows faced the street and allowed sunlight to fill the tired old space and warm the dingy hardwood floors. The room was mostly empty, in the way new houses lack the accumulated furniture and clutter to make them feel like home. Along the walls were a computer desk and chair, a dresser, and against the left wall, the sprawling king-size bed topped with a wrinkled white down duvet .

“I’m impressed, there’s room for something more than just the bed – unlike your old room,” I remarked. There had been about a foot of space from the foot of the bed to the wall, and this was strewn with a carpet of dirty, discarded clothes. They had switched places, and that room was now inhabited by John’s younger brother.

John smiled. “I like it because if someone comes home, I can put you out on the roof.” He gestured at the windows, which looked out over the roof of the front covered porch.

“You’d put me on the roof?!” I threw my head back and laughed.

“If I had to!” His eyes glinted playfully.

“What would the neighbors think? Me, naked on your roof—“

“Well, Laura, I’d give you your clothes!”

I gave him a look, and he drew me close. “That would never happen, anyway…”

 
I lie face-up on the bed now, basking in the afterglow of what followed, contentedly quiet while the man of the house lies sleeping on my chest. I can see each individual hair on John’s head: tiny little sideburns begin just before his ears, creeping up to meet the rest of his dark brown hair, cropped short, maybe just an inch or so long. He is clean-shaven, for which I’m thankful, or else his stubble would be scratching me. He sleeps, comfortable and oblivious, my left breast acting as a pillow, arms wrapped around my waist. His eyelashes are half-moon shadows; a patch of his left lower lashes lack pigment, an endearing feature that made me feel that much closer to him when I first noticed it. His face is handsome; thin, angular, pointed, but only ever so slightly, so as to ensure a clean, crisp jawline, high cheeks, a straight nose.

How long has he been asleep now? I shift my weight, and he stirs and pulls me closer. My heart leaps in my chest and I couldn’t possibly wake him. His breath deepens again. I watch the fan spin on the ceiling, his inhalations in rhythm with its rotating blades.

In the peaceful silence, I hear a car door close.

I stiffen. Surely I must be mistaken; perhaps it’s just a neighbor. I close my eyes and listen hard.

A door opens inside the house. The sound reverberates upwards and I feel the walls shake, even though we’re on the second floor.

I shake him awake, my voice a choked whisper: “John! John!”

“Mmm?” He is slow to stir.

“Someone’s home!”

His eyes open wide and I watch his pupils dilate before he leaps up. I roll out the other side of the bed, scooping up my clothes as I move – bra, shirt off to the side – jeans and panties crumpled at the foot of the bed – shoes and socks beside the chair draped with my coat. John has pulled on his pants and gone to the door.

“Hey, who’s there?” he calls to the no-longer-empty house.

I don’t hear the reply – my heart is pounding in my ears and I can no longer make out anything over the sound of urgency. I pull on my clothes so quickly I almost wonder if I’m wearing them in the right order.

“I’ll be down in a second!”

John has turned to me, and I know who it is from the look on his face.

“It’s her,” he says anyway. His looks are grim and set. How? I want to ask, but with purposeful strides he’s already at the left window. “I mentioned this.”

S---.

Looking at the small section of roofing over the steep, sheer drop to the ground, I don’t see this ending well. “There’s gotta be a better way…”

The sash sticks at first, but John yanks it up and turns to me. The windowsill hits just below his hip, making it just about waist-high for me.

“John…” I plead.

Footsteps on the stairs. Oh god.

I’m flexible, and though it’s steep, I step my left leg through and onto the roof. John grabs my shoulders and supports me as I limbo out.

“I’ll get you, just wait.” He slams the window shut and I see the bedroom door open just before I duck out of sight.

Once again, I’m in peaceful silence.

My ears are ringing, head pounding. I hold my breath, but I still can’t hear any voices inside the house. I take a moment to survey my surroundings. The covered porch faces the street, and I’m clearly visible to anyone who chances to glance up at the house, though as long as I stay low, I won’t be seen from the bedroom. Thankfully, there isn’t a slant, though the roof is very narrow – perhaps just one other person could sit in front of me. To either side, the roof extends maybe five feet. I’m sitting in the middle.

This is a residential neighborhood, full of old, old houses that have seen our town grow from a quaint rural community to a materialistic suburb. Across the road and two houses down, there is a pizza place on a corner; turn there, and you’ll find the outlet center that our town is known for statewide.

But it is winter now, and no one’s outside. I lean my head back against the siding and try to think. It’s cold outside, and the roofing is poking into my lower back; I shift my weight, but it doesn’t help the situation.

Theoretically, I could climb down from here onto the railing of the front porch. The problem with that is I don’t know if she is home alone, or if John will be sending her back downstairs; if that’s the case, I run the risk of her seeing me, or someone else seeing me, which makes the whole roof thing rather pointless. And now that I’m here, I’d really like it not to be pointless.

Are there any other options?

I look to either side. Nothing but a 10-foot drop to the earth. Above me, the roof proper soars to a point far out of my five-foot-high reach.

I’m stuck.

A gust of wind makes me draw my knees to my chest and shiver.

How the hell did I get here?

Sometimes I feel like the cheese grater of the world. Everything grates on me, leaving little pieces of life behind. I feel rough and agitated. Nothing soothes me except to pop a pill, which rushes over me like cool water, cleaning out all my wounds.

But sometimes not even that is enough. Like today.

As soon as I left work, I felt agitated. I felt torn in a million directions. I got to my car seat, took a deep breath. Normally this would relax me, the weight of eight hours of frustrated customers and annoying managers sliding off my back as I exhaled. Not today. As I pushed down the brake pedal and started the car, I could feel it all flowing back into me.

As I rounded a left turn, I realized that I wanted to crash. It would be very easy. I would just slam down the gas to gain as much speed as I could, yank the wheel, and plow into something – an oncoming car would be the most dangerous thing to hit, I remembered reading; the second-most dangerous would be something solid like a tree, which there were certainly enough of around these parts.

The reality of it gripped me in a vice, and I could see it all too clearly playing out before me: the rush of speed, the crunching metal, the branches flying through my windshield; glass and pine needles flying everywhere, the hiss and burn of my airbag deploying, and then nothing: just a long, long silence.

My driving got my erratic. I hurled down streets and flung myself around corners, going faster and faster, as if I could outrace my own thoughts.
From a distance, I wondered about this disregard for my safety. I didn’t seem to have any fear. The pain of a crash might equal out the heartache in my chest, the ache radiating over my body, the mental anguish. It would be violent and nasty. It would hurt, and that’s what I wanted.

Yet from an even further distance, I knew that this wasn’t what I really wanted. On some basic primordial level I knew that it was “bad,” that I would regret it later, that it wouldn’t bring me the release I wanted.

Acting purely on instinct, I made a turn. I would take a hike instead.
I pulled into the park, still not quite knowing why I was here. I stuffed my cell phone into one pocket, with a half-hearted plan to call someone, maybe; my key ring went in my left pocket. I pulled on my gloves as I exited the car, beeped it shut, and set out quickly and purposefully to the path.
It was beautiful out. The park housed a thick deciduous forest, filled with oaks, maples, sycamores, and beeches; here and there a lump of snow sat nestled around the bushes and leafless trees, painting a stark silhouette against the high grey sky. The path was slushy and muddy with footprints and the snow dotting the landscape created the perfect mixture of color and white.

It was beautiful, but I did not look. It was as if someone had placed a magnet in my heart and its partner was at the top of the tiny mountain. I glanced at the view as I hurried forward. So long as I kept walking, nothing bad would happen. I would walk until the urge to kill myself stopped.

I felt the cold air nip at my ankles and bite through my light Alfani pants. I hoped for a second that I wouldn't have to turn around and go home because it was too cold. I needn't have worried. The fire within me burned so brightly that I ceased to feel it after a few more strides.

I had the layout of the park memorized. Here, a turn, and now the crisp clear clatter of the wintry brook filled the air. Its merry tune danced among the frozen trees. And still I moved onward, eyes focused on picking a way for my feet.

I finally reached the hill. Two paths are here: you could hike up, or walk up a set of stairs. I chose to take the stairs for the sake my pants and shoes.
I now trekked across a small cliff above the brook. There was a drop of about 10 feet down to the water below. Should I throw myself off? I wondered. I could get very hurt in that jump – the brook is barely more than a trickle between massive rocks. I asked the inner magnet, but it didn't respond. Another snow-ridged path led to a clear overlook that promised a dazzling look down to the path and stream below. But no, I felt no tug there. Onward.

I could see small candied houses lining the two-lane road that wound around the park as I rounded the curve of the mountain. A single plank of wood led me across a precarious mud patch. Upward.

It was starting to get difficult for me to pick my way down the path. Thick roots sewed themselves through the mud, lifting up to trip me and diving down into the earth again. The slush had turned into small patches of ice, which my shoes would sometimes crunch through, causing me to quick-step before they were soaked with icy water.

I finally rounded the trail to a fairly clear path I was more familiar with. Parallel to the two-lane road on the left, it crossed the west side of the mountain. I hurried forward, but then, to my dismay, I saw the back of a woman walking a dog ahead of me. As her silhouette rounded a corner, I stopped.

I did not want someone else to see me in my bout of insanity, hiking up a hill in the freezing cold wearing business casual. At my pace I was sure to pass her soon.

There was another option, right beside me. The Eagle Trail, barely more than a narrow line in the underbrush, connected at a right angle with the Main Trail I hiked now. It went straight up and its steep climb was the most difficult.

It wasn't a question. Up![i] called the urge. I obliged, immediately grasping a thin dogwood trunk and digging my heels into the roots that began the Eagle Trail’s upward climb. I picked my way from exposed rocks to roots, as if they were a set of steep, uneven stairs.

I clambered over two fallen logs before coming upon a clearing with a bench. I paused there and looked behind me. The slope was steeper and the trail climbed higher than I remembered.

Far below, police sirens screamed. Several of them. The fire alarm, the call to battle for my small town's volunteer fire department, joined in with its piercing howl. From low to high and down again, it blared.

I sat down to catch my breath, staring down the trail. Now what? I reached inside, but I had no answer.

Should I call someone? 911, perhaps?

[i]And then what? Send an ambulance crew trekking up the mountain to talk me down?

No, I couldn't do that. I couldn't put that kind of responsibility on a friend, either.

But what else was there? I had come all this way, and for what? Was anything solved? Either I did something now, or –

Maybe I won't have to, I thought. Perhaps the mere act of hiking down the mountain would pile slush and snow on the fire in my chest and put it out, hissing and sizzling until it was just smoke and ash.
 

It didn't work. I wrote this in an inpatient psychiatric ward.

At first glance, the room seems to be empty. It has the look and feel of a college dorm room before anyone has moved in. The furniture is particleboard covered with an unconvincing blond wood stain, and the industrial carpeting is a short, tight weave: a grey containing all sorts of colors, speckles of yellow and red and green and brown to hide the dirt. There are two beds (on cheap wooden frames with drawers underneath for additional storage), two desks, two chairs, and two wardrobes. The walls are a faint yellowish-white, and on the far wall there is a tall window hung with tacky curtains, a design of pale maroon and green squares on a beige background that, upon closer examination, contains a Southwest-styled pattern of – bizarrely – fish. The curtains are drawn open to reveal a scenic view of a loading dock and a vast parking lot.

At this point, you would probably notice that on the right side, the curtains are pulled a little farther in and puff outward a bit more, and as you walked closer you would see, seated Indian-style on the cold dark concrete windowsill, Laura. She has a notebook balanced on her lap, a cheap Bic pen to her lips, gazing thoughtfully out at the distant power lines.

Laura is every inch a young twenty-something. She has light blonde hair – natural, not helped by dye – shiny and straight, currently pulled back in a low messy bunny that is falling out into a ponytail, with a few tantalizing wisps of bangs curling at the sides of her forehead.

She is pale with clear skin, high cheekbones and a pointed chin, giving her face a heart-like shape. Her nose is straight with a hint of a ski-jump at its tip. Her eyes are a bright aquamarine, almost teal, a million mysterious watery shades rolled into one. She might be pretty, but not obviously so; Laura will never stop traffic, but she is the sort of girl you would see in the corner of a bar and realize, on second glance, that she is neither ugly nor hot, but beautiful.

She sighs longingly, and we are brought back to regarding her now, folded into the curtains and staring outside.

The heavy particleboard/blond wood door to the room is left wide open, and a woman walks in. She is wearing yoga pants and a baggy long-sleeve knit shirt with a Nike swoosh over the left breast.

“Laura?” She asks hesitantly. “It's time for lunch. Bob wants to know if you're coming?”

Laura shifts from her meditative mood without so much as a pause. “Of course!” she replies cheerfully, pulling back the curtain and lightly unfolding herself from her perch on the sill. “Thanks for letting me know, Jeanie.”

Jeanie nods and retreats, her short-cropped light brown hair brushing the edges of her smile.

Laura pulls on a pale blue hoodie that had been draped over her desk chair. She leans over and tugs open one of the drawers underneath her bed and retrieves a hairbrush from under a pile of shirts. She shakes out her ponytail and roughly tugs the brush through her mane, the tiny mirror on its handle catching the light. After typing back her hair again, she carefully tucks the hairbrush back under the stack of clothes and shuts the drawer, giving it a shove when it gets stuck on its tracks. When she turns, Jeanie is not waiting for her.

The room opens not into a hallway, but an open common room that appears to have a color scheme of varying shades of beige and green. The room has a large-screen TV surrounded by a couch, a loveseat, and various mismatched chairs. To the right, past the doors to other rooms, there is a Christmas tree with its lights shining bright, though the holiday passed two weeks ago.

Laura makes her way through the room, past a long desk on the far wall, nodding to the bored-looking lady who is typing at a computer there; past a pay phone; and through another hallway to the kitchen.
Jeanie, Robert, Vivian, and Lindsay are already seated at two tables that have been pushed together in the center of the kitchen. Laura selects a tray from the metal cart near the door and sits down across from Jeanie, who is picking at a salad, and beside Vivian.

“Hey,” Vivan greets her. No one else does; Robert is telling a story.

“So we're kicked out of the bar, right, and I go out onto the street, and there's Billy! On his hands and knees, puking into the gutter...”

Laura's eyebrows arch disapprovingly before she can catch herself. She trains her gaze back down at her meal, tuning out Robert. Rainbow tortellini in red sauce, delicious. She digs in, gazing around the room as she chews.

Dorm-style as well, this is more of a combination kitchen, dining room, and general socializing area. A refrigerator, stove, and sink are tucked away along the right wall, generally unused. The room is filled with small Formica tables and plastic chairs shoved together and apart in various patterns. Against the far wall there are bookshelves filled with a conglomeration of current novels, bad fiction, and dusty medical tomes, as well as board games and a surprisingly large collection of puzzles. On the left wall, above the heater, there are windows opening to the sad scene of a courtyard: a plain cement patio and a tall red brick wall.

One of the nurses told Laura that a few people have tried to escape by climbing over the wall. They were always caught, of course. Laura imagines this. The wall was not impossibly high, maybe five or six feet. Someone sad and desperate, their hands on the rough red brick, scraping a knee as they pulled themselves up, dropped down and then just running, running...

That's why they weren't allowed outside anymore, the nurse said. Though of course, the official reason is that it's too cold outside. Who would even want to go out now?

Beneath the window, a table is spread with one of the thousand-piece puzzles, the edges pieced together like an empty picture frame.

“And – hey girl, are you all right?”

Robert addresses this to Lindsay, who is shivering violently though she is wearing a thick sweatshirt and is wrapped in a blanket. There are bags beneath her eyes and she seems pale beneath her olive complexion.

“I'm f---ing sick,” she replies through chattering teeth. “It's never been this bad before. I'm freezing, I've got the cold sweats, and I keep f---ing shaking. I've got no appetite at all, I can't eat this s---.” She gestures to her tray, which is barren save for a bowl of oatmeal and yogurt with the handle of a plastic spoon sticking out the top like a forlorn flagpole. “Did I wake you last night?” she asks Vivian.

“Nah, don't worry about it.”

“I kept waking up every few hours, going to puke.”

“I heard someone yakking last night,” Robert says. “So that was you!”

“Yeah. I hardly got any sleep.” Lindsay rubs her eyes. She has on acrylic nails with
French tips. “And when I did, oh my god, the dreams!”

“Did you leave the patch on?” Robert asks.

Lindsay frowns at him. “You're supposed to take it off?”

“Oh yeah!” Vivan adds. “You left it on? No wonder you feel so bad.”

“That'll give you awful dreams,” Robert agrees. “I left it on by accident one night, it was something crazy.”

Jeanie has been silent, but is following the conversation, her face a mask of sympathy. Laura does not disguise her disinterest, gazing instead at the far wall. This is her third time in the hospital, and it’s getting repetitive.

“What did you take?” Jeanie asks.

Robert and Vivian laugh. Lindsay sighs and rubs her eyes again.

“It was a three-day binge. I was drunk the entire time, and on coke; I did a little E the second day.”

“That doesn't seem so bad.”

Lindsay groans.

“What is a binge like?” Laura asks, finally tuning in to the conversation.

“You just drink,” Robert replies. “You drink and drink for days.”

“Don't you eat?”

The three alcoholics shake their heads. “Nope.”

Laura is shocked. “Not at all?”

“That's why withdrawal is so bad,” Robert adds. “I had a five-day binge one time.”

“My god, how aren't you dead?”

“I did die.” Robert seems pleased at Laura's skeptical look. “They took me to the hospital – the ER – alcohol poisoning.”

“Did they pump your stomach?” Jeanie asks.

“Nope, they made me drink that black stuff - “

“Activated charcoal,” Lindsay contributes.

“That's right, yeah. But then I had a heart attack, my heart stopped, like, and they had to get the paddles out and shock me. Then they moved me to the ICU. I was in one of those double rooms, and the girl next to me, she had overdosed on Tylenol. You know what happens when you overdose on Tylenol?” He addresses this to Laura.

She meets his eyes like she's accepting a challenge. “Yeah,” she says softly, and returns her attention to her pasta.

Robert, though he has a rough demeanor, respects pain; he sees Laura’s withdrawal and is content to let her be. Vivian, though, has no such sense for subtleties. “Is that what you’re in for?” she asks Laura.

Laura glances over at her, face carefully blank. “Excuse me?”

“Is that why you’re here? Did you try to kill yourself?”

Laura seems nearly frozen in place, a tortellini dangling on her fork in midair, as she eyes the edge of her tray, thinking. The pause goes on for so long that even Vivian sees that she’s made a mistake.

“I’m sorry, if you don’t –“

“It’s all right,” Laura says suddenly, setting down her fork and brushing a stray hair
behind her ear. “Yeah, it is. That’s why I’m here.”

“What was it?” asks Lindsay.

Laura looks down at the table, avoiding everyone’s eyes. “Tylenol,” she admits.

“No way!” Robert booms. Laura winces and shrinks down into her hoodie. “You seem so smart. No way you would do that, if you know what it does.”

“What does it do?” ventures Jeanie, but she says it too softly; Lindsay is louder: “How did you get here, then; did someone f-f-find you?”

“No,” answers Laura demurely. “My parents found the empty bottles. I was still conscious when they took me to the ER. I didn’t mean to,” she says, quickly glancing up at Robert. “I lost control. I just, I just –“

Robert shakes his head. “So stupid. So final.”

“W-we aren’t really ones to talk about losing control,” chides Lindsay. Vivian nods in agreement. Robert’s eyes flash, but he bites his tongue.

“Is this your first time in the hospital?” Jeanie asks Laura.

“No,” she replies. “My third. But I never tried to kill myself before.”

“Has this been going on a while, then?”

“I was diagnosed with depression when I was 13, but my first time inpatient was
just four months ago. I’m 21,” Laura adds, anticipating the question.

“It’s gotten worse, then,” notes Vivian. “Do you know why?”

Laura looks miserable and bewildered as she answers: “College?”

Jeanie nods knowingly. “I’m here because I was suicidal, too,” she explains. “It’s more bipolar for me, but it started in college as well, as anxiety. All the changes, being on your own for the first time, the stress of class and working – it’s just a lot,” she says with a kind, understanding smile.

Laura tries to smile back, but it looks like a weak grimace. “After the first time –“ she looks down at her hands, then reaches up and pulls out her hair tie and sets to twisting it between her fingers. “—I was at school, in Maryland. I had to drop out, and I came back home, to take the semester off and relax and rejuvenate and get better, and whatever. And it did work, for a little bit. I went to the day hospital for a month, downstairs --” she jerks her head in the direction of that wing – “and then up ‘till now, I’d been working. But – it happened again. I went back inpatient a week ago, and then again now.” She takes her eyes off the twisting hair tie and looks up at Jeanie. “But you explained it well. It’s just all the stress, of everything, it’s so overwhelming. It’s too much! I don’t get how normal people do it.”

“Exactly!”

“Laura?”

She turns. A nurse in the doorway is calling her. “Dr. Brendan is ready to see you.”

Laura carries her tray to the countertop for safekeeping before heading towards the door. Though her back is turned, she hears Robert’s hushed answer to Jeanie behind her: “…it ruins your liver, and it's a slow death, it's long and slow and painful. And even if they save you and you come back, your liver's already gone. You're going to die anyway, no matter what. And you know what they say, suicide survivors always say they're glad they didn't die. They would have changed their minds...”

As she leaves, Laura passes underneath the sign hanging over the door to the kitchen:

“It is important not to have the unrealistic expectation that we will find a magic key to help get rid of all suffering. It takes determination, patience, and more than one week."

Chapter 1
     Laura with John

Chapter 2
      Laura, journal entry

Chapter 3
     Laura

Chapter 4
     Laura

Chapter 5
     A Ship in A Storm, poem

Chapter 6
     Matt

Chapter 7
     Laura with John

Chapter 8
     Friday, poem

Chapter 9
     Laura, journal entry

Chapter 10
     Matt

Chapter 11
     Laura with John

Chapter 12
     John

Dr Brendan is a motherly 40-something, maybe even 50. She is plump, with extra padding, and Laura could easily picture her hugging her kids, fixing dinner, helping them with their homework. Of course, in reality, any kids she had would be Laura's age now, and in this setting, Dr. Brendan's face is not kind and comforting. She has wavy brown hair pulled back in a French twist, and wears rectangular reading glasses. She looks tired and overworked. Still, she enjoys Laura both as a person and as a patient, and despite her exhaustion, visibly brightens when the young girl enters the room.

“Laura,” she says, folding a stack of papers into one manila folder and opening another. “How are you feeling today?”

Laura has carried her Moleskin notebook with her into the room. She sits comfortably in the chair before Dr. Brendan's crowded desk, crossing one leg over the other, her sock-clad foot dangling.

“I'm all right,” she replies pleasantly enough, though her tone is tinged with irritation.

Dr. Brendan is always struck by Laura's intense energy. Most of the other patients who enter this room wear their depression like blinders, caught in a cave without perspective. Some are unable even to grasp that they have a disease; to them, perception is reality. Their pessimistic universe is all they have ever known and they refuse to believe that there is another life, a possibility of getting better; they are unable to hear the plain untruth of their own words, the ridiculous sound of their curses at the universe. Some will sit before her like zombies, expressionless porcelain dolls, voices frozen in monotone. She hurts for these, knowing that beneath this there is a person, a personality.

Laura is not like that. Her body is limber and her eyes flick around, lit from the inside with curiosity. The girl looks like she is always thinking, and she is. Laura speaks the language of psychiatry and is graced with the ability to articulately describe how she is feeling. Dr. Brendan never has to pry for descriptors or guess at emotional states. Laura paints her life in with the same negative brush Dr Brendan's other patients do, but in her the hypocrisy is more markedly apparent: she is a performer standing alone on a stage, the grey monotone world of depression a paper mask she holds before her face, behind which you can clearly see the glowing youth within.

Laura continues. “I'm pretty bored.”

Dr. Brendan is unsympathetic. “Well, the hospital is a pretty boring place,” she replies evenly.

“I don't feel like I'm getting anything out of being here. The groups are so unhelpful. The therapists keep trying to insist that there's some reason for my depression, some triggering childhood event, that I must have been abused by someone, beaten or molested or raped or something.” Laura picks up steam. “Like group with that Asian woman today that everyone was in love with -”

“Ming Lin.”

“Whatever. She kept pushing at me, insisting that all of us must have had something that happened when we were kids. She even insinuated that I might have repressed memories or something! Like there's no other possible explanation for mental illness.” Laura stares at Dr. Brendan incredulously. “Are you f---ing kidding me? Why the hell is that lady here? Has she never heard of hereditary depression?”

“Well, Laura, a lot of the other patients here have been abused.”

“No, like, I know, I'm not begrudging them that at all or anything. Just – why do I have to go to group if that isn't going to help me?”

The question is rhetorical. Dr. Brendan waits patiently.

“My illness is hereditary. Clearly hereditary,” Laura continues. “You've said so yourself!”

Dr. Brendan nods her assent.

“My grandpa had it, my mom had it, and now I have it. It's not – f---ing – it's -” The adrenaline pulsing through Laura makes her trip over her words, but only for a moment. “It's in my genes, it's physical, it's chemical, it's not something that happened or that I have any control over.

“And that's what makes it all the worse, you know? There's no reason for me to be feeling the way I do. I just feel crappy for no reason. Which makes me feel all the more crappy, because here I am, this whiny f---ing bitch, you know, my life is fine, so why the hell am I complaining like a worthless sack of s---?”

Dr. Brendan nods empathetically. “I'm not thrilled with the way they do groups here,” she admits. “They just lump everyone together and they really shouldn't. It's not helpful to you or anyone else.”

Laura sighs. The validation lifts the rest of her intended rant off her shoulders and she momentarily feels the peace of relief. But not for long; she only sees a doctor once a day for a “med check,” and it's impossible to get a hold of them at any other time. She likes Dr. Brendan, as well; the doctor understands Laura and likes Laura, and no one else in the psych ward is willing to hear what Laura has to say, let alone understand and agree with her. Laura fully intends to make the most of her time here today. She thinks back to what she's written in her little black notebook and continues on to her next point.

“I feel like – I have so many questions, but no one has the answers.”

Dr. Brendan looks like she's about to say something, and Laura cuts her off, knowing what she's going to say before she even begins: “No one has all the answers...” Laura has heard it all a million times, and anyway, that's not what she means.

“All these groups, all these therapists – they aren't telling me what I need to know. I mean, I'm not stupid. I know what I want, what I should be aiming for. I just don't get how to get there.” She pauses momentarily to search for an analogy.

“These groups seem to be focused more on – on feelings. On understanding those feelings. And I'm an introvert, all I do all day long is think about my feelings. I thoroughly understand all that. They're not telling me anything I don't already know.

“Like – for example – Bob's group yesterday.” Bob is one of the nurses who runs some of the daily group therapy sections. “He was going over this sort of thing – “ Here Laura takes the instructional tone of a teacher. “- instead of just feeling bad all the time, we should identify our emotions, and then develop healthy habits and a support system (which is hard enough, anyway), and then identify the 'root causes' of the problem, the 'core beliefs' that cause you to keep repeating these bad actions over and over again.” Laura makes a face at the mention of her problems as mere “habits.”

Dr. Brendan wonders again why Laura was sitting here in front of her. A patient who has so thoroughly grasped the structure and theory of the goals of therapy has no business sitting in a psych ward. Why does Laura keep coming back? How can someone so smart still take an overdose of pills? She chides herself for this last thought; she knows better. The intense turmoil and pain of depression has nothing to do with intelligence. Indeed, she has heard it argued by patients many a time that wanting to escape the pain by any means necessary is a perfectly logical response.

Laura leans forward, eyes piercing with intensity. “But what they never mention is how. How do you change a core belief?”

In the mental health world, a “core belief” is a long-standing, firmly rooted, rock-solid belief about yourself, other people, or the world around you. It's something you regard as essentially true, so much so that you wouldn’t even consider it a “belief.” These are the blocks on which you build your perception of life. For example, a healthy core belief might be something like I am an inherently good person or I have worth to the world[i]. For a depressed individual, these beliefs are more likely to take the form of [i]I am a bad person and I am worth nothing. You can see how a life and personality based on those assumptions would be drastically different.

Dr. Brendan senses that Laura isn't done, and waits yet again before responding. Laura sits back slowly; her expression is thoughtful, intense.

“I want to change those core beliefs. I do. But I don't appreciate this – this – like, blaming me for them.”

Dr. Brendan draws her eyebrows together at that, tilting her head.

“I did not cause my core beliefs,” Laura explains. “I can't control my thoughts or my feelings or even sometimes my actions. I have poor self-esteem and core beliefs because there is a horrible nasty voice chattering away in my head all the time! And I'm powerless to stop it!

“I don't mean, like, an actual voice,” she clarifies conversationally. “I just meant as a metaphor; the thoughts of the depression.”

Dr. Brendan nods again. Something else is on her mind now. What Laura has just said has given her an entirely new idea. She does not mention this to her patient, keeping it to herself for the time being. She looks down at the notes in the folder in front of her. “Laura,” the doctor begins, “tell me about what happened right before you came here. What made you want to come to the hospital?”

Laura glances down at her notebook. She wishes she could read the section aloud to Dr. Brendan. But it would probably take up too much time. Instead, she summarizes: the overwhelming feelings, wanting to hurt herself, the magnet that drew her up the mountain and how that venture failed. Returning home and screaming at her parents, angry for some invisible cause. Retreating to her room and taking the pills, being taken to the hospital.

Dr. Brendan shifts in her swivel chair, then leans forward, resting her elbows on the desk, hands clasped in front of her. “Laura, suicidal feelings don't come out of nothing.”

Laura bristles; the hair on her arms stands up like hackles rising, but Dr. Brendan gives her a look that makes the girl hold her tongue.

“Many emotions of depression do. But -” she adds, predicting the inquisitive Laura's demands for proof, “-and studies have shown this – suicidal feelings are not one of them. People don't commit suicide for no reason. And people don't feel suicidal for no reason.”

Laura can barely contain the seething frustration that boils like magma beneath her skin. She knows Dr Brendan is sitting there judging her, thinking she is making excuses, denying responsibility. “But I have no idea why -”

“Then you need to ask yourself why,” Dr. Brendan says firmly. “You need to find out.” Seeing the incredulous look on her patient's face, she adds, “That's your only way out of this. You can't just keep attacking the emotion, the bad feeling, itself – you are correct in that. When people do that, it's like gardening – they're just cutting off the top of the dandelion, instead of digging up the root. When you do that, the weed is just going to keep growing back. You need to address the reasons why you feel the way you do. When you feel mad, or frustrated, or sad, you need to acknowledge that and accept it, and then ask yourself, 'Why do I feel this way?'”

Laura is leaning back in her chair, but the room practically hums with the electricity of her tension. These last words made her picture, ridiculously, going through the process now:

How do you feel?

-Well, I feel pretty damn pissed off.

Why do you feel this way?

-I'm fed up with all this bulls---.

“So assuming I do all that,” Laura concedes, after a substantial pause. “Then what? How do I fix those things?”

Dr. Brendan shrugs. It's outside her expertise. “It depends on what they are.”

Laura puts a hand to her forehead. These people were forever underestimating her. Eyes closed, she recites what she had covered with her therapist back at school. “I feel unheard and invalidated. I feel lonely and I don't know how to make friends I feel trapped in a bad situation and I don't know how to get out.” She lifts up her head and meets Dr. Brendan's eyes. “I'm bored with my life and I don't know what to do.” Each syllable is marinated in heat.

Dr. Brendan frowns. “Have you tried joining a club? Starting a new hobby?”

Laura could swear her eyes bulge out of her head at that. “Do you think I'm f---ing stupid?” she snaps. “Come on now. Of course I've tried all that.”

Any other patient and Dr. Brendan would not tolerate this outburst; but she is aware that Laura won't become violent and understands the girl's frustration.

“Laura,” she begins. “I am, as always, struck by your intelligence, your intuition, and your powers of perception. I know it is frustrating for you -” sympathetic smile - “but we don't have all the answers. Some things you are just going to have to figure out for yourself.”

Laura is rendered speechless and immobile by the combination compliment and irritating denial of help. What use is mental health care, she thinks, if it only helps me to figure out what my problems are and not how to solve them?

Dr. Brendan has dropped the subject and moved on. “There is one other thing,” she mentions casually.

Laura draws one knee up to her chest, slouching in the chair. “Go ahead, shoot.”

“I don't think you have depression,” Dr. Brendan says frankly.

Laura's face asked the question for her. Her brain caught up several seconds later. “What?”

“Or rather, not just depression.”

Laura is shocked. She feels like she's in an alternate reality. If there were a reality-show camera videotaping her, it would do a dramatic zoom backwards of the office, and then a cutaway to her stunned face. Laura has been told she has depression for eight years now. She's used to it; though she wouldn't admit it to anyone, it’s comfortable. She wears the diagnosis like a worn-in leather glove; she knows its creases inside and out.

“Depressives have one mood,” the psychiatrist continues: “Depressed. They’re down, and only down, for weeks at a time. They don’t have this anxious state. They aren’t motivated to do things like hike up a mountain or have angry states where they explode at people. You’ve described this feeling before, like you want to climb out of your skin, you said – and that is what makes you want to hurt yourself. That’s why you keep coming back here. Correct?”

Cautiously, Laura nods. “I just want it to stop. It’s overwhelming. I don’t know what to do with it.”

“Right. And that’s not depression.”

Okay then, Laura thinks. “What is it?”

“I think that you have bipolar disorder. Bipolar II.”

Laura immediately shakes her head. “I don’t have manias.”

“Bipolar II means you have something called hypomania. It’s not exactly ‘up,’ like a mania is. You get anxious, angry, irritable. But you might still have a lot of energy that you don’t know what to do with.”

Laura forces herself to consider this. “Okay, so what kind of a difference does that make? How would you treat it?”

After more back-and-forth about medications, Dr. Brendan concludes with an admonishment: “If the regular treatment isn’t working, Laura, it’s time to try something new,” she intones, looking over the rims of her reading glasses. “I can’t have you coming in here every other week – nor can you. You need to go back to work, and how will you deal with school? If it doesn’t work, we can always go back to the drawing board and come up with something else.”

Fine. Maybe she's right, Laura thinks. I do need to have an open mind about this. But, as she leaves the office and shuts the door with a little more force than is necessary, I am going to do it on my own terms.

A Ship in a Storm

I am a ship in a storm,
monstrous waves crashing over me,
their tips and troughs I travel down,
spinning, winding, a tiny top,
a toy in the hands of the gods.
Clutching my rudder, what can I do?
My heart says, “This storm is too big for you
to handle.” Do I kneel and pray?
To who, why would they listen to me?
Do I meditate? Do I stand and fight?
Do I meekly accept my right
as a human, born free, to choose my fate,
to die, buried at sea?
Flinging, spinning, round and round,
my heart beating as fast as the sound
of the waves. I am tiny and lost,
in space, in mind, in what to decide.

Matt is at work when he gets the call. He sends it to voicemail, but a minute later his pocket vibrates with a text: “Call now. Urgent.”

He pauses the customer inquiry program, leaves his desk, and excuses himself to the bathroom, where he returns the call.

“What’s up?”

“It’s Daphne.”

Matt’s stomach falls. “What about her?”

“She’s gone missing.”

“What?”

“She’s disappeared!”

Matt can’t believe he’s being bothered with this crap. “What do you mean, Mom?” And adds, because she’s a hopeless gossip, “Who told you this?”

His mother’s twanging voice is tinny in his ear. “The police stopped by here just about a half hour ago. Your dad was having a freak-out, I swear. They said nobody’s seen Daphne since she left her house Wednesday morning two weeks ago.”

Matt pauses at that.

“The detectives were wondering if you’d heard from her or seen her.”

“And you told them?” Matt prompts archly.

“I said I sure as hell didn’t think so. Y’all didn’t seem like you ended it on good terms, but I guess I don’t’ know anything about it. You should thank me, they were about to head over to your work-“ Just the thought makes Matt’s stomach jump. “-but I convinced them not to. You’ve gotta call ‘em when you come home, though, and it sounded like they wanted to meet with you tonight.”

“You told them I would call them? Why the hell did you say that?” Matt snaps. He’s mindlessly been studying the paper towel dispenser. A sticker on it announces, “These come from trees!” Someone had added in Sharpie: “So do these stickers.”

“Uhhhh… to save your ass from having cops show up at your work? Where is the gratitude?”

Matt ignores her, even though she’s right. “I don’t want to go to the station after work. I don’t have anything to say to them. I haven’t seen or heard from Daphne since we broke up.”

“So go there and tell them that. It’ll take you, what, twenty minutes?”

Matt leans his head on the mirror over the sink. “I’m sick of inconveniencing myself for this chick. When is she going to be out of my life?”

His mom doesn’t buy the act. “No one’s heard from her for nearly three f---ing weeks.”

“She’s probably off f----ing some random guy. She’s probably out prostituting herself.” Matt pictures her hitchhiking beside the highway at night -- shimmying out of a skintight dress – lying down on a hotel bed…

“Oh shut the hell up.” His mom’s voice surprises him and Matt jumps, banging his head on the mirror. He straightens up, rubbing his forehead. “Daphne would never, and you know that. She’s a good kid and I told the cops so. You’re gonna go down to the station and talk to the detectives after work, or else your father will be hounding your ass.”

There went his evening. Matt knew a lost argument when he saw one. “Whatever. I have to get back to work.”

“See ya!”

Matt hangs up and stares at his phone. He enters his text message mailbox and scrolls down, finding her name halfway down the page. He presses a key.

“Delete all messages?”

The cursor hovers on “yes.”

He thinks of Daphne in the hotel room. Of driving an hour to visit her, only to be told to leave as soon as he pulled on her street. Of the last time he spoke to her.

Of her beautiful eyes and the sound of her laugh. The way her smile lit up a room.

He moves the cursor to “cancel,” and returns to his desk.

After “affection and amusement” insert something to indicate a time break. I usually insert a separate line with about nine hyphens in the center.

“The room was mostly empty...duvet.”
This needs rewording: 1)It is clumsy to allude to a new house when describing an old one. 2)”Empty” is not the right word for a room containing that huge bed et al. – even though the room might not be cozy.

From shaking John awake to slamming of the window: These actions would make suspicious noises – particularly to someone below. Show some consequence of these noises, be it only anxiety.

Paragraph beginning “Theoretically”: Correct a typo: “someone else’s seeing me”.

General: Look for typos. I found “blond” without an e and several “Vivan”.

Begin with some transition from the previous chapter. Alternatively, one can include the transition in the previous chapter, but putting it here seems easier.

Paragraph beginning “At this point”: Avoid speaking directly to the reader in the second person.

Paragraph beginning “The room opens”: First sentence is wordy. Suggest: The room opens, not into a hallway but into a common room in varying shades of beige and green.

Paragraph beginning “Dorm-style”: Capitalize: A plain cement patio... .

Re. the patch: Most readers will need more data.

Who said, “That doesn’t seem so bad”? And why isn’t it so bad?

End of chapter: A very good transition.

General: Who are Matt and Daphne, and what relation do they bear to the other characters?

Paragraph beginning “He thinks of Daphne”: Make all of the fragments part of the first sentence:
“He thinks of Daphne in the hotel room – of driving an hour to visit her, only to be told to leave as soon as he pulled into her driveway – of the last time he spoke to her – of her beautiful eyes and the sound of her laugh – the way her smile lit up the room.”

I suggest not using “as soon as he pulled on her street” unless he was turned away by police blocking the street.