Maybe I Will (18 page)

“If I show you what I'm writing, where will it end up?” I asked.

“I don't intend to share it with anyone, but since I haven't read it yet, I can't make any promises,” said Doc.

“What if I told you I hear voices?” I asked.

“Depends on what kind of voices you're talking about. Do you hear them audibly or do you just hear them in your head?”

“Just in my head.”

“Do you recognize the voices?”

I nodded. “Mostly Mom and Dad. Sometimes friends or teachers. I'm starting to hear your voice, now, too.”

“When you hear my voice in your head, what do you hear me say?”

“You just talk to me. Sometimes you say what I want to hear. Sometimes you say what I don't want to hear.”

“And your Mom's and Dad's voices?” Doc asked.

“Pretty much the same stuff they'd say if they were really there,” I said.

“Have you ever thought they really were there, when they weren't?”

I shook my head and looked down. “Sometimes I've wished they were there when they weren't,” I said. I looked back up. “But sometimes they were actually there, and I wished they weren't.”

Doc smiled. “Sounds more like an active imagination than any-thing delusional.”

I nodded. “Maybe so.”

“Let's talk about the drinking. What happens physically if you go for more than a day without a drink?”

“I don't get withdrawal or anything.” I told her. “I just get cravings when I'm feeling really stressed.”

Doc nodded. “Sounds more like abuse than physical addiction. That's good.” There was a long pause. “There's really only one more thing I need to ask you.”

“So ask,” I interjected.

Doc pursed her lips and cocked her head just a little to the right. “Do you ever feel like killing yourself?”

I took a deep breath and felt the tears coming up behind my eyes. I closed them tightly to hold back the tears. I thought about the poem in the notebook.
Would I be better off dead?
I handed my notebook to Doc.

She read the poem without saying a word. She handed the notebook back to me. “It feels like you're becoming a little freer in your writing. I'm no poet, but I think this is a good thing.”

I opened the notebook and stared at my poem.

“Sandy, what do you think that poem is about?”

“Whether or not I'd be better off dead.”

Doc gave me a quizzical look. “I kind of thought it was about betrayal and how you're feeling since someone betrayed you.”

“Don't you think it means I'm suicidal?” I asked.

“Are you suicidal?” Doc countered.

I shrugged my shoulders. “How should I know? You're the doc; you tell me.”

“You've asked yourself if you'd be better off dead, but have you tried to kill yourself?”

“If I had, we wouldn't be having this conversation,” I retorted.

Doc nodded. “Have you ever thought about how you'd do that?”

“I'd pick something painless and very effective, that's for sure.” I grabbed the bed control to lower my feet and raise my head again. “I wouldn't want to screw it up and have to face that failure on top of everything else. Especially if I left myself permanently messed up. That might be worse than dead.”

Doc sighed. “Here's what I think, Sandy. You tell me if I'm wrong.” She rose from her chair and stood beside me. “I don't think you're crazy or suicidal, but I do think you need a couple of days to work through some things before we send you back to school. The best place for that to happen is right here, where we know that you're safe, and we can kind of put the rest of your life on hold. Are you willing to do that?”

“I don't know.” I stared out the window. It was dark out now. I wondered where my parents went to dinner and when they would be back. “It doesn't seem like it would change anything.”

“Sometimes just changing the way we think about things is enough.”

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more.

—Macbeth
, Act V, Scene v, Lines 24-26

T
HE NEXT MORNING
we all met with the psychiatrist. He recommended several medications, but Doc and my parents didn't seem to like any of his suggestions. I just sat there and listened to them talking about me as if I weren't there.

“I think Sandy's symptoms of depression are situational rather than chemical and have been aggravated by the alcohol,” Doc said. “Every medication has its side effects, and it could take several weeks to know if it's really even helping.”

Mom and Dad agreed with Doc. “Based on everything I've read, I'm afraid the potential risks outweigh the benefits in Sandy's case,” Mom said. “Let's make sure we ‘do no harm,' right?”

“We don't want Sandy taking any mood-altering drugs until we're sure they're absolutely necessary,” Dad chimed in.

Isn't anyone going to ask me what I think?
No one did.

They did decide that a private room would be better than having to deal with a roommate. The psychiatrist made a call and next thing I knew I was checking into my “special care suite.” It was more like a large closet with a twin bed, a night stand, and a small dresser. Very sterile. Very white. No windows.

I don't know what I was expecting, but this place definitely wasn't Camp Disney—more like the Night of the Living Dead. The individual and family sessions weren't bad, but my first group session was frightening. We were supposed to be talking about controlling violence. No way was I going to say a word, and I tried not to make eye contact with anyone, either.

There was every kind of crazy you could imagine from cutters and druggies to anorexics and videogame freaks. Everyone looked all Goth, dressed in black and more into the violence part of the discussion than the control part. I felt like I'd fallen into an M.C. Escher painting with everything becoming more and more twisted and surreal. Or maybe it was an Ansel Adams photograph in negative form that just needed to be developed so all the black would turn white and the white would turn black and maybe a little gray to soften the stark contrasts.

I don't belong here. I don't want to be here.
I looked around this room filled with strangers. Was it really all that different from school?
Where do I belong? Where do I want to be?

I stayed completely to myself until I met Luke. I watched Luke playing foosball in the lounge and eating lunch in the cafeteria. He reminded me of someone, but I just couldn't figure out who.
Whom. Dad's voice will always be with me.
Finally, it came to me. Luke was Hermey, the misfit elf that wanted to be a dentist in
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
Hermey with a pierced ear and decent haircut.
We're all a bunch of misfits on the Island of Misfit Teens. Which one am I? I'd like to be the ruler, the flying lion, that reminds me of Aslan from Narnia.

I never actually talked to Luke until after the group therapy session where he got all bent out of shape for people saying “queer” instead of “gay.” We were going around the circle, and we were all supposed to say one word that did NOT describe us. It was pretty interesting, with people saying things like “dead,” and “perfect,” and “evil.” Then this guy Kevin, whose dad was a veterinarian and who had pretty much fried his brain snorting horse tranquilizers, looked right at Luke and said, “Queer!”

Luke jumped out of his chair shouting that he was gay, not queer, but Kevin insisted “queer” was the politically correct term. “They call it LGBTQ now, don't they? Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer!”

The counselor finally had to step in and break it up. “Kevin, the ‘Q' in LGBTQ actually stands for ‘questioning' not ‘queer.'”

“Fine,” said Kevin glaring at Luke. “I'm not GAY!” But after that the whole exercise turned into a name-calling game where you stared at the person across from you and said what they were and you weren't. The counselor let “ugly” and “stupid” pass, probably because she didn't realize the new rules. The game boy looked straight at me and said, “Rich.” I ignored him, but the counselor finally seemed to be catching on. When Jennifer the cutter called Karen the anorexic chick “slutty,” the session ended abruptly.

Luke sat down beside me at dinner that night. “I don't care about your being rich if you don't care about my being gay,” he said.

I just shrugged and shoveled a large bite of macaroni and cheese into my mouth.

Luke opened his milk carton and put in a straw. “You don't talk much, do you?”

I shrugged again, still chewing.

“I hate it here,” he said. “This is the third time they've stuck me here.” He opened a bag of chips and started crunching. “The first time my parents thought they could send me here and get me straightened out—as if someone could convince me I'm not really gay.” Luke took a bite of his sandwich. We sat in silence as he chewed. I shoved in another spoonful of mac 'n cheese.

“The second time was after I tried to kill myself. I was really messed up that time.”

I swallowed and took another big bite. I was running out of food to keep my mouth full.

“This time, I ran away. And I was doing just fine until they cancelled the credit card I took from my mom's purse.”

I started taking smaller bites and chewing more slowly.

“It's okay, though. I'll have my GED by the time I turn 18, and then it won't matter anymore. I can go wherever I want to go and do whatever I want to do.”

I took a long drink from my water bottle. “So where do you want to go?” I asked, breaking my code of silence.

“Austin, Texas,” Luke said with a smile. “It's warm, it's affordable, and nobody cares if you're gay.”

“Have you ever been there?” I asked.

“No, but I've been talking to people online, and I think that's the best place for me.” He held the bag of chips up to his mouth and tapped out all of the crumbs. “That's where I was running to. But I got picked up in Arkansas.”

“What will you do when you finally get to Texas?”

“Get a job,” said Luke. “Maybe apply to a community college once I get my own apartment and get settled.”

The cafeteria was filling up, but no one else sat down at our table.

“So what's your story?” Luke finally asked.

My story? I don't want to tell you my story.
“My plan is to graduate from high school and go to Juilliard in New York City.”

“What, are you a comedian?” Luke laughed as he said it.

“Maybe,” I said.

“Have you been accepted?” Luke asked.

I shook my head. “I'm only a sophomore. I can't even apply for another year.”

“Too bad,” he replied. “A year is a really long time to have to wait. A lot can happen in a year.”

I took my last bite of macaroni and wondered what all had happened to Luke in the last year. I looked around the cafeteria and wondered what had happened to all of these people over the last year.
How many are here because they really can't fit in? Are there any who just don't want to?

I stood up. “I'm going back to my room,” I said. I picked up my tray and walked away.

“See ya,” Luke called after me.

Back in my room I started thinking about how long a year really was.
And I have TWO more years of high school, not just one.
Somehow, after everything I'd been through and being here, it didn't feel like I could go back to school and actually fit in any more.
I probably do belong with these misfits. At least I have the option of acting like I fit in if I want to. But do I want to? Where do I WANT to fit in?

I stood up to do my white belt form.
I could earn my black belt over the next two years. Taekwondo. That's where I could fit in.
There was only
one problem with that plan.
Shanika.
I couldn't go back to taekwondo as long as Shanika was there.

All things be ready, if our minds be so.

—Henry the Fifth
, Act IV, Scene iii, Line 71

A
FTER THE FIRST
day, the place lost some of its “Night-of-the-Living-Dead” feel. Of course, we weren't allowed to have cell phones or internet, so that was an adjustment. Our only real connection to the outside world was a pay phone. Karen the anorexic had a boyfriend who called the pay phone 10 times a day just so she could beg him to get her out of here. I'd never used a pay phone in my life, but that was okay. There was no one I wanted to call, and I knew no one would call me.

I still didn't talk in group therapy, but no one seemed freakish anymore. We were all just trying to figure out how to make it however we could . . . fitting in, sticking out, fighting back, hiding or escaping . . . whatever worked best today. Everybody except Luke pretty much just left me alone, and Luke didn't really bother me. It was better than always being alone.

By Thursday it was time to decide for sure whether or not I was going home on Friday. Doc had talked to me a lot in individual therapy about going back to school. What to say, what not to say,
and strategies for finding a safe place if I started to feel too stressed or overwhelmed. We spent a lot of time in family sessions talking about new ground rules at home and how to ask for help if and when I really felt like I needed a drink.

The biggest unresolved issue seemed to be how to reconnect with my so-called friends or how to make new friends instead. I did not want Cassie or Troy or Shanika coming to the psych ward. I finally told them I'd lied about Hector being my friend, and that he was really only Shanika's friend, not mine. I didn't mention the wrestling incident. And I just was not ready to deal with Shanika at any level, even though Mom and Dad said that Shanika called them every day to see how I was and when I would be back at school and taekwondo.