All Things New, page 5
I have no idea how bad they are. How many I have. Haven’t seen them in the mirror, can’t picture them in my head. The wounds on the inside, the invisible ones, those are familiar terrain. The rips and tears that mostly closed up over time. Dad leaving, my friends bailing, Mom getting a new family, God completely checking out. If He was ever there to begin with, which I sort of doubt. Over and over again, the same message, you are not enough. You hear it enough times and it weaves itself into you, and it’s not an idea any more it’s who you are, not enough.
But then a boy comes along and changes the message. you are enough, he says, enough for me. And because he is all you have, being enough for him is enough for you, too, even though you know deep down that good enough really just means pretty enough, and if he really knew you, all of you, he’d bail, too. Because of him, it stops mattering so much that there are gaping holes inside of you because you fill them with panic, hiding both the panic and the truth of you.
At least, you think you’re hiding it.
barbie’s unstable
Except I’m not Barbie anymore, not unless they make an Accident Victim Barbie, Brain Injury Barbie, ew mommy that one is scary-looking, take her away Barbie. As if Barbie can be anything but flawless, anything other than hollow and plastic and perfect. When she stops being that, she stops being Barbie. She’s just a broken ugly doll that nobody wants.
The dirt is everywhere, I am sinking in it, i can’t breathe. Like sewer water bubbling up through a crack in the pavement, the truth of how messed up I am is on the surface now, will always be on the surface now. It’s all anyone will see.
I tug at the Velcro, claustrophobic suddenly, get this thing off. The tension releases, the mask falls into my hands, and I see myself in the mirror. Tangled blond hair, splotchy bruises, shiny pink lines in oily skin. Instinctively, I start to count them, my scars.
one
two
three
four
Panic explodes in my chest. there are so many left
I stumble backward and slam the door shut. Out of sight, out of mind. Literally.
The whirl inside me goes sour. I gag, stomach heaving, but nothing comes out. My body holds onto puke the way it holds on to panic, tight fist, don’t let it breathe.
“Honey?” Mom. “What’s wrong? Are you sick?”
“I’m fine,” I say weakly. so not fine. I fumble for the pink fabric, pressing it against my face, but can’t get the Velcro to stick. scars there were so many scars . Tears come so fast I can’t blink them back. I swallow a sob.
“Honey,” Mom says gently. “Dr. Voss said you only need to wear that thing at night. She said it’s a good idea to let your skin breathe during the day, remember?” She comes towards me, brushes my hair off my forehead. “Plus I want to see your pretty face.”
I wrench away from her. “Where’s Dad?”
“Right here,” Dad calls from the hall, then enters the room, an annoying grin on his face. “Sorry, Bear. I was on the phone with your—,” his smile fades. He looks from me to Mom. “Everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine,” I say tightly, before Mom can answer. “Who were you on the phone with?”
“Your new principal,” Dad says. “You’re all set to start a week from Monday.” The grin returns. “Crossroads sounds so cool. I wish I could go.”
Crossroads, the amazing, incredible, we’re so lucky they’ll take you, art school in Denver that Dad keeps talking about. The first time he mentioned it I didn’t say anything because, well, I assumed he was just having a dad delusion, since I have no artistic talent whatsoever. I pointed this out to Dad the second time he brought it up, and he waved me away, don’t be silly, Bear, your mom’s an artist, I’m an artist, you’ve always had an eye. Yeah, as if putting your name on overpriced handbags counts as being an “artist,” as though landscape design qualifies as “art,” as though “having an eye” is a talent, whatever the hell having an eye even means.
“Isn’t there a regular school I could go to?” I ask, easing myself back into bed.
“Crossroads will be great for you,” Dad says. “You’ll see.”
“Dad, I’m not an artist. I don’t even understand how I got in.”
“The principal knows your background,” Dad says lightly, and, click, I understand. My background, code for my situation, code for that poor girl with a head injury and a broken face.
Inexplicably, I laugh. My dad sort of smiles. My mom nearly drops her phone.
i am losing it. i am losing my mind
And then I think: i wish.
Crazy can’t hurt this bad. Crazy can’t be this much work.
A phone buzzes inside my mom’s purse. She’s carrying the black leather tote now, last winter’s collection, the bag she brings to funerals. She’s been pouting ever since I told her I wanted to live with Dad, really laying it on thick, as if she’s devastated that I’m leaving. She gave herself away when she offered to pack up my stuff.
“Honey, Wren is calling again,” she says. “Again.” My face didn’t survive the accident but somehow my phone did, not even a scratch. I told my mom to get rid of it last week, but of course she hasn’t, she’s playing secretary, answering his calls as though my life is just on hold right now, Jessa can’t come to the phone right now, can she call you back?
The anger rushes back now, whoosh, filling me up.
radical, positive change
“Can I have my phone?”
My mom hands it to me. I palm it, then hurl it at the wall. It clangs against the metal cabinet and falls into the sink.
“Jessa!” my mom shrieks. “What is wrong with you?!”
I look at her. “Really, Mom?”
My dad steps between us. “Bear. Your mom is doing the best she can.” nice try, dad. No way he actually believes this.
“I asked her to get rid of my phone.”
“Your friends are worried about you,” Mom says from behind him, and I almost laugh. My friends ditched me in seventh grade when the panic attacks started. A year later, Mom married Carl and we moved to the Valley to live with him and I met Wren and the fact that I didn’t have any friends didn’t matter so much because I had him. He wasn’t weirded out by my anxiety. He never even mentioned it. I loved him for that, for not making me talk about it, ever. For letting me be who we both wanted me to be, a girl without issues, a girl who was good enough for him.
My anger wavers a little, tangos with sadness before I sweep them both away.
Chapter Six
Eyes, an airplane full of them, every pair pinned on me. They burn like lasers, searing into my flesh.
they are staring at me, everyone is staring at me
People looking at me has never been pleasant, but this is excruciating, absolute torture, a thousand splinters under the skin.
My own eyes jump around the cabin, not landing anywhere. I fight the urge to run.
As we pass the exit row, a woman turns and whispers something to the man in the seat beside her, look at that girl, oh my god, what’s wrong with her face?
I drop my chin, stare at the thin strip of carpet, humiliation burning my cheeks. Dad lifts my bag from my shoulder and puts it in the overhead bin. “You okay?” he asks quietly.
“Yeah.” My voice is flat. This exchange happens over and over again, every five minutes it feels like. Our meaningless call and response.
He is watching me, but I pretend not to notice. I pretend to be focused on the Sky Mall magazine open on my lap. The Cocoon! Cocoon yourself in revolutionary comfort! The man in the ad is zipped up in a full body blanket, and I envy him.
I turn the pages mechanically, willing my dad to fall asleep. His attention is suffocating, like a jacket that’s two sizes too tight. It’s not just his eyes, it’s his focus, the constant scrutiny and concern. I can’t breathe when he’s watching me, which is most of the time. It’s never been like that with my mom. Even before the accident, her gaze seemed to float past me. Now it’s been pointedly off its mark, aimed at the wall behind me or a few inches below my chin. Lucky for both of us, she won’t have to look at me anymore. Not until summer at least, when I’m supposed to go back to L.A. for a few weeks to see a plastic surgeon about “revising” my scars.
My stomach has twisted just thinking about my face. Out-of-sight-out-of-mind hasn’t worked so well, not when my mom won’t look at me and my dad won’t stop looking at me and my doctors keep commenting on my progress and asking if I want to see it. if i wanted to see it i would look in a mirror!!! I want to scream. But I do not scream, I just shake my head.
It’s an avoidance behavior, I know that. I’m fine with that. Avoidance works.
“So,” my dad says when we’re in the air. He’s drinking coffee from a Styrofoam cup. So much for him falling asleep. “Are you even a little bit excited about the move?”
The knot in my stomach gets tighter.
“Sure,” I say.
Dad nudges me with his shoulder. “Wow, that’s super convincing, Bear.” He is angling for a smile. I wish I had one to give. I go back to my magazine. Eventually, he gives up.
Dad’s house in Denver is small and kid-free and quiet, the exact opposite of Mom and Carl’s house. It looks the same as it did two Christmases ago, though I didn’t remember all the mirrors. Two in the living room, one in the dining room, another in the hall. There used to be two more in the guest room, my room now, one above the dresser and another behind the door, but Dad took them out when I asked. I’ve gotten good at dodging the others. My eyes flick to the carpet when I enter the hallway and stay there until I get to the kitchen. The kitchen, thank god, is mirror-free.
So the kitchen is where I hang out, watching the tiny TV on the counter from a swivel bar stool and drinking superfood smoothies. Eat well, that’s number seven on the list I made before I left the hospital, after don’t avoid, make friends, no boyfriend, work out and deep breaths, all scrawled on a piece of pink notebook paper folded in my bag. Radical positive change. The list feels like a start. At the very least it’s a step in the opposite direction, away from my life in L.A., away from my life with Wren.
So far eat well is the only item on the list that I can check off, but I’m doing that one really well. I’ve consumed more kale, quinoa, and cacao nibs in the nine days I’ve been in Colorado than I have in my whole life. It helps that Dad is big on superfoods, both as a concept and as a word he attempts to insert in pretty much any sentence involving food. Not that eating better would take much effort, considering my diet before the accident basically consisted of Red Vines, cereal, and take-out pad thai, bon appetit. The twins ate early with the nanny, and Mom and Carl ate together late, so I ate whatever I wanted, which was usually not much.
“What time do you want to head out?” Dad asks from behind me. He’s at the kitchen table, reading the Home and Garden section of the newspaper and eating almond butter from the jar. There’s a giant bowl of steel-cut oatmeal on the counter in front of me, with almond butter and slices of banana mixed in. It took Dad twenty minutes to make it, but I’m too nervous to eat, so I’m basically just pushing the bananas around with my spoon.
“Never?” I suggest.
“How about seven-fifty?” he asks. “That’ll get you to school by eight-fifteen.”
School. The word is a grenade in my gut.
School is for smart girls, and talented ones, girls who thrive and excel and achieve. The kind of girl I was before my dad left, gifted, before my anxiety took over and I started freezing up on tests. When I switched schools in ninth grade my GPA was so bad they put me in all remedial classes and even then I couldn’t manage better than Cs. But that was okay, because school was where Wren was, and it didn’t matter that my grades sucked because I had him. As long as I was his girlfriend, I was enough. I didn’t have to be anything else.
“Bear?”
“Sure,” I say, and shrug like it doesn’t matter, a gesture that’s for me as much for him. “Whatever you think.”
“You know . . . I don’t have to take you,” Dad says casually. “I usually take the RTD to work anyway, so you’re welcome to use the Jeep to drive yourself if you feel—”
I cut him off. “I don’t want to drive.”
“Okay. You know I’m happy to drive you. To school or anywhere else you want to go. I just don’t want you to wait too long to get behind the wheel again.”
don’t avoid
“I’ll drive eventually,” I say. “It hasn’t even been a month yet.”
“It’s been five weeks, Bear. Today is February 9th.”
“I have to finish getting ready,” I say, sliding off my stool. deep breaths. I hear Dad sigh.
A dark brown ring on the wooden end table. I am fixated on it. The word knot is knocking around in my head, is that what this is? I am telling myself that the answer to this question matters so that I won’t think about anything else, like the fact that the plexiglass wall behind me is the only thing separating me and the hallway full of kids on the other side.
This end table I’m staring at, I literally see every grain. The handout Dr. Voss gave me when I left the hospital said that all of my senses could exhibit “heightened sensitivity” while my mind’s eye is out, but so far it’s only been my vision that’s amped up. My eyes feel like they’ve been coated in magnifying glass, like they’re constantly zooming in. The space between my eyebrows pretty much always throbs.
I follow the grain as it curves around the dark spot near the edge of the table, the knot. Hair knot, wood knot, it seems weird now that they are the same word. I absorb the details, every gradient of color, every curve of every line, then quickly press my lids closed before the image fades.
But it’s already gone. It was never there at all.
circle. table. brown.
I am a magician trying to pull a rabbit out of a dark, empty hat.
what does a rabbit look like?
a hat?
My jaw aches from clenching, my mind aches from straining.
table! circle! rabbit! hat!, these words are a soundless shout.
The turn of a knob behind me and my eyes pop open. Someone enters the front office from the hall. Footsteps, then a pair of brown leather work boots appear in the corner of my view. The boy wearing them stops beside me. I keep my eyes on the table as he fumbles through his bag. My mind randomly leaps to Wren’s shoes, the linen loafers he always wore, never with socks. The tops of his feet were always peeling a little from the sun. I remember this all so clearly but can’t picture any of it in my head. Not his sunburned feet or his perfect ankles or the way his face looked when he told me he loved me on Christmas Eve sophomore year. The void in my head dilutes the realness of him, as if my memories are coated in cotton, dulled to the point of irrelevance, like I’m thinking about a movie plot, or something that happened in a dream. But instead of making it better, the far-off feeling makes it worse, because my brain won’t stop reaching for them, these images I’ve lost.
“Jessa Gray?”
Surprised by the voice — a girl’s voice, lilting and almost lyrical and the exact opposite of the boots — I look up.
The girl’s face totally feminine, pretty even, in an I-don’t-give-a-crap-if-people-think-I’m pretty sort of way. Her auburn hair is cropped in a sort of asymmetrical bob, chin length on one side and buzzed almost to her scalp on the other, and she’s not wearing any make-up. Her outfit is like her haircut; stylish, but not especially flattering. Wool pants cuffed above boys’ work boots, a silky white t-shirt under a bulky brown cardigan. She reminds me of the models I saw hanging out backstage at my mom’s one and only runway show two years ago. Exotic cranes in boys’ clothing, twiggy and unassuming in hoodies and beanie caps and Ugg boots. But unlike those girls, this one has her guard up. She wears her caution like armor, stiff and opaque.
“Are you Jessa?” the girl asks again. Without meaning to, I look her in the eyes. They’re hard and bruised and wary.
is that how my eyes look?
“Yeah, that’s me,” I say, dropping my gaze as I reach for my bag. One of my mom’s designs. I never would’ve carried one of her bags back in L.A., but I had to get rid of the one I had with me the night of the accident. The smell of asphalt and burnt rubber was seared into the leather. The hardware on this new bag seems garish and clunky to me now, and sharp somehow, as if the edges of the gold-plated buckle might slice my skin.
why am i carrying this heinous bag?
“I’m Hannah,” the girl says.
“Hi,” I say, and stand. I force myself to look at her, pretend not to notice that she’s staring at my scars. “Sorry you have to do this. Show me around, I mean.”
“It’s no big deal,” Hannah says, and shrugs. Her whole body appears jostled by the movement, like the Tin Man in Wizard of Oz. She awkwardly shifts her weight. “Um. So. Do you have your schedule?”
I nod and dig it out of my bag. When I hand it to her, our eyes meet briefly again. The caution has faded a little, the hurt has mellowed out. She’s mostly curious now.
She glances down, scans my list of classes. “Performing or visual?”
“Huh?
She points at the letters CM at the top of my schedule. “The comparative media program. Which concentration are you in?”
I shrug. “No clue.”
Hannah has questions but doesn’t ask them. She hands the schedule back. “You wanna go now or wait?”
“Wait for what?”
“The bell. If you come in after everyone is sitting, you’ll get the whole new-girl routine when you walk in.” She shrugs. “If you want that.”
“No,” I say quickly, stomach clenching at the thought.
do i look like someone who would want that?
“Then we should hurry,” she says, pulling open the door. “We’ve only got two minutes ‘til the bell.”
The noise in the hallway nearly knocks me over. So many voices, so many decibels, so much sound. My hands fly to my ears.
