During movement therapy, Ashley, the young therapist with the asexual mom haircut, tells us to say what we feel and bounce the foam ball however we want. “The ball is an expression of our feelings,” she says.
I go first. “I feel snacky.” I drop the ball softly.
“Thank you, Julia, but that’s not really a feeling,” Ashley says, as gently as she can.
“It is to me. I’m overcome with a desire for snacks.” “Okay, snacky it is, then.”
Now it’s Erin’s turn. Erin was molested by her dad and speaks very slowly. Everything she says seems like a drawn-out question.
“How do you feel today, Erin?” Ashley asks, in her best therapist voice. Sometimes she sounds as if she’s talking to a baby or puppy that’s about to die. Erin looks around the room and then looks at the ball for what feels like an eternity.
I want to scream at her to hurry up, but I just look out the window instead.
“I feel…confused?” she finally says, and flings the ball toward the windows.
Tasha takes the ball from the floor and says, “I feel like my veins are full of sand.”
That makes me wince. Tasha is always saying horribly beautiful things like that. Sometimes I want to write them down. She’s anorexic and probably doesn’t weigh more than ninety pounds. Her wrists look fragile and breakable, and her long, skinny braids seem too heavy for her small body. Although she’s emaciated, I
can see that she’s beautiful. Her eyelashes are stupidly long, and she has the kind of mouth that begs for bright red lipstick.
Luis is next. He’s here because his stepdad beat him with cords and hangers when he was a kid. He says one time he even put a gun in his mouth. Luis cuts himself now, and his pink scars crisscross down his arms and onto his hands. I’ve never seen skin like his. It’s as if he’s covered with a made-up language. I feel sorry for him, but he scares me. And it makes me uncomfortable that I can see the outline of his junk through his sweatpants. Someone should talk to him about it. How are we supposed to get better when we’re subjected to such a vulgar display?
I’m afraid of what Luis is going to say because he has a demented look in his eyes. After a few seconds, he says he feels “sexy” and laughs like a maniac. He bounces the ball so hard it almost hits the ceiling.
Next is Josh. He tried to kill himself with some of his mother’s pills, but his pink-haired girlfriend (he’s mentioned her hair three times now) found him and called 911. Josh’s face is red and shiny with acne. His skin is so terrible that my own skin almost hurts when I look at him. How his pink-haired girlfriend was about to kiss him is a mystery to me. Josh looks as if someone set fire to his face, and it remained blistered and full of pus. His eyes are nice, though. Sometimes, for a second, especially in the sunlight, they pierce through, and you almost forget about the lumpy redness on his face. Maybe that’s what his girlfriend saw.
Josh seems to have fed off Luis because he says he feels “aroused.” He laughs so hard, one of the whiteheads on his cheek splits and begins to bleed, but no one tells him. Josh and Luis just laugh like buffoons until Ashley says it’s time for our break.
—
Josh, Luis, and I stand at the window and watch a blond woman in a bright green dress and pointy black heels hurry down the street.
Josh says she’s a hooker on the way to work. “Why does she have to be a hooker?” I ask.
“Look at the way she walks. She wants to get boned,” Luis says.
“You’re gross. Why would you talk about a woman like that?” Luis pretends he doesn’t hear me.
Next, we see a black guy in a leather jacket and baseball cap walking into a diner.
“He’s dealing drugs,” Luis says. “Crack, for sure.”
I turn to Tasha to see if she’s heard them, but she’s sitting across the room with a magazine on her lap and staring off into space. Sometimes I want to talk to her, but she’s as quiet as a sealed jar of air.
“So you guys are sexist and racist? How charming.” I glare at them.
Erin comes over smoothing her short dark hair. “What’s up?
What are you guys talking about?”
“Julia here is killing our vibe.” Luis points his thumb toward me.
“Oh, shut up, Luis. Stop being a dirtbag.”
“Fuck, man. Stop being so uptight. We’re just joking. Geez.” Luis pokes my shoulder and walks away before I have a chance to respond.
When I head over to the water fountain, Antwon, the new kid with a wispy Afro, comes up to me and asks me to be his girlfriend. He just got here an hour ago, and he’s already trying to get a date in a part-time nut house—it’s almost funny. “Are you serious?” I ask him. “Is this really happening?” I look around and pretend to address a crowd of people.
“Come on, girl. Let me take you to the movies when we get outta here,” he says, picking at his hair with a giant comb.
“First of all, you’re, like, what, thirteen? Second of all, I don’t want a boyfriend. Don’t you see that I just tried to kill myself?” I say, showing him my wrists.
“But I’ll take care of you,” he says, swatting my hands. “I’ll borrow my grandma’s car and pick you up. I’ll take you to the movies.”
“Antwon, you’re a child, which means you don’t have a license, which means that you can’t drive. And I don’t need to be taken care of. I can take care of myself.”
Antwon shakes his head. I walk back to our next session before he can say anything else.
—
Every day is the same: movement therapy, homework, lunch, group therapy, art therapy, individual therapy, then “closing circle.” During our breaks, we can read, play games, or listen to music. We’re always fighting over what kind of music to play. The other day Luis and Josh wanted to listen to heavy metal, and I said I’d rather eat a rat sandwich. I like aggressive music, but heavy metal makes me feel like I’m locked in a box draped with chains. No way.
Sometimes I look out the window and zone out until our break ends. Today Tasha walks over and stands next to me.
“Hey,” she says in a whisper. I’ve never seen her speak to anyone outside of therapy. Everything about her is so quiet, as if she’s trying to erase herself from the world. She only speaks when she has to. In group therapy, Tasha told us that for one week straight all she ate was grapefruit. If I went that long without eating real food, I’d probably end up stabbing someone. She said this so softly that I had to crane my neck toward her and really listen. I wonder what it’s like to be so delicate, to look at a plate of food and feel like it’s your enemy.
“Hi.” I smile. “What’s up?” “I’m sick of this place already.”
“Yeah, me too.” I write my name on the glass with my knuckle. “How long will you be here?”
“I don’t know. They won’t say. It depends on my progress.” She twirls one of her braids around her finger. “What about you?”
“Five days total, if everything goes well. I think I just need to avoid having another meltdown. Then I have to go to therapy, which is not so bad, I guess.”
Tasha pauses and looks at my wrists. “Did you really want to die?”
I’m not sure what to say. How do I answer that? I’m glad I’m not dead, but living…living feels terrible.
“At the moment, maybe I did, but now…no, not really.” I don’t look at her when I say it. I stare at the droplets of rain beginning to fall against the window.
—
After dinner, Amá looks at Apá, and then they both turn to me. “Mija, we think you should go to Mexico and spend some time with Mamá Jacinta.”
“What? Are you crazy? What about my therapy?” “After you finish the program.”
“What about Dr. Cooke? When am I going to see her again?” “You have an appointment this week, and then you can see her
when you come back,” Apá says.
This makes no damn sense to me. Some people think that shipping their children back to the motherland when they get out of control will solve everything. It’s happened to some of the kids from my school, mostly gangbangers and girls who are ripe for pregnancy. Usually, they come back exactly the same. Or worse. Maybe parents think their kids have lost their values, that they’ve become too Americanized. So is Mexico supposed to teach me not to have sex? Is it supposed to teach me not to kill myself?
“What if I don’t get to graduate on time because I missed too many days of school?”
Amá sighs. “It won’t be for that long.”
“I’m not going,” I say. “Absolutely not. I need more time at home to recover,” I add, trying to lay the guilt on thick.
Amá and Apá exchange glances. I bet they have no idea what to do with me. They look desperate.
“That’s the point. It’ll do you good. You’ll feel better.” Amá folds and refolds her napkin.
“How?”
“Your grandmother will teach you things. You’ll get to relax.” Amá tries to smile.
“Like what? Cooking? You think that’s going to make me feel better?”
“You used to love going to Mexico when you were little. You always seemed so happy. You never wanted to come back. Don’t you remember?”
That’s true, but I don’t admit it. I liked to stay up late with our cousins. I loved the smell of the dirt roads after it rained, and the spicy tamarind candy from the corner store. But going there as a teenager? What the hell am I going to do? Make tortillas all day?
“And you’ll get some fresh air and ride horses. Mamá said you loved that. Doesn’t that sound nice?” Amá hasn’t been this friendly in years.
“I don’t care about horses.” I can hear the neighbors screaming at each other downstairs.
Amá sighs and looks at the ceiling. “Ay, Dios, dame paciencia.” “What about college? What if I miss too many classes and I have
to go to summer school? What if all the places I applied to reject
me because I missed so much of my last semester?”
“You can go to community college, just like your sister.”
“She didn’t even graduate. What was the point of her going to school if all she was going to be was a receptionist?”
“What’s wrong with being a receptionist? It’s a lot better than breaking your back cleaning houses. At least you get air- conditioning. At least you get to sit down. What I wouldn’t give for a job like that.” Amá looks pissed.
I cross my arms over my chest. “Okay, being a receptionist would be my dream come true. There is nothing I’d rather do than answer phones.”
—
On my last morning of the program, I walk toward Tasha, who’s playing solitaire in the corner.
“Can I sit here?” I ask as I pull out a chair. She shrugs. “Sure.”
“So, do you feel any better?”
“Sometimes. It’s tiring to answer the same kinds of questions over and over. I get sick of talking about my cousin, about food,
about my mom.” Tasha’s voice is almost above a whisper today. “Yeah, I know what you mean. Like, how many times are they
going to ask me to explain why I hurt myself? I keep telling them
that I’m not going to do it again, but they don’t believe me.” Tasha nods.
“You know, I’m not sure how all of this group therapy is supposed to help. Listening to other people’s problems doesn’t exactly make me feel good.”
“Sometimes it’s nice to know you’re not alone.” Tasha lays down the queen of diamonds. “Like you’re not the only one who feels like complete shit all the time.”
“Do you think the feeling will ever go away? Do you think it’s possible that we can be normal people who can be consistently happy?”
Tasha pauses for a long time. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be a normal person. I’m not even sure what that is. Sometimes I feel happy for, like, a second, but then it goes away.”
“I guess the same goes for me. I just can’t convince myself to feel good, like my body won’t allow it or something. Instead, it gives me the finger.”
“We’re probably lacking serotonin.” Tasha picks at a scab on her arm. “Your brain forgets how to produce it, so you have to teach it how to do it again. I read that in an article. Or something like that.”
“My parents are sending me to Mexico after I’m finished here.” I sigh.
“Mexico? Damn, you’re lucky. I’ve never even been out of Illinois.”
“I don’t want to go. I’m not sure how that’s supposed to help anything. I think they’re just afraid of me.”
“I guess you won’t know until you do. I know I’d be excited to get the hell out of here.”
—
As I stand near the door, waiting for my parents to pick me up, Erin hugs me and says she’s going to miss me. Tasha mouths,
“Goodbye,” and waves to me from a distance. Josh gives me a high-five and tells me I’ll be a famous writer one day. Luis screams, “Good luck!” then runs away giggling. Antwon won’t look at me. Even when I call his name, he just looks at the floor.
It’s cold and sunny when I walk outside. The wind feels nice on my face. After being stuck inside the stuffy hospital all day, it seems beautiful, even the muddy gray parking lot. The snow is beginning to melt, and I think I can almost smell spring.
—
After five days of talking about my feelings, making terrible art about my feelings, moving my body to the rhythm of my feelings, it’s time to go back to school. People keep staring at me like I’m a quadriplegic or something. When someone asks me where I’ve been these last few days, I say, “Europe,” even though gossip travels fast and they can probably see how I obsessively cover my wrists with my sleeves and bracelets. Some ding-dongs believe me, though, and when that happens, I keep the lie going, spinning it until I run out of ideas: I backpacked through France, Germany, and Spain with my rich aunt from Barcelona. Then we jumped on a ferry to Scandinavia and took a tour of the fjords. Then someone robbed us and took our passports. Then we were forced to be part of an international heist. I almost died in a police chase. Luckily, I survived to tell the tale!
Juanga gives me a hug when he sees me in the hall. “I’m so sorry. Are you okay?” He has a faded black eye and smells like weed, cologne, and dirty laundry. I want to ask him about it, but I’m afraid to.
“I’m all right. The happy pills should be kicking in soon.” “Did you like my dance?” Juanga smiles.
“It was lovely. It moved me to tears.” I bring my hands to my chest and grimace.
“Please don’t ever do that again. You know you can always talk to me and Lorena, right?”
“Yeah, I know. Thanks.”
“Stop trying to die, okay?” He shoves me playfully, then puts his hand on his hip.
Something about how he says it makes me crack up. “I’m so bad at suicide,” I tell him between bursts of laughter. “I win at being the worst at killing myself. I’m a champion, an American hero. USA! USA! USA!”
That gets Juanga going. “Girl, you are crazy.” We laugh so hard, people stop and gawk at us, but we ignore them. Juanga leans against the locker and slaps it with his hand, all dramatic about it. Every time we try to stop, we look at each other and start all over again until the bell rings.
—
When I see Lorena at lunch, her eyes well up. Although we talked on the phone, it feels like I haven’t seen her in centuries.
“Stop. Don’t. I’m okay,” I whisper. “We already talked about this.”
Lorena takes a deep breath and wipes her eyes with the neck of her faded purple sweater. “Why didn’t you tell me? How could you do something like that?”
I just close my eyes and shake my head, because if I open my mouth, I know what will happen, and I’m so tired of having an audience.
—
Dr. Cooke is wearing a scarlet sweater dress, a chunky orange necklace, and brown cowboy boots. I bet her outfit cost more than our car, but I don’t think she’s the kind of person to show off about her money or make you feel bad for being poor. I’m not envious, either. What I feel is more like awe.
I mostly want to complain about going to Mexico, but Dr. Cooke wants to talk about dating and sex again.
“There’s not really much to tell. I’ve technically never had a boyfriend. I thought Connor was going to be, but obviously that didn’t work out.”
“Why didn’t it?”
“He said he couldn’t handle not seeing me, that he wanted me to be his girlfriend, but we had to be able to see each other. And how was I supposed to see him when I’m basically living in a prison?” We’ve already talked about this—the phone call—but I think she’s digging for something else.
“Do you think that’s reasonable?” Dr. Cooke asks. “That he felt he needed more from you?”
I shrug. “I guess.”
“Why didn’t you let him finish? You assumed he was breaking up with you without giving him a chance to express how he felt. Do you think it’s possible that you were projecting a lot of your frustrations onto him?”
“But I knew it was coming. Why would he want to be with me?
I’m too much to handle, story of my stupid life.”
Dr. Cooke lets it go for now, but I already know her style. She’ll return to it. “Okay, let’s talk again about the day you hurt yourself, what led to it.”
“After my mom found the condoms and underwear, it’s like my whole life crumbled. I was already depressed, looking back on it— definitely—but when she got mad at me like that, I just felt so terrible. She hardly spoke to me and didn’t let me leave the apartment for weeks. She already blamed me for Olga, and then when all that happened, it’s like she really, really hated me. I can’t ever be the person she wants me to be. And I was sad about Connor, because being with him made me feel good. He made me laugh, and for the first time ever, I felt like someone could really see me, you know?”
Dr. Cooke nods and brushes some hair from her face. “That sounds very painful. But why didn’t you explain to her that the underwear wasn’t yours, that it was your sister’s?”
“Because she probably wouldn’t believe me, and if she did, I think it would destroy her, in a way. The thing is that Olga was perfect to her. How could I tell her that she wasn’t?”
“Have you ever talked about sex, you and your mother?”
“No. Well, not directly. She just makes comments sometimes. Basically, she makes it sound as if it were the most evil thing a person could do if they aren’t married.”
“And what do you think about it?”
“I don’t see what the big deal is, and yet I feel guilty. I have these two competing feelings, you know? Like, logically, I think it’s okay, but it still makes me feel like I’ve committed a crime or something, like everyone will know and pelt me with stones.”
“Sex is a normal part of the human experience, but unfortunately many people attach a great deal of shame to it.” Dr. Cooke crosses her legs. Maybe I should get a pair of cowboy boots, too. You could probably hurt someone with those fuckers.
“Yeah, my mom thinks it’s the devil’s work. You know, I just…I just feel like it’s unfair, that my whole life is unfair, like I was born into the wrong place and family. I never belong anywhere. My parents don’t understand anything about me. And my sister is gone. Sometimes I watch those stupid TV shows, you know? The ones where mothers and daughters talk about feelings and fathers take their kids to play baseball or get ice cream or some shit like that, and I wish it were me. It’s so stupid, I know, to want your life to be a sitcom.” I’m crying again.
“That doesn’t seem stupid to me. You deserve all of those things.”
—
After my parents go to sleep, I go through Olga’s room to see if I can find any other clues. Even if I did call Connor now, it would be impossible for him to unlock the laptop because I’m leaving for Mexico tomorrow. I start wondering if maybe she wrote the password somewhere. I mean, I’m constantly forgetting my email password, so I have it written down in a notebook. Maybe Olga also had a crappy memory. I search through all her notebooks and scraps in her junk drawer again—nothing even remotely interesting. What if I’m wrong about my sister? What if she was the sweet, boring Olga I always knew her to be? What if I just want to think there was something below the surface? What if, in my own messed-up way, I want her to be less than perfect, so I didn’t feel like such a fuck-up? Finally, when I flip through her old planner for the second time, I find a folded receipt with some numbers and letters circled. I don’t know why, but something
about that makes my brain itch. I enter them into the laptop. Nothing. I enter them again. Nothing. I enter them for the third time, and they work. I can’t believe they work.
Olga didn’t have much on her hard drive, just some boring pictures of her and Angie, and old papers from her Intro to Business class. Luckily, I’m able to connect to the neighbor’s Wi- Fi, and Olga’s email password is the same as her laptop password. There are hundreds of spam emails from many different companies. I guess the spam bots don’t know when someone has died. It seems so disrespectful to advertise to the dead. 50% OFF STOREWIDE!! BUY ONE GET ONE FREE SHOE SALE!!!
VITAMINS FOR THE PERFECT BIKINI BODY. I scroll and scroll forever to find anything that isn’t an advertisement.
Finally, there it is. What I’ve been looking for all along:
[email protected] 7:32 a.m. (September 6, 2013)
Why are you being like this? I’m giving you as much as I can. Don’t you see that? You know I love you, so why are you always making me feel so guilty?
Holy crap, what in the world was my sister doing? Obviously, she had a boyfriend, but who was he? I jump to the oldest ones to read them in order, which takes me forever because there are hundreds. My heart pounds.
[email protected] 1:03 a.m. (September 21, 2009)
I can’t stop thinking about you.
losojos @bmai l.com
1:45 a.m. (September 21, 2009)
Me neither. When can I see you again? Do you know how hard it is to see you every day at work? I don’t know how to pretend. My heart races every time you’re near me.
[email protected] 10:00 p.m. (November 14, 2009)
Meet me at the diner tomorrow for lunch. Sit in the back so no one sees you. Wear the red shirt I like.
losojos@bmail. c om
8:52 p.m. (January 14, 2010)
When are you going to tell her? I’m tired of waiting. You promised. I can’t keep doing this forever. I love you, but you’re tearing me apart. You’re killing me.
[email protected] 12:21 a.m. (January 28, 2010)
Soon. I told you already. You don’t know how complicated it is. I have to think about my kids. I don’t want to hurt them. You know how much I love you. Can’t you see that? Can’t you understand that? Please stop being so selfish. I’ll see you tomorrow at the C. 6 p.m.
losojos@bm ail.com
8:52 p.m. (January 29, 2010)
What do you mean selfish? All I do is wait for you. I don’t know if I can do this anymore. This is destroying me. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. All I do is think of the day we finally get to be together. Don’t you care?
Then the Internet cuts out. It feels like getting to the end of a book only to discover that the last page has been torn in half.
Dull, dutiful Olga was sexing a married man. This explains almost everything—her faraway look, the hotel key, the underwear, the reason she never graduated from community college. She was with him when she was supposed to be in class. This guy strung her along for years. How could she be so stupid to believe he was actually going to leave his wife for her? I’ve read enough books and watched enough movies to know that never, ever happens. Who was he? How old was he? How can I find out more about him? The emails are so secretive, as if they were both terrified to ever get caught. From what I can gather, he worked in
her office, was married, and had children, but I probably still have dozens and dozens of emails to get through.
How could I have been so dumb not to notice anything? But then again, how would anyone have known? Olga kept this sealed up and buried like an ancient tomb. My whole life I’ve been considered the bad daughter, while my sister was secretly living another life, the kind of life that would shatter Amá into tiny pieces. I don’t want to be mad at Olga because she’s dead, but I am.
“Goddamn it, Olga,” I mutter under my breath.
There’s no way Mamá Jacinta’s house will have the Internet, so there’s no point in trying to smuggle the laptop to Los Ojos. The safest place to keep it is in Olga’s room, since I’m nearly certain Amá never comes in here. And if she did find it, she wouldn’t know what to do with it. I remember that my cousin Pilar said there were new cybercafes in town. The computers are supposedly old as hell, but still, maybe I can read the rest of the emails once I get there. I put the receipt inside my journal.
