Break Read online

  My throat hurts. “You know about how broken bones grow back stronger?”

  “Jonah.”

  “I won’t do it again. It was stupid and selfish, I know.”

  “Jonah, listen.” She gathers her red hair into a clip. “If there’s anything I’ve figured out about you, it’s that you’re not selfish. And I have a really hard time believing that you’d do something so intense for any sort of selfish reason.”

  “I did. It is selfish.” I start crying again. I’m always like this. Once I’ve broken down once, it doesn’t take anything for me to get all weepy again.

  She sighs, picks up her pad and pen, and starts to write.

  “No, what are you writing?” I choke. “Please don’t send me away.”

  She stops writing and watches me.

  “Look.” I scrub off the tears. “I didn’t break my bones. My parents did it. I’m covering for them.”

  She shakes her head. “Jonah.”

  “Don’t take me away from Jesse. I need to . . . I’ve got to take care of him. I’ve got to.”

  She says, “You just told me you didn’t know how to take care of him.”

  I wail and sink my head onto my knees. I wonder if my dad can hear me out in the waiting room.

  “Jonah. Do you feel guilty?”

  I nod very hard.

  “For being healthy?”

  Now I stop.

  She fixes her glasses. “Are you trying to be even with Jesse?”

  I shake my head so much I think my neck will break. “I could never be as bad off as Jesse.”

  “Do you wish you could be?”

  “No. No no no no. That would be awful. Please, please don’t pass me off as one of those attention-seeking kids. It’s not that. Really. I would never, ever want to be Jesse.”

  “Then what do you want?”

  “I want to get better.” Mucus drips all the way down to my upper lip, and I’m too broken to do anything about it. “That’s the point.”

  “You really want to get better?”

  I nod, then I realize with horror that we’re talking about different things.

  “No,” I say. “Wait.”

  She’s already writing. “This is nothing permanent, Jonah. You’re not crazy. You’re obviously a very bright boy.”

  “Stop it. Stop writing.”

  “Your parents have already expressed . . . interest in putting you under observation. It wouldn’t be for long. A week at most.”

  I can fail chemistry in a week. I could lose Charlotte completely. Jesse could die of starvation, easily.

  “I can’t go away right now.”

  She looks at me for a long, long time. I do my best to look sane.

  “We have to figure out why you’re doing this, Jonah. I’ve got a place in mind for you. It’s all teenagers, all short-term care. It’ll be a lot like staying in a hospital.” She nods toward my cast. “Which you’ve obviously experienced.”

  I try to smile, because this isn’t her fault.

  “It’ll be okay,” she says.

  I croak, “All right.”

  At least I’ll get out of that house.

  “I’ll call today, and see if they have a space,” she says. “They’ll probably be able to admit you tomorrow or the next day. Until then, will you take care of yourself? Can I trust you to do that?”

  I nod. “So for now I get to go home?”

  “Uh-huh. You go home and see your brothers, okay?”

  I look at her sympathetic eyes behind those glasses and my whole throat hurts.

  “It’ll be all right,” she says. “You’ll even be out for Halloween.”

  The worst part is the car ride home. I try to sleep in the back, but Dad keeps looking at me in the rearview mirror. Eventually he calls home and spends about five minutes trying to shake Jesse off the phone. I hear Jesse freaking out, hear him asking questions—asking my father what’s going to happen to me. Am I going to be okay. All the questions I always asked about him.

  Dad gets rid of him and hooks Mom on the phone. They have a whispered, angry conversation—Dad says “I know I know I know,” over and over again.

  twenty-six

  I GET HOME AND CRASH UNTIL TWO AND AFTERWARD I want to get out, but Mom and Dad don’t want me to leave the house. They want to be there for me! They want to talk! Dad even stayed home from work, just for lucky old me.

  They tell me to sit down on the couch next to them, to curl up with some game shows. To let my brain mush in sync with theirs.

  But they don’t meet my eyes when they ask me.

  “I’ve got to talk to Charlotte.” I’m wearing this old gray T-shirt that’s too small, and it pulls my shoulders when I try to shrug. “I’ve got to try to fix things somewhat before I go away.”

  Dad’s dressed down for the first time in weeks, and it just makes him look more uncomfortable. “Jonah, why don’t you stay here? It’s your last day home. Don’t you want to be here when Jess gets back from school?”

  God, they really don’t get it at all.

  I feel like saying, Are you kidding? Why would I want to see Jesse? When have I ever shown any interest in Jesse? Just to see how they’d react.

  Instead, I beg. “Come on. Charlotte’s a good influence. She’s the one who told Mockler in the first place, remember?”

  Mom pulls his sleeve. “Let him go.”

  He whirls to her. “Damn it, Cara, do we have to do this now?”

  They start yelling and I slip out the front door. No problem. All kids should have neglectful parents.

  Kidding.

  It’s a bit of a walk from home to school, but it’s not like I have any choice. I don’t have Jesse to drive me. I’m not sure I’d let him, anyway.

  I’m cold in my T-shirt and my sling, but it doesn’t resonate. I look at all the houses, imagining the normal families who live inside. Imagine them making sandwiches, or calling relatives, or . . . I don’t know what normal people do.

  What the hell is wrong with me?

  I never thought I was crazy before. But ever since Dr. Schneider I can’t stop spiraling. . . . I mean, I always knew what I was doing was a little out-there, but I never actually thought I was crazy.

  I really didn’t think it.

  Fuck, I just wanted to be strong. And now everyone thinks I’m a lunatic. Even Charlotte, and Naomi, and Jesse—people who are not supposed to think that I’m a lunatic.

  The walking thing is horribly painful. I get dizzier and dizzier with each step. My toes throb—the left foot is starting to break the tape. I give up and stop at the nearest bus stop, and I feel like I’m trying to hide in the glass booth. Trying and failing.

  There’s fake white-rap music emanating from a nearby house, like a soundtrack.

  My cell phone rings in stark realistic contrast. Pier-cing the bubble of my whatever.

  It’s Naomi. She’s in my phone book as “IMOAN.”

  I say, “Hey.”

  Her voice is excited and close to the speaker. “Are they locking you up? Run away. Seriously. I had a cousin who got locked up.”

  “They’re not locking me up.” I wonder when the next bus is coming. “I’m just going in for evaluation. For a few days. They’ll realize I’m not crazy after, like, a day and I’ll get to come home.”

  “Oh, yeah? And how are they going to realize that?”

  “I’ll tell them I’m not breaking anymore.”

  “Yeah. Okay. And they’ll realize you’re lying when you come into the infirmary in little pieces.”

  “Naomi. I’m not breaking anymore.”

  “What?”

  “Stop it!” I kick my heels against the ground. My toes shake around like puzzle pieces. “This isn’t working. I’ve ruined everything.”

  “Jonah.”

  “This was supposed to get him better.”

  These words freeze in the back of my throat.

  Did I honestly just figure this out?

  Naomi says, “Jesse? How was t
his supposed to help him?”

  I close my eyes. “Forget it.”

  “You said this wasn’t about him.”

  “I know! I fucking know what I said!”

  No. I didn’t just figure it out. I knew it. I always knew it.

  Shit.

  She doesn’t speak. I can hear her breathing, all slow and even, like this isn’t the worst moment of my life. Like she really thinks staying calm is going to help me.

  “You can’t cure him,” she whispers.

  “I know that! You think I don’t fucking know that? You think I need you to tell me that?”

  “I’m just saying.”

  “No! Don’t say it! I fucking know it, Naomi!”

  The bus rolls up to the curb and the doors spring open. One is loose and wobbles back and forth in the breeze.

  I gimp onto the bus and stick my phone in my pocket so I can drop a handful of change into the meter. I could probably get disabled fare, if I wanted, but I’m too damn tired to ask.

  “He’s generally okay,” Naomi says as I retrieve the phone from my pocket.

  “Yeah, generally.”

  “That’s better than you are.”

  I sit down and put my head against the window, holding the cell away from my ear so she sounds very far away.

  “Aren’t you in class?” I say.

  “School just ended.”

  “Where’s Charlotte?”

  “Don’t know. Aren’t you mad at her?”

  I ignore this. “Seen Jess?”

  “Yeah. He’s in the weight room. Wouldn’t talk much. I brought him an apple.”

  “Clean?”

  “Of course. I’m not an idiot. But he didn’t eat it.”

  The bus speeds up and all those damn houses start to blur. “I’m coming to school now.”

  “Seriously?”

  “I’ve got to find Charlotte.”

  “She told on you.”

  “Yeah, I’m aware. That’s why I’ve got to talk with her.”

  “She fucking betrayed you!”

  “Yeah, because she’s not an idiot. She found out I was breaking my own bones, Nom. What was she supposed to do?”

  Naomi gets her pissed-off voice. “Uh, okay. So does that make me a crappy friend, or what?”

  Basically. “Nom.”

  “I was being supportive. Friends are supposed to be supportive.”

  “Okay.”

  “No, don’t ‘okay’ me. What should I have done?”

  I swallow and look around the bus, but none of the other passengers even look conscious, let alone interested. “You probably shouldn’t have encouraged me to keep breaking when I wanted to stop.”

  “Jonah,” she says, and her voice is back to kind.

  I chew the inside of my mouth.

  “What was I supposed to do? Let you think you could stop? And then let you fail?”

  “I can stop.”

  “Okay,” she says, and she’s so quietly begging, so quietly . . . supportive. “Okay. I hope you’re right.”

  twenty-seven

  FIVE MINUTES LATER I DISMOUNT THE BUS, CROSS to the school, and there she is, her shoes tip-tapping through the parking lot on the way to her car. “Charlotte.”

  She keeps walking. The daffodil in her bun looks like it’s crying.

  “Charlotte, listen to me. Come on. I can’t chase you.”

  She stops. Her shadow is small and sad on the pavement.

  “I have to feed the cats,” she whispers.

  “Please.”

  She takes the teeniest little steps towards me, like this can help her convince herself she’s not really giving in.

  “How are you?” she asks.

  “I’m okay.”

  She swallows and looks down. “I heard you’re getting help.”

  “Yeah. Please don’t give me that speech, that sad look, okay? Listen, babe. I’m not crazy. I swear I’m not crazy.”

  She looks down, and I see her eyelashes are wet. She’s not crying, though, not really; it’s like her mascara has a mind of its own.

  “I know how this works,” she says. “I know the—okay. I’ve been doing research. Lots of people do—do what you’re doing. It’s just normally not so dramatic.”

  “That’s not what this is.” But I know how goddamn counterproductive this argument is getting, and I’m so sick of it. It doesn’t matter why I did this, not anymore; the point is that I did it and now I have to deal with the consequences. I have to make it better.

  I say, “I just don’t want you to be afraid of me.”

  She’s shaking. “I don’t know if I can wait for you—”

  “Damn it, Charlotte, I’m going to a psych ward, not jail. Not war.”

  “But—”

  “Frankly, Charlotte, I don’t give—”

  “Don’t do that.”

  “No. It’s your fault I’m going, kid, because you didn’t wait long enough for me to explain this to you! You just went to Mockler. . . . Babe, you weren’t even there when he confronted me! That’s a low move. You’re such a nice person—you know that wasn’t nice.”

  She stares at the ground.

  I say, “If you don’t want to be with me because I’m crazy, just say it. I’m only going to be gone for, like, a week. Don’t give me this waiting talk.”

  “I’m not with you!” She throws her arms in the air and her bracelets slide all the way down to her shoulders. “We’re not dating, remember?”

  “Oh, bullshit, Charlotte.”

  She pulls back like I hit her.

  I imagine everyone in the parking lot holding their breath as I wait for her to speak.

  “This isn’t working,” she says.

  “What’s not?”

  “Nothing.” She laughs, deep and sick. “I guess nothing isn’t working. That’s what this is, right?”

  “Stop.”

  “I don’t even know why you told me.” She shrugs, faking heartless. “If I really don’t mean shit to you, I don’t know why you told me you did this yourself.”

  The word sounds especially foul from her mouth.

  “I didn’t tell you,” I spit. “You forced it out of me.”

  I snap my mouth closed, like this will stop what I’ve already said.

  “Well, then,” she says under her breath.

  Someone nearby lights a cigarette, and my mouth fuzzes with the candy-apple taste of the smoke.

  I turn around and leave before she can stop me. Not that she would.

  Students giggle as I walk through the parking lot. I don’t know if they’re laughing at me or if they’re just happy, and I don’t know which option would depress me more.

  twenty-eight

  IT’S ALMOST TIME TO LEAVE FOR THE CRAZY BIN, but there’s one thing left to do. At about six o’clock, I take an apple from the refrigerator. I bring it to the sink and scrub it so hard that it would bleed, if it were alive. Will watches me, screaming while he sucks on his fingers.

  I won’t touch him right now.

  I can hear Jess snoring from halfway down the hall. Some stupid part of me doesn’t want to wake him up.

  Really stupid part.

  I crack his door open. He’s curled up on top of all his blankets, his arms tucked underneath his chest. Every snore gives away how stuffed-up he is.

  “Jess.” I put my hand on his back and work my fingers around his skinny ribs. “Wake up, kid.”

  He frees his hand and rubs his eyes. “Hey.” He sees the apple. “What are you doing?”

  “Sit up. I need to talk to you, all right?”

  He rocks upright and wraps himself around his stomach. I sit down beside him and tuck him under my good arm.

  “Okay?” I say.

  He nods and buries his face in the armpit of my T-shirt. “Don’t go away. Don’t go away don’t go away.”

  “Listen, Jess.”

  He keeps swallowing, and I can see it in his neck.

  I shouldn’t have woken him up.

&
nbsp; “Don’t worry about me while I’m gone,” I say. “That’s an order.”

  He croaks, “Okay.”

  “Look at me. Jesse, look at me.”

  He’s crying a little bit and trying to hide it from me, which is stupid. His eyes are struck pink, and his tears are thick like spit.

  I say, “I’m not going to be gone for long. I’ll be back really soon. And you’ll be fine until then. Really.”

  “Okay.”

  “If I hear you’re in the hospital with a reaction while I’m gone, I’m gonna fucking kill you.”

  He cough-laughs.

  “And if you come to my crazy-person place with some kind of eating disorder . . . that’ll kill me, man.”

  He covers his cheeks with his hands. “I don’t have an eating disorder.”

  “Jesse. Jesse, come on.”

  He puts his hands on his forehead. He’s struggling not to cover his ears—that’s what he does when he’s really upset.

  I make shhh noises.

  “It’s . . . I’m fucking terrified,” he says.

  “I know. I get it.”

  “I don’t want another reaction.”

  “I know. But I don’t want you to starve, either. It’s been, like, five days since you’ve eaten.”

  He nods.

  “You’ve got to feel awful.”

  He keeps nodding, like he doesn’t know how to stop.

  I say, “I’m not leaving if you don’t eat. I’ll kick and scream and they’ll have to drag me away from here.” I hold him more tightly. I’m his seat belt. “And then they probably won’t let me out for a long, long time.”

  “Are you seriously blackmailing me?”

  “Uh-huh.” I hand him the apple. “It’s totally clean. You’re not going to get sick. I’ll stay here and watch you for a reaction if you want.”

  He stares at the apple. “Come home soon, okay?”

  “I will. And you can come visit me.”

  “Okay.”

  “Seriously, now. Just eat the apple.”

  He stares at the skin for a long time, then tucks his lips between his teeth and shakes his head. “I don’t want to.”

  “Don’t care. I’m making you.”

  “Don’t.”