Whisper to Me(33)

ME: (lying) Yes.





So, you see, it wasn’t just you I lied to.





I checked out Paris’s Instagram feed—I know how to do that; I’m not a total Luddite. It was basically photos of her in bikinis and underwear, sometimes modeling things that had obviously been sent to her free, and I was surprised to see that she had 39K followers.

Paris liked to take her clothes off, clearly, but she was smart. Or maybe I should say, and she was smart. To avoid any implication of contradiction.

She loved books. She loved knowing stuff. She was a college student.

I liked her.

The voice did not like her. It called her “that ******* whore” and other stuff that was even worse. But it didn’t say much when she was around, and it didn’t threaten me about seeing her; it didn’t say much ever those days, and when it did it was kind of dulled, as if coming from the other side of a window. Looking back, I think that was not just the risperidone working, it was also because the voice knew that Paris was offering a different way of dealing with things, one that didn’t involve drugs. The voice hated the drugs, because they muffled it, suffocated it, a pillow over a mouth.

EDIT: I hated them. The voice is me. I understand that now. Even you probably do, just from reading this. But I didn’t then of course.

I guess it was maybe a week after I saw her at the hospital that I e-mailed Paris. I hadn’t seen you much—even though Dr. Rezwari kept telling me to get to know you. It wasn’t easy. You were working most of the time, or you were hanging out with Shane. You would wave to me, but I didn’t feel like you were interested in me or anything; in fact I was convinced I had offended you by being cold when we spoke, and not accepting your offer of a ride.

So I just lay in bed or sat in the kitchen or whatever. I’d just spent a whole day sitting in Dad’s study watching millipedes crawl all over a log, and my brain was mush. I had the impression that I was locked out of my own body, floating somewhere above it.

I wanted to feel stuff again.

I set up an address: echo@_____.com

And I e-mailed Paris one word:

HELP.

It was a Thursday. The day when the voice support group met. I think unconsciously I knew that. Paris e-mailed me back exactly fifty-seven minutes later. When you are watching millipedes crawl, you are very conscious of the passage of time. Her e-mail said: CALL ME. 800-555-5555

I took out my cell and dialed the number.

“Jerseygirl95 here, I’m wet and in front of my camera and—”

“It’s me, Cass.”

“I know. I was just ******* with you.”

“Oh.”

“Sorry. Tell me. What’s up?”

“The drugs.”

“Yeah, I thought so.” The kindness in her voice made me almost want to cry. Dr. Rezwari wasn’t kind. I mean, she wasn’t some kind of monster. But she didn’t really care. You could tell. I could tell.

“You said there was a guy, a—”

“Already done. Dr. Lewis doesn’t think you’re ready for group, but he’ll meet you before. Massey Bowling Alley, six p.m.”

I looked at my watch. Two hours. “Okay,” I said. I must have sounded pretty bummed because Paris said: “Come see me now. I’m close to there.” She gave me the address of her condo.

“You’re sure?”

“Yes! Come hang out. Meet my roomie.”

I wrote a note for Dad. It took me a while to think what to put in it. I couldn’t say I was meeting a friend; he knew I didn’t have any friends, and I didn’t think he would be cool with me hanging out with someone I’d met at the mental hospital. He and I had been living together like two people made of bone china, scared to bump into each other.

In the end I wrote:



Gone to see a movie. Love you. Cass.



Most likely he wouldn’t be back from the restaurant before me anyway. I left the house. I passed your apartment, but of course you and Shane were working. I walked the whole way—Oakwood is a small place, as you know, and Paris didn’t live far away.

Her condo was just back from the boardwalk; a fifties building like a pink iced cake, with white balconies like wings. I rang the bell, and she buzzed me up.

When I got to the door, another girl opened it. She had red hair, but I thought it was probably dyed—it was a really bright color. There was a tattoo on her arm of a kind of pinup woman from the forties or something, and she was wearing a vintage dress and her hair was swept up with bobby pins.

“I’m Julie,” she said. “Paris is in the kitchen, making cookies.”

I must have looked surprised.

“She bakes,” said Julie. “I know. Go figure.”

“I’m Cass,” I said. “Um, hi.”

“Nice to meet you, Cass. Go on through—I’m heading out. I have a team meet.” She picked up a pair of roller skates by the door and slung them over her shoulder.

“You do roller derby?” I asked.

“Yep.”

I’d watched a movie about roller derby with Mom once. So I knew a tiny bit about it. “What’s your, like, player name?”

“Player name?” She raised an eyebrow.

I felt stupid then. “I don’t know what you call it … but don’t you have, like, crazy names that you put on your shirts and stuff?”