Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac(42)

The night before Sasha’s funeral, James swallowed an entire bottle of a prescription his brother had been taking. They thought James was trying to kill himself, but he hadn’t been. He had just wanted something that would help him sleep through the night. In a weird way, James said it made him feel closer to Sasha, having his brother’s pills inside.

James’s mom found him, and he had his stomach pumped. They sent him to his first doctor, who gave James his first antidepressant. He was supposed to go to therapy, but he never went. The drugs screwed with his head, made him feel kind of numb, which James said was all right by him.

Things were good for a while, only insofar as they weren’t too bad. By then James was sixteen, and he had met Sera. James said that they told each other they were in love, but looking back, he said they hadn’t been. Puppy love, if anything, he said. He might have only said this so as not to hurt my feelings.

At some point, he realized that the drugs weren’t working anymore. He started feeling jumpy all the time. Kids were looking at him funny; he was pretty sure they were talking about him, too. James cursed out one of his teachers. Sera broke up with him.

He stopped taking the pills to try to get Sera back, but she’d started going out with this other guy.

One night, he crawled into her bedroom window. She wasn’t there. James said he was so lonely, he had just wanted to be with her things. He saw a packing knife on her desk, and it suddenly seemed like a really good idea to slit his wrists.

After that, things got hazy.

In the hospital, they said Sera’s mom was the one who had found him. James still felt bad about this. Sera’s mom was a nice lady, he said. Sera, too, for that matter. James saw now that none of it had been her fault.

James was sent to the East Coast, where his mom lived. He was in an institution for about six months, which was not something he liked to talk about. When he got out, his parents said James could go back to his old school in California, but he didn’t see the point. James was eighteen by then, and had been held back a year, and anyone who remembered him at his old school thought he was crazy.

That’s when James met me. That day, he’d only been there to drop off his old school records. He hadn’t been planning or wanting to meet anyone. If he hadn’t stopped for a smoke, he wouldn’t have met me at all. He patted the pocket where he kept his smokes. “Always knew these would be the death of me.” He smiled when he said this.

My phone rang. It was Dad; he said he was staying at Rosa Rivera’s for the night on account of the snow.

“My dad can’t get back tonight,” I said to James.

“I should probably walk then. I don’t want my mother to worry.”

“Call her,” I told him. “Let her know you’re staying with friends.”

“I don’t lie,” he said, shaking his head.

“Are you saying we’re not friends?”

“I’m saying we’re not just friends.”

“Still, you can’t go out in this.”

“My mother worries,” he repeated. It was like that day in Will’s car when James hadn’t wanted a ride even though it was pouring. He had a stubborn, tough, even masochistic streak, and he insisted that he leave then. All I could do was stand at the window and watch as he disappeared into that whitewashed night.

7

OF ALL THE STUPID THINGS TO BE FAILING, I WAS failing photography.

The last school day before Thanksgiving, Mr. Weir held me after class. I knew what he wanted to talk about. I still hadn’t turned in a project proposal, and the semester was more than half over. Most of the classes were structured very loosely, with Mr. Weir showing slides of work by famous photographers like Doisneau or Mapplethorpe and us discussing them. The rest of the time we’d critique each other’s work, though I hadn’t brought in anything to critique all semester. Whenever Mr. Weir asked about my project (about once a week or so), I’d just B.S. something or other. The nature of the class made it easy to get away with doing nothing.

Mr. Weir handed me a slip. “I’m sorry to have to do this right before the holiday, Naomi,” he said. “I’ve got to give this to anyone who is in danger of receiving a D or below. It requires a parent’s signature.”

“But, Mr. Weir, I thought our grade was based on the one big project.”

“Yes, that’s why I’m giving this to you now. You still have time to make it work.”

James was waiting for me outside of Weir’s class.

“Wondering if you need a ride?” he asked.

I had yearbook, of course.

“Do you have to?” James asked. “Everyone’s gone for the holiday already.”

Actually, there was tons of work to do in yearbook, not to mention that Will was pissed at me already. It had started just after my birthday.

“Did you get my mix?” he’d asked.

“Which one?”

“The one for your birthday.”

“Yeah, but I haven’t had time to listen to it yet.”

“Well, that’s rude,” he’d said finally. “I spent a lot of time on that.”

But what I had thought to myself at the time was: How much time could he have possibly spent? The kid gives me a mix like every freaking week.

Anyway, Will had been pretty icy to me since then, but I hadn’t had time to deal with him.